“Are you there, Satan?

It’s me, Madison.”

Damned: Thirteen-year-old Madison Spencer has just arrived in hell from a “marijuana overdose.”  She may only be thirteen but as she quickly and repeatedly points out, she’s not a moron or brain damaged, simpleminded or an idiot.

As excited as I am about this book coming out and us being blessed with the opportunity to host Chuck Palahniuk when he does his signing tour in October, I am most excited about the present John brought back for me from his trip to BEA in New York.

Take a look:

When John came in this past Saturday and asked if I wanted to swap my advanced readers copy of Damned for the one that he brought back I was pretty confused. When he handed me the new copy I was beyond words and could only respond with hugs and many leaps of joy.

They of course returned from BEA with much more than just personalized Chuck Palahniuk books and you can read about those things in our bookstore keys blogs.

In closing I’ll leave you with a few words of wisdom from Madison for those of us who find ourselves in hell:

-Never touch the bars of the cell you wake up in (they are quite disgusting and you don’t want to be all dirtied up when judgment day arrives).

-Do your best to not die in cheap or uncomfortable shoes or while wearing a crappy watch (remember that in hell, all plastics will melt).

-Do not eat the candy that you find on your cell floor.

If you’re a bit lost or confused, stay tuned for more about the book, the event and BEA.

by Zita

I’ve unintentionally been on a magical realism kick here lately and mostly with books that Kaycie has suggested to me, the latest of which is Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link. This lady has got one amazing imagination.

A handbag that contains an entire village if opened in a certain way.

Zombies who live in a chasm and spit up pajamas.

A witch’s son who wears a suit made of cat skins.

Living people who can be married to the dead and have children.

What?  Yes, these short stories are amazing.

Now let’s throw into the mix Karen Russell whose latest book, Swamplandia, was picked for our first editions club last month. This is pulled from an article written by Karen Russell on NPR’s website  :

“Pity the poor librarians who have to slap a sticker on Kelly Link’s genre-bending, mind-blowing masterpiece of the imagination, Stranger Things Happen. Are these stories horror or fantasy? Science-fictional romances? Travelogues to nonexistent countries: a nightmarish North America and a very weird New Zealand? Some read like detective manuals for solving crimes in the afterlife; others could be topographical maps of the unconscious. At least one has a naked ghost. This is a book that would probably cause the old wooden card catalog to catch fire.”

You can take my word or Karen Russell’s that Kelly Link is incredible or find out for yourself.

by Zita

In the last several years I have become fascinated with the contemporary English novel. I love reading English dialect and enjoy the descriptions of  the English countryside and often of London. I also find the English authors have an authentic voice which appeals to my literary cravings.

In the spring of 2009, I read Little Bee by Chris Cleave, which is set in London and Nigeria. See my blog written on Little Bee here. (You may simply click on “Nan” on the right hand side of our blog page and read my previous blogs by continuing to scroll down.)

In August of 2009, I read what has become one of my all time favorite novels, The Forgotten Garden, written by Kate Morton, whose previous success was House at Riverton. The Forgotten Garden is set in a ancient castle on the cliffs of England, as well as in the castle’s beautiful garden. At last count, I had “hand sold” about 44 copies of The Forgotten Garden to many  good Lemuria readers. Many have come back to tell me how much they loved it! You can read more about Forgotten Garden here.

Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand written by Helen Simonson is an English novel of manners. This novel makes its mark. A very proper Englishman serves as the main character who owns a handsome English cottage and garden. Read more about Major Pettigrew here.

Maggie O’Farrell’s The Hand That First Held Mine grabbed my attention immediately. First opening at a family’s home  and garden out from London, the novel soon takes the reader to London where the action remains. As a new young mother and her business minded husband learn their way with a new b0rn, a mystery of their pasts starts to emerge which takes the reader on quite a hunt. Read more here.

C by Tom McCarthy is set in England and parts of Germany. This very unique and excellently crafted novel was nominated for last year’s Man Booker Prize. I thought it should have won! Read more here and here.

A  very recently published novel, 22 Britannia Road by Amanda Hodgkinson, has become one of my favorites for 2011 so far! I recommend it to those readers who liked The Invisible Bridge and The Glass Room. Set during and after WWII, the last part of 22 Britannia Road takes place just outside of London, and, yes, there is a garden. Read more here.

Come in the store and let us show you these and other English novels. We have an impressive collection of English literary fiction. If you don’t live in or near Jackson, we can always mail the titles above or others.  -Nan

The Great Night by Chris Adrian is one of my favorite books this year.  The story is a contemporary re-telling of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and in this version three people, each of them weighed down by a failed relationship, stumble through San Francisco’s Buena Vista park on their way to a party. Adrian has broken the novel into five parts (Acts, rather, like Shakespeare’s play) and the reader gets to glimpse into the past of each of the lost, lovesick mortals.   On this same night Titania, queen of Faerie, and her subjects are also posed for a celebration—that is, until Titania unleashes the monstrous Puck out of grief and desperation over the loss of her Boy and also to bring back her husband the Faerie king Oberon.  And of course A Midsummer Night’s Dream would not be complete without someone playing the part of Bottom.  Adrian’s version is Huff, the ridiculous, overconfident leader of a band of homeless actors who are preparing to put on a musical version of Soylent Green.

In my opinion the most beautiful part of the novel is Adrian’s twist on the royal Faerie couple. Titania and Oberon occasionally steal a mortal boy, as faeries do, and he becomes a changeling.  It just so happens that the royal Faerie couple becomes particularly attached to one of these changelings and he becomes more than an amusement–he becomes their son, their Boy.  Sadly he is diagnosed with cancer, and Adrian’s portrayal of Titania’s and Oberon’s foray into the world of mortal grief and loss is touching and wonderfully imagined.

The Boy’s stay in the hospital was published as the story “A Tiny Feast” in The New Yorker in 2009 (and you can read the whole excerpt online here, if you’d like), and below I’ve included a piece of Adrian’s imagination from that very excerpt that I particularly enjoyed.

“This place is so ugly,” Titania said. “Can anything be done about that?” She was talking to the oncology social worker, one of a stream of visiting strangers who came to the room, and a woman who had described herself as a person to whom one might address problems or questions that no one else could solve or answer.

“I don’t mean the room,” Titania said. “I mean everything else. This whole place. And the people, of course. Where did you find them? Look at you, for instance. Are you deliberately homely? And that Dr. Blork—hideous!”

Alice cocked her head. She did not hear exactly what Titania was saying. Everything was filtered through the same normalizing glamour that hid the light in Titania’s face, that gave her splendid gown the appearance of a tracksuit, that had made the boy appear clothed when they brought him in, when in fact he had been as naked as the day he was born. The same spell made it appear that he had a name, though his parents had only ever called him Boy, never having learned his mortal name, because he was the only boy under the hill. The same spell sustained the impression that Titania worked as a hairdresser, and that Oberon owned an organic orchard, and that their names were Trudy and Bob.

so i received our advanced readers copy  of palahniuk’s newest novel, damned, that will be coming out in october the other day.  this man knows how to market himself.  the advanced readers copy doesn’t just come in a box with several others from the publisher like most do.  he sends us a big box filled to the brim with candy, a greeting card, some sort of toy (this time a plastic devil’s mask) and the book.

i haven’t started reading it yet as i am unable to read more than one book at a time without getting seriously confused.  however, once i do get into it i’m sure a blog will follow shortly after.

here’s a blog that i did about palahniuk quite awhile ago that was a part of a series of my favorite authors favorite books.

by Zita

I first read this collection three or four years ago–I’m guessing when it first came out in paperback, but I can’t say for sure (I really need to start dating my books after I’ve finished them).   Well, at the time, let’s guess that I was probably a naive freshman  in college, I remember being shocked by some of these stories, maybe even a little repulsed by some of the characters.  I didn’t dislike the collection, but I finished it, thought it was weird, and put it back on my shelf. Let’s chalk that up to my naivete and the fact that I probably bought it because my 18 year old self  thought it’d be cool to read a book by indie filmmaker and artist Miranda July.

Last Sunday when I was getting ready for work, I spotted it above my desk and suddenly felt the urge to pick it up and re-read it.  So I did.  I re-read the entire collection in one afternoon, and I’ve re-evaluated my college freshman assessment.  Certainly July’s characters are quirky, as anyone who knows her work might expect.  And no doubt there is something a little bit repulsive about some of them, but then you realize, that what’s repulsive are their faults, and those faults are so human–things like the inability to leave your house sometimes no matter how much you want to, miming happiness with your significant other, having a birthmark removed because everyone says “she’s so beautiful except for…” and then missing that part of yourself that you got rid of because of some silly societal standards that you’re not even sure you agree with.  These are struggles that I think we usually internalize and because we so rarely see them outside of ourselves, maybe we recoil a little when someone has put them out in the open as July does in this collection.

But to put it simply, I think these stories are wonderful and weird and sad. They make you feel a little bit lonely, but they also make you feel like you’re not alone in your loneliness and so it’s okay.

Miranda July is a performance artist, writer, actress, musician, and film director (yes, she does it all).  She starred in and directed the film Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005) as well as The Future, which debuted at Sundance this year. July is also one of the founders of the online arts community Learning to Love You More. Find out more about her and her work on her website here.  -Kaycie

Lately I’ve found myself drawn to contemporary novels of the gothic nature, so my plan for this blog is to share some of those with you.  In my opinion there’s just something wonderful about curling up in bed at night, reading by a single lamplight (or a candle if you really want to go that extra mile for ambiance), and getting goosebumps from a suspenseful story.

Here are a few that, to my delight, have been dangerously close to giving me eerie dreams:

1. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderly again.”

And so I did. I haven’t read this book since I was in eighth grade (I can tell because of the scribbles and underlined words in my old copy), and re-reading it at 22 years old I found that I still loved it.  It follows the story of the second Mrs. de Winter, a young woman who, after a very short courtship, marries the charming Maxim de Winter of the grand Cornish estate Manderly.  Sounds too good to be true, and so it is.  Mrs. de Winter finds that Manderly is haunted by her predecessor Rebecca, Maxim’s beautiful first wife.  Creepiest of all is Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper, who keeps the house running exactly as Rebecca had when she was alive.  Danvers even keeps Rebecca’s rooms aired and her favorite pajamas laid out for her each night.  Things are not, however, always as they seem, and this book certainly keeps you in suspense about what’s really going on at Manderly.

Fun fact: The 1940 film adaptation of this novel was directed by Alfred Hitchcock and won the Academy Award for Best Picture.  I certainly recommend that you watch it after reading the book.

2. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

I’ve mentioned this book on the Lemuria blog before (see that mention here), but I couldn’t leave it off this list. We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a twisted, creepy little tale about Merricat and Constance, two sisters living alone in their family’s dilapidated mansion. I don’t want to give away much but let’s just say that the rest of the family died from arsenic poisoning and the people of the nearby village hate Merricat and Constance. Things get strange, and it’s hard to say who is more frightening…Merricat and Constance or the village people.

3. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

I’ve wanted to read this book for quite some time, and I’m happy that it finally found its way to my bookshelf and then my bedside table. The story was much darker, and well, scarier, than I’d expected. I actually thought it might give me a few nightmares (but I think stayed up too late reading to have or remember any dreams).  Margaret Lea, our narrator, is a lover of the classics, so it’s quite a surprise to her when she gets a letter from contemporary writing sensation Vida Winter.  The letter is a summons to the author’s home, an invitation to write Miss Winter’s biography. It should be noted that Vida Winter is famous for not only her many novels and short stories, but also for her habit of lying to all journalists who venture to ask her about her personal life. The story she tells Margaret about her childhood at a place called Angelfield is chilling and the reader almost hopes that she’s spinning yet another lie.

The Thirteenth Tale is full of  literary references and tie-ins to Victorian gothic classics like Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, and The Turn of the Screw. Setterfield does a great job of making these classic tales foreshadow and reflect on bits of Vida Winter’s story.

So there you have it, the books that have been haunting my bedside table as of late.  If anyone has anything spooky to recommend, I’d be happy to hear about it.  -Kaycie

A few months ago our Penguin rep handed me a book that I ended up devouring over the next weekend: 22 Britannia Road by Amanda Hodgkinson. I have been waiting and waiting on the pub date, which is almost here! Attention literary readers, especially those who loved The Invisible Bridge and The Glass Room, for you all are in for another real treat!

Set in Poland during WWII and then after the war in an English shipping village, 22 Britannia Road cries out for recognition of the devastating and long lasting effects upon a war torn country and its inhabitants, especially those women and children who were left behind as their young husbands patriotically fled to be war heroes.

Rather than suffering another deplorable personal episode with a German soldier, beautiful Silvana grabs her young son and flees to the Polish countryside where they learn to live as peasants and find their food and shelter in the forests. As the narrator develops the twists and turns of the years in which they live in the wild, the reader wonders if they will actually get out alive. Of course, they do,or the story would have ended, but Silvana and her, almost feral, young son have been altered permanently, especially emotionally and psychologically.

Jump forward to the end of the war when Silvana and seven year old Aurek arrive in England, met at the train station by her husband, Janusz, who did remarkably survive the war, and has been living at 22 Britannia Road for some time hoping to get his wife and son back from Poland.

Building upon a long ago memory of  a special love before the war, the small family tries to reattach the emotional bonds, often failing miserably. When a third party enters the mix, sparks fly, but the “fire” comes when the truth about the young son emerges. The deep kept secret has all along been known by the reader, but watching how it plays out with the husband makes this novel all the more enticing and charismatic.

A debut novel, 22 Britannia Road will make waves, I predict. Authored by a young English woman born in Burnham-on-Sea,  the fast moving novel captures the emotions and personalities of each character beautifully. Amanda Hodgkinson, who currently lives with her husband and daughters in a farmhouse in southern France, will be receiving awards, I’m sure, for this splendid novel. She received her MA in creative writing from the University of East Anglia.

22 Britannia Road goes on sale Thursday, April 18th.  -Nan

All the time, customers come in and want some guilty pleasure reading.  People define it in many different ways for me it is historical fiction…I love a good “bodice ripper!”  These two titles in the genre that I have read this spring aren’t as racy as some others so I think that these will appeal to a variety of you.

Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution by Michelle Moran

Marie Grosholtz , a talented wax sculptress,  torn between two polarizing worlds, whose main goal is to make her ‘family’ business successful.  Marie is thrilled when she has finally achieved her goal of getting the royal family of Louis XVI and Marie Antionette to visit the Salon de Cire and see their wax likenesses.  She knows that with the royal ‘stamp of approval’ that she and the museum will become famous and Parisians from every walk of life will come to the Salon to receive the latest news on fashion, gossip and even politics.  The visit goes even beyond her hopes when she receives a summons to come to Versailles as the royal sculpting tutor to Princesse Elizabeth, sister of Louis XVI.  At Versailles, where candles are only lit once before they are discarded, Marie enters a world far different from her own on the Boulevard du Temple, where many people are selling their teeth to be able to feed their families.  Many of Marie’s friends, Camille Desmoulins, Jean-Paul Marat and Maximilien Robespierre, are holding meetings in cafes and salons across the city lashing out against the monarchy which is leading to talk of revolution.  This is where Marie soon finds herself trying to keep a balance between being a royalist and a revolutionary even as the  Reign of Terror becomes a force to be reckoned with.

Elizabeth I by Margaret George

This novel takes us through the last 25 years of Elizabeth Tudor’s  reign as the ‘Virgin Queen” of England.  What we learn about Elizabeth is while she was the virgin queen she did not lack for suitors, while her navy defeated the Spanish Armada she hated war, and while dressed in gorgeous gowns and dazzling jewelry she was a notorious ‘penny pincher’.  We also meet Lettice Knollys, Elizabeth’s cousin (Mary Boleyn’s granddaughter) and rival, due to Lettice’s marriage to Robert Dudley, whom the Queen always had a ‘special’ relationship with.

Lettice has been banished from court but her son, Robert the Earl of Essex, from her first marriage is gaining in popularity with Elizabeth, the courtiers (especially the ladies), and the English people.  We are also introduced to many of the strong personalities that made the Age of Elizabeth great, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Dudley, Raleigh and Drake, and understand the relationships that Elizabeth had with these men as a Queen first and a woman second.

I really enjoyed both of these novels being that they are both about strong women who did not let anything stand in the way of getting what they wanted.  They both had to play two sides of the coin to achieve ‘greatness’ whether it be for themselves or county.