Do you have a fashionista and/or wannabe fashionista and/or fan of stylish fun in your life?  If you are pointing at yourself or thinking of someone you may know who fits this description, then I have a book for you (them)! Cupcakes and Cashmere by Emily Schuman (also the title of Ms. Schuman’s blog) is a fabulous “guide for defining your style, reinventing your space, and entertaining with ease.”

We all have that friend who always looks polished and fresh, and when you’re not insanely jealous of that person, then you’re most likely wondering where she gets her inspiration for perfectly coiffed hair and effortlessly cool outfits. I’d venture to guess that a copy of  Cupcakes and Cashmere could be sitting on her bedside table, but who am I to say?

A sneak peek of the Fall Style Checklist:

And here’s a helpful how-to for perfect beachy waves from the blog (also in the book):

by Anna

One of the best parts about being a bookseller at Lemuria is all the unusual and fun books I get to come across. Dave Eggers, and his publishing house McSweeney’s, are well known for their unique handling of the book. (McSweeney’s quarterly literary journal has arrived in a box shaped like a head, a collection of eight mini-books that are all illustrated, etc.) Dave Eggers new book, A Hologram for the King came out last week. A cross between the King James Bible that has been in your family for generations and the book Harrison Ford found on his last Indiana Jones adventure, A Hologram for the King is not only a good book (I’m almost finished–so far, so good) but also can double as the “treasure” for any games you play this summer.

Dave Egger’s fur-covered book, The Wild Things, is also a fun book to cuddle up with this summer. Loosely based on Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are and the screen-play (co-written with Spike Jonze) for the film with the same title, The Wild Things follows Max as he runs away from home, wearing his favorite wolf-suite, and becomes king of the Wild Things.

Tomas Transtromer, the 2011 Nobel Prize winner in poetry, wrote his memoir the year after he lost his ability to speak due to a stroke, and the paperback English translation is published in a small, pocket-size edition. (I tried it in all my pockets, and it fits in all except the coin-pocket on the left side of my jeans. So don’t be disappointed if it doesn’t fit in all of your pockets either.) New Directions Press also published two other mini paperbacks: a collection of Love Poems by Pablo Neruda (“You too were a little leaf/that trembled on my chest”) and a selection of poems from Rainer Rilke’s The Book of Hours (“God, who can hold you? To yourself alone/belonging, by no owner’s hand disturbed,/you are like unripened wine that unperturbed/grows ever sweeter and all its own”).

A couple weeks ago, Whitney found a poetry book that wasn’t even a book. David Hinton’s Fossil Sky is an epic poem in the form of a lyrical map. Yes, it unfolds.

Have a Dad?  Aware that Father’s Day is right around the corner?  Don’t want to get him another tie?  Need some gift ideas?  I’m here to help…sort of.  These are not your run of the mill Father’s Day present ideas but then again, I’m not your run of the mill gift giver.

First up is The Gentleman’s Bedside Companion.

In this book you will find a vast variety of tid bits.  Here are a few of my favorite chapters: Human Anatomy for the Practical Man, The Weirdness of Earthquakes, Ball Lightning, The Story of Heroin, Famous Car Crash Victims, To Cuff or Not to Cuff, How to Iron a Shirt, Best Ever Book Titles and How to Slaughter and Bleed a Pig.

In the section on Old-Fashioned Activities you are given some history to the Ship in the Bottle which has always fascinated me.

A little slice of miscellany is never a bad idea in my opinion.

Secondly we have Farts: A Spotter’s Guide

Yes, I’m serious.  I gave this to my Step-Dad and he absolutely loves it.  In this book you learn about and can listen to the 10 types of farts. 

10 types of farts?  Who knew?  Here they are:

The Seismic Blast, The Silent but Deadly, Blowing Smoke, The One That Got Away, The Flight of the Buttock Bess, The Poof, In Between States, The Sleeping Dog, The Long Good-Bye and The Aftershock.

For the Dad who passes and gas and can laugh about it.

Next up is The Little Book of Beards…and a Couple of Mustaches!

Each beard in this book is accompanied by a bit of information about the style, what it says about those who wear it, how to grow that particular style and who of note is know for donning the beard.

Also, underneath each beard is a grooming, growing and grating rating so you’ll know how much trouble the new style of beard you’ve wanting to try out will be.  We don’t want you to get in over your head.

My favorite style in this book is the Octopus, “As worn by the weird, the wonderful, and the really f***ing hairy.”

The Octopus is “Elaborate and complex, the Octopus is the ultimate experiment in beard landscaping (or “pogonotopiary” if you want to be fancy).  You probably need to get our more, though.”  You’ll notice that it’s got a grooming, growing and grating rate of 5 (the max).  This beard is “Also worn by…Die-hard, competitive beardies, and mad scientists from The Future.”

This is an essential for all those Dads out there who love their whiskers.

Lastly we have My Tattooed Dad.

“Life is very exciting when Dad comes home.  He fries up chicken samosas for dinner, makes jokes and fools around, and carries his sleepy son off to bed.  He also tells wonderful stories that seem to almost spring from the fantastical tattoos all over his body.  Even his letters tell amazing tales, such as how he saved the boy’s life twice – once when he was stolen from his baby basket by a wild dog and once when he flew out the car window!

But as the boy’s mother says, his dad has ants in his pants, which means he’s often not around.  Still, life rolls along with one tale after another, in good times and bad.  This extraordinary dad’s gift is the world of the imagination, which is always with his son, even when he is not.”

This book is just amazing.

All Dads should be read to every once in a while.

Hope this helps…at least a little.

by Zita

It’s May and lots of us are graduating!  A book we always sell around this time of year is This Is Water, by David Foster Wallace.  It’s actually a printed speech he gave in 2005 – a commencement address for the graduating class of Kenyon College.  It was, as the book points out, the only such address he ever made; he died in 2008.  Here’s an excerpt from that speech; if you want to read the whole thing, click here.  I’ve only copied and pasted the first three paragraphs:

Does anybody recognize the room in this picture?  I hope not, because if it’s recognizable then it means it still looks messy.  I was recently given the task of cleaning it up – a task that involved no small amount of dust, sweat, tears, etc, and so for that reason if not any others, I want to give it some attention here.

So anyway, it’s the First Editions room!  For anyone who doesn’t know what/where that is, it’s the room on your right when you walk through Lemuria’s main entrance.  It also functions as the semi-office of Joe and John and so for that reason I think lots of people think they can’t browse around in there, which is completely not true.  It’s part of the store just like any other section.  If you can put up with a bit of clutter, a liberal approach to the alphabet, and of course the company of Joe and John, then I encourage you to pay a visit to the FE room.

Before I worked with books in any capacity, I don’t think I completely understood the allure of first editions.  I still don’t have that many, but one of my favorites is Music of the Swamp, by Lewis Nordan.  It was a gift from a friend, and after it was given to me, something clicked.  I don’t know.  These books are just really, really special, with the added bonus of having fantastic covers (see Sharpshooter Blues up there? !!).  I suppose what I’m trying to say is I don’t think you have to be a huge book-collecting enthusiast with lots of money to drop to appreciate FEs.  If nothing else, they’re fun to look at.

Also fun to look at, and also in the FE room, are Advanced Reader Copies – it’s hard to miss this ARC of Libra:

I took loads of pictures and I could put them all up right now, but I’ll take it easy.  I suppose I just wanted everybody to know that yes! the First Editions room is open for browsing and is hopefully more accessible than it was a month or so ago.  Lemuria is full of first editions – many of them signed, it’s worth noting – so come and have a look!

Susie

We received some really special journals the other day. I was familiar with them, but had always been intimidated by how beautiful they were. I thought to myself: How could I ever mess it up with my handwriting? Would my thoughts be eloquent enough?

A customer came in today looking for a copy of The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. I had used this in a writing class years ago and adored this book in all my tender vulnerability of 19 years. Julia’s book is so full of heart and she reminds you that your thoughts are important, whatever creative work you are doing–it does matter.

Once John explained to me how he used the journals, I began to think I might like to give them a try. Since the pages are wrapped in the leather, you can also collect images, tickets, maps, whatever is meaningful to you . . . and then also write about it. The journal pictured here is dedicated to travels to various jazz and blues festivals and concerts.

With all of the e-mails we send, text messages, digital photos and so on, a tangible journal becomes even more special. Duke Ellington is quoted as saying: I merely took the energy to pout and wrote some blues. This reminds me that it doesn’t take much effort to write when you consider the treasure you create.