Category: About (Page 2 of 3)

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

I have now found one of my all time favorite novels, and it will be my number ONE book to sell  for the holidays! So, “What is it?”, you ask! It is: The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh. Naturally, because I am a flower lover and spend most of my spare time in my garden, when not reading the latest contemporary fiction, I was bound to love this book. But, I might not have liked it, if the writing and the story had not been so “good”! Lisa had read the advanced copy a few weeks ago and had told me that I was going to like it. She was right!

The novel revolves around flowers, essentially the meaning or language of flowers. The protagonist, Victoria Jones, an orphan who has been in and out of numerous foster homes, has learned from her once favorite, but currently estranged, foster mom, all about the meaning of each flower. Even though she left that household at age 10, Victoria never forgot what she had learned and actually continued to teach herself about the meaning of flowers. Eventually, at age 18, when she had been fully emancipated from the girls’ group home, Victoria, now voluntarily homeless, lands a  job as a flower arranger at a local florist. Eventually she acquires a long list of customers who request her personally to design bridal bouquets, as well as other arrangements containing the flowers which send the messages or secret codes for the beloved.

Meet author Vanessa Diffenbaugh in the above video, courtesy of Random House. See Vanessa’s official website here.

As the novel progresses, love finds a way into Victoria’s life, as well as a demanding  newborn, but being unequipped for the emotions and demanding physical requirements, she flees. As the author works out the challenges of each character involved in this convoluted, but charismatic story, the reader sits on pins and needles hoping and desiring a positive outcome. One of the reasons that I believe this novel is so very successful is due to the fact that the author is a foster mom herself, having personal experience with the problems that foster girls face, particularly the matter of trust.

One of my favorite features of this novel is the flower glossary at the end which lists specific flowers and their meanings.In fact, gardeners will adore this book as well!  I will cherish it for years to come, and will also “use” it to remind myself of  the special “language of flowers.”

I thank Toni Hetzel, one of our brilliant Random House reps for saving this book for me, knowing all along how much I would like it! Liz, our other RH rep and Toni are like the ultimate book sellers, for they sell to us readers/book sellers at Lemuria, and they know our tastes and choices just as the staff here knows the tastes of our customers. It’s a pretty cozy relationship which has worked at Lemuria for over thirty years now, one more reason for praises for our independent book store! Can one find this at the big “box” stores? I think not!

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The Language of Flowers is a book written from the heart.

Vanessa and her husband, PK, have three children: Tre’von, eighteen; Chela, four; and Miles, three. Tre’von, a former foster child, is attending New York University on a Gates Millennium Scholarship.

Vanessa Diffenbaugh is also the founder of the Camellia Network.  The mission of the Camellia Network is to create a nationwide movement to support youth transitioning from foster care. In The Language of Flowers, Camellia [kuh-meel-yuh] means “My Destiny is in Your Hands.” The network’s name emphasizes the belief in the interconnectedness of humanity: each gift a young person receives will be accompanied by a camellia, a reminder that the destiny of our nation lies in the hands of our youngest citizens.

See Vanessa’s official website here.

The Language of Flowers will be released Tuesday, August 23, 2011.

-Nan

Lemuria’s book club meeting

On Thursday, July 7, our book club, “Atlantis” met to discuss The Long Song by Andrea Levy. This novel made the short list in 2010 for the English award, the Man Booker.This was the second work on Jamaica which the author, a native of Jamaica herself, has published.  What an invigorating, delightful time we had during our book club hour!  Something that makes our book club unique is the fact that we do “stick to the book” during the discussion…not our lives, not our families, not the economy, not “what we are doing, will do, or have done”. We talk strictly about the literature! Many who have been in  other book clubs have told me that this feature is what makes “Atlantis” book club so different and refreshing.

While a lot of our discussion about The Long Song centered around the devastating  conditions of slavery on the sugar cane plantations in Jamaica in the mid 1800s, we also talked about the general state of all women, not only in Jamaica, but also in the United States during that time period when our country was expanding westward with the advent of the new transcontinental railroads, as well as the introduction of the telegraph and numerous industries. That led us to talking about other types of slavery, such as existed in the sweat shops with underage children in NY in the early part of the 20th century. Hence, one can see that our discussions lead from one challenging topic to another.

Come join us on Thursday, August 4, for our discussion of Parrot and Olivier by Peter Carey, another Man Booker nominee of 2010. Already a two time winner of the Man Booker, Carey is known for his incredible mastery of the English language. He is a talented wordsmith indeed.  -Nan

Lemuria’s book club: “Atlantis” update

This afternoon Lemuria’s book club “Atlantis” will meet at 5 p.m. in our dot.com building which is just outside of Broadstreet Bakery’s north door. We will be having a long awaited discussion of Cutting for Stone, the very popular novel released a couple of years ago which is set in Ethiopia and New York.

The story, which has received international recognition, involves the lives of twin brothers whose mother dies in childbirth and whose father flees the country. The many plot twists and turns take the reader on a roller coaster ride and explore the personal lives of the brilliant twins, who both turn to medicine, just as their father, and adopted mother and father have. Cutting for Stone also examines the political and social unrest in Ethiopia. A very lengthy and provocative novel, Cutting for Stone, is well worth the time spent in reading its over 600 pages. Powerful and persuasive, the novel is filled with all types of love and loss and redemption.

On the first Thursday in May,the 5th, we will be talking about Nicole Krauss’s History of Love and on June 2, we will discuss Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin. We read novels which have already been released in paperback. If you join our book club, please tell the person at the cash register that you are a member, so that you will receive the book club’s discount.

We always have enthusiastic and delightful discussions, so come join us. If you want more information, email me at nan@lemuriabooks.com or call Lemuria and ask for me at 601.366.7619. If I am not in, I will be glad to return your call later. If you would like to be on our book club email list, please let me know.  -Nan

“Atlantis” book club new selections

Next Thursday, August 5, Lemuria’s book club “Atlantis” will be meeting to discuss The Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick. Set in cold Wisconsin in the early 1900s, the novel’s extremely snowy and miserable setting accurately reflects the inner workings of the protagonist’s warped mind. After reading an advertisement in a Chicago newspaper for “a good, reliable wife”, Catherine sets off with one goal which will get her the money but delete the new husband! The reader slowly figures this out! What happens at the end is not only amazing, but remarkable. Take a look at what some of the reviewers have said:

“Astonishing, complex, beautifully written, and brilliant”…..Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants

“Engrossing and Addictive”….NPR’s Morning Edition

“A Thrilling, Juicy Read….A Real Page-Turner”…..the Today Show

“Good to the Riveting End”….USA Today

On September 2, we’ll be discussing Woodsburner by John Pipkin. Based on the life of Henry David Thoreau and a particular incident where he accidentally set fire to the woods around Concord, resulting in the unfortunate burning of many homes and businesses, as well as beautiful woods, this historically accurate novel creates a compelling, provocative, captivating read. Many fictitious characters help Thoreau fight the fire and become very endearing to the reader. Reviews have been great:

” An Exceptional debut. Pipkin tells his story with the verve and authority of a veteran novelist. “…..Ron Rash, author of Serena

“What a terrific tale John Pipkin spins! He has taken a dramatic episode in the life of Henry David Thoreau and transformed it into a gripping and profound work of fiction.”….Doris Kearns Goodwin

“Witty, bawdy, philosophical,touching, and humorous, Woodsburner is a novel I didn’t want to end. This book is packed with interesting ideas, vital characters, and vivid writing.”……Sena Jeter Naslund, author of Ahab’s Wife and Four Spirits

On Thursday, October 7, the book club will talk about a novel which was a finalist for he Pen/Faulkner Award, which did win the Orange Award: The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver. With a long list of superb publications, including Poisonwood Bible, Animal Dreams, Pigs in Heaven, and her last book which was non-fiction, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Kingsolver knows how to weave a tale! The Lacuna, set in Mexico and in the United States in the early 1950s, follows the life of the protagonist who grew up in an extreme environment in Mexico and then used his experiences to become an award winning writer in the D.C. area.Reviewers have had laudatory remarks:

“The most mature and ambitious novel she’s written….An absorbing portrayal of American life at a time when the country moved swiftly from Depression to World War to consumerism spun through with political paranoia…..A rich novel with a large, colorful canvas.”…..Washington Post

“The story is so seductive, the prose is so elegant, the architecture of the novel so imaginative, it becomes hard to peel away from the book.”…..Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“A work that is often close to magic.”….Denver Post

So, come join us for an invigorating look at these superb literary novels. We meet in Lemuria’s dot.com building just outside Broadstreet Bakery’s north door, at 5 p.m. on the first Thursday of each month for one hour. Readers, young and old, novice and expert, gather around a table and discuss great literature, and have fun while doing so! Email me at: nan@lemuriabooks.com to be added to our email book club list. I’ll be glad to add your name!

-Nan

Book Clubs Unite!

What a great event we had last night!!  Minrose Gwin, a Tupelo native, was here signing and talking about her novel, The Queen of Palmyra.  Lemuria’s book club, Atlantis led by our own Nan Graves Goodman (who has a great blog on the novel too), had chosen the novel as their selection for June so they were all there and another local book club joined in and we just had a ball talking about the book.  I will be honest and let you know that I haven’t read The Queen of Palmyra yet but when I got home last night it moved up a few spaces in my ‘to read stack’!  I am not known for keeping my opinion to myself (and yes I did say a few things) but I thoroughly enjoyed just sitting and listening to everyone there discuss the book and ask Minrose question after question.

How much fun it would be if some of our other local book clubs got in on this action!!  I mean think about book clubs…how many times have you been at your meeting and discussion is going great….you get to a certain point and someone asks…”Why do you think the author decided to do that?” and then there are probably a few opinions but wouldn’t it be fantastic to just ask the author…”WHY?’ gosh you could even go with “WHO? WHAT? HOW? AND WHEN?”!!!!!

Seriously think about it!!!  So I’m challenging all of y’all out there to look at Lemuria’s upcoming signing schedule and pick out an author event come up to the store buy the book and get your questions ready!  If you are saying to yourself–“I’m not in a book club but would love to be”–then come on and join Atlantis, Lemuria’s book club.  We would love to have you!!

The Queen of Palmyra by Minrose Gwin

Tupelo native Minrose Gwin has penned quite a remarkable novel set in small town Mississippi during the tumultuous 1960s. The pre-teenaged protagonist named Florence (“Flo” for short) vacillates among several “homes”, one being  the confusingly distraught primary home of her cake-baking emotionally unstable and alcoholic mother and her child abusing Ku Klux Klan leader father, the second being the home of her upstanding socially conscious, but sometimes distant grandparents, and the third being the home of her grandparents’ housekeeper and cook, Zenie.

Ironically, Zenie and her husband Ray’s home in Shake Rag becomes the place where Florence spends most of her growing up days sleeping and recuperating from her primary home life in the deep oppressive heat  of a Mississippi summer, but it is also where she feels love, even though that love is sometimes complicated  and stirred with mixed racial messages which Florence does not understand.  A forward thinking educated niece comes to live with Zenie and Ray and tutors Florence in English grammar, particularly in sentence diagramming, since Florence has been tossed from one school system to another and is basically several grades behind where she should be. Eva also becomes a mother or older sister figure and introduces Florence  to make-up and hair tricks which Florence’s mother neglects doing for her lonely daughter who has no friends. The only true happiness which Florence finds comes when her grandmother sends her to a two week camp in Mentone, Alabama, which will delight many Mississippi parents who drove  their children to Lookout Mountain summer after summer for the long awaited delightful camp experience.

The reader will see the resemblance between Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird and Florence  in The Queen of Palmyra immediately. Lee Smith, well known Southern author of  many popular novels, including Oral History, Saving Grace, and On Agate Hill commented on The Queen of Palmyra, “Here it is, the most powerful and lyrical novel about race, racism, and denial in the American South since To Kill a Mockingbird.”

Jill McCorkle, also popular Southern author of the recent short story selection Going Away Shoes, said about The Queen of Palmyra, “A brilliant and compelling novel….the beauty of the prose, the strength of voice, and the sheer force of circumstance will hold the reader spellbound from beginning to end.”

Lemuria’s book club “Atlantis” has decided to choose this readable novel for our June pick. So, all readers are invited to join us on Thursday, June 3, to discuss The Queen of Palmyra . Also be sure to come join us on Wednesday, June 16, for the reading/signing by Minrose Gwin, who  also teaches literary fiction at The University of North Carolina. Additionally a writer of creative non-fiction and poetry, she has written three scholarly books and is a coeditor of The Literature of the American South and Southern Literary Journal.

-Nan

What a great book club!

book club cropThe Atlantis Book Club discussing The Piano Teacher by Janice Lee. March’s book is The Outlander by Gil Adamson. In April, they’ll discuss City of Refuge by Tom Piazza. See Nan’s last blog posting on the book club.

Lemuria Book Club: 2010 Picks

Lemuria readers: If you are thinking of including more reading and maybe a book club in your New Year’s resolutions, here’s the ticket: Lemuria’s book club “Atlantis”, which meets the first Thursday of the month late afternoon in the upstairs lobby just outside of Lemuria’s front door.

paino teacherFor January, we’ll be reading The Piano Teacher by Janice Y. K. Lee. Set in 1942, in Hong Kong, the story revolves around a newly arrived Englishman who becomes involved with a young married woman newly settled in the city. However, his past relationship, ten years prior, clouds their love as the story becomes  more and more entangled by politics, war, prisons, and famine.

city of refuge paperFor February, City of Refuge, a novel by Tom Piazza, which won the Willie Morris award this year, explores the psychological conflicts between remaining loyal to New Orleans after Katrina versus “what is right for one’s family.” Character driven, City of Refuge not only explores the physical devastation left by Katrina, but also the emotional carnage left.

outlanderFor March, we will discuss Canadian Gil Adamson’s The Outlander. Full of action set in the snow covered mountains of the west  in the early 1900s, this captivating novel follows a woman who desperately tries to outrun her murdered husband’s twin red headed brothers. On horseback, she frantically flees encountering numerous obstacles and curious people.

So, that should whet your appetite for some good reads. Members of the book club receive a 10% discount on the book club selections. Even if you can’t work “Atlantis” into your schedule, read these enticing titles. They are all out in paperback! A great stocking stuffer, each of these would be as well!

Happy Holiday Reading,

-Nan

Serena by Ron Rash

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Last year when I read Ron Rash’s new book Serena, I was pulled in from the very start! I had heard him read from A World Made Straight a few years ago and had recognized then what a talented, captivating writer he is.  Serena, in paperback, has just been released, and our book club will be discussing it on Thursday, November 5 at 5:15.

Set in Depression Year 1929, the main characters, Serena and George, are two people who are charismatic, cunning, charming, beautiful, and intelligent. (One might compare them with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie by today’s standards.) They slowly and carefully create a logging empire in the Appalachian Mountains. All is well until Serena becomes a little distracted and obsessed with her new husband’s illegitimate son, and that is putting it mildly! What happens from the middle part of the novel  until the end of the novel grabs the reader and won’t let him or her put the book down! A literary mystery unfolds with fast paced speed!

Read the book Serena and come join us in what will surely be a lively and provocative discussion two weeks from today!

-Nan

The Lost Estate by Alain-Fournier

alain fournierAlain-Fournier’s French classic The Lost Estate, recently released in a new translation by Penguin Classics, is one of the most magical novels that I have read in some time. Set in the countryside of France in the late 1800s, the novel revolves around a boys’ boarding school whose newest student, Meaulnes, called “The Grand Meaulnes” by the other students who admire and seemingly worship him, captivates the attention of even the demanding instructor.  Meaulnes’ demeanor, both mysterious and questionable, comes into full interest when he disappears for three days. The reader learns that while lost, he has happened upon an large country estate which is in the midst of a large wedding party complete with costumed guests enjoying copious feasts in large banquet halls.  A love interest ensues which later takes Meaulnes on a several year journey to find his lost love, all the while tugging at the reader’s heart strings.lost estate
Reminiscent of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby,  and Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, The Lost Estate is a treasure and one which I will not soon forget. I was looking forward to reading more novels by Alain-Fournier, but sadly learned that he was killed in WWI and that this was his only novel.
Because this little gem was such an unusually written novel, I have chosen it for Lemuria’s book club “Atlantis” for our September selection. Come join our discussion of The Lost Estate on Thursday, September 3, at 5:15 p.m. in the Banner Hall lobby just outside of Lemuria’s front door.
-Nan

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