Editor’s Note: Kaycie, a former Lemuria bookseller and blogger pictured left, is now living in Paris while she studies French via New York University. We are lucky to feel that we have our very own Lemurian abroad, in Paris no less, and are tickled to share some of her more-or-less book related experiences from France. Enjoy.

Tea and Tattered Pages is a used English language bookstore in the sixth arrondissement. When we walked into the store, we were greeted by a sweet older woman and her fat, orange cat.  She explained where literature, history, and children’s books could be located.  The cat didn’t explain much of anything.  It just stared at us.

I found the bookstore to be charming (it even has a little tearoom that’s open each evening until 6:30!), even though it was a little overpriced for used books.  Of course I bought something anyway.  I chose a paperback copy of The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles, while Meryl went with The Secret History by Donna Tartt (one of my favorites).

I will definitely return one day, hopefully before the tea room closes. If you’re interested in Tea & Tattered Pages, check out their website here.

Another Paris bookstore excursion led Kaycie to the famous Shakespeare & Co.–click here to go there.
-Kaycie

Until this summer, I would never have considered myself a runner. In fact, my description for people who ran on a regular basis was “crazies.” And now I am one of those crazies. I am a crazy person who puts on running gear and runs several miles and feels absolutely wonderful afterwards. I’m not going to use the silly cliche about getting high on adrenaline or oxygen or life (I have to give myself a little more credit than that) but the feeling that I encounter after pushing myself for a few miles on a run through my neighborhood is harder to describe than I initially would have imagined. Luckily, I have Haruki Murakami to help me out on this one:

“As I run I tell myself to think of a river. And clouds. But essentially I’m not thinking of a thing. All I do is keep on running in my own cozy, homemade void, my own nostalgic silence. And this is a pretty wonderful thing. No matter what anybody else says.” –What I Talk About When I Talk About Running 

This is exactly why I am now a runner. I love losing myself to the physical aspect of putting one foot in front of the other and just going. After making some relatively big life decisions this summer – which included making the move from Nashville down to Jackson without having a job lined up or any sort of actual plan for that matter (insert thanks to my Lemuria family for taking me in!) – I found running to be the perfect distraction. At first, half a mile was overwhelming, but I have eventually worked my way up to around 5 miles and am pretty proud of it! I am even planning, perhaps a little too ambitiously, to run the Mardi Gras half marathon down in New Orleans at the beginning of March 2012. Whoa.

A couple of weeks ago I picked up What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Murakami’s memoir about running, writing and how he intertwines the two in his life. (We’ve recently had some Murakami fever at the store due to the fact that his latest novel, 1Q84, hit the shelves this past week.) Not having read any of Murakami’s work, fiction or non-fiction, I didn’t really know where to begin, so I started with his memoir on running. If nothing else, I hoped it could give me some inspiration. Thus far, I have not been disappointed.

Reading Murakami’s thoughts on running, writing and life in general has been similar to having a really wonderful one-sided conversation-0ne of those conversations where you can’t get a word in edgewise, but you really don’t mind because what the other person has to say is so interesting that you want to keep listening. Even a person who is not into running would enjoy reading Murakami’s memoir, and I cannot wait to get into his fiction, which is highly recommended by several Lemurians. (And to any readers who feel they are up for the half marathon in March, see you in NOLA my friends!)

Click here to see all of Haruki Murakmai’s books.

Click here to see other blog posts on Murakami.

by Anna

Editor’s Note: Kaycie, a former Lemuria bookseller and blogger pictured left, is now living in Paris while she studies French via New York University. We are lucky to feel that we have our very own Lemurian abroad, in Paris no less, and are tickled to share some of her more-or-less book related experiences from France. Enjoy.

I just made my second visit to Shakespeare and Company. If you don’t know about Shakespeare and Co., I’ll give you this brief description: it was opened by Sylvia Beach and became the hang-out for many of the 1920s expats—you know, people like Hemingway and Joyce.  That bookstore closed during the German occupation and never reopened, but the one that’s alive and well today is a tribute to Beach’s store.  It primarily sells English language books (British covers, so it’s fun to see those in comparison to the books I saw every day working at Lemuria bookstore), and they also have a reading room/library and a piano to play upstairs. I love it.

I bought a tote bag to carry my schoolbooks in and an anthology recently released by Tin House called Fantastic Women: 18 Tales of the Sublime from Tin House, which features stories from some of my favorites including Aimee Bender, Karen Russell, Miranda July, Kelly Link, and Lydia Davis.

Here are some photos of Meryl and me exploring the store. (It was hard to get photos inside because so many people were packed in there, but suffice to say it’s magical.)

-Kaycie

This little nook is actually part of the children’s section. That wall behind Meryl is plastered with people’s love notes to the bookstore and to each other.

Some weeks it is hard for the rest of us at Lemuria to keep up with Emily and Maggie!

(Anna Dewdney drawing for the Mannsdale Elementary kids)

Emily has been bringing authors to area schools and the last couple of weeks was one of her busiest times yet.

She brought Loren Long (author/illustrator for the Otis books and illustrator for President Barack Obama’s book), Anna Dewdney (author/illustrator of the Llama Llama books), The Theodore Boone Bus (A actor group for John Grisham’s young adult series) and Ilsa J. Bick (author for a young adult book called Ashes) to the Jackson area.

Some of the schools she visited includes: St. Andrew’s Lower School, Power APAC, Madison Avenue Elementary, Pelahatchie Lower Elementary, First Presbyterian Day School, Madison Ridgeland Academy, Mannsdale Elementary, East Flora Elementary, Ridgeland High School.

Let Emily know if you are interested in an author visit to your school. E-mail her, stop by the store, or give her a call.

emily@lemuriabooks.com or 601/800.366.7619

(Maggie had to enlist an assistant to help her: Anna at Millsaps Arts & Lecture Series for Brunson Green)

So while Emily was bringing something different to the school kids, Maggie was doing her own thing.

Bookselling stops included: a packed house at Millsaps Arts & Lecture to listen to Bronson Green talk about the making of the movie, The Help; A social worker convention, Vision in Action; the Duncan Gray Center; the Jackson Touchdown Club for Swing Your Sword by Mike Leach.

Today Maggie is selling books at Jackson’s Friends of the Library as they start a new membership drive. Tomorrow, she’ll start a new relationship with Millsaps Friday Forum.

If you are interested in having Maggie sell books at a special event or group meeting, let her know! Email Maggie, stop by the store, or give her a call.

maggie@lemuriabooks.com or 601/800.366.7619

JX///RX

Loren Long at Madison Avenue Lower Elementary

Theodore Boone and the cast of Theodore Boone: Thrill of Rights at First Presbyterian Day School

In my life, I’ve used reading as a way to change myself, and sometimes influence my loved ones, my friends and my community. My goal since the age of 24 is to give my place, Jackson, the very best bookstore that I could figure out how to operate. Reading Chuck Palahniuk has caused my present efforts to grow even more ambitious.

Reading adds to our actual life experience by giving us a safe place to dig into our own psyches. Through Chuck’s characters we witness aspects of life without having to experience them, experiences we wouldn’t even want to have. I believe a Chuck Palahniuk reading experience can remind us how much control we do have over our own life plots and how much of our lives just happen to us.

In the Hell presented in Chuck’s Damned, we view from the outside what many of us fear the most: death and coming to terms with our wrongful actions and life mistakes. Maddy, a thirteen-year-old-girl in Hell, becomes his source of inspiration, a muse for the reader to view Hell with a sense of humor.

Damned gives a reason to laugh at what scares us the most, and perhaps the biggest fear for us all is to be damned to Hell. Could Chuck’s Hell be our motivator to wake up, to cut through our malaise and angst? Chuck challenges us to have less fear of the unknown and live life boldly, allowing us to have more impact on the world we do live in.

With characters who make unbelievably poor choices that border on the absurd, Chuck demands our attention. Is he perhaps creating moments of chaos for us to become emotionally challenged? As our closet lights begins to come on, and our past experiences flash by, a moment of realization occurs. I’m not sure how Chuck’s writing causes our doors of perception to open, but it does.

Some Jacksonians may wonder why Lemuria, with our gang of supporters, are throwing a Damned Book Night of Sin. Well, Wake Up! It’s all in fun with exaggeration, at least as much as we can figure out how to provide. We encourage all who want to join in our 36-year “alarm clock celebration” to participate. All over 21 are welcome to step out there. Step over your own line in the sand if you want to. It’s cool by us. By exploring Chuck we are challenging ourselves and our community to address uncomfortable issues and create change.

Damned goes on sale October 18th. “The Damned Book Night” starts at 5:30 on Thursday, October 20th at Hal & Mals. Click here for details.

JX///RX

*     *      *

cpcp

If you’ve been reading our blog over the last few months, you may have noticed references to our store Twitter account. We’ve had plenty of customers, booksellers, and book industry people follow us, but for those of you who haven’t signed up for Twitter (or are new to it) and have been wondering what it’s all about, I wanted to provide a brief explanation and a few suggestions for connecting with other book people.

Let me explain what Twitter isn’t. It’s not a bunch of self-obsessed people telling each other what they ate for lunch. Well, there are probably a few folks who still do that, but it’s pretty easy to avoid them. There was probably more of this kind of activity in the early days of Twitter, but pretty soon people figured out that no one else really cared what kind of coffee they ordered that morning.

Instead, Twitter became a place to write and pass along any thoughts that could be condensed into 140 characters — headlines, news, jokes, social commentary, basically anything that could be reduced to a pithy comment. Links and photos can be added to tweets (the individual posts on Twitter) when 140 characters of text just won’t cut it.

There’s plenty of how-to guides for using Twitter out there, so I’m going to skip some of the nuts and bolts. If you’re really lost, start by reading some of the Twitter help pages, and I’d also recommend reading this little guide that covers Twitter “etiquette.” It won’t hurt just to sign up and learn as you go along, however.

I like my Twitter timeline to be a mix of news, commentary, “famous people,” and people I know, but you can always follow and unfollow accounts till you are satisfied with your own mix. Here’s some suggestions.

Lemuria staff:
@LemuriaBooks — This is the main store account, where we post information about events, store news, and general info.
@Maggie4Lemuria — Maggie. Everyone that comes in to ask Maggie for suggestions and recommendations needs to follow her.
@JoeHickman — Joe. Good info on industry news and occasionally coffee beans.
@LisaANewman — Lisa, who also writes the tweets for the @LemuriaBooks account, and plans most of our social media efforts.
@emilyofoz — Follow Emily for all the news from Oz.
@petitchou — Kaycie will be missed when she leaves for Paris, but I expect we’ll still be able to find out what she’s reading.
@mgeoffriau — Me! I tweet about all kinds of stuff…sports, politics, movies, TV, news, and books too.

Industry and book news:
@PublishersWkly — Industry news from PW.
@PublishersLunch — More industry news.
@ShelfAwareness — Same folks that do the Shelf Awareness newsletter for sellers and readers.
@paulbogaards — PR guy at Knopf.
@yrstrulyREL — Director of Accounting Marketing at Random House.
@DonLinn — Publishing consultant.

Some of our favorite bookstores:
@SquareBooks — Our friends in Oxford.
@mcnallyjackson — McNally Jackson in NY.
@fightthestupids — Maple St. Book Shop in New Orleans.
@RainyDayBooks — Rainy Day Books in Kansas City.
@octaviabooks — Octavia Books in New Orleans.
@greenlightbklyn — Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn.
@lanora — Next Chapter Bookshop in Mequon, WI.

Some favorite authors on Twitter:
@chuckpalahniuk — Get ready for our Chuck event by following his official Twitter account.
@harlencoben — If you were here for Harlen Coben’s reading, you’ll understand.
@JackPendarvis — Jack Pendarvis
@escherx — Adam Ross
@Danchaon — Dan Chaon

Friends of the store:
@CATHEADVodka — Our favorite vodka, from Mississippi’s first legal still.
@beanfruitcoffee — Joe and Lisa go nuts for this locally roasted coffee.

And finally, possibly my favorite book-related Twitter account:
@NormsBookClub — Comedian and actor Norm McDonald hosts a monthly book club. This month Norm’s Book Club is reading Walker Percy’s “The Moviegoer” but the discussion ranges far and wide.

That’s only a fraction of the twitter accounts I follow, but it’s a good start and should include something for just about everyone. Now you tell me — what’s your twitter account? What great twitter account did I overlook? If you know of a great book-related twitterer, please share it!

For those who don’t know me, my name is Emily Grossenbacher, and I am the Children’s Manager at Lemuria Books in Jackson. Lemuria Books is the only new independent bookstore in the Jackson Metro area and this year we are celebrating our 36th year!

We are also trying to reach out to as many teachers and schools as we possibly can. We understand that it may have been a while since you’ve been in Lemuria, or maybe you’ve never been, but we want to invite you to an open house at Lemuria Books. Come meet the staff at Lemuria and receive information about how you can get great discounts on school orders and how you can be a part of our fantastic author events!

So come on by THIS THURSDAY, September 15th from 4-6. We will be happy to answer any of your questions and help you make promoting literacy a little easier.

Maybe you know that I take care of our social media at Lemuria. I also take care of a schedule for our blog which enables us to keep blogs posting at a pretty regular rate. Well, as it sometimes happens, two of my coworkers have not blogged in the past couple of days. (I’ll not mention any names.) I am thinking about that fact and checking Twitter at the same time this morning. To my delight, there is a tweet about Boo. And since there are no blogs, I take this as the final signal that I should indulge in Boo pictures this morning.

Do you know Boo? The “world’s cutest dog”? If you don’t already know Boo, about 1,638,000 people think that he is the world’s cutest dog on Facebook, and he has just come out with a new book: Boo: The Life of the World’s Cutest Dog. The tweet about Boo was about his appearance on Good Morning America this morning. This is his first TV appearance. His owner stays purposely behind as she does not want the spotlight and would like to just let Boo have it.

The other funny part about Boo, at least for me, is that John Evans is not that excited about the Boo book. Well, that leads me to another reason why I like Boo. I tell John that Boo is the perfect example of something gone viral on the Internet. We, at Lemuria, dream of the day we could go viral, at least in our community. Maybe if we had a cute dog we could! And he could do our blog instead of us boring old humans! Well, maybe not Murakami and Marquez and Marlantes. I think that would be too heavy for Boo.

So thank you absent Lemuria Bloggers for letting Boo make his debut at Lemuria.

I LOVE BOO! DO YOU?