Periodically we have shared our thoughts and others thoughts about the state of books and the publishing industry. There is no doubt that e-readers and Amazon have affected our business. Despite all the upheaval, there is one thing we know for sure: we love books, the paper kind.

You may remember a book that came out in November called My Bookstore: Writer’s Celebrate Their Favorite Places to Browse, Read, and Shop. As we start off the new year, I thought Emily St. John Mandel’s Afterword put things in perspective. In this excerpt, Emily reflects on comments made by Nicole Krauss, author of The History of Love and Great House, at Community Bookstore in Brooklyn:

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She [Nicole Krauss] had recently returned from a national tour for Great House, and she began telling us about conversations she’d had with a few people along the way who told her that they buy only e-books. When she asked why, they told her it was because it was more convenient. She found this interesting, she said. When, she asked, did convenience become the most important thing?

I personally have no quarrel with e-books and believe they’ll continue to co-exist with print, but there’s something in Krauss’s sentiment that resonates. I think it applies to the decision of how and where we buy our books.

There was a time when we–all of us, the general public–were referred to as citizens. At some point this shifted, and now we’re mostly called consumers. I have some real problems with this change because while citizenship implies rights and responsibilities, to my mind consumerism mostly just implies shopping.

And yet shadows of the original word remain. The word consumer, I’ve come to realize, comes with its own imitations of responsibility, in that it reflects a very basic fact of life in a capitalistic society, which is that we get to change the world we live in by means of where we spend our money. This concept is hardly new, but if it happens that you’re somebody who enjoys having a bookstore in your town, I would argue that it’s never been more important.

-Emily St. John Mandel

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I like that Emily’s message can be applied to any local business: your bakery, your favorite local restaurant, the grocery store around the corner, the mom-and-pop garden nursery and so on. These places give us community. Places like Best Buy and Wal-Mart and Amazon don’t do that. In 2013, we hope that we can continue to be your local bookstore as we, and many other local businesses, do our best to serve our community.

Bookstore Keys Series on Lemuria Blog

From 2011/2012: Reading One Click: Jeff Bezos and the Rise of amazon.com (March 19) Where will e-book sales level out? (June 2) Indie Bookstores Buying from Amazon? (June 1) BEA Roundup (May 19) Lemuria’s Headed for NYC (May17) Barnes & Noble Bankrupt? (April 28) Decluttering the Book Market: Ads on the latest Kindle (April 14) Independents on the Exposed End of the Titanic? (April 6th) Border’s Bonuses (March 30) The Experience of Holding a Book (March15) Finding “Deep Time” in a Bookstore (March 8th) Reading The New Rules of Retail by Lewis & Dart (March 3) The Future Price of the Physical Book (Feb 18) Borders Declares Bankruptcy (Feb 16) How Great Things Happen at Lemuria (Feb 8th) The Jackson Area Book Market (Jan 25) What’s in Store for Local Bookselling Markets? (Jan 18) Selling Books Is a People Business (Jan 14) A Shift in Southern Bookselling? (Jan 13) The Changing Book Industry (Jan 11)

Last year Lemuria participated in the first-ever U.S. World Book Night. We had a great turnout of individual givers and group givers and gave out a total of about 1,200 books to light or nonreaders in the Jackson metro area.

We’re ready to get to work again as a pick-up location for World Book Night 2013. But first here is one of my favorite World Book Night stories from Chris Cander, a writer and teacher who lives in Houston, Texas. This story was originally posted April 23, 2012 on Chris’s blog.

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Today is World Book Night 2012, and I am one of 25,000 “givers” who will personally distribute half a million free books today. As part of the campaign to change lives through literacy, volunteers will be sharing copies of their favorite books at VA hospitals, nursing homes, ball parks, mass transit, diners and other places where would-be readers are underserved. To give away twenty copies of PEACE LIKE A RIVER by Leif Enger, I chose the Covenant House, a shelter for homeless, throwaway and runaway teens.

It was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life.

I introduced myself to a staff member, and told her why I was there. “Do you think there are any residents here that would like to have a copy of this book?” I asked.

“I think so,” she said as she read the back cover. Then she looked up at me. “And you’re just giving them away?”

“For free, to anyone who wants one.”

In the adjacent lunchroom, two dozen or so teenagers—many of them scarred, tattooed, broken-looking—talked and ate in small groups. Rose announced me and my intentions, and the kids looked at me somewhat suspiciously. As I told them why I loved this incredible story of a young boy’s journey across the frozen Badlands of the Dakotas in search of his fugitive older brother, it occurred to me that I might not be able to give away any books at all.

Then one tall, thin boy raised his track-marked arm and said, “I’d like a copy.”

“You would?” I said, relieved. “What’s your name?”

“Donny. I never had my own book before.”

Oh.

“Me too. Can I have one?”

“And me.” They came one by one, and I pressed a brand-new copy into each of their hands. To a one, they thanked me with such sincerity I didn’t think I could bear it.

“Yes, please. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did,” I said, and this went on until I had only one copy left.

Then a heavy-set boy came up and said, “Can I have that last one?”

“Yes, of course.”

“My name is Voltaire,” he said. “Like the philosopher. Did you write this book?”

“I wish I had.”

“Can I show you my poem? I don’t know anybody I can show it to.” He unfolded a typewritten page from his back pocket. “My mom taught me a lot of vocabulary,” he said, “before she kicked me out.”

He bent down to my ear so that he could whisper it aloud, even though I could read along with him. It was filled with spelling mistakes and grammar errors and despair and pain and beauty and also hope, because he’s still alive. “This was going to be my suicide note. But I decided to make it into a poem instead.” I wish I could post it for you to read, but I promised him I would keep it private.

“Thank you for sharing it with me,” I said. “I hope when you feel that pain again in your life, you’ll keep trying to find the poem inside it. You’re a good writer. You should keep writing. And keep reading.”

“I will,” he said, folding the poem back along its worn creases. “Starting with this.” He pressed the cut edge of the book to his nose and took a deep breath and he said, “This smells so good.”

I looked around the room at these drug users and abuse victims—these beautiful souls with their own stories whose lives were changed by their circumstances. I told them that I would come back in a month, and we could have a discussion of the book. They were all so unexpectedly enthusiastic about the idea of a Covenant House book club, even though some of them will have moved on by then. By discovering the freedom and self-reliance and majesty and bravery within this book, perhaps these kids will be better able to find it within themselves.

World Book Night is about hoping that through an introduction to the love of reading, people can change their lives for the better. And I think that because of today and Voltaire and the other eager, grateful receivers of the books that I was able to share, that my life may be forever changed, too.

Written by Chris Cander, reposted with permission.

Learn more about Chris here.

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World Book Night is an annual celebration dedicated to spreading the love of reading, person to person.

Each year on April 23, tens of thousands of people go out into their communities and give half a million free World Book Night paperbacks to light and non-readers.  In 2012, World Book Night was celebrated in the U.S., the UK, Ireland, and Germany.

World Book Night is about giving books and encouraging reading in those who don’t regularly do so. But it is also about more than that: It’s about people, communities and connections, about reaching out to others and touching lives in the simplest of ways—through the sharing of stories.

World Book Night is a nonprofit organization. We exist because of the support of thousands of book givers, booksellers, librarians, and financial supporters who believe in our mission.  Successfully launched in the U.K. in 2011, World Book Night was first celebrated in the U.S. in 2012. Thank you to our U.K. friends for such a wonderful idea!

Learn more about World Book Night, keep updated on new developments, and apply to be a World Book Night U.S. book giver!

The DEADLINE to apply to be a giver is January 25!

Apply to be a book giver here.

See the 30 book titles selected for 2013.

My Bookstore: Writers Celebrate Their Favorite Places to Browse, Read and Shop edited by Ronald Rice and Booksellers across America, Introduction by Richard Russo, Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, November 2012.

In “My Bookstore” our greatest authors write about the pleasure, guidance, and support that their favorite bookstores and booksellers have given them over the years. The relationship between a writer and his or her local store and staff can last for years or even decades. Often it’s the author’s local store that supported him during the early days of his career, that continues to introduce and hand-sell her work to new readers, and that serves as the anchor for the community in which he lives and works.

“My Bookstore” collects the essays, stories, odes, and words of gratitude and praise for stores across the country in over 70 pieces written by our most beloved authors. It’s a joyful, nationwide celebration of our bricks-and-mortar stores and a clarion call to readers everywhere at a time when the value and importance of these stores should be shouted from the rooftops.

Perfectly charming line drawings by Leif Parsons illustrate each storefront and other distinguishing features of the shops. A portion of the proceeds from the book will be donated by the publisher to the American Book Association (ABA) Winter Institute. An additional portion of the proceeds will go to the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE).

Lemuria is included in My Bookstore with an essay by Barry Moser. Here is an excerpt from the essay:

Two years later ABA was in San Francisco and Johnny and I ran into each other again, this time on the marble staircase of one of the city’s municipal buildings . . . We talked for a while and during the conversation I told him, over the loud jazz, that I had just finished reading a book written by a neighbor of his, and that I felt it was one of the most influential books I’d ever read.

“What book is that?” he asked.

“Eudora Welty’s One Writer’s Beginnings,” I replied.

“Oh. Oh.” Johnny said excitedly. “She’s a big fan of your work!”

I looked behind me to see who he was talking to, certain that he surely must have been talking to somebody other than me. But he was, in fact, talking to me. I said, “What? You kidding me?”

“No.” he said. “She loves your Huckleberry Finn. I’m going to have to get you two together. Do a project or something.”

A year or so later I flew down to Jackson, Mississippi. True to his word, he introduced us. It was a sunny afternoon and Miss Welty welcomed us into her home with the graciousness you might imagine. We stayed a good part of the afternoon, enough time to put away a good bit of some bourbon whiskey I brought Miss Welty as a present. It was also enough time for us to lay down some preliminary plans for a collaboration: the Pennyroyal Press edition of The Robber Bridegroom, which we published in 1987.

From then on Lemuria was always on the itinerary when I went on the road to promote a new book—that is, until my publishers stopped spending the money to send me on tour. But until that happened I always had Lemuria scheduled—and scheduled last. In case you don’t know, Johnny Evans has a soft spot for good bourbon whiskey, as do I. In fact, I am fairly sure that we might just enjoy it a tad too much, and that’s why I always want to end my travels in Jackson so that all I’ll have to do in my hurt state is to go home. Nobody wants to promote a book while nursing a two-day hangover.

Join us Friday, November 16th at 5:00 for a book signing, reading and toast for My Bookstore: Writers Celebrate Their Favorite Places to Browse, Read and Shop with Barry Moser.

I have two stories to share about Miss Welty’s Delta Wedding. Marion Barnwell, a Delta native, shares her experience of reading Delta Wedding as a teenager. The other story is from Karl Marlantes who many of you might have met when he came to the bookstore on two separate occasions for Matterhorn and What It Is Like to Go to War. Both of these stories are unique testaments to the power of Miss Welty’s writing. -Lisa

It was a hot summer day in Indianola, deep in the Mississippi Delta. I was fourteen. Some plan or other had fallen through to get together with a friend, and I was bored. Bored! Only one thing to do—pester my mother. More effectively than Chinese water torture, I repeated “I’m bored” a few hundred times to get her to stop what she was doing to entertain me. Instead, she went over to a shelf, selected a book, and handed it to me. “Read this,” she said. “It’s about the Delta.”

“Our Delta?” I asked in disbelief. “This boring place?”

“Our Delta,” she repeated. “Our very Delta.”

The book she handed me was Eudora Welty’s Delta Wedding. By making that particular choice, she handed me so much more. No other book on earth could better have expanded my sense of self. I was—we were important. We must be. Someone had written a book about us.

That gift was the spark for a continuing passion for reading, which led to my pursuing a career as an English teacher and as a writer. I still marvel at my mother’s choice. For who better than Welty could use all the senses to make a particular place come alive? Who better to teach me that if I was bored, then I just wasn’t looking?

–Marion Barnwell

 The following is from Publisher’s Weekly – The title is “Why I Write” but it could  just as well be titled “Why I read” – a truly great piece. You might have read this story before on our blog but I love it so much and feel it is worth sharing again. -Lisa

by Karl Marlantes — Publishers Weekly, 1/25/2010

Having read a galley of my novel, Matterhorn, about Marines in Vietnam, a somewhat embarrassed woman came up to me and said, “I didn’t even know you guys slept outside.” She was college educated and had been an active protester against the war. I felt that my novel had built a small bridge.

The chasm that small bridge crossed is still wide and deep in this country. I remember being in uniform in early 1970, delivering a document to the White House, when I was accosted by a group of students waving Vietcong and North Vietnamese flags. They shouted obscenities and jeered at me. I could only stand there stunned, thinking of my dead and maimed friends, wanting desperately to tell these students that my friends and I were just like them: their age, even younger, with the same feelings, yearnings, and passions. Later, I quite fell for a girl who was doing her master’s thesis on D. H. Lawrence. Late one night we were sitting on the stairs to her apartment and I told her that I’d been a Marine in Vietnam. “They’re the worst,” she cried, and ran up the stairs, leaving me standing there in bewilderment.

After the war, I worked as a business consultant to international energy companies to support a family, eventually being blessed with five children. I began writing Matterhorn in 1975 and for more than 30 years, I kept working on my novel in my spare time, unable to get an agent or publisher to even read the manuscript. Certainly, writing the novel was a way of dealing with the wounds of combat, but why would I subject myself to the further wounds all writers receive trying to get published? I think it’s because I’ve wanted to reach out to those people on the other side of the chasm who delivered the wound of misunderstanding. I wanted to be understood.

Ultimately, the only way we’re ever going to bridge the chasms that divide us is by transcending our limited viewpoints. My realization of this came many years ago reading Eudora Welty’s great novel Delta Wedding. I experienced what it would be like to be a married woman on a Mississippi Delta plantation who was responsible for orchestrating one of the great symbols of community and love. I entered her world and expanded beyond my own skin and became a bigger person.

I was given the ability to create stories and characters. That’s my part of the long chain of writers, publishers, agents, booksellers, librarians, and a host of others who eventually deliver literature to the world. I want to do for others what Eudora Welty did for me.

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If you have story about Miss Welty that you would like to share on our blog, please e-mail them to lisa[at]lemuriabooks[dot]com.

Click here to learn about Carolyn Brown’s A Daring Life: A Biography of Eudora Welty

Click here to see all blogs in our Miss Welty series

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