Staff Blog – Page 3 – Lemuria Books

Category: Staff Blog (Page 3 of 32)

“You like ghost stories?”

Because it’s the week before Christmas, and Christmas is a crazy time around Lemuria, I’m going to keep this blog short and sweet; just like Gillian Flynn’s new 62 page book, The Grownup. (Okay, maybe there’s not a lot of “sweet” to this book, but you get where I’m going with this). Plus, if you’re as busy as we are at the moment and you know you don’t have a ton of time for reading, you can knock this book out in an hour.

If you’ve read any of Gillian Flynn’s other books; Gone Girl, Sharp Objects, or Dark Places (my personal favorite), then you’ll definitely want to pick this one up. If you haven’t read any of her books, but have seen the movie Gone Girl, then I really recommend you read her work! Flynn sticks to her crude, almost disgustingly haunting writing style with this one, so it sucks you right in. It’s the story of a young women runaway-turned-psychic-turned-con-artist. She’s a weird mix of things, but in a great way. Through her psychic gig, she meets a lady who is having strange things occur in her newly renovated 19th century home. She sees this as an opportunity for a lot of cash in a short amount of time. However, in true Gillian Flynn fashion, there’s a strange twist thrown in that keeps you flipping through the pages.

I don’t want to say too much, because with the book being so short, it’s easy to give something away. But, with a question like this on the back of the book: “You like ghost stories?” I think we can both agree this is a fun, 62 page, thriller given to us by Flynn.

Why Maude Schuyler Clay’s ‘Mississippi History’ is Breathtaking

By Former Lemurians

On December 15, 2015

In Art/Photography, Events, Gift Books, Newsworthy, Southern Culture, Staff Blog

Maude Schuyler Clay has a new photography book. On a whim, I decided to flip through its pages because I do love a good coffee table book. Looking at these photos, I felt goose bumps; as someone who appreciates art, and the intricacies that are often involved in the history of art, this collection of photographs feels both intimate and timeless. And as there has been a bent and focus on the Delta recently (Richard Grant’s Dispatches of Pluto, an incredible outsider’s view of Mississippi), the sense of place in these photos counterbalanced Grant’s book and is clearly an insider’s view of Mississippi.

At first, I did not know that these people, or subjects of the photographs, were Clay’s own family and friends. But every time I would see a character’s name appear in a different photograph, in a different time, in a different location, I felt a jolt of recognition, a connection with that person who I had also seen several pages back.

What I love about this collection is that it is not chronological. Pictures of her children at twelve appear before pictures of her children when they are toddlers. And because of this repetition, the people in these photographs aren’t just subjects, but characters, part of a story. Clay could have easily called this book “My Mississippi History.” But it wouldn’t have retained the same mysteriousness; it was only after reading the closing words at the end of the book that I learned these people were her own children and family—after all, there are pictures of them in the bathtub, and on Christmas morning. Where else would the photographer be on Christmas morning than at home with her family?

The ambiguity with which the photographs are arranged and presented allows the viewers to place themselves in that moment, to recognize a piece of themselves in Mississippi History. The photographs were taken over the past three decades, so I also loved guessing when the photographs were shot. Some are clearly recent; “Mr. Biggers” has Apple earbuds in his ears as he stands with fresh greens in his hand. Some are unmistakably from the 70s. My favorite picture is of “Anna as Heidi.” All of the photographs are gorgeously artistic and intimate. The majority of these photos are of children, especially Clay’s own children in different stages of their lives, so the photographs have a very evident “mother’s eye-view” in them, a look at what a real Mississippi mother truly sees.

Today, anyone can take a picture on Instagram, put a fancy filter on it and call themselves a “photographer.” Clay shows that she is a genius in the art of photography, and has been using light and shadows in nature to create those illusive filters we place on photographs today.

Flipping through the pages of Mississippi History feels like flipping through a good friend’s photo album. It is the perfect gift for that person who loves to take pictures of their children, and also perfect for anyone who has grown up here in the Magnolia State.

Join us on Thursday, December 17 at 5:00 for a signing event for Mississippi History!

Alice in Wonderland is turning 150!

By Former Lemurians

On December 11, 2015

In Fiction, Gift Books, Oz: Children's Books, OZ: Young Adult Fiction, Staff Blog

by Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), wet collodion glass plate negative, July 1860

“Tell us a story.”

This is the age-old petition of children. There is the delight and wonder of hearing words spun from thin air, where even the creator of a story doesn’t quite know what will happen next. And so on a “golden afternoon” in 1862, the three Liddell sisters, Lorina Charlotte, Alice Pleasance and Edith, ask for a story from Mr. Dodgson. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was a mathematics lecturer at Christ Church College where the three girls’ father was the dean.

The heroine of the story on this particular day was Alice. In his article “Alice on the Stage,” published in 1887, Dodgson confessed that in some “desperate attempt to strike out some new line of fairy-lore, I had sent my heroine straight down a rabbit-hole, to begin with, without the least idea what was to happen afterwards.”

What happened afterwards is the story of a girl who falls into a land of nonsense, logic games, puzzles and paradoxes. Published under the pseudonym “Lewis Carroll,” Dodgson presented the first manuscript of “Alice’s Adventures Underground” to Alice Liddell as a Christmas gift in 1863. After meeting publisher Alexander Macmillan, Carroll then asked satirical cartoonist John Tenniel to illustrate his Alice.

by Nicola Callahan

Tenniel portrays Alice as a little girl with long blond hair (the blue dress would come later), and this is how we remember her today, although the real life Alice had short, dark hair with bangs cut straight across her forehead. Tenniel’s illustrations were carved into woodblocks by engravers, and then those woodblocks were used as masters for making metal copies to be used in the actual printing of the books. The true first edition was published late in 1865 as “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”

In “The Lobster-Quadrille,” the Gryphon says to Alice,

“Come, let’s hear some of your adventures.”

“I could tell you my adventures — beginning from this morning,” said Alice a little timidly; “but it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”

Alice tells the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle her adventure starting with her falling down the rabbit hole, but when they ask her to repeat the story, she cannot tell it twice. So it is with the original creation of Alice’s story; a story that is told aloud is constantly changing and morphing. Alice’s adventures have been around for 150 years, and each time one reads it, there is something new to uncover, something different that wasn’t understood before. As it is with reading stories, they are constantly changing and evolving, and it’s no use going back to yesterday. Alice is not the same as she was 150 years ago. She has grown (not just by eating cake) and has evolved into different literary and illustrated interpretations.

Alice has lasted 150 years because Wonderland is a puzzle that can never fully be solved — it is a place that continues to ask questions. Fall down the rabbit hole and walk through the looking glass. You won’t be the same as you were yesterday.

Original to the Clarion-Ledger

Repost: Christmas in Small Business, Mississippi

By Former Lemurians

On December 10, 2015

In About, Business/Economy, Southern Culture, Staff Blog

Originally posted during the intoxicating rush of Christmas season 2014.

“Why are there 10 people behind the desk right now?!”

It’s a frequently asked question here during the holidays at Lemuria. You could say that we prepare for Christmas the way armies prepare for war…but it’s less terrible and way more fun. We beef up the staff, pump up the inventory, order pizza for the troops, and wait at the front lines to take special orders, ship presents to your cousins in L.A., and find you the perfect novel for your best friend.

Working at Lemuria during the holidays is undoubtedly my favorite time of year. Tis the season for Kelly and myself to don dresses and blazers, lovely earrings and kitten heels, sore feet be damned. It’s when I can put my favorite classics into the hands of parents to give to their children. Classics for Christmas! I can’t explain it, but it’s definitely a thing. It’s when we get to reflect on all of the books that we read in the past year and tell you all about them. Me? I killed some pretty incredible middle grade this year. Oh and graphic novels? Don’t even get me started, it’s been 12 months of nothing but wonderful discovery in that area.

Christmas in a bookstore is when we’re stretched both mentally and physically. Those boxes of of the Jackson book are definitely heavier than they look. Christmas is about lifting with your legs, not your back. We get asked some pretty weird questions around this time of year, too. You guys love your friends and family so much that you’re willing to go to almost any lengths possible to get them what they want for Christmas, and we appreciate that. Still, there’s only so much we can do when you ask for books by “Jill Lasagna”. (not a real person)

Anywhere else in the world, working retail during the holidays can truly be a nightmare, but here at this little bookstore, we are so lucky to be selling something that we all love so much to people who have kept us in business all these years. A lot of times, I tell my friends that it’s like something from a movie with all the bustling about with wrapped packages and the warm coziness of being surrounded by books. The store is full, and although we wish it was this full all year long, we cherish the few weeks leading up to Christmas. We love talking to you all. We love recommending books that will spread joy and imagination.

Gifting the Perfect Book: David Mitchell Fans/Ghosts Looking for a Good Time

By Former Lemurians

On December 7, 2015

In Fiction, Gift Books, Staff Blog

David Mitchell’s latest novel Slade House is a spooky bedtime story for adults. Being Christmas time and all, I realize a spooky story is not exactly what the season calls for, but honestly I am always in the mood for something creepy and dark. I’ll admit that I have never read David Mitchell, and I feel like this was a good start for me. Slade House is still in keeping with his well-crafted, literary quality while not being quite so ambitious in scope. The prospect of Cloud Atlas has terrified me at times but after reading Slade House, I do believe that the lonely Cloud Atlas sitting on my shelf will get read now.

So on to the matter at hand: Slade House serves as the backdrop for our story and is the base of operations for the twins Jonah and Norah Grayer; who for over a century have lured gifted people into this seeming paradise slap in the middle of London for one tempting reason or another. However, this grand estate with a vast garden is merely a nightmare masquerading as a paradise. The twins’ chosen victims always enter through a black iron door in a back alley that enters into the back of the gardens. Their goal is to ultimately lead their victims into a certain room of the house, where they then feed on the soul of the wanderer. The reader is on the edge of their seat hoping for a last minute rescue. Will it come?

The twins have lived for a century by these methods in this house that was actually demolished in The Blitz; Slade House is a mirage of sorts that appears every few years when it is time for the twins to feed again. The story starts off in 1979 and goes all the way to 2015, and we get to know several different unsuspecting people and their individual stories. I, for one, became a silent cheerleader for all these poor bastards who had no idea what was waiting for them.

A paranormal group becomes involved, as does a divorced cop investing the disappearance of the first victim we get to know. Although this book was dark and not exactly cheery, I had the best time reading it. I couldn’t wait to get in bed every night and see what Jonah and Norah were going to do next. This novel is a very attractive book that any die-hard Mitchell fan would love to have on their shelf, and is the perfect read for anyone just starting out on his books. Christmas gift, anyone?

Gifting the Perfect Book: Seekers of Timeless Wisdom

By Abigail

On December 4, 2015

In Fiction, Gift Books, Staff Blog

The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choice-less as a beach — waiting for a gift from the sea.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh has left us one of the greatest gifts in A Gift from the Sea; her meditations on life while on vacation by the sea. Each page is awash in intelligence and beauty from the depths of her individual and societal contemplation. Mrs. Lindbergh has left us the greatest gift that can be left to those who will come after us: knowledge. Knowledge is like a pearl of the sea, hard, strong, and incredibly precious. Lindbergh leaves us not only this precious gem, but the priceless record of a life well lived.

Her book was recommended to me by a co-worker who claimed I would love it. She was more than correct, as I now claim it as the most beautiful book I have read to date. The book’s beauty transcends it’s 1955 copyright date, as she writes so simply on our humanity.

I was recently sitting in a Starbucks in Huntsville, AL with a dear friend while visiting her family. We were both focused on individual projects; she was fine-tuning a graduate school paper and I was reading and contemplating Gift from the Sea. We were interrupted by a woman who couldn’t contain her joy at my reading Mrs. Lindbergh’s book. She had read it many years previously. There in the small bustling Starbucks, happiness was found as we discussed the various seasons of life, and the excruciatingly beautiful words of wisdom from Mrs. Lindbergh. The simplicity and meaning of this shared experience rang clear, all I must do now is patiently accept gifts from the sea.

‘The Witches: Salem, 1692’ by Stacy Schiff

By Former Lemurians

On December 2, 2015

In History, Religion, Staff Blog

Stacy Schiff is one author I didn’t think I had to worry about. Many people remember her for her famous book on Cleopatra, but she’s also written about Vera Nabokov, Benjamin Franklin, and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. She seems to sort of sift around vast time periods and pluck whatever she finds interesting, and that’s why I like her. If you read Schiff, you know she found something. I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s noticed, this woman has more awards and Pulitzer nods than I have time to list here.

So I thought I was guaranteed a perfectly thought provoking book in her new work The Witches: Salem, 1692, and I was right on that front. There are a couple of points I want to make on this one, because this book was really eye-opening at times and at times it had me rolling my eyes.

My first pause came with the writing style. I’ve been reading reviews and a lot of people didn’t take to it. It is a very stylishly written book and uses some flowery language that history buffs who are used to a dryer tone might not be used to. Like here:

“The sky over New England was crow black, pitch-black, Bible black, so black it could be difficult at night to keep to the path, so black that a line of trees might freely migrate to another location or that you might find yourself pursued after nightfall by a rabid black hog, leaving you to crawl home, bloody and disoriented, on all fours.”

The whole book is like that. It paints a good picture, but sometimes it made learning harder because I had to see the facts through all the details. It didn’t bother me too badly, and it was a nice change from how purely analytical military history books are.

Next, there was the feminist angle; Schiff has this point that the Salem witch trials were a time when women were finally in the spotlight as a legitimate threat and they didn’t emerge back into the country’s voice until the essay era of Suffrage and the Prohibition. Nah, I don’t buy it. I don’t really see how hanging women really counts as giving them a “voice”. Plus, Harriet Tubman, Clara Barton, and a bunch of other American ladies were making history between the 1600 and 1900’s.

Despite all of this, I still learned a lot from this book. Most of what I know about the Puritans/ Quakers/ Reformed Christian settlers came from Hawthorne, and he wrote about how corrupt the Puritans were. Schiff reminded me that their corruption wasn’t just bad, it was insane. These people lived alone in the woods on the other side of the world from people they knew. Salem only had just over 500 people. Just over 500 people who would shackle you in the town square for simply lying. Dogs were killed for participating in witchcraft.

That was the really chilling part. I remembered all those novels warning about what happens when people are too isolated, and they begin to lose their humanity. (Lord of the Flies, Frankenstein, Blindness). But this isn’t fiction. It really happened. That’s why I think Schiff chose to write Witches like a novel, because it scared me more to realize that something that felt like reading a horror story was a real part of American history.

So I feel like this book could have been better in some parts, but all in all, I’m glad I had this creepy read right at the end of fall.

‘The Christmas Mystery’ By Jostein Gaarder, translated by Elizabeth Rokkan, and illustrated by Rosemary Wells

By Former Lemurians

On December 1, 2015

In Gift Books, Oz: Children's Books, Parenting/Family, Religion, Staff Blog

There are officially 24 days left until Christmas. In the Christian tradition, Sunday marked the beginning of Advent, the period of anticipation and preparation before the birth of Christ on December 25th. This book is the perfect addition to any home, and will help your family on the journey towards Christmas, much in the same way Mary and Joseph journeyed to Bethlehem. The Christmas Mystery is a Norwegian tale about a young boy named Joachim who goes with his father to buy an advent calendar on November 30^th. They find a very old one that looks home-made. The book-seller gives it to them for free, saying, “I think you should have it for nothing. You’ll see, old John had you in mind.”

When Joachim opens up the door to December 1^st, a piece of paper falls out. On the back of the paper is a story of a little girl named Elisabet who follows a lamb out of the department store, and each day continues her journey following the lamb. The book is divided into 24 chapters, each representing a day of Advent, and would be perfect to read aloud for each day leading up to Christmas. Every chapter is preceded by a jewel-like illustration by Rosemary Wells, and flipping the pages feels like opening up the flap on an Advent calendar.

Discover the story within a story; as Joachim unfolds each day on the Advent calendar, he also reads about Elisabet’s journey through time to Bethlehem and the birth of Christ. Joachim and his parents also become involved in a journey to discover the identity of John, the man who made the Advent calendar, and the mystery of the real-life Elisabet, who disappeared 40 years ago on Christmas Eve. This Advent season, pick up the The Christmas Mystery for the whole family to enjoy the wonder and mystery of Christmas.

Gifting the Perfect Book: Purveyors of Nonlinear Masterpieces

By Former Lemurians

On November 30, 2015

In Fiction, Staff Blog

Zachary Thomas Dodson’s premiere release of Bats of the Republic curled my mustache. It ruffled my petticoat. It rattled my saber.

At first, it seems like Dodson is roaming around his laboratory grabbing a piece here and a piece there, then tossing them into a hissing concoction of steam, true love, fear and laudanum. Borne by Dodson’s miraculous engineering, Bats of the Republic comes to life like a steam golem. Step by step, spare parts assemble into colorful, eccentric prose. What Dodson has done in Bats of the Republic is not madness; Bats is science, and Dodson is the scientist (albeit a mad one).

As a bookseller, this book doesn’t even need me. All I have to do is put it in a customer’s hand and tell them to flip through the pages. In this way, the book sells itself. Bats generates immediate intrigue. On first contact, you’ll be left wondering things like, why do these pages look like they’re from an antique book? Or, why the hell is there an intricate drawing of a rabbit with deer antlers? Or, what’s up with this sealed envelope at the end that has ‘do not open’ scrawled on the back in blood?

So, the first thing you’ll notice about Bats is that the book is visually beautiful. The illustrations and formatting, all designed by Dodson, add incredible depth to the work. Subtle differences in page/type formatting punctuate revolving plot lines. This is a well-apprehended device, because as the novel gains velocity, plots (separated by vast differences in time and space) begin to dance around each other in succinct, eloquent proximity.

If you’ve ever read House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, then you understand the potential of a mixed-media novel. Although Dodson and Danielewski may share conceptual elements, the two artists seek to provoke vastly different outcomes. Whereas Danielewski’s work often becomes chilling, Dodson has a sly sense of humor that permeates the entire work. The comic element of Bats is a blend of quizzical curiosity and hopeless irony. At times, Bats will leave you feeling bat-shit-crazy; feeling as if you were lost in a desert, chasing a mirage of a water park.

In the way of plot, Dodson has created something that has never before been approached. It is steampunk futurism interacting with the accurate history of America in her early 19th century adolescence. Bats is the romance of Jane Austen combined with spicy blood magic, witchcraft, and mystical astronomy.

BOTR13

But most of all, the novel is a guileful social commentary. The society that the protagonist lives in (Texas in the distant future) is a dystopia that would make Aldous Huxley and Ray Bradbury facepalm. Not only are citizens in these communities not allowed to read, they’re prohibited from writing ANYTHING on paper. Everything is recorded and monitored by clandestine thought police wielding steam-sabers.

With Bats of the Republic Dodson has firmly established his ingenuity, and I eagerly await any new work from him. Bats is easily the most creative novel I’ve read this year. Come to Lemuria and let me show you this book; because, if your taste are in anyway similar to mine, one of the rebellious, mustachioed heros of this novel will carry you far beyond the prohibitive walls normative society. Dodson blazes like a lantern in the deepest, darkest caverns of the imagination with this work that will be long remembered.

All images from www.zachdodson.com

Gifting the Perfect Book: Passionate Environmentalists and Animal Lovers

By Former Lemurians

On November 27, 2015

In History, Nature, Science, Staff Blog

I love animals. All of them. The cute ones, the dangerous ones, the ones that sleep in our houses, and the ones that hide in remote rainforests, only ever exposing themselves to a few, lucky sets of human eyes.

I’m guessing you probably love animals too. Maybe you have a couple of dogs, cats, or goldfish at home; or maybe you take your nieces and nephews to the zoo when they’re in town; or maybe your computer wallpaper features a sleepy-eyed koala front and center (mine is a snow leopard). Regardless of how it manifests itself, a love for animals is shared by three out of every four Americans.

Well, guess what… They’re all dying… or at least a lot them are. So says Elizabeth Kolbert in her Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Sixth Extinction.

Kolbert, author of the acclaimed Field Notes from a Catastrophe and a staff writer at the New Yorker since 1999, spent several years traveling the globe learning from scientists in various fields who study the changing environment and its effects on Earth’s animal and plant life. Her conclusion? By the end of the century, 20 to 50 percent of all species will be extinct.

The first several chapters of the book cover the five mass extinctions chronicled in the fossil record, including the most recent extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. From mollusks to mastodons, Kolbert handles the dearly departed species with delicacy, and presents the science behind their disappearance in a way that is easily digested for the layperson. She also describes the gradual acceptance of mass extinctions among scientists of the 18th and 19th centuries led by the likes of Cuvier and Darwin. The idea that an individual species could disappear from the earth entirely was hard to imagine only three hundred years ago. The idea that a force could eliminate species en masse was totally unthinkable.

Jumping to the present, Kolbert travels from Central America, where beloved frog species have disappeared in a matter of years, to the coast of Australia, where coral reefs home to thousands of species are receding due to increased ocean acidification. She introduces the idea that we are living in a new epoch called the Anthropocene in which human activity has become the dominant factor impacting the natural world. Since the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, scientists estimate that around one to five species went extinct each year. Fast-forward to the Anthropocene, and the rate is now more than a dozen species each day!

In one of the most memorable anecdotes of the book, Kolbert explains the arrival of the brown tree snake on the island of Guam via military ships in the 1940s. Devoid of any natural predators, the snake “ate its way through most of the islands native birds” lacking any natural defense from the foreign predator and reduced the island to one native species of mammal. “While it’s easy to demonize the brown tree snake, the animal is not evil; it’s just amoral and in the wrong place,” says Kolbert. It has done “precisely what Homo sapiens has done all over the planet: succeeded extravagantly at the expense of other species.”

For such grim content, the book remains surprisingly upbeat. From chapters entitled “Dropping Acid” to a detailed scene of a zookeeper sticking a gloved hand up the rectum of a rhino, Kolbert does her best to maintain a sense of humor throughout. Most importantly, she ends on an optimistic note, focusing on the successful efforts that can and are being done to save species. “People have to have hope. I have to have hope. It’s what keeps us going.”

Here’s to hoping that the koala on your screen will be around for generations to come.

Category: Staff Blog (Page 3 of 32)

Gifting the Perfect Book: Psychics, Home Owners With Super Old Houses, or Con-Artists

Why Maude Schuyler Clay’s ‘Mississippi History’ is Breathtaking

Alice in Wonderland is turning 150!

Repost: Christmas in Small Business, Mississippi

Gifting the Perfect Book: David Mitchell Fans/Ghosts Looking for a Good Time

Gifting the Perfect Book: Seekers of Timeless Wisdom

‘The Witches: Salem, 1692’ by Stacy Schiff

‘The Christmas Mystery’ By Jostein Gaarder, translated by Elizabeth Rokkan, and illustrated by Rosemary Wells

Gifting the Perfect Book: Purveyors of Nonlinear Masterpieces

Gifting the Perfect Book: Passionate Environmentalists and Animal Lovers

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