I often  feel like a short story is only a snippet of what I should read about that particular story. It’s a tease. Unfailingly, I want to know what comes next.

I read Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout several years ago and loved it. My love was confirmed when it was awarded the Pultizer Prize in 2009. It is referred to as “a novel in stories.” Each chapter is a different story but there is a common denominator between all the characters in the book. Olive Kitteridge plays a part in each of the chapters and in each of the character’s lives. Though it is much like a book of short stories, it is not. Olive Kitteridge is the bond.

I stated my love for “a novel in stories” recently and Anna quickly put one in my hands. She recommenced A Short History of Women  by Kate Walbert.

Each chapter is written by a different women. Each of these women cover several generations in the Townsend family. The storyline is spread over several time periods and is very interesting to see what an entire family may face over time.

Just recently, Anna wrote a blog about Blueprints for Building Better Girls. See her post here.

I did a little research for some more titles that fall in this category. Here are just a few others  you might enjoy.

1. The Red Garden by Alice Hoffman

2. Moral Disorder by Margaret Atwood

3. Edible Stories by Mark Kurlansky

4. I Hotel by Karen Yamashita (National Book Award Finalist 2010)

Anyone have a title to add to this list? Please share!  -Quinn

I am a lover of short stories. I know that short stories turn some readers off, but I am always impressed with an author that can weave a captivating tale in only a few pages.

Elissa Schappell is one such author. I’ve recently been reading Schappell’s Blueprints  for Building Better Girls and am thoroughly enjoying her stories of women who exhibit both vulnerability and strength – sometimes all in the same story – as they weather the experience known as womanhood.

Even though the book is comprised of short stories, they are mostly linked in subtle ways and possess a fluidity that makes me want to read the book from beginning to end like I would a novel. Normally, I enjoy skipping around a book of short stories, picking and choosing which ones to nibble on a little bit at a time. In fact, that is one of the main reasons why I enjoy a good book of short stories. In this day of constant distraction, sometimes I just need to read a story from a book of short stories and know that I can come back several months later without having to reacquaint myself with the plot or characters.

That being said, I am plowing straight through Blueprints for Building Better Girls without even a thought of  jumping from one story to the next, and I am finding myself not wanting to read anything else at the moment.

Check out this  interview with Elissa Schappell on therumpus.net!

by Anna

So far this year we have seen two major new publications on Ernest Hemingway. Most recently we have seen Volume One of Hemingway’s complete letters, and earlier in the year Lemuria had the honor of hosting an event for Dr. Edgar Grissom to honor the publication of his descriptive bibliography for Ernest Hemingway. As if to give us a well-rounded year, this fall we have the publication of Hemingway’s Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934-1961 by Paul Hendrickson. As we get ready for a signing and reading with Paul Tuesday evening at 5:00, enjoy this review by our friend Dr. Ed Grissom. -Lisa

A Guest Post by Dr. Edgar Grissom

I have been waiting for a work like Hemingway’s Boat while not really expecting to ever see it. I have long hoped that the right individual might emerge who would posses the skill to conduct the dogged research necessary to get beyond the blinding Hemingway mythology and posses the skill to authentically portray the person, the real human being. No psychobabble involved just a portrayal of the man with all his weakness and strengths. No second guessing about how events may have occurred but rather the explicit unfolding of the events.

Hemingway the chameleon has made it difficult for any author to see beyond the many blinding colors. And no author had yet removed their ego from their rendition of Hemingway. I believe that Paul Hendrickson has accomplished this better than anyone who has ever attempted it. And there have been many, many such attempts. And that he at the same time produced such a delightful and impeccably crafted work is doubly impressive.

This is a work brimming with new information that tugs the reader’s heart that begs to be savored in small bites that engages the senses at every turn.

Paul Hendrickson has my admiration.

-Edgar Grissom

Notes:

Hemingway’s Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934-1961 (Knopf, September 2011) is also Lemuria’s First Edition Club pick for the month of December.

On Tuesday, Decemeber 6th Lemuria is proud to host a signing and reading at 5:00 and 5:30 for Paul Hendrickson. Some of Paul’s previous publications include Sons of Mississippi: A Story of Race and Its Legacy and The Living and the Dead: Robert McNamara and Five Lives of a Lost War (1996 finalist for the National Book Award)

Notable Hemingway Publications in 2011

See the trade edition of The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, 1907-1922 (Cambridge, September 2011), edited by Sandra Spanier and Robert W. Trogdon.

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Also see Cambridge’s collector’s edition of The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, 1907-1922

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Ernest Hemingway: A Descriptive Bibliographyby C. Edgar Grissom (Oak Knoll Press, June 2011)

See two previous posts on Dr. Grissom and the event at Lemuria: One from John and another from Lisa.

Here is a book that I really liked, but haven’t written anything about. The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides.

I got my hands on an early copy and read it this past July on vacation.

This book came out last month with much fan fare. If you missed it here is a shot of the billboard from Times Square:

Crazy for a literary book. eh?

Well, I don’t know if the billboard sold books, but this one deserves to be widely read. This is Eugenides attempt (successful in my book) at a postmodern love story. Madeleine and Leonard are young and in love – it’s the 1980s and they are steeped in college life. But while Leonard is quite brilliant he also tends to be very erratic. Meanwhile the Religious Studies student Mitchell has been in love with Madeleine since freshman year. I won’t tell you who ends up with who.

The story is captivating and the writing is never to wordy or verbose – I actually tended to think that Middlesex had some boring sections.

The secret to The Marriage Plot is that it makes the reader feel smarter. While you are reading about Madeleine’s post modern fiction class you feel like you are engaging with the Derrida or Barthes. Everyone in the store that has read this book has rushed over to the foreign fiction shelf and picked up Barthes’ A Lover’s Discourse thinking they would read it as soon as they finished The Marriage Plot only to be thwarted by lines like “Everything follow from this principle: that the lover is not to be reduced to a simple symptomal subject, but rather that we hear in his voice what is “unreal” – sheesh.

At any rate, you should pick The Marriage Plot up, you won’t regret it.

I’m not a big science fiction fan. I haven’t ever read any Stephen King. As of a few days ago, I can scratch those first two sentences.

I’m new to the fiction room and one of the most fun things to do is shelve books. It is a pleasure to see new titles, flip through the books and see what I’d like to read. It’s a fun task but it’s also trouble. My ‘to read’ list is embarrassingly long.

When I shelved books last week, I came across 11-22-63 by Stephen King. The cover portrays a newspaper headliner: “JFK Slain in Dallas, LBJ Takes Oath.” I’m fascinated with anything Kennedy. So I looked through the book and read the front flap…and of course added to my ‘to read’ list.

Norma, a former Lemurian, was here Friday and mentioned she was reading it and couldn’t put it down. A recommendation was all I needed,  I moved it up on my list. I’m now reading it.

Jake Epping is a young English teacher who also teaches GED classes at a high school in Maine. His ex wife often ridiculed him for his lack of emotion: never crying. While reading a  moving story from one of this GED students late one night, his tears begin. He knows that his life is now different. This is a big moment.

Not as big as what follows. Jake has eaten many a meals at  Al’s Diner, owned by his friend Al. Shortly after Mr. Epping reads his student’s  life changing story, Al calls him to come quickly to the diner. When Jake arrives, Al (who is suddenly physically sick and not very recognizable to Jake) shows him his storeroom. In it is a portal to the year 1958. Al is determined to get Jake to help with with his mission: to stop the assassination of JFK. This is Al- a dying man’s- request.

I am just this far, not far along considering this is a 842 page book. You would never know. It flies by. It’s incredible writing. Each sentence leaves you on the edge of your seat. I’m anxious to know what happens on the next page.

Aren’t you dying to know if Jake can stop the assassination? If he is able, what does the rest of history look like?  -Quinn

Dear Listener,

I have read my share of Cormac McCarthy, often being brought to tears by both empathy and disgust.  After I read an IndieBound synopsis that described Donald Ray Pollock’s first novel The Devil All the Time as “a novel that marries the twisted intensity of Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers with the religious and Gothic over­tones of Flannery O’Connor at her most haunting,” I was pretty certain I was in for a fun ride.  (You can find the whole write-up here.)

I was not disappointed.  With the intensity and amoral grace that surrounds the book also comes a tongue-in-cheek look on human thought and emotion.  The characters tend to act more like animals than people.  So much so that the New York Times mentioned that “it becomes unclear whether they’ve been spawned for the purposes of plot or purely for atavistic pleasure.” (You can read the whole review here.)

While reading this book, I listened to a couple from Shreveport who make up the band riverwolves.  Their soft, melodic, eerie folk/rock coincides nicely with the darkness that The Devil All the Time exudes.  If interested in this unfortunately lo-fi video, you can download their two most recent albums here.

by Simon

Since the release of John Grisham’s latest novel, The Litigators, I remembered that Grisham readers and collectors often look to fill in any gaps in their Grisham collections. So, I thought about doing a display where all of Grisham’s books would be together, a place where it would be easy to see the year of each book. So this display was born and I am quite pleased with it as it illustrates the diligence and discipline of John Grisham.

So I dug further into the First Editions room and found this interesting piece of Grisham memorabilia. In 1994, The University of Mississippi Libraries held an exhibition focusing on three aspects of Grisham’s career: The first novel, A Time to Kill; the international reception of John Grisham’s novels; and the translation of novel into film (a script and other materials used in the filming of “The Firm” were on display). The guide, pictured below, written to accompany the exhibition, includes a Foreword by Richard Howorth, A Memoir by Willie Morris, An Essay by Anne Rapp, and An Afterword by John Grisham. This copy is signed by John Grisham and is one out of 100.

I liked this passage in Grisham’s Afterword concerning the 1994 exhibition:

Presented here are papers and books that hold wonderful memories for me. The original handwritten manuscript for A Time to Kill is still impossible for me to look at without a twinge of emotion. Written on three stenographer pads, I carried this with me for three years as I diligently pursued my new, secret hobby. I wrote on these pads in the early morning hours at my office, often before the sun was up. I carried the story in my briefcase, and would sneak off to empty rooms and write while I waited for judges in the courthouses of Mississippi. I scribbled on these pads at the dining room table, long after Renee and the children were asleep. Many times I cursed the sight of these green pages, but for reasons I cannot fully articulate, I was always drawn back to them.

Grisham: An Exhibition (1994), Limited Edition Signed by John Grisham 1/100. $200.00

If you have not had the pleasure of seeing the Broadway play Wicked then I encourage you to do so at some point. This fabulous show opened in October 2003 in San Francisco. Because of the popularity of the play, it expanded to other large cities which also lead to being shown off Broadway in some smaller cities as well. That being said,  it could be on it’s way to you.

The musical is based on Gregory Maguire’s book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. This story tells of the time in the Land of Oz before Dorothy is welcomed in. Wicked has two main characters: Elphaba and Galinda. Elphaba is the one with green skin who-you guessed it-becomes the Wicked Witch of the West. Opposite the Wicked Witch is Galinda the popluar, attractive one who becomes the Glinda the Good Witch of the North. The storyline that intertwines these two is very entertaining, funny and may cause you to belt out the tunes that go with each scene!

After reading Wicked, you will want  more. Luckily for you, Gregory Maguire continued on for more books in the Wicked Years. The second title Son of a Witch came out in 2005. A  Lion Among Men came out in 2008. The final book in the Wicked Years, Out of Oz, came out on Tuesday.
This beautiful book was just unpacked and we have them ready for you to buy. The best news is….we have signed first editions of Out of Oz.

Come see us and start on the Wicked journey!  -Quinn

Reading Hillary Jordan’s new masterpiece When She Woke is much like reading Hawthorne’s classic The Scarlet Letter at the same time as The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood…..a great mixture, huh?

When I read Jordan’s first novel Mudbound in 2008, I was mesmerized by her description of the Mississippi Delta during the horrible sharecropping years. She is really, really good with setting and creates specific images which remain in your mind for years to come.  I can even remember scenes from Mudbound and how I felt while experiencing the anguish of the character, particularly the female protagonist.

In fact, as I write this, I am thinking about the similarities between the female protagonist in Mudbound compared to the female protagonist in the new When She Woke. The same comparison I would make between the female character in A Handmaid’s Tale with the female protagonist in When She Woke.

Set in some futurist society, probably the mid 21st century (yes, this novel is a dystopia), When She Woke follows the life of Hannah who has had an affair with a super fundamentalist preacher named Reverend Dale, who, of course, is not what his followers think he is: perfect in morals and aspirations and examples of the Godly life. Since I have already compared this novel to A Scarlet Letter, one can already surmise that Hannah is impregnated by Reverend Dale, so she is forced to have an abortion, a HUGE “no-no” in this dystopic world, which in this way, may not be too far ahead in our early years of the 2000s.

Because the prisons have been hugely overcrowded, the current government has decided to “mark” or “color” people for their crimes against society, in order to clear the prison. So, being “red” means a woman had an unlawful abortion in some back room, or being “yellow” means a man committed rape.  Hence, all colors of humanity walk the streets of any given city, marking these sinners as wayward, or evil, or despicable, and to be avoided. To say this novel is a comment upon prejudice or inequality or bias is an understatement!

Hannah does not tell anyone, including the father of her baby, Reverend Dale, that she is pregnant. She arranges her own abortion, and when spied upon and caught by spies for the government and indeed sent to prison, she refuses to incriminate, not only the father, partially because her parents and sister worship him, as well as everyone she knows in her Quaker like previous existence, but also the abortionist. Once she serves her time in prison and her skin is infused with “red”, she is released.

Hannah’s new life begins in a dogmatic boarding house where she is forced to make her own “baby doll” representing her lost baby, name it, and care for it as if it were alive. Shivers and repulsion and sympathy, and a myriad of emotions flood the reader at this point! One can see Hillary Jordan’s talent here at its best, in my opinion.

As the reader follows Hannah’s flee from this horrific cult like religious boarding house, through her numerous skirmishes through the underground network of her rescuers, some to be trusted, some not, the reader altruistically experiences the hopes, disappointments, fear, and repulsion of Hannah.

I am not going to tell whether Hannah survives or not, for the reader needs to experience this novel first hand. To say that most of us here at Lemuria, who read this enticing novel, could not “put it down” is another understatement. It is fast paced and mesmerizing.  When She Woke will probably be chosen as one of the best novels of the year. I know it is one of mine!

When She Woke by Hillary Jordan (Workman, October 2011)

-Nan

In 2002 a little green book was published and just about all of the staff went crazy for it.  If you were shopping with us at that time I’m sure that you will remember it because no one left the store without it in their bag. When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka tells the story of one Japanese American family who are forced to leave Berkley, CA and are placed in a Utah internment camp for the duration of the war.

Well, guess what? Julie Otsuka has a new little book, The Buddha in the Attic.  I started reading it over the weekend and I am just as in love with this one as the other.  One could almost call this a prequel because of the timing and subject matter.  Otsuka tells us the story of a group of ‘picture brides,’ who were brought to the United States to begin a new life with new husbands they have never met, and to escape their lives in Japan.

We follow them as a whole group for the next 20 years, from their journey, their arrival in San Francisco, their first night with their husbands, their new lives which consist of back breaking work in the fields and scrubbing floors for white women, to their struggles learning a new language and culture, their child birth experiences and motherhood, to the beginning of WWII and imminent internment.

We cooked for them. We cleaned for them. We helped them chop wood. But it was not we who were cooking and cleaning and chopping, it was somebody else. And often our husbands did not even notice we’d disappeared.

Reading this is like listening to a ‘chorus’ of women telling their stories as one. I really thought that I would be bothered reading a book that really doesn’t have a plot or even a narrative but I soon realized how strong and powerful this book is.

I will be readily recommending The Buddha in the Attic to all my customers especially book clubs because I believe that so many people will be able to empathize with these women’s plight and how they deal with their situations.