I lost a pet a little over a week ago and did not want to get into any fictional drama in my reading. I needed something comforting and wise. A copy of The Chicken Chronicles had been laying on my bedside table. I knew it was finally time to read it.
I spent a long afternoon reading The Chicken Chronicles. It began with the recollection of growing up with chickens on her parents’ sharecropper farm in rural Georgia. The memory came to the surface when Alice was startled by a hen and her chicks crossing her path. She remarks that she felt as though she had never seen a chicken before. But if you know anything about Alice, you know that it can’t be true. She writes:
Though I grew up in the South where we raised chickens every year, for meat and for eggs, and where, from the time I was eight or nine, my job was to chase down the Sunday dinner chicken and wring its neck. But had those chickens been like this one? Why I hadn’t I noticed? Had I noticed?
Recalling those childhood memories Alice slowly began to realize that she missed chickens, chickens as “A Nation” she writes. And considering how often she ate eggs, she decided that she should learn more about them by having a few of her own.
Naming them curious names like Gertrude Stein, Agnes of God and Glorious, you’ll experience the ups and downs of caring for a brood of chickens and wonder at the chickens who regularly nap on her lap. You’ll think differently about eating meat, if you do so. You’ll reconsider the love you have for your animal friends. And Alice does all of this in her characteristically gentle way.
I read on Alice’s website about the chicken on the cover of the book. She notes the missing toenail and how she thought about sticking on a little fake one. But she then thought better of it and reflects on how she starting writing this book and the unexpected lessons she learned from her chickens :
Life gives us broken toenails and worse to let us remember where we’ve been and the struggles we’ve overcome . . . this is the book that grew on this blog, as I sat with my chickens in the outback of Mendocino, California. I sat with them expecting nothing and over the months they pecked open places I hadn’t been able to enter by myself. All of my “girls” have their toenails but occasionally, and though it is shocking it is natural, they lose their feathers. (Source: Alice Walker’s official website)
I suppose I felt like I had lost all my feathers when I lost my beloved animal friend. Reading about the blessings, the memories and sorrows she has had with her chickens, I took away an intention to be more mindful of the animals who bring us the miracle of unconditional love.
The Chicken Chronicles by Alice Walker (New Press, May 2011)
While in New York we bumped into Charles Frazier and feel almost certain that he’ll be coming to Lemuria this fall for his new book. Why? Because Frazier, and the industry as a whole, attribute the initial success of Cold Mountain to the work, excitement, and ability of the indies to find the needle in the haystack of this industry. We did it before and we’ll do it again. There will always be needles in this haystack.
My personal conclusion is how can the reader give up the magical quality time spent reading a physical book. It’s simply just too plain good. An afternoon off, reading on your porch, couch, by the beach, in a park or anywhere can’t be replaced. The young gal next to me on the plane home was reading something on a tablet. I was reading an advanced readers copy of Karl Marlantes’ What It Feels Like to Go to War, his new nonfiction book coming out in October. I thought for no amount of money would I swap places in this present situation. She looked bored and buying time and I felt hypnotized by the magic of reading a great book with a scotch, being transported into my own frame of mind.
I did see the same person reading on her i-pad on the plane and she eventually got tired of the i-pad reading experience and switched to playing crossword puzzles. Meanwhile the two ladies I sat between were reading paperback books – on my left an Elizabeth Spencer short story and on the right The Help. As our plane descended we talked about our books and the “Jackson, MS” connections with Kathryn Stockett’s book and family – Stockett Stables, the Jitney, Belhaven, etc. That kind of thing never would have happened if we had all been reading on our e-readers. I’m glad we weren’t.
Many booksellers, bookstore owners, publisher reps, editors and agents landed back at their desks this week a little disheveled, excited, confused, optimistic and pessimistic all at the same time. We were so glad to have John and Joe back at the store this week. As they decompress everything they observed last week, they’re gradually sharing some of their thoughts on the book industry based on their New York impressions.
JOHN: Amazon hires Larry Kirshbaum to establish and direct the “Big A” to be a major publishing competitor, to compete with Random House, Simon & Schuster, etc.
My question is whether or not Lemuria will be buying books from Amazon as a publisher. And I guess we’ll wait and see if they offer wholesale terms to bookstores. If they do, I don’t think we’ll be able to avoid stocking their books. I imagine they’ll want us to do that, but if they don’t, it will be a pretty big message about what they think about the future of the indies– i.e., do they or don’t they think the indies have a future?
I do know they’ve already signed their first author–Barry Eisler–an author whose books sell moderately at Lemuria. There have been some funny lines floating around the publishing world like “He’ll be running through the industry trade show begging traditional publishers to publish his books in just a few years time.” Again, we’ll see.
I managed to get a few words with John and Joe from New York. Booksellers are going crazy about so many books! I pictured four here to whet your appetite for the fall. Yes, the fall! But it will be here before you know it.
