Staff Blog – Page 4 – Lemuria Books

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by Andrew Hedglin

One of the dual passions of my life has been reading books and following football. I have may have written about football a time or two on the blog before. I don’t know how large the Venn diagram cross section between the two segments are, but I have somehow landed firmly in the middle of them. And there have been a number of excellent football books that have come out this fall. If you happen to have somebody in your life who is both an unrepentant football fanatic and voracious reader, this is your guide to them all.

Part of the reason I became a football fan was because I loved watching Deuce McAllister run wild for the Ole Miss Rebels in the late 1990s. When he was drafted by the New Orleans Saints, that sealed my fate as being fans of those two teams. My dad had a similar experience with another player who followed that path before: the great Archie Manning. Mark Ribowsky, a professional biographer of musicians and sports figures, has come out with a new Manning chronicle, called In the Name of the Father: Family, Football, and the Manning Dynasty.

I was a little hesitant at first, because I had already read The Mannings by Lars Anderson last year, but In the Name of the Father is a little less hagiographic and focuses more on the pro careers of Archie, Peyton, and Eli, but I thoroughly enjoyed the fair but full portraits of Mississippi’s first family of football.

Another very fine history is John Eisenburg’s The League: How Five Rivals Created the NFL and Launched a Sports Empire. This may even be my favorite of these football books. The five rivals referred to in the title are George Halas of the Chicago Bears, Tim Mara of the New York Giants, George Preston Marshall of the Washington Redskins, Bert Bell of the Philadelphia Eagles, and Art Rooney of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

This is the most cohesive retelling of the NFL’ s origins that I’ve ever read, and I was as engrossed by owner’s “for the good of all” ethic as I was thrilled by references to the NFL’s history like the Hupmobile dealership, the Galloping Ghost, the Sneakers Game, the Steagles, 73-0, Slingin’ Sammy Baugh, and the Greatest Game Ever Played.

A somewhat disheartening but occasionally hilarious follow-up to The League would be Mark Leibovich’s exposé Big Game: The NFL in Dangerous Times. Leibovich is, by trade, a political reporter famous for his Washington insiders book This Town, but here he turns his eyes to the absurdities, excesses, scandals, and grime of the modern NFL machine, focusing primarily on the team’s owners, specifically the Patriots’ Robert Kraft and the Cowboys’ Jerry Jones.

Leibovich’s worlds collide when the NFL has to dance around the gigantic figure of Donald Trump, whose own complicated history with the NFL make him delight in using the league as a pawn in his political games.

To find the origin story of that crazy tale, you could do worse than reading Jeff Pearlman’s engrossing history of the USFL, Football for a Buck. Pearlman has put out excellent biographies of Walter Payton and Brett Favre in recent years, but he is at his best when describing the widening gyres of an organization careening out of control, like he did when writing about the mid-90s Dallas Cowboys in Boys Will Be Boys.

Here, Pearlman tells the story of the USFL, a popular spring football league in the 1980s conceived of by David Dixon, the idea man behind both the New Orleans Saints and the Superdome. The USFL originally had modest goals, but soon was locked in a spending war for bright stars. From this, it served as the launching pad for future stars Hershel Walker, Reggie White, Jim Kelly, and Steve Young. It was a victim of several years of chronic mismanagement, but its death knell was sounded when New York Generals owner Donald Trump pushed the USFL to move to an unsustainable fall schedule, in hopes of securing a NFL franchise of his own.

The final book I have to tell you about is Gridiron Genius: A Master Class in Winning and Building Dynasties in the NFL by Michael Lombardi. I’ve been a fan of Lombardi for years through his podcasts first with Bill Simmons and then on The Ringer. Before (and in the middle) of his media career, he has served as an NFL general manager and worked with football luminaries such as Bill Walsh, Al Davis, and Bill Belichick.

Lombardi’s book reads completely different than any other book on this list. In its DNA are the kind of ideas that permeate our business book section. Lombardi’s always been something of a polymath, so I think this is by design. Forget X’s and O’s. Forget star players. Lombardi is here to tell you that NFL teams are like any other organization, and that you have to create a “culture” if you’re interested in any sort of sustainable, deliberate success. Walsh’s 49ers and Belichick’s Patriots may be the greatest example the modern NFL has ever had. You may not get the opportunity to run an NFL team, but you might have the opportunity to run something else, and this book will help remind you to sweat the details.

So there you have it: 2018’s best bets for the professional football fan in your life. If you have somebody (or are somebody) who loves reading about football, you will surely find their next great read this Christmas somewhere on this list.

For the Adventurer: ‘To Shake the Sleeping Self’ by Jedidiah Jenkins

By Former Lemurians

On December 3, 2018

In Adventure, Biography/Memoir

by Abbie Walker

Looking for the perfect book to give the thrill-seeking traveler in your life? Look no further than To Shake the Sleeping Self by Jedidiah Jenkins.

Like most millennials making connections in 2018, I found Jedidiah Jenkins through social media. As the editor of Wilderness magazine, Jedidiah filled his Instagram with lots of traveling and goofing around with his lovable squad. In fact, it was this account through which he first shared one of the biggest adventures of his life, gaining him coverage by National Geographic and eventually a book deal.

After a series of successful jobs but feeling like his life was heading in an unwanted direction, Jedidiah decided to change course and do something radical for his thirtieth birthday. In the 1970s, his parents spent five years walking across America. Jedidiah, feeling called to his own expedition, settled on biking from Oregon to Patagonia–an epic 14,000-mile journey that would take him around a year and a half to complete.

Divided into the geographical sections of his trip, To Shake the Sleeping Self follows Jedidiah and his friend Weston as they ride right out of their comfort zones and into the unknown.

From tasting exotic cuisine and bathing in waterfalls, to the spiritual experience of wild mushrooms and hiking Machu Picchu, Jedidiah learns more about himself and the world around him. However, life on the road is anything but easy.

Besides the physical trials of biking across two continents (the exhaustion, the uncertainty of where to sleep each night, the dangerous highways), Jedidiah also faces a decent amount of inner conflict on his journey. The pages are filled with thoughts about his faith, his sexuality, and what it means to really embrace life.

The story of the trip itself was fascinating and made me want to go on my own adventure, but I also appreciated Jedidiah’s honesty and his ability to effectively communicate his struggles. The raw conversations he has with Weston, the strangers he meets on his trip, and himself open up bigger conversations about stereotypes, friendship, and what connects humans all over the world.

To Shake the Sleeping Self is a great read for anyone who enjoys a good adventure memoir. Fans of Cheryl Strayed’s Wild will appreciate Jedidiah’s journey and the heart behind his writing.

He Dreamed a Dream: ‘Congratulations, Who Are You Again?’ by Harrison Scott Key

By Former Lemurians

On November 8, 2018

In Biography/Memoir, Humor

by Andrew Hedglin

The first book that I fell in love with after I started working at Lemuria was Harrison Scott Key’s The World’s Largest Man, a memoir Key had written about his father. In addition to it simply being hilarious, it helped me contextualize the travails I’ve encountered when trying to write about my own family.

Key has returned with a metatextual sequel called Congratulations, Who Are You Again?, large parts of which detail the process of writing the first book. When Kelly, our store’s manager, first explained this concept to me, I was a little worried. Not because I thought the book wouldn’t be good (which it is, very good). But because I was worried that having to read another book first, in order to enjoy this one, seemed like a high barrier for entry. As in, the audience would naturally be a smaller piece of the initial audience.

But that’s not really true. What Key points out, early and often, is that this is not a book about his previous book. It’s about dreams.

The reason people could relate to his father-memoir is not that they knew Key’s own father personally, but that most people have had a father or father figure in their life. A story can hold up a mirror to our own experience.

Now, I’m a bookseller, and I love all the inside-baseball stuff here about how a book is made: the talk about the early morning coffee house writing, the publisher bids, the advance, the author tour, the Terry Gross king-making. I will personally treasure and adore for years to come a particularly exquisite and profane paragraph about the bookstore’s view of author events. Book people and wannabe writers will find lots here to enjoy.

But dreams come in all shapes and sizes. They have different rewards and consequences. What’s interesting here is how Key’s original dream was just to make people laugh, and it took him a while to figure out that writing a book was the method he would use to achieve that. When he fist made decisions to make this goal come true, he was thrust into roles such as acting, academia, and even fund-raising.

On the other side of having written his book, he has to deal with success. Which suddenly seems important, but was not part of the original plan to begin with. Where Key ends up, as with his last book, is surrounded by his wife and daughters (hilariously given the nicknames Stargoat, Beetle, and Effbomb here for their protection). I don’t think this is designed, but it’s not a coincidence, either. I imagine that for most of us, our loved ones have a way of ending up at into the center of our dreams.

So, if you have any kind of dream, I think this book is worth reading. Even if you’re not familiar with Key’s own dream, he’s got an amusing way of explaining it and casting that reflection back onto us, the readers.

Harrison Scott Key will be at Lemuria on Friday, November 9, at 5:00 to sign and read from Congratulations, Who Are You Again?

Star-cross Singularity in ‘Original Syn’ by Beth Kander

By Hunter

On October 29, 2018

In Science Fiction

By Hunter Venters. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (October 28)

What is the Singularity? For transhumanists, “the singularity” refers to the theoretical moment in the future when technology and biology become one, a point when the two reach an equal level of complexity that the lines between them will become blurred.

For the characters of Beth Kander’s Original Syn, however, the Singularity is history, not future. The book takes place fifty years after The Singularity, when humans began converting themselves into human-machine hybrids known as Syns.

This resulted in a conflict between the Syns and the “Originals,” those who either opted out of the procedure or simply were not given the opportunity. After the Syns’ victory, the Originals were forced into exile and fed chemicals that made it impossible for them to reproduce, while Syns lived in luxury and waited for them to go extinct.

In this world, Syns are wealthy, endlessly knowledgeable, and, with proper maintenance, they can live forever. Their counterparts, the entirely human “Originals,” live in constant poverty, mostly living in roaming clans that scrounge for what they need. It is a society divided on the grounds of both biology and class, and the real-world parallels are clear.

The novel’s shifting point-of-view allows the reader to experience the many facets of this world. Felix Hess, one of the fathers of the Syn process, crafts his schemes to improve Syn society while also trying to understand a mysterious prophecy. A strange agent known as Shadower tries to unravel the Syn world from the inside by revealing a series of events that the authorities are trying to hide. A man who left a child behind when he became a Syn regrets his decision and wants to make amends.

Original Syn tells the stories of many characters in this new and intriguing world, but the book’s primary story is that of Ere Fell and Ever Hess (the daughter of the aforementioned Felix), an Original and a Syn whose unlikely encounter in a swamp begins a romance that could threaten their way of life.

Ever and Ere are similar characters. Ever is the daughter of one of the most influential people in Syn society, while Ere is a member of a noted family among the Originals. The primary difference between them is that Ever has lived a much more comfortable life, and that she is decades older than him (though they appear the same age.)

For Ere and his cousin, both of whom are among the only young people remaining in Original society, life is a constant search for other young people, specifically romantic interests. For Ever, life is boring and played out. Decades of being a teenager have taken their toll on her, and all she wants is something new and exciting. When the pair meet, their needs override their initial distrust of each other and the result is an affair that nearly destroys everything they know.

Original Syn has one of the most creative settings in modern science fiction, with roots in real theories and ideas. Kander’s novel puts a bold new twist on the classic “Romeo and Juliet” story while also introducing a large variety of new characters and concepts that keep the book feeling fresh and new.

Hunter Venters is a Graduate of Belhaven University. He currently works as a bookseller at Lemuria Bookstore in Jackson.

Beth Kander will be at Lemuria on Thursday, November 1, at 5:00 p.m. to sign and read from Original Syn.

Kiese Laymon’s new book has some ‘Heavy’ truths

By Jamie

On October 16, 2018

In African-American, Culture

One reason we read is to escape from ourselves and see others, particularly others who aren’t like us. And simultaneously, one reason we read is to find ourselves, to be seen by someone else. For me, Kiese Laymon’s Heavy: An American Memoir occupies both of these spaces effortlessly.

Although, effortless is a bit misleading. In interviews, conversations, and in the very content of the book, Laymon admits that Heavy was difficult to write. It was necessary. This duality persists throughout the layers of the memoir. The relationship Laymon describes with his mother is at times toxic, but is also nurturing, sincere, and life-giving. The relationship Laymon has with his own body and food moves between destructive and healthy. Growing up as a brilliant black child in Mississippi is both “burden and blessing,” to borrow Laymon’s own words. In the face of one-dimensional, monolithic, unimaginative stereotypes, Laymon spits nuance and grace and honesty—honesty that is gritty and soothing, that captures the “contrary states of the human soul,” as William Blake says.

Personally, my relationship with Heavy is equally divergent. I’ve never been on the harsh end of a culture that devalues the lives of black Americans. Yeah, one of the only fistfights I’ve been in was defending a black friend from a racist prick in 8th grade, but I’ve never been part of a group systematically and culturally denied access by a majority. Laymon’s book shows me what it’s like. My family has had its share of trauma, but not the type of trauma Laymon’s has. His book helps me understand a type resilience I’ve never needed.

But I’m a big fella. I’ve done my share of emotional eating. I’ve had horrible conversations with myself about how to make my body smaller and, at times, questioned whether taking care of my body was worth the effort. Yes, men do have vastly lower and fewer expectations for how we should look, but we aren’t without some pressure to fit into molds. How to fit into a mold when I barely fit into some t-shirts? Laymon’s book reminds me that I’m not alone in this. I am seen and valid and broken and beautiful. Heavy can mean “excessive,” or “burdensome,” but it can also be “important.” I’m glad to have the weight of this memoir, where it touches me and where it leaves me.

Kiese Laymon will be at Millsaps at the Gertrude C. Ford Academic Center on Wednesday, October 17, at 5:00 to sign and read from Heavy.

Wayétu Moore’s ‘She Would Be King’ myths and magic for early African nationhood

By Former Lemurians

On October 8, 2018

In Fiction

by Trianne Harabedian

A sweeping tale of curses, slavery, and revolution (with a touch of magic), She Would Be King by Wayétu Moore is a debut novel of mythical proportions. The story moves from Africa to Virginia to Jamaica to Monrovia in a re-imagining of the founding of Liberia, centered around three characters whose supernatural abilities assist the fledgling country. History and magical realism combine to create a beautifully heartbreaking myth, where love and survival struggle to coexist.

The story begins with the Vai tribe and a girl, Gbessa, who is born the same day a wicked woman dies. Pronounced as cursed, Gbessa is shut inside her mother’s home until she comes of age and is forced out of the village. Alone in the woods, Gbessa faces starvation, isolation, and a deadly snake bite. When she finally returns to the village, the villagers are afraid of her because they believed she had died a long time ago. Reeling from this idea, Gbessa realizes they are right. She should have died, several times over. This is how she discovers her gift–she cannot die.

Far away, on a plantation in Virginia, June Dey is a slave raised by a woman who is not his biological mother. He knows nothing of his true parents, or his strange beginning, and loves Darlene fully. She patiently endures the wrath of the plantation owner’s wife, who is jealous of her beauty, for years. When the plantation owner dies and his wife decides to sell Darlene and send June Dey to the fields, Darlene finally snaps. In an effort to protect her, June Dey incurs the wrath of the overseer and is forced to run for his life. This is when he discovers his own gift–weapons cannot hurt him.

The story then moves to Jamaica, where a white scientist discovers that his female slave, Nanni, has the ability to disappear into the earth. He keeps her captive for observation, and when they have a child together, he subjects the boy to countless tests and experiments. Norman Aragon grows up dreaming of the day his father will send him and his mother to Africa to be free, as he promised to do years earlier. But when his father finally purchases tickets for an overseas journey, Nanni realizes at the last minute that he plans to take them to America. She tries to escape up the mountain with Norman Aragon, and in a violent struggle he discovers his gift–he can disappear into the earth, just like his mother before him.

As Gbessa, June Dey, and Norman Aragon continue their journeys, they learn more about their gifts and the currently shifting world. They travel through places where slavery is still rampant, through free towns, and through lands where the slave trade continues, illegally, to bring violence to peaceful villages. And in true mythical form, their paths tend to cross. Eventually, they all arrive in a newly-born country, Liberia, where they use their gifts and unique experiences to help protect this new place of freedom. Perfect for anyone who loves old-world fairy tales and mythical stories of courage, this novel takes darkness and introduces a magical light.

Wayétu Moore will be at Lemuria on Tuesday, October 9, at 5:00 to sign and read from She Would Be King.

Khaled Hosseini’s ‘Sea Prayer’ is a powerful plea for peace and safety

By Jamie

On October 3, 2018

In Foreign Fiction, Poetry

Khaled Hosseini writes beautiful books. My favorite is (was?) A Thousand Splendid Suns, a heart-wrenching, lush novel that follows two generations of Afghan women beginning from before the Soviet invasion and to after their ouster and the rise of the Taliban. One of my favorite aspects of Suns is that it’s a 700+ page book that doesn’t read like an endless tome. The writing is rapid and fluid, with equal attention given to plot, detail, and character.

Hosseini’s newest book, Sea Prayer, is the exact opposite, with one striking similarity. It’s short, airy, yet still strikingly beautiful. The writing is spare—the text is spread across 20 pages that are adorned with lovely watercolors by London-based illustrator Dan Williams—and stylistically, a departure from Hosseini’s typical dense prose. Framed as a letter from a fictitious father (i.e., not Hosseini) to his son, Sea Prayer explains why the family had to flee Homs, Syria, during the son’s toddler years. But before documenting the strife and violence, the narrator describes a Syria vastly different from the one we all know now. It was a “bustling” place with “a mosque for us Muslims, a church for our Christian neighbors,” a vibrant market filled with sounds and wonder, a home filled with family and peace.

Then, things changed: protests; a siege; “The skies spitting bombs. Starvation. Burials.” This is the Homs that the narrator’s son has lived in as far as his young memory can stretch. Now, they live in a Syria from which, for their own lives’ protection, they must flee. So the narrator and his family find themselves waiting on the shore for a boat to spirit them away to someplace without bombs and burials. First, though, they must cross the sea, “how vast, how indifferent,” a thing against which the father finds himself entirely powerless—much like the monster the father is running from.

And it’s this running from that strikes me about Sea Prayer. It’s a reminder that when people run toward new countries, they are often running away from horror and murder, away from bombs and burials. They’re not invading so much as evading.

Hosseini’s narrator prays that the sea understands this, and I don’t think I’m too far off base in assuming that this is Hosseini’s prayer for us as well. Hosseini has stated that his inspiration for Sea Prayer came from the image of young Alan Kurdi, a three-year-old Syrian boy who drowned in the Mediterranean Sea as his family sought safety in Europe. The proceeds from Sea Prayer will go to various charities supporting refugee aid. In this, the book pulls a double duty: it affects both the world in which we live and the hearts of those who read it, much like a prayer should.

Signed first editions of Sea Prayer are currently available at Lemuria.

Poetry for the Divided Life: ‘If They Come for Us’ by Fatimah Asghar

By Former Lemurians

On October 2, 2018

In Poetry

by Trianne Harabedian

It is rare and beautiful to find a book that is simply about people. A book that presents a life, that delves deeply into the pain of one person, that shows intimately the struggles of a particular family. It is even more rare to find a book that takes all of these elements and places them within a controversial context. Such a book is not passive. But instead of shoving you into political action, it leads you to take the first steps toward compassion on your own. Fatimah Asghar’s If They Come For Us is one of these books.

If They Come For Us is a collection of poems that tell the story of a young Pakistani Muslim woman who has grown up in America. Orphaned as a child, the speaker lives with her aunt and uncle. Her life is a very American mix of cultures, where she plays with Beanie Babies, eats badam, runs track, and reads the Qur’an. By day, she attends public school and tries to fit in with her blonde classmates. By night, she is told her family’s history of Partition and running from violence. Mixed with all of this are the growing up stories of every woman.

Rather than forcing the entire book to conform to one style, Asghar allows each poem to take a form that reflects its subject. “Kal,” a gentle and dreamy poem about the speaker’s mother, takes a more traditional free verse form with three-line stanzas and proper punctuation. “How We Left: Film Treatment” tells the story of the speaker’s family running from violence as if it were being adapted for film, with sections labeled “Character Breakdown” and “Working Title”. “Shadi,” told from the perspective of women who were abducted and forced to marry their captures during Partition, is a poem of scattered words and phrases that reflect instability and grief. There are even a few poems that mix playful form with a serious subject, like “Microaggression Bingo” and “Script for Child Services: A Floor Plan.” Weaving everything together are seven poems titled “Partition.” Each uniquely approaches the violent division of British India, telling stories from a historical lens, from a modern perspective, or both.

This book took a few days to read. Not because the form is strange or the words overly complicated, but because the subject matter is painful. The speaker is alone, both physically and emotionally, for most of her life. She deeply appreciates the family and friends that she does have, but there is a parental and cultural void. The feeling of not being understood in the United States is intensified toward the middle of the book, when the event that forever changes the American view of Muslims occurs–9/11. Suddenly, the speaker must analyze everything she does in fear of being identified with the terrorists. She becomes anxious when schoolmates ask her where she is from, and does not use the trendy phrase “that’s the bomb.”

It can be easiest to see life through our own lens. To only think about the way the War on Terror has changed our own routines. But one of the most beautiful functions of books is that they bring us into other people’s lives. And through lovely, honest, heartbreaking poetry, by telling the story of one person, If They Come For Us has given me another perspective.

Stephen Markley’s ‘Ohio’ explores tragedy, nostalgia of early adulthood

By Former Lemurians

On October 1, 2018

In Fiction

By Andrew Hedglin. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (September 30)

Stephen Markley’s gripping debut novel Ohio tells the story of events, both private and national, quotidian and shocking, that reverberate tragic consequences in the once seemingly-idyllic heartland of America.

On one fateful summer night in 2013, four former classmates are compelled to visit their struggling hometown of New Canaan, Ohio, after they thought they had left it behind for good.

Bill Ashcraft is a drug-addled, abrasive political activist on a mission to deliver a mysterious package. Stacy Moore is a thoughtful grad student, in town to meet with the disapproving mother of her high school love. Dan Eaton, an unassuming Iraq War veteran, has been convinced by his former fiancé to visit a gravely ill favorite teacher. Tina Ross, a big box-store worker who moved a few towns over, comes back to gain closure from a traumatic event.

The stars of the book, however, are the memories of those left behind: Rick, Bill’s childhood best friend and deceased Iraq War vet; Ben, who was Bill and Rick’s go-between friend and songwriter who died in a drug-related accident; Lisa, Bill’s girlfriend and Stacy’s best friend, presumably gone to look for her lost father in Vietnam; and Todd, Tina’s boyfriend and has-been football star, whose life has been sidetracked by poverty and poor choices.

The story is, at its core, about longing, love, and lost innocence, and for that, ghosts dominate the landscape.

There is no anchor scene in which the four main characters are together, but the story is tightly bound together by their collective experience, deftly portrayed in flashbacks from ten years earlier. While the narrative slowly builds, Markley is particularly adept at never quite tipping his hand as to where the story is going, leading to several crescendoing shocks. The contrivances needed to make this happen are relatively minor.

The pre-release publicity and certain subsequent reviews for this book like to talk about it in relation to the zeitgeist: this is what 9/11, the Iraq War, economic decline, and the opioid crisis have wrought.

Those cultural markers do feature heavily in the story, but they serve to enhance, not limit, the characters. National problems have personal consequence. Ohio is a human story, with timeless themes. How many generations have returned from war? For how many has the economy been robust? This novel could have been set in the 1970s with minimal alteration to the essence of the story or characters.

Even the town itself is claimed to be cursed, at least by its woebegone denizens. They say its misfortunes are the result of The Murder That Never Was. Less substantial than even a rumor, this urban legend is propagated by those have little evidence to support it. For the more cynical characters, such as Bill, the point of the theory is to make those whose repeat it feel elevated, as if their problems couldn’t be merely the results of a combination of larger forces and inner demons.

The experience of reading the novel, while melancholic, flows smoothly. It is occasionally buoyed by delicious dramatic irony, such as when characters stubbornly misremember or misinterpret relationships between characters, events in the high school parking lot, and the song lyrics of their dead friend and minor troubadour Ben Harrington.

The main characters are, at their core, primarily driven and deceived by love, some to greater detriment than others.

Each has the burden of heartbreak to show for it. And a broken heart is the price paid by the reader for sharing in their worthwhile story.

Andrew Hedglin is a bookseller at Lemuria and a life-long Jackson area resident.

Signed first editions of Ohio available here. Ohio was Lemuria’s September 2018 selection for our First Edition Club for Fiction.

Remarking on ‘An Absolutely Remarkable Thing’ by Hank Green

By Former Lemurians

On September 25, 2018

In Science Fiction

by Andrew Hedglin

Hank Green, the author of An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, is sort of famous. He is famous in the online video community, helping to create and host the educational YouTube series Crash Course and SciShow. He also has a YouTube channel and podcast with his older brother John Green, author of several successful YA novels, some of which have been turned into movies (you’ve probably heard of the The Fault in Our Stars, if you haven’t seen or read it, and didn’t know who created it.)

So, even if he’s not like famous like a pop star or president, he’s had occasion over the past decade or so to consider the ramifications of fame, celebrity, and influence in our culture. And he’s put these ideas to use in his smart, fun debut novel An Absolutely Remarkable Thing.

The hero of his novel is harried recent art school graduate, April May. On her way home from a late night at a demanding start-up app company, she passes by what she initially assumes is a fantastic, if neglected, art installation on the streets of New York. Sympathetic to the indifference this tall sculpture (which she nicknames “Carl”) receives from the public, she contacts her videographer friend Andy Skampt. They make a gag video, in which April “interviews” the statue, which they post online and stop thinking about.

Until the next day, when it is revealed that dozens of Carls have shown up simultaneously and spontaneously in almost every major city on Earth. The mystery of what, or who, these things are, how they got there, and what their purpose is occupies our heroes (and just about everybody else) for the rest of the book.

April finds herself thrust into the role of the “discoverer” of the Carls, and later spokeswoman for their benevolence. Of course, soon an opposition “Earth first” counter-movement called the Defenders springs up, led by the odious but seemingly credible Peter Petrawicki.

There’s great action, dialogue, characterization, and first-person narration in this novel, but even with all that, theme is this book’s strong suit. April, only in her early twenties, has to figure out who she is as a person while making decisions that could affect the future of the human race–both at the same time. Fame and celebrity distort her ability to see herself, her friends, or the Carls with the clarity that she needs. This book has a lot to examine about the nature of our contemporary–often online–discourse and the polarization of political opinion–all about a science fiction concept that does not (yet?) exist. The believability of what transpires seems to suggests that often what we argue about has less to do with the issue at hand, and more to do with something more basic in our natures.

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing is an exceptionally well-crafted debut that stands on its own, apart from his brother’s books or even his own other, previous creative work. I absolutely encourage you to pick up a copy of An Absolutely Remarkable Thing and read for yourself what a remarkable book this is.

Signed first editions of An Absolutely Remarkable Thing are currently available at Lemuria.

Tag: Staff Blog (Page 4 of 20)

Finding the Perfect Book for a Football Fan this Christmas

For the Adventurer: ‘To Shake the Sleeping Self’ by Jedidiah Jenkins

He Dreamed a Dream: ‘Congratulations, Who Are You Again?’ by Harrison Scott Key

Star-cross Singularity in ‘Original Syn’ by Beth Kander

Kiese Laymon’s new book has some ‘Heavy’ truths

Wayétu Moore’s ‘She Would Be King’ myths and magic for early African nationhood

Khaled Hosseini’s ‘Sea Prayer’ is a powerful plea for peace and safety

Poetry for the Divided Life: ‘If They Come for Us’ by Fatimah Asghar

Stephen Markley’s ‘Ohio’ explores tragedy, nostalgia of early adulthood

Remarking on ‘An Absolutely Remarkable Thing’ by Hank Green

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