A book recommendation can take the form of a business card. When speaking about the book world to a friend, acquaintance, or even a stranger, it is easy to convey a recommendation. And, like a business card, a book recommendation only actuates its potential when received by another—so readers give out recommendations freely. There is no obligation to those that receive the suggestion to go to Lemuria and make a purchase; a recommendation and a business card are gestures of self-expression. With both recommendations and business cards, the action can be interpreted as, “Hi! This is my name and this is my interest (or product/service). And, I would like to share this with you!” It is then up to the receiver to seek out the interest, product, or service on their own time. It is a closed circuit, totally reliant upon the receiver to manifest the gesture of the recommender’s self-expression toward heightened levels of understanding, appreciation, and interaction.

However good it feels to hand out a recommendation, there is always the lingering possibility that the recommender is just stating, “This is who I am, and this is what I like.” A recommendation is merely the skin of the apple a book worm wishes to wiggle through. A book worm wants to put a book they truly care about into the hands of a person they truly care about. Unlike a mere recommendation, lending a book to someone is reticent of a specific type of trust: the receiver is obligated to actually read the book, and the lender is obligated to be sure that the receiver will find some sense of mutual interest or identification with the work. Lending your favorite book to a complete stranger is like going to third base on a first date, probability points towards mutual regret and a hope that you can get your hands on one of those red flashing lights from Men In Black. Once you lend out your favorite book, you can’t just ask for it back after a day or two of missing it, just like you can’t just take off your beer goggles and get your standards back.

This is an anecdote of the time I went to the proverbial third base (as far as book lending goes) on a first date. Chance proved probability wrong: I rolled the dice and hit sevens four times in a row.

The book in question is Ghostwritten by David Mitchell. My sister, who has consistently supplied me good reading material for as long as I can remember, bought a copy of Ghostwritten from Lemuria for my college graduation present. At the time, Mitchell was an author I’d never heard of and didn’t pick up his book right away—that is until I watched the movie Cloud Atlas and noticed Mitchell’s name as writer in the credit reel.

The air conditioner in my apartment wasn’t working the day I read Ghostwritten but I wasn’t sweating because it was mid June in Mississippi—but because I was hurtling uncontrollably at unfathomable speeds through time and space toward the ultimate culmination of Mitchell’s first published novel.

I devoured it in one sitting; skipping lunch and dinner, I let my fingers touch every page and let my eyes touch every word. I had an instant connection to Ghostwritten and to David Mitchell. The simultaneous diversity and parallelism of the ethnically, sexually, and geographically dislocated narratives was unlike any other work I had read before.

I believe the romance between the lines of Ghostwritten’s prose brings forth an ephemeral observation that proves an interconnectedness of human consciousness that blurs the line between the physical and metaphysical. At the same time it sought a delicate manifestation of spirituality; Ghostwritten hooked me with a science fiction climax that could give any die-hard Trekkie goosebumps.

So, as my anecdote goes, I decided to lend it to a friend of a friend who I had met for the first time after a night at the pub. I wanted someone, I wanted anyone to connect with this work in the way I did.

Weeks turned into months, and months turned into a year, and I hadn’t received any word that the person had read any of the book. I kept telling friends all about Ghostwritten, each time fighting of a relentless urge to tell them how it ends—and one after another, maybe sensing that I really did love this book—would ask me to borrow it. I cursed myself for having thrown it into the wind on a one night stand.

Then it happened, and when it happened it made complete sense. I was at the same pub where it was given away, talking to a friend who was out for the first time after a minor surgery. As many of my late night conversations go, it took a deep philosophical turn. But then, all the sudden she decided to interrupt the conversation and said, “You know what? I have a book you might like.” She reached into her purse and pulled out the most raggedy paperback book I had ever seen. The cover was missing, and binder clips held pages together where the glue had dried up. She says, “Its called Ghostwritten, its by the same guy that did that movie Cloud Atlas.”

I tried my best to stifle squeals of hysteria, but failed, and by the expression on her face I could tell I needed to calm down. Instantly I asked what she thought about this part how it subtely connected to this other part. I was hardly giving any time for a response.

Then…

She told me that a mutual friend brought it to her after his grad school semester in Oklahoma. So, the next day, I called the mutual friend in Oklahoma to see what he thought of Ghostwritten, and I learned that another mutual friend had lent it to him while visiting in Mexico. That evening, I made an international call to the other mutual friend in Mexico, to see what he thought of the novel. For a moment, he forgot the authors name and exclaimd, “Oh yeah! I remember now, I’d never heard of the author before, but I thought it was really cool. It was on my roommate’s shelf.” I asked, “So who’s your roommate?” I was robbed of all conversation skills when he told me that the roommate was one and the same person as the friend of a friend that I had lent the book to originally.

As if in a profound physical realization of the dislocated, parallel narratives in Ghostwritten, the book passed from hand to hand, over borders, and across nations—all in order to return to its point of origin. I feel as if the connectedness embodied by Mitchell in his first work, lifted off the page, defied reason and geography and proved to me, first hand, the dogmatic connectivity of humanity. Ghostwritten spearheaded through my heart with such grand momentum, it carried itself through the hearts of at least four others without encouragement from me.

Ok, so this book has nothing to do with Barbara Streisand, but it does feature a beautiful woman with wit to spare, and confidence enough to rise to stardom when no one takes her seriously. So, ya know, same thing. Minus the musical numbers.

If you were expecting a novelization of the classic movie musical, like almost everyone who has seen the book on my shelf, you may be disappointed at first. But only at first. Nick Hornby’s story  takes you back to the 60s and into London, introducing Sophie Straw, a bombshell who could do just fine for herself as a pretty face selling perfume or even modeling. But obviously that’s not enough for her. She knows how funny she is and has only one goal in life: to be the English Lucille Ball. Who knew being so pretty could get in the way of being so funny? On her push to fame, Sophie meets producers, writers, directors, a huge cast of characters all setting Sophie up for her next big gag.
For anyone who laments the current reality TV trends and longs for the bygone beauties of classic small screen, this book is for you. Reading about Sophie’s failures and triumphs in auditions, her interaction with writers and directors, you can almost hear the live studio audience laughing in your ear. There were moments that made me feel as if I were watching I love Lucy re-runs or some other sit-com that Sophie would have killed to be cast in. Sophie’s passion and confidence aren’t unlike other girls you’ve seen in these shows, but her quick wit and sharp banter make reading the behind the scenes stuff just as fun. The dialogue between characters is part of what sells the sit-com feel of the novel. While some of the characters lack a little individuality, most play a supporting role to Sophie in the spotlight and make her shine even brighter. As her story progresses, we are treated to a look at how careers in the TV industry change over time; Sophie starts as nothing, makes a name for herself, becomes loved by all, and beyond.

So turn the TV off, pick up Nick Hornby’s Funny Girl and have yourself a few laughs. I promise, the Bachelorette doesn’t need you.

Here’s the thing about short stories–nobody reads them. And I get that, having done my fair share of slogging through some mediocre short story collections (I will not name names). Sometimes the pay-off is there, but most of us read to be swept up, to learn, to escape. It’s hard to find sustenance in short stories.

Someone somewhere said, when explaining how plot works, that good novels explode and short stories implode. I like that. 12 pages can hold a charge so powerful that the shockwaves first move inwards, rattling you bones and causing the 70% of water in your body to slush around, and then the waves move out, loosening foundations and causing dust to loosen from cracks in the ceiling.

There are very few short stories that I have read that have that power. So keep that in mind, when I say that if you haven’t read Jim Shepard yet, you’re doing it wrong.

The most noticeable thing about Shepard’s short stories are how well researched they are. One story is a fictional account of the head of the Japanese special effects team on the original Godzilla film. The next is about arctic explorers. And then there is the story set in the near-future as the Netherlands are overrun with water from a melting polar ice-cap. (Want to read these stories? Pick up a copy of You Think That’s Bad)

This month, Jim Shepard’s newest release is not a short story collection at all. It’s a novel. But it is a novel that implodes.

Set in a Jewish ghetto during the Holocaust, The Book of Aron is everything you expect from a novel of a man-made disaster. The characters are strikingly human. (Aron, a young smuggler scuttling through the ghetto, chooses his own survival over much else) Hope is a struck match; it is quick to be snuffed.

The claustrophobia of the ghetto, of what we all know is going to happen, presses the novel from all sides.

Shepard spares us from much of the horrors of the Warsaw ghettos. But the true hero of the novel (think a Polish Atticus Finch), Janusz Korczak, is unreal. But that’s the catch–he was real. Korczak, an advocate of children’s rights in pre-war Europe, he oversaw the children’s orphanage in the ghetto.

Shepherd gives the story of Korczak justice in that he doesn’t try to take it as his own. And that really is what is at the heart of what makes Jim Shepard’s stories so in tune–he compassionately borrows from the past, to give new life to what has been forgotten. He reminds us to remember.

Jim Shepard will be HERE at LEMURIA Wednesday, June 24th at 5.

Want to write your own short story? Try this short story generator.

I’m not going to lie, I definitely picked this book up because of how awesome the cover art is (it’s covered in bees….why wouldn’t I want to read it?).  But, once I actually read the inside of the book jacket I realized that upon reading this book, I would get to live the life of a bee for a few days, and I was all in (cool cover art or not).

The Bees begins with Flora 717, a sanitation bee and our heroine of the story, biting and smashing her way out of her incubation cell in her hive. She is hairy, ugly, and extremely different than all other sanitation bees. Thus, her journey begins a little differently than most. Flora 717 is faithful to her Queen and hive, but is very strong and intelligent; she quickly becomes a crucial member of the foraging kin when food shortages occur.  As she rises higher in the kin-system of the hive, Flora 717 begins to learn that not everything is as it seems and that the hive may be falling apart (literally).

Laline Paull’s novel is filled with hierarchy details that will make you feel as if you’ve stepped back into medieval times (but with bees, of course).  The Queen of Flora 717’ s hive is almost God-like, bees repeat chants of “Accept, Obey, and Serve” , have devotion time, and pray to her to forgive any sins that may have committed. There are Drones (male bees) that treat certain kin-sisters like objects and ask them to clean them after they have foraged for nectar.  Although Paull definitely keeps the real world/human nature close by, her writing will take you into the life of Flora 717, and make you feel everything she feels— from the vibrations in her antennae, to the pain and anguish she felt when she flew too far from the hive and could no longer smell the sweet scent of the Queen. She even goes into detail about the honeycomb-like flooring of the hive….it’s like you really are living the life of a bee.
So, cool cover art or not….you should definitely give this book a try. If you enjoy lots of imaginative details, you’ll enjoy Laline Paull’s small world of bees (you’d be surprised at how similar if may be to our own world!).

P.S. The Bees is now out in paperback!