Lemuria Books – Page 173

Page 173 of 257

Martini Soup

On January 26, 2011

Hey Guys–

Since girls and girl reading selections now dominate the fiction room, we guy Lemurians have to decided to launch our certified guy reading club monthly selection. Suggestions will be picked only by the male Lemurians (now Mark, Joe and John). Each month one of us will pick a favorite to feature, with the hope of providing a good fun reading experience.

Our monthly guy book fix will be called Martini Soup. We hope as you read our list, your stew pot will be full of some good meaty reading. Also, we suggest these fine books to be read with a stiff martini (straight up or on the rocks) by your side, and of course, Cathead vodka to be the beverage of choice.

Without question, Jim Harrison is our first author of choice. Our baptism fiction is his 1978 novella Revenge included in his immortal Legends of the Fall. What more can I say to kick this club off, but–

“Revenge is a dish better served cold.”

-Old Sicilian adage

To read or reread is our proposition. While following our club, find new jewels or revisit old favorites. John picked first, Joe and Mark will follow and then the list will grow as it will. We welcome your suggestions and comments. Let’s have some fun.

P.S. We welcome you gals to read along if you like stiff drinks while you read.

-John

This link will lead you to all of our editions of Legends at Lemuria. The one pictured above is a first edition signed (1979). To get his memorable voice in mind, enjoy the audio file of Jim Harrison reading from The Beast God Forgot to Invent and a poem, “In the Old Days,” at Lemuria in 2000.

Bookstore Keys: The Jackson Area Book Market

By John

On January 25, 2011

In Newsworthy

For the first time in a long time, I felt like I was somewhat caught up on my work this past Saturday. After lunchtime traffic, I decided to check out Borders. In response to my Tuesday local market Bookstore Key blog, I thought I might start relaying my perceptions.

I don’t know much about the Borders national restructuring yet. However, I can make some observations about the present local business model.

When entering Borders, I was immediately greeted by a vanity author welcoming me to the store. She seemed determined to intercept all visitors. I’m not faulting the author but the store management. At times, I feel I’ve let Lemuria be taken advantage of by dominating-self-centered authors “hawking their books.” I’ve always considered this rude to my regular reader customers. So now, I promise we will do a better job of keeping this sales tactic under control within Lemuria.

Back to my analysis. In January, bookstore inventory is usually light (returns begin and inventory replacement can be cumbersome). However, it’s not too difficult to keep your prime picks and your customers main desires on hand.

At the end of December, Borders announced it was going to suspend payment to publishers of their owed bills. Some publishers responded by suspending book shipments. My impression of Borders inventory, as I walked around, was that it was very light. Knowing that analyzing publishers book representations in such a big store is difficult, I was still struck by the lack of dominating store presence by local market titles. The Help (Penguin) was in quantity. However, I did not see Bush or Zeus (Random House) stacked up in the front.

Trying to figure out which publishers were playing hard ball with Borders was also difficult, but I began to form inclinations. I suspect the wholesalers, Ingram in particular, are supplying Borders, demanding immediate payment. My guess is the withheld publisher payments are being used to buy negotiating time and channeling those funds to the wholesalers. Publishers are not being paid while wholesalers are?

Saturday at 6:30 on my way home from work, I browsed Barnes & Noble. It seems down scaling of the physical book inventory is well underway. Already, I see expanded children’s activity sections, larger product displays, puzzles and multiple sideline gimmicks. I don’t think I’m deceiving myself but it seems in a short month’s time since Christmas, the B & N transition to less real book inventory is well underway.

Please understand this observation is just a limited Saturday viewpoint on the local market. I can tell you with certainty, however, that we at Lemuria are more proud than ever of our standards. We have to started to make our real book selection better edited than it has ever been: from paperback to hardback to signed first edition. We are striving to be more interesting and surprising to our browser while adding increased value to the book purchase. We hope our hard work over the next few months defines our goal.

The Bookstore Key Series on Changes in the Book Industry

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)

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Indulging in the memoir

By admin

On January 25, 2011

In Staff Blog

A while back, in preparation for Mary Karr’s visit to Lemuria, I began to think hard about why so many people are drawn to the memoir. I think we all know why, but I wanted to put it into words. I reflected on a long-past course in women’s memoir, flipped through some of the course reading and was assured by this quote from Kennedy Fraser:

“I felt very lonely then, self-absorbed, shut off. I needed all this murmured chorus, this continuum of true-life stories, to pull me through. They were like mothers and sisters to me, these literary women, many of them already dead; more than my own family, they seemed to stretch out a hand.” (Read more of this blog, The Power of the Narrative, here)

You might have heard that memoirist Jeannette Walls will be at Lemuria on Wednesday. I cannot wait to meet her. I am also selfishly pleased that I have another opportunity to think about Jeannette’s memoirs and all the other ones I love as well. To further indulge in the memoir, Lemuria is also fortunate to be visited by Rodney Crowell (read about his visit and memoir Chinaberry Sidewalks here), Jeannette on Wednesday, Mark Richard’s House of Prayer No. 2 in February (it comes with these instructions: read even if you do not know who Mark Richard is) and Andre Dubus III in March for his new memoir, Townie (already receiving great reviews prior to its February 1st release date).

I finally remembered my coworkers and their favorites:

Nell and Kaycie love the bright and young Sloane Crosley.

Nell says: “It had me doubled over laughing when I read I Was Told There’d Be Cake. Her writing reminded me of Dave Sedaris if Dave Sedaris was a straight female with a penchant for creating awkward situations and then living in them to the fullest. Crosley writes for Playboy sometimes and that witty and sexy humor permeates the entire book.” (Read Kaycie’s blog here.) I suppose you might not consider Sloane a traditional memoirist, but perhaps she writes the mini-memoir in an essay.

Norma, on a deeper note, could not stop talking about Let’s Take the Long Way Home by Pulitzer Prize winning author Gail Caldwell. She writes: “This book begins with Knapp’s death but Caldwell chronologically unfolds the back story of their relationship; telling how Knapp was the perfect friend but even funnier and more interesting than one could have imagined.” (Find the rest of Norma’s write-up here.)

How about it for Dave Eggers and David Sedaris? And we all loved meeting Mary Karr last July. I could mention more, but what is your favorite memoir?

The signing with Jeannette Walls starts at 5:00 on Wednesday with a reading to follow at 5:30. Bring a friend!

Rambling on Endgame

By Former Lemurians

On January 24, 2011

In Biography/Memoir

There’s a particular criticism of devoted readers that I hear occasionally — a challenge to just stop reading about things and to go out and actually do them instead. I’ve often wondered if those who make this challenge have ever read a really, really good book. I wonder this because my experience has been that very few things spark my interest in a particular subject as much as a great book. The reader isn’t sidestepping actually experiencing real life — he or she is being introduced to parts of life that are normally inaccessible. It’s the beginning of the experience, not the totality of it. Surely I am not the only one who recalls, as a child, finding that one great book that sparked one’s interest, and then the continued search for more books and more information and more access to the subject.

There’s a reason this is on my mind — I am reading Frank Brady’s new book, Endgame, about Bobby Fischer. I loved playing chess as a child — I remember learning the game sometime in the 3rd or 4th grade, and playing frequently at school and with friends. I remember reading a few “Chess for Beginners”-type books. I was never a particularly strong player (my chess zenith was beating a teacher who had once won a match against the Junior Champion of Britain whilst said champion was watching TV and eating a sandwich), but I enjoyed it. And then, I stopped playing. Not intentionally. Other parts of my life just crowded it out.

Endgame has forced me to question why I dropped chess. It’s really the story of a troubled genius, not a book about chess, but it brought chess back into my mind, and made me remember why I enjoyed it. I’ve caught myself thinking through old chess questions or problems I had, Googling for more information, and looking for chess apps for my phone. Not because I plan to make chess a central part of my life — but because a book made it interesting to me again.

I said that Endgame is not really about chess, and I think that’s true — chess is the background, not the story itself. As I’ve read it, I’ve been struck by the parallels to The Fall of the House of Zeus. I don’t know that Dickie Scruggs counts as a “genius” in quite the same way that Bobby Fischer did, but there’s no question that he saw angles nobody else did and accomplished things nobody else could. And both Bobby and Dickie, heady with their own success, ignored the cautionary voices around them and indulged their own fantasies of invincibility. And both fell hard, in their respective arenas.

I know I’ve rambled a bit here, but sometimes I feel like that’s the appropriate response to a book — to ramble from thought to thought, to ruminate and consider. Some books throw everything into sharp contrast, and demand an immediate response, but other books are quieter. They may not change your life, but they can still add something to it.

French countryside, dark secrets, and good recipes?

By Former Lemurians

On January 23, 2011

In Fiction

All of the above can be found in Joanne Harris’s novel Five Quarters of the Orange. You may not recognize the name Joanne Harris, but you know her work. She wrote the novel that the sweet little movie Chocolat (starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp) is based on. I don’t know about you, but I adore that movie (especially the Johnny Depp moments), so when Ellen recommended Five Quarters of the Orange to me, it was just extra incentive to read something by Joanne Harris.

Five Quarters of the Orange is set in German-occupied France, specifically in a small village called Les Laveuses near the city of Angers in the Loire valley. Harris’s narrator and main character Framboise narrates the story of both her present life (she’s now 50 and just moving back to Les Laveuses) and the tragic event that occurred in her village during WWII when she was only 9 years old. I don’t want to give away the story, but I will say that part of what makes this novel so wonderful is Harris’s ability to blend this tragic tale of war, German occupation, and a mother’s mental illness with beautiful (and kind of sensual) descriptions of the French countryside, farm life, and mouthwatering French recipes.

Here’s an example of a particularly wonderful recipe for cherry liqueur. It’s given near the beginning of the novel, and it stuck with me all the way through. I also started craving some cherry liqueur…

The secret is to leave the stones in. Layer cherries and sugar one on the other in a widemouthed glass jar, covering each layer gradually with clear spirit (kirsch is best, but you can use vodka or even Armagnac) up to half the jar’s capacity. Top up with spirit and wait. Every month, turn the jar carefully to release any accumulated sugar. In three years’ time the spirit has bled the cherries white, itself stained deep red now, penetrating even to the stone and the tiny almond inside it, becoming pungent, evocative, a scent of autumn past. Serve in tiny liqueur glasses, with a spoon to scoop out the cherry, and leave it in the mouth until the macerated fruit dissolves under the tongue. Pierce the stone with the point of a tooth to release the liqueur trapped inside and leave it for a long time in the mouth, playing it with the tip of the tongue, rolling it under, over, like a single prayer bead. Try to the remember the time of its ripening, that summer, that hot autumn, the time the well ran dry, the time we had the wasps’ nests, time past, lost, found again in the hard place at the heart of the fruit…

(pg. 9)

See what I mean when I say that the writing is a bit sensual? The recipes, for the most part, come from the diary that Framboise’s mother kept as she was going mad. Seemingly meaningless notes are scribbled between lines of recipes which Framboise works to decode.

As for the dark secret bit, you’re just going to have to read the book to find out about that…because I’m not telling.

P.S. For those of you who read my last blog about my New Year’s resolution to read fifty books this year, I’m actually ahead of myself. It’s only January 22, and I’ve already read six books. So far, so good! -Kaycie

StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath

By Former Lemurians

On January 22, 2011

In Psychology

StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath (Gallup, 2007)

A few years ago for his birthday, my dad decided that, instead of giving him presents, he wanted us all to read the book Now, Discover Your Strengths and take the accompanying online assessment. He had just finished the book and was obviously excited. Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton explain the ideas behind the “strength revolution.”

Instead of this book, I ended up reading Tom Rath’s StrengthsFinder 2.0, a shorter continued text explaining the different strengths identified when the reader takes the online assessment. Rath explains the necessity to rethink how we view ourselves:

“At its fundamentally flawed core, the aim of almost any learning program is to help us become who we are not.”

For example, even if students don’t excel in certain areas of study, they are still required to pursue it with the same vigor as for their strengths. While learning from mistakes is a valuable process, too much time focused here can be stifling.

Rath continues, “In every culture we have studied, the overwhelming majority of parents think that a student’s lowest grades deserve the most time and attention. Parents and teachers reward excellence with apathy instead of investing more time in the areas where a child has the most potential for greatness.”

I took the quiz and read the whole book the day I got it. With the assessment, you get your top five strengths, each coming with plans of action. It’s a useful tool in helping you identify a few major skills to pursue instead of halfway chasing things that aren’t bolstered by your strengths.

I found out that my weird habits don’t have to be a detriment. For example, one of my “strengths” is Input.

“You are inquisitive. You collect things […] Whatever you collect, you collect it because it interests you. And yours is the kind of mind that finds so many things interesting […] If you like to travel, it is because each new location offers novel artifacts and facts. These can be acquired and then stored away. Why are they worth storing? At the time of storing it is often hard to say exactly when or why you might need them, but who knows when they might become useful? With all those possible uses in mind, you really don’t feel comfortable throwing anything away […] Its interesting. It keeps your mind fresh.”

What a more dynamic way to look at a group of habits than to simply conclude them a disadvantage (like, “You have too much stuff!”)

Readers of this book will find new ways to consider their personalities and daily habits. By identifying and pursuing areas of strength, a person can ultimately lead a more fulfilled lifestyle. -Peyton

Knitting Mochimochi

By Former Lemurians

On January 21, 2011

In Sewing & Crafts

Due to the fact that I am in charge of the craft section I have acquired a very respectable craft book collection. I wrote a blog not long ago about the craft book that has started this very welcome epidemic in my life. Well the new book of my obsession is called Knitting Mochimochi by Anna Hrachovec. This book teaches you how to knit amigurumi. And if you don’t know what that is, let me provide you with a definition:

Amigurumi (編みぐるみ, lit. knitted stuffed toy) is the Japanese art of knitting or crocheting small stuffed animals and anthropomorphic creatures. The word is derived from a combination of the Japanese words ami, meaning crocheted or knitted, and nuigurumi, meaning stuffed doll.Amigurumi are typically animals, but can include artistic renderings or inanimate objects endowed with anthropomorphic features.

So seriously these little knitted animals are the cutest things ever. I just finished my first toy the other night and I was over the moon about how cute the little guy was. In the book he is called a “Bite-free Bedbug”, and yes he has a little sleeping cap with embroidered stars on it.

For years I have been a knitter of just straight scarves, but upon seeing this book I knew I was ready to up the ante and teach myself how to knit on three needles. So one night I sat down on my couch surrounded by my dogs, who were very eager to take off with my ball of yarn, and taught myself how to knit in the round. It took about two hours to get it right, but watching how-to videos on knittinghelp.com really helped me. So now I feel like a total knitting all-star.

These little creatures would be amazing gifts for anyone who likes to come dangerously close to overdosing on cuteness. Nothing is more special than something that you make with your own hands with someone particular in mind. -Ellen

Chinaberry Sidewalks: Rodney Crowell at Lemuria

By admin

On January 20, 2011

In Staff Blog

A little visiting with your friends, some relaxing beverage, an intimate reading accompanied with song, a room packed to the gills all for a visit with one of the most famous songwriters out there, a personally signed book in your hand: This was Lemuria last night as singer/songwriter Rodney Crowell kicked off his book tour for Chinaberry Sidewalks.

Rodney said that you write a book because you have to write a book. This certainly was a book he had to write–it took ten years to write his memoir, but the work has garnered the attention of respected, colorful characters like Rick Bragg, Mary Karr and Kris Kristofferson. It is unquestionable after listening to Rodney sing last night that he has the heart of a poet, he is a wordsmith of the old school with songs like “Back down there . . . the sweet delta dawn” and the beautiful Roy Orbison melody “What kind of love?”

I asked Rodney about his connection to Mary Karr–who was just here this past July. I figured there was a meaningful one since they were both writers with a gritty Texas childhood. Not only are they buds, but collaborating song writers. Rodney said they will have an album coming out soon. Hopefully, they will do a tour and share a wonderful evening with us again.

The Death of the Adversary by Hans Keilson

By Former Lemurians

On January 19, 2011

In Fiction

Death of the Adversary: A Novel by Hans Keilson

(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010)

Francine Prose wrote a compelling review back in August in the New York Times Book Review about two novels by the author Hans Keilson. His two books and Death of the Adversary and Comedy in a Minor Key were written about life prior to and during WWII and received accolades in 1959 when Death of the Adversary was published.

Translated into English in 1962 (Orion Press, NY) and first published in 2010 for the American public, Death of the Adversary is a psychological tour de force. Death is the story of a young boy growing up in the 1930s, a young boy uncannily sensitive to the psychological, political, cultural, personal atmosphere looming about him.

He is particularly aware of an unseen force, or rather menace, whose sting he intuits in conversations between his loving mother and father and later in schoolmates and friends. He tries to understand the fear growing around him, tries to integrate it into his worldview with rationalizations inept to the ever consuming power of the threat. The threat is real and it is unnamed in the book. Some of his friends speak of a presence they admire and ultimately proffer their allegiance and souls. We realize the threat is Hitler and Nazism.

So how does a young boy or anyone for that matter digest the ambivalence emanating from his German/Danish culture and come to terms with something that steals his early hope for stability and security to prosper and flourish, that steals hope itself? This is a “psychological fable (see blurb on back of paperback) of enormous proportions showing how the mind can’t see beyond it own limitations, its own experience but at a much deeper, non-thinking level feel the agonizing, irreconcilable horror of something so evil as unknown or unknowable, admired by despised.

Who can better write of such things than this author who became a psychoanalyst treating children traumatized by war? Not only an an articulate author and psycholanalyst, Keilson was hidden during WWII and eventually became a member of the Dutch resistance. The questions he eloquently asks in this book would make a lively discussion for a book group. Many WWII books have been published recently and this should be one of the first we read. Then I would suggest Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas, The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer, and Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand.

Read more about Bonhoeffer here and The Invisible Bridge here.

-Pat

Bookstore Keys: What’s In Store For Local Bookselling Markets?

By John

On January 18, 2011

In Newsworthy

As I begin to grasp how much the book business is changing and contemplating how fast the change will come about, I’ve been pondering the future of Jackson’s local market, wondering what our book selling faceplate will become.

Lemuria in Highland Village, 1986

After 35 years and three locations all inside Jackson’s city limits, I’ve seen a lot of change. The Jackson malls of Northpark and Metrocenter had at one time five bookstores between them. Today neither of them has a bookstore. The big stores came to Jackson in the 90s–Books-a-Million across the street and Barnes and Noble on County Line–both of them very close to Lemuria. The 2000s were marked by a shift into the Jackson Metro area with Borders and Barnes & Nobles on the move. Metro area book selling has boomed while the local Jackson market has been drained.

Increased competition can be good for our desire to enhance business quality and performance. However, product shifting and an overall shrinking market make it difficult for customer growth in terms of increasing satisfaction.

We know we are in the midst of an intense change. We look into our crystal ball as we try to predict how all this change will play out for Jackson book buyers and Lemuria’s solid book readers.

Here are some questions we are asking ourselves:

1. Will Borders close or restructure itself into a new business model, de-emphasizing books as their main product and thus discouraging book browsing?

2. Will Barnes & Noble use all their square footage to build a great physical inventory and swamp their competition? Or will they diversify into marketing e-reading so strongly that they emphasize more department store type merchandise?

3. Will B & N and Borders come together to become a new dinosaur, merging into a new entity?

4. How many more nonbook items can Books-a-Million add to their square-footage? I’m sure some but how much more value will they add to their physical book inventory? Will Books-a-Million move outside Jackson and into the metro area?

As answers unfold to our questions, we will begin to decipher how our Lemuria will be altered. For 35 years we have been a Jackson institution, one for which I am proud and I hope my efforts represent my pride and desire for enhanced reading quality. For real book lovers, we are challenging ourselves to improve our service to you. Hard times are ahead and hard decisions will be made.

As we progress to Spring, we hope to share with you our interpretations of this ‘Big Swoop” of change. Our hope is for Lemuria to emerge from its challenges as a stronger institution for Jackson, a bookstore you can still be proud to bring “out-of-towners” to browse and enjoy, maybe in the future more than ever.

The Bookstore Key Series on Changes in the Book Industry

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Page 173 of 257

Martini Soup

Bookstore Keys: The Jackson Area Book Market

Indulging in the memoir

Rambling on Endgame

French countryside, dark secrets, and good recipes?

StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath

Knitting Mochimochi

Chinaberry Sidewalks: Rodney Crowell at Lemuria

The Death of the Adversary by Hans Keilson

Bookstore Keys: What’s In Store For Local Bookselling Markets?

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