Year in Review

Another year has passed and what a crazy year it was. Things at the store are great. I just bought a house. Everything is going well; though it does seem that the busier I am and the better life is the number of books finished slides downward. This year I read seventy-one books and managed to write about forty-one of them. Not too bad!

I just wanted to share a few of my “greatest hits” in a couple different categories.

Best All Around:

The Interestings - Meg Wolitzer

The Secret History - Donna Tartt

The Black Count - Tom Reiss

The General in His Labyrinth - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Best New Release (I did not read many new books this year):

The Interestings - Meg Wolitzer

The True Blue Scouts of the Sugar Man Swamp by Kathi Appelt

Mouse Bird Snake Wolf by David Almond

The Twistrose Key by Tone Almhjell

Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan

Best Middle Grade/YA:

The True Blue Scouts of the Sugar Man Swamp by Kathi Appelt

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

The Twistrose Key by Tone Almhjell

Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan

Mistakes Were Made (Timmy Failure Book 1) by Stephan Pastis

 Best World Book Night:

The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

City of Thieves by David Benioff

My Antonia by Willa Cather

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain

My Bookprint

Victoria wrote last about her Bookprint. The books that have imprinted themselves on her life. It is a fascinating idea and got me thinking about my Bookprint as well. As she said, these are not necessarily favorites (though many of them are) but the books that have changed me - become a part of my makeup.

My Bookprint:

The Giver by Lois Lowry
I know that I have written before about the greatest reading year of my life, the fifth grade. That was the year that my brain was opened to the possibilities of books. Not just that reading was fun but that it made you feel things and experience the world differently. Studies have shown that an active reading life (especially of fiction) increases empathy - my link to that well of empathy begins here. The Giver is about a harder set of choices than I had ever to face and reading it woke me up to the world outside myself.



The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

Our understanding of literature both on a personal and communal basis is fluid. Interpretations change as society changes. I have always been familiar with this concept, but reading O'Brien's memoir-novel-stories-truth about his experiences in the Vietnam War taught me a deeper understanding of literature. He explains that a true war story is not about whether or not the events described actually happened - all true war stories are true. Literature is truth.

Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut
I have taken so much from Kurt over the years, but he gives so freely. He offers solace, a laugh, a punch in the gut, and many buckets of cold water bringing reality back to my world view. The reason that this book has made it onto this particular list though is that it has altered the way I think. I am a full believer in thinking things through; this was another gift from Kurt Vonnegut. Thinking things through means bringing a thought to its furthest logical (and sometimes illogical) conclusion. Sure this makes me crazy neurotic, but I wouldn't have it any other way. Satire is just the literary equivalent of neurosis, but as O'Brien taught us - it is true. Taking action (or not) without thinking of not just the consequences but the full range of meaning behind that action is the greatest plague upon society. History only repeats itself because we allow it to. Most of us look neither forward nor back; we all need to learn to think things through.

The Collected Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs
I inherited a collection of pulp Burroughs paperbacks from my uncle at around age 9. I read one almost every day for close to a full year. These vintage books featuring buxom beauties on the covers felt so adult, and at a difficult time in my life when so much felt out of my control I turned to them. They made me feel grown up (and grown-ups can take care of themselves) and they gave me an escape. I went on adventures with Tarzan and John Carter. I traveled to Mars and the land that time forgot. I lived in these books. And now, almost twenty years later, it is still books that I seek when I'm overwhelmed, in need of a friend or an adventure.

The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer
Definitely the most recent read on this list. I finished The Interestings very recently, but this book absolutely resonated with me. The hopes, pretensions, even the envies of the characters all so closely matched my own. And their fumbling into adult made me feel...okay. This novel gave me pause to say to myself that no one else knows what is going on either. Very few of us have it together. I may never be an Adult in the way that my siblings are, but I'm cool where I am and I am definitely not alone.

My Book Collections

I can sometimes be a little obsessive (who would have thought?). One of the ways this manifests itself is in completism. And since of all the areas of my life reading is the forefront, this completist attitude dictates a good bit of my reading and book buying. I cannot start a book without finishing. I cannot begin a series without finishing. I collect entire bodies of work by various authors or even imprints (Canongate Myths, anyone?). But my two favorite collections? Granta and the Modern Library.

 Granta is a literary magazine of “new writing” that has been published quarterly since 1979. I currently own 15 of the 123 issues. As a subscriber I receive the newest issue each quarter, but my favorite thing about this collection (besides reading them of course) is hunting down back issues. I haunt library sales and used bookstores and since my collection is still in the early stages and I have so few issues I usually find one or two I don’t have.

 

Modern Library is a publishing house begun in 1917 as a way to disseminate literature to the masses in attractive, cost effective hardcover books. I love the design of Modern Library books, especially those from the 1920s and 1930s. I have been collecting these guys for the last eight years and I’m closing in on 100 editions. This type of collection means defeat for me as a completist (there are thousands of Modern Library editions of classic and modern works) but in this instance I think I can take it. They make for a beautiful bookshelf.

As the book industry and the world continue to change, I can’t help but think about the book as a physical object. I have an ereader and I enjoy using it (especially my Kobo’s backlight – reading in the dark is my new favorite thing) but I still have a passion (some argue fetish) for the book as physical object. I like seeing these two collections on my shelves. A digital file will not remind me of the time John and I found a cache of Modern Library books at a tiny used bookstore in the middle of nowhere on our way home from a trip to North Carolina. I will never loan my Kobo to my sister as I emphatically proclaim “you just have to read this one story!” I don’t consider myself a materialist or a fetishist. However, I see books as a repository of ideas and I enjoy having the physical manifestations of those ideas in my space, creating my world both in my head and outside of it.

Seeing Wicked, Doing Good: a Reaction

I’ve spent the last few weeks in a state of Ozmania. After listening to the soundtrack for years, I finally got to see a performance of the musical Wicked this May (two performances actually, you can’t see Wicked just once). Since then I have been enamored of all things Oz. I’d seen the film in the past, but it was never a favorite. I read and enjoyed Gregory Maguire’s novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. And above all I have listened to the original cast recording of Wicked countless times. However, none of this ever led me to any of Baum’s fourteen Oz books.

Wicked (both the novel and the musical it is based on) is the story of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

from the other side of the street. Maguire’s reimaging of the original Oz story is darker and much more adult than Baum’s classic. Wicked is the story of Elphaba, the daughter of the Munchkin mayor who is born mysteriously green. She has grown up as an outcast, too different and frightening to be accepted in society, making her a character that is quick to see the injustice in her world. The wizard of this story is not the kindly savior of Oz we have come to expect but a power mad tyrant piggybacking off of the talents of others. The good witch Glinda may be the character that has changed the least – I never trust goody-two-shoes characters and Maguire makes an excellent argument here for why it is best not to. The novel (and musical) is also peopled with a whole host of new characters from a love interest for the witches to a political ring of talking animals.

This is not your childhood version of Oz. Wicked is about the incomprehensible dichotomy of good and evil. Maguire, by creating a revisionist satire of a beloved children’s story, forces us to question our very morality. In all of our actions is it intentionality or results that matter? If I am wicked for the sake of a great cause am I truly Wicked? If my best intentions lead to grave results is it by mistake or design? The brilliance of the novel is in pitting often selfish actions of Glinda the Good against those of the crusader of justice Elfaba the Wicked. It the same old cliché, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.

All of this grand satirizing and moral thinking had me finally looking back to Baum’s novels. I read a lot of literature aimed at children and much of it is written with a greater message. Kid’s lit is full of “teachable moments.” I decided that by only coming to Baum through Judy Garland I was missing out on some of his lessons. Finally I took the time to read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. I was so surprised.

The first thing I learned was that Baum himself did not intend to moralize. As Baum writes in his introduction, “the story of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was written solely to please children of today. It aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heartaches and nightmares are left out.” The greatest thing about this book is how fun it is. It is all absurdity and adventures and all around great fun. I regret that I haven’t been recommending it to kids for ages! But I will definitely start now. The overall theme of this book is simply to believe in yourself, which speaks so greatly to every imagining of the Oz story. From Dorothy to Elfaba, believing in yourself is a steadfast point toward doing Good.

PseudoReview: The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee by Sarah Silverman

I have discovered the joy that is audio books. The fact that I want to read just about every book ever is a mystery to no one, but sometimes I have to stop reading and, you know, do things. This time spent away from books has always been a sad time for me. Until I met audiobooks. Doing laundry has never been better!

It all started a few weeks ago when I finally decided to conquer my grandmother's flower beds. The beginning of spring meant lots of weeding and the removal of great amounts of fallen leaves...this would take hours. I decided that the best way to go about it would be with a book. In some ways, I am a lot like a puppy (mostly in that I am adorable, but also because I have a short attention span) so I worried that I may not be able to focus my full attention on a book while working in the yard. For this very reason I chose a book that I hoped would be entertaining but would not be difficult to fall mentally in and out of. I listened to comedian Sarah Silverman's memoir, The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage,Redemption, and Pee.

Silverman is a comedian that is famous for a certain kind of humor that can only be described as “potty humor.” But what made me want to read her book is the way in which she uses her grossout, controversial jokes. Silverman is a smart woman and a savvy comedian – she attempts to build a greater narrative surrounding her bits. Using juvenile humor she introduces her audience to the the idiocy of racism or explains what it is like to be gay (in that it is the same as being straight – all relationships are weird). To the late night Comedy Central audience (where Silverman's television show ran for three seasons) these ideas were not the norm but were embraced by way of Silverman's style.

The best parts of the book were definitely when Silverman wrote about her intent behind her jokes. Especially when they failed by being misinterpreted. She writes about being young and naive and learning on the fly. It is a good read for anyone feeling lost or outranked in their profession. This was an entertaining memoir and while it is ultimately forgettable (like all celebrity memoirs) I am glad that I listened to it, and it made yard work a lot funnier.

I never read memoirs by celebrities, apparently unless they are by female comedians, but these books make perfect listening – they are easy to dip into and out of as I have time to listen and the authors reading their own words only make them more engaging. I loved Bossypants by Tina Fey and Mindy Kaling's Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me is the next book I'll be picking up on audio. I look forward to so many more audio books. It is a decidedly different reading experience, and I'm getting to the type of books that usually get pushed to the end of my TBR list (especially memoirs and genre fiction). I'm reading more, I'm doing more, it's perfect.

Year in Review

I read a total of seventy novels last year and I managed to review fifty-three of them. I wanted to dedicate a little bit of space for a few top fives (no particular order, these are just listed as they came to me):

Best All Around:

The Fellowship of the Ring – J.R.R. Tolkien

The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver

Cloud Atlas – David Mitchel

Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy

All the Pretty Horses – Cormac McCarthy

Best New Release:

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore – Robin Sloan

The Orphan Master's Son – Adam Johnson

The Fault in Our Stars – John Green

Philida – Andre Brink

Red Thread Sisters – Carol Peacock/Keeping Safe the Stars – Sheila O'Connor (tie)

Best Middle Grade/YA:

The Hunger Games trilogy – Suzanne Collins

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian – Sherman Alexie

Because of Winn Dixie – Kate DiCamillo

The Red Thread Sisters – Carol Peacock

The Invention of Hugo Cabret – Brian Selznick

Best World Book Night:

Kindred – Octavia Butler

The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao – Junot Diaz

The Namesake – Jhumpa Lahiri

The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver

The Things They Carried – Tim O'Brien

And a gratuitous chart of the gender ratio in my reading year, which I think is interesting because while the literary world is said to be male dominated I tend to read pretty evenly along gender line (though I seem to favor female authors over male authors especially in middle grade and young adult lit). World Book Night lines up right along with me as well.

World Book Night: Those I've Read

Of the thirty books being dispensed on World Book Night I've only read six. I must say, that makes me a little sad - like maybe my finger isn't on the pulse of the literary world. I am happy to be remedying some of the more glaring holes in my reading repertoire; I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I've never read Maya Angelou and I cannot tell you how many times I've received a shame-filled stare and teenage tut-tutting when I happen to mention that I haven't read "The Hunger Games". Before April 23rd I'll have at least another twenty four holes filled. I'll be posting my responses to the books here as I read them, but first I wanted to talk about about those I've already read.

"A Prayer for Owen Meany" was the first John Irving book I read and since then I have read one of his novels every year. Irving is so wonderful that I can't allow myself to read him all in one go - I'm pacing myself which makes that one book each year all the more glorious.

Owen Meany is God's instrument. His entire life, as sad and difficult as it often is, can be measured up against this statement. Owen was born with quite a few problems. He has a weak heart, a weird voice, and a tiny stature, but none of this will stand in the way of him performing God's Will - not in any way that he knows of I might add. Owen Meany knows his destiny is huge and he has surrendered to it.

John Irving's novels are always heavily plotted, and with this one in particular Owen's martyrdom is what pushes the book forward. However, as is the case with all of Irving's novels, it is what is said and not really what happens that is most important. This is truly a book about
faith and morality.

Alice Sebold's "The Lovely Bones" is one of those novels that has stuck with me, but not in a good way. I read this book a few years ago and while I didn't hate it, I definitely recall much more of what I did not like about it than what I did. I'll start with what I liked though. I liked the way the book opened. You knew that Susie was going to die from the first sentence. I think that's a daring way to begin a novel. The author has to work harder to make the reader care about a character that we know is going to die. Characters can be flat and distant if we know what's coming for them, but Sebold challenged this to good effect. I also really enjoyed Sebold's heaven - she created a beautiful and tragic fantasy. But what I couldn't stand, what my mind is left with, is the ending. I laughed, I rolled my eyes, I lost the goodwill I had for these characters. A bad ending can ruin a good book, and for me that was the case with "The Lovely Bones".

When I read "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" I was awed. Henrietta's story, Rebecca Skloot's research, the scope of the entire incident/book/etc... just floored me. This book altered my worldview. Skloot forces her readers to look at big ethical questions about informed consent and how medical research (or scientific research in general) is done. I actually read this book for the store's bookclub and it was on of the best discussions we've had yet. There are some issues here that are black and white, but on the whole the saga of the Lacks family is difficult to reconcile. The loss of their mother and the facts of poverty are both devastating. The manner in which the medical establishment handled the family and their questions is unfortunate, but what rights do they really have to the HeLa cells? It never occurred to me to think about my appendix and my ownership of it before. Will that appendix still be mine if it's not inside of me? Will it be more 'mine' if it turns out to be profitable and would I be willing to spend the money funding research and testing to determine whether or not it was profitable then mining the legal and medical fields to establish myself in the body parts business in order to profit from my appendix. That's an incredibly simplified version of events, but you can see that even there all of the issues get murky. Rebecca Skloot's book debates this issue and so many others using what happened to Henrietta Lacks and her cells as well as several cases wherein the doctors or research scientists did not have the best interest of their patients at heart. This is also the story of the Lacks family as the personalities that they inject into book humanize the subject matter and allow us to look at the people on the other side of the science.

Finally, "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak. I have wanted to write about this book since I read it a year ago, but I just haven't been able to. This is a book that needs to be felt. I really still cannot think of what to tell you about it, even something as simple as a reaction. The book is about WWII, it is narrated by death. It is absolutely gut wrenching and you should read it. That's really all I can leave you with; you should read it.


I've written previously about "Just Kids" and "Little Bee". I look forward to reading the rest of the World Book Night titles and responding to them here.

Why I want to give Just Kids by Patti Smith

On April 23rd I hope to be passing out 20 copies of Patti Smith's memoir, "Just Kids." I feel like World Book Night and this particular book are a perfect pairing. WBN is about finding people with whom to share your passion as is Patti's story.

In the late 1960s, Patti Smith (still just a kid) moved to New York City in order to better understand who she was and who she wanted to be. There she met Robert Mapplethorpe and began a relationship that would transform each of their lives. Patti and Robert each knew that they wanted to create art.

"I understood that what matters is the work: the string of words propelled by God becoming a poem, the weave of color and graphite scrawled upon the sheet that magnifies His motion. To achieve within a work a perfect balance of faith and execution. From this state of mind come a light, life-charged."

Art, any kind of art, is the spark of life.

"Just Kids" is about is the relationship that Patti and Robert shared. How they pushed each other to experiment with their creations. Patti prompting Robert to take his own photographs and Robert in turn prompting her to sing some of her poems. They each found great success through these endeavors and built up communities around themselves dedicated to the importance of art. However, even more than these two people and their art "Just Kids" is about art and passion as a whole. It is about the need to express and the need to experience art. The need to share these experiences.

The gulf of idealism runs deep throughout the book. It makes me wonder about just how much the world has changed. Has the vastness of the internet and our global community killed idealism? The host of snark and the altar of irony have made a mockery of true feeling. Can we be "Just Kids" any longer? Then I realize that all is not lost; the soul of the world is not dead. Books like this are being written. Art is alive in the world and people are gathering in its name. Promoting art and literature and true passion through community involvement is the goal of World Book Night. It starts with the distribution of one million books by passionate givers, but it does not end there. It extends to new conversations, new relationships, and new communities.

At a time when people are saying that book culture is dying and no wants to meet face to face to discuss books here we have fifty thousand individuals who are going out to do just that. World Book Night was established to create new readers, but I know it will do more than that. World Book Night will serve as a shot of adrenaline into literary communities. More people will be going into bookstores, passing books around, and sharing their literary experiences - that's the power of idealism.

World Book Night 2012

There are, as the tagline of WBN shows, 'a million reasons to read a book.' I could not possibly agree more and I am in love with the whole idea of World Book Night.

What is WBN you ask? It is a night of spreading the love of books by giving away 20 copies of one of 30 books to friends, strangers, anyone! The creators of World Book Night are looking for 50,000 people to give away 1,000,000 books. It's amazing! It's incredible. And I want you to sign up!

You can go to the World Book Night website and choose which book you would like to receive 20 free copies of. Then you answer a few questions such as where you would like to give them away: a high school, a nursing home, a hockey game ... anywhere you can think of that you can find people who may not be avid readers. If you are chosen as a giver on April 23 you will get the opportunity to put a great book in a stranger's hands and talk to them about how important books are to you. It's all about community building. You may meet your new best friend or future spouse - that's just how important books are!

Cavalier House Books has registered as a book pick up area, which means that anyone in our area chosen as book givers will come to the store to pick up their case of books. Between now and then I've decided that I want to highlight the WBN choices. I'll be posting reviews of (hopefully) all thirty books. If you'd like to read along with me you can find the list of titles here. Read on and come talk to me about the books on April 23rd when we'll be having a get together at the store to celebrate bookishness in general and World Book Night in particular.

Call and Response

I've written before about how I made it out of school without encountering a lot of the classics. One such book is "Jane Eyre." In fact, I had never read any of the Brontes until I read Charlotte's novel. I wonder if I can possibly express to you how deeply I got in to this book. I followed the characters. I was Jane. I loved Rochester. I was fully present in this novel and could barely put it down. But reflecting on it made me think about the appeal of the classics. What is the draw of the literary canon? Is it that these books are all just "that good" and have managed to stand the test of time? I rather doubt this as "good" is really subjective and I've read a great deal about how "Jane Eyre" is not a technically good novel (we don't have to go into why I disagree with that, do we?). I have a feeling that the more true answer lies in the canonical books as cultural touchtones.

Reading a book like "Jane Eyre" would be enjoyable in a vacuum. It is a good book on its own terms but more than that (for me, anyway) is being able to stake my claim in the novel's cultural landscape. I don't find that I get the same satisfaction in reading modern "it" novels as I do from completing a classic. I'm not as interested in the discussion surrounding the current ubiquitous titles. I wonder why that could be? I imagine it must have something to do with the history of the discourse. The classics have years of study and written response to them.

One way in which the classics have a cultural leg up on the front list is in parallel texts. I mentioned "Jane Eyre" specifically not only because I enjoyed it but also because I read it along with Jean Rhys 1966 novel "Wide Sargasso Sea." Rhys' novel is a modern response to Bronte's and tells the story of the other Mrs. Rochester. A direct literary response like this will not be found for a current popular title (books tend to take a while to write and such) and it can add so much to the earlier work. "Wide Sargasso Sea" is a feminist, anti-colonial look into Jane Eyre's world and it will make you look at the characters within an entirely different light. A close reading of a text will give you a look at the characters but to have someone else rearrange and re-imagine them can open doors of understanding that may have previously been closed. I definitely felt that way about these two novels (though nothing could put a damper on my irrational, romantic love of Rochester ... I admitted it was irrational!).

Flavorwire recently put together a list of 11 parallel texts that's worth checking out. Many of these have been added to my TBR pile. Anyone interested in taking over my bookstore duties? I just want to stay home and read this summer!

The internet has me thinking...

There is a series of recent articles swirling around in my head right now (not the least of which is this one - no more Oxford comma? I'm a fan of all commas!). I know how they all fit together in my head; I'm just looking for a way to connect them to yours. You know, without the convenience of The Matrix.

The first is a recent discussion on NPR's Talk of the Nation regarding our limitations in media input called "You Can't Possibly Read It All, So Stop Trying." The title basically says it all and I don't know if I can possibly explain to you how this made me feel. As a means of understanding I'll share an anecdote from my childhood, when I was a kid I once asked my mom how long she thought it would take me to read every book in the world. She told me that I couldn't possibly, ever. This hit me pretty hard. Frankly, I'm still getting over it. And I'm still trying to read every book ever, which is probably why I have over 1,000 books at home. But back to the show, one of NPR's culture critics, Linda Holmes, suggests that you must either cull or surrender when it comes to imbibing books (or culture or mass media at large). To cull is to make a broad swipe and say this is not good/relevant/worth my time/whatever and ignore whole sections of artistic output while surrendering is to say this may be great, but I've already got all this other great stuff going on over here so I can't possibly get to it.

I'll call myself an approaching surrenderer (yeah, I just made that up). I'm not a cultural elitist, so I wouldn't say that I judge wide swaths of culture as beneath me and thus cull them. That being said, I can tell the difference between art and entertainment and I think that's a really important distinction that often gets lost in the shuffle. So, what I mean when I say that I am an approaching surrenderer would be that I try to balance the art with the entertainment (perhaps what my more highbrow peers would cull). I don't think being well-read means that you've read all of the Russians or Milton or whatever; it seems to me that being well-read means being widely read. I've read Milton and I've read Christopher Moore, for that I consider myself rather well-read. There's a cultural playing field when it comes to literature that I feel comfortable stepping out on. I know that there are holes in my literary background but I'm striving to fill them. That's just gotta be enough for me because, as my mother told me years ago and Linda Holmes reminded me Monday, I can't read everything.

Now, why am I sharing this with you? Before I go there, let me share the next article. Author Ann Patchett will be opening a bookstore in her hometown, Nashville. Apparently, Nashville doesn't have a bookstore anymore. The indie that had been in town for 30 years has closed, the chains have fled, and Nashville is left with nothing but the internet (and here's hoping a thriving library system but somehow I doubt it; are "thriving library systems" even allowed exist anymore?). I'm hoping you are starting to catch my drift here. This is going to be one of those "bookstores are important!" posts. I heard Patchett's news and I immediately thought of Holmes' discussion.

When you know that the number of books out in the world is really too much to fathom, how do you deal with the question of what to read? For some the answer is simply the recommendations of friends, for others it's the NYT Bestseller's List, but one that I think is really important is the community bookstore (as well as the library; I'm a huge library fan). Sure, a website can tell me what books customers purchased together, but is that all the information I want? What if I want a recommendation that's geared to me and my immediate literary community? That's not going to happen without a conversation. Then there's the limitless possibility. Not all limitations are a bad thing; in her interview Patchett says "I think we’ve got to get back to a 3000-square-foot store and not 30,000." The word typically used for stocking a small bookstore is "curating," as though it were a collection. When you have such a small amount of space a great deal of care goes into how you fill it, trust me on this one. When I consider whether or not to put a book in my store I am taking into consideration whether or not I would recommend it to someone. I don't have enough space (or funds) to dedicate it to books I don't believe in.

That is how I'm helping you to surrender to the vastness of the literary world. I spend most of my time reading books or reading about books because that's my job. I do it so that I can act as a guide through this vastness and in that way you can still have time to, you know, do your job.

#YAsaves

For those not familiar with Twitter lingo the # before a word or phrase tags it and is called a hashtag. Using a hashtag makes searching for a subject easier. After the publication of Meghan Cox Gurdon's WSJ article someone, I've heard it was YA author Maureen Johnson, created the hashtag #YAsaves. The entirety of the YA community caught on to the tag and twitter was ablaze with stories of the good that comes from YA. This isn't love, kittens, and sparkly vampires good; this is actual "this book saved my life" good. Today, I'm not even going to talk about how all YA is not dark. I covered that earlier. There's plenty of love and kittens and those sparkly Cullens. All that is well and good but today I've got an answer to this question: "Contemporary fiction for teens is rife with explicit abuse, violence and depravity. Why is this considered a good idea?"

Darkness in YA literature (darkness in any literature, in any art) is a response to the darkness in society. Let's face it, the daily news is a whole lot more grim than many of the books that Gurdon calls out in her article. She calls these dark and violent books smut (she uses that word - without irony. Who does that?). If it's called smut when it is fiction what are we to call the nonfiction? Lauren Myracle's "Shine" is one of the dark and violent books Gurdon specifically calls out, noting that it opens with a gay teenager being "savagely beaten." So, what are we to call Judy Shepard's book "The Meaning of Matthew" about her life (and the world) after the murder of her son? Or, is it okay for Shepard's book to deal with darkness because it was not aimed at a young audience? Are we to assume that teenagers are so oblivious to the world that they don't know hate crimes happen? I should hope not. Then, isn't it right that they should be able to read a book about it? A book that may help them to understand the world even if it's in response to a completely non-understandable situation.

This is the problem with challenging the acceptance of dark subject matter: if you are not interested in it then it is not meant for you. Maybe your life has been relatively free of darkness; you haven't experienced it and you don't want to read about it so why should you? You don't have to. That's a perfectly valid option. But don't judge those who do. As Sherman Alexie pointed out in his response to Gurdon's article:

When some cultural critics fret about the “ever-more-appalling” YA books, they aren’t trying to protect African-American teens forced to walk through metal detectors on their way into school. Or Mexican-American teens enduring the culturally schizophrenic life of being American citizens and the children of illegal immigrants. Or Native American teens growing up on Third World reservations. Or poor white kids trying to survive the meth-hazed trailer parks. They aren’t trying to protect the poor from poverty. Or victims from rapists.
No, they are simply trying to protect their privileged notions of what literature is and should be. They are trying to protect privileged children. Or the seemingly privileged.

Life is difficult for just about everyone, especially teenagers. To combat that some people escape into "hyper-violent" dystopias like "The Hunger Games" or maybe they relate to the damaged characters in "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian". That's why I think "abuse, violence and depravity" are a good idea in young adult literature. Not only is it a good idea, but it is absolutely necessary. These books are needed; they are doing actual good. These books are saving lives. And really, do I have to say this, are we actually complaining about kids reading?

I know I stated that I don't really read YA, but one of the YA books that I have read is Laurie Halse Anderson's "Speak". "Speak" is a genuinely good book and an important book, and Laurie Halse Anderson is awesome. For the tenth anniversary of the publication of "Speak" she wrote a poem in honor of the feedback she received from the book, which is about a girl who was raped. The poem is called "Listen" and you can watch her read it below. After you hear this poem you will fully understand just how #YAsaves.

Who is YA?

By now, everyone's heard of the Wall Street Journal article about YA literature with the byline "Contemporary fiction for teens is rife with explicit abuse, violence and depravity. Why is this considered a good idea?" At first, I wasn't even going to respond to this article. I am neither a reader nor writer of YA literature. I've started reading more of it since we opened the store two years ago and since I made a friend who blogs about YA books (and forces the best of them into my TBR pile), but I'm not connected to this genre in the way that others are. Now I'm gonna talk about it anyway.

In my opinion, YA literature is for young adults. Isn't that what those two letters, Y.A., stand for? Meghan Cox Gurdon's article refers to a 13 year old girl. As a bookseller, I would not point the mother of a 13 year old kid to the Young Adult section. 13 to me means kid ... it doesn't mean Beverly Cleary kid but it doesn't mean House of Night teen either. It's somewhere in the middle, and where appropriate reading material for one 13 year old kid falls may not be appropriate for another 13 year old kid. In her article Gurdon writes, "kidnapping and pederasty and incest and brutal beatings are now just part of the run of things in novels directed, broadly speaking, at children from the ages of 12 to 18." She admits that the genre is broad. So broad that maybe we shouldn't be calling it a genre anymore; YA literature has become literature in which the main characters are younger than 20. It's got as many genres within as Adult literature and is read by 13, 16, 18, 20, 30, and 60 year olds. That opens up a lot of doors.

Guess who's here to help you navigate that multitude of doors: booksellers! librarians! teachers! These are people who live to help young people find not only age appropriate titles but titles that are appropriate to the specific person in question. Personally, I focus on middle grade literature. Send me any kid, give me a few specifics as far as likes and dislikes and I can recommend a book they will love. Parents of reluctant readers have told me that I work some sort of magic. It's not magic - it's my job. I read a lot and I research even more so that I can recommend the right books to the right people. I love creating that perfect coupling; that's why I'm in this business. It's not a fancy algorithm, it's just me being a passionate reader and someone who likes to share my passion. I can guarantee that every good bookseller, librarian, and teacher feels the same way. All the ones I know do.

And let's talk about censorship for a moment. Gurdon claims that those she calls "gatekeepers" operate in contrast to the publishing industry. The publishing industry exists to sell books and "smut" (her word) is what sells best to teens, so her gatekeepers (the same teachers and librarians I was just talking about) must operate to keep that smut out of the hands of precious, corruptible children. Gurdon even includes a colorful quote from an unnamed editor about the sacrifices publishers have to make to satisfy these gatekeepers. I'm sorry, but that's just not the way it works. Yes, eliminating some of the bad language from a book aimed at teens may get a wider acceptance in the school curriculum. But not every book is meant for the school curriculum. Publishers know that. That's why when I have a discussion with my publishing sales rep she says "this is a great title for you to bring into book fairs!" She's read the books; she knows what's best for the diversity of a school and a bookfair where there's less hands-on bookselling. That's not censorship. A class has anywhere between 20 to 30 students. A teacher may have 7 classes. That's over 200 possible students. Of those 200 students some will be comfortable with bad language (or dark subject matter) but many (and their parents) will not. I think it is just as bad to censor a book as it is to force a child or young adult to read something that they are not ready for.

I don't consider teachers or librarians (or booksellers!) to be gatekeepers. That sounds like a negative term. I prefer to think of us as individuals who open doors, not those who seek to keep them closed. My favorite teachers were the ones who taught me on my level. They recommended outside reading. They exposed me to books and authors I wouldn't have found and ideas that challenged me. I was ready for that, but not every kid is and good teachers know it. A friend recently told me that she borrowed a copy of "The Stand" from me in middle school and it terrified her. I loved Stephen King at that age; she didn't. We are different people with different ideas. There's nothing wrong with that. Stephen King shouldn't be published just because I liked him and he shouldn't be banned just because she didn't. King's novels are published because there is a market for them. The market wasn't created. No one forced me to buy that copy of The Stand - I wanted to read it. As long as teens want to read dark books there will be dark books because the market demands it.

I wish that the mom described in Gurdon's article had come to my store instead of the chain she went to. I would have talked to her about her kid. Learned about her interests and recommended a stack of appropriate books that I was enthusiastic about. She wouldn't have been overwhelmed by the amount of darkness in YA literature because once she told me she wasn't interested in dark books I wouldn't have recommended them and she wouldn't have even noticed them.

I had originally wanted to talk about this article and #YAsaves but sometimes my brain goes otherwheres. Maybe tomorrow I'll write about my ideas as to why the market demands such dark subject matter.

Post-BEA Post

If you follow a lot of book blogs then I'm sure you will have seen plenty of BEA wrap-up posts over the weekend. I'm going to add my voice to the chorus (are we a chorus? Maybe 'teeming horde' would be the more appropriate phrasing). For anyone reading who doesn't follow other blogs (that would probably just be my Nonna), BEA is BookExpo America. It's definitely the biggest book trade show in North America thus it is the biggest book industry event on the continent. That's impressive. Also, it's overwhelming. I thought about titling this post "On Being Horrible at Networking" but I'm hoping it will turn out to be more than that.

So, BEA. I went into this whole thing totally blind. Frankly, the internet was not very helpful in telling me what to expect. All I read about BEA from years past in other blogs was "wear comfortable shoes" (that I did, my friends, that I did). Not knowing what to expect leads to no expectations, and if you have no expectations you can't be disappointed, right? That's a good thing. The only thing I really expected out of BEA was to get an advance copy of Jeffrey Eugenides' new book "The Marriage Plot" which I have been waiting for since 2003 when I read "Middlesex" (also known as one of the best books ever). That didn't happen. But I wasn't that disappointed because in his speech at one of the author breakfasts BEA hosts, Eugenides said "I just finished it yesterday." Hearing him talk about the process was almost as good as reading a new book, so I can wait a little while.

I'm getting ahead of myself again...Day One of BEA was, for me, on Monday. It was the American Booksellers Association's Day of Education. I cannot tell you how awesome this was. I love, love, love getting together with other booksellers and discussing what's going on in our stores. Literally, it is exhilarating. Everyone shares ideas and talks about what's working in their corners of the world. And everyone is passionate about exactly what I am passionate about: books! Talking about books and sharing books. It makes me understand things like ComicCon (that's a kinda true joke). I learned so much and came back with so many new ideas to integrate into my store. If the whole week had been like this one day it would have been one of the best of my life.

Then on Tuesday the floor opened. The floor is the (monstrous, gargantuan) area where various publishers and vendors set up booths to display their wares. I was originally looking forward to this. Having no idea what to expect I guess I sort of started to expect what I wanted to happen. In my mind, I would walk into a booth, talk about the upcoming books and their authors, schedule some signings, get some ARCS. Basically I thought I would be courted by the publishers. Publicists would see my badge and think "she's a bookseller! My authors will want to go to her store!" That's not really what happened. That's actually not what happened at all.

I spent the entire first day wandering around like a lost kitten wondering why no one wanted to talk to me. Then I realized that one must be assertive. There are thousands of people here (that is not an exaggeration); the pubs can't talk to everyone - make them want to talk to you. Well, as stated earlier, I am bad at networking. Luckily, I'm part of a team. John (aka the husband and co-owner in this bookstore endeavor) and Jaime (aka totally awesome new friend, blogger at bookmarkedblog.com, and future employee of CHB) each talked up publishers and authors and made connections to score future events. That's what BEA is all about.

BookExpo was a pretty intense experience. It's huge and a bit overwhelming. But it can be a lot of fun if you are ready for it. From hearing authors speak every morning at breakfast to being one of the first to get your hands on the IT book of next season to making those all important contacts, BEA definitely offers a lot. I just wasn't quite ready for it. Next year though, it's on New York.

Review (plus some): The Guggenheims by Irwin Unger and Debi Unger

I spent my 22rd birthday in Venice. You would think that would have been enough but it wasn't; I wanted to to spend my birthday with the Peggy Guggenheim Collection at her Venetian Palazzo. John and I traveled through the canals across tiny, beautiful Venetian bridges and arrived to find the museum closed. I was disappointed. Flash forward to this Christmas (almost four years later), John has a crazy glimmer in his eye when he hands me my Christmas present. I can tell it's a book, but what book would he be so excited to give me? I unwrap the package and find "The Guggenheims: A Family History" by Irwin and Debi Unger.

I'm still a bit confused at this point. It does look like an interesting book, but it's not one that was on my radar and I don't see why he'd be so excited about it. Then, the real present comes out: I'm going to Book Expo America! My Christmas present was that he went to all the trouble to orchestrate a week off for the two of us (a grand feat when your bookstore has exactly two employees - the two owners!). I am thrilled beyond measure by this. I mean, it's BEA - I don't have to tell you how big of a deal that is, right?

For anyone confused as to how the two preceding paragraphs relate to each other: he also got me advance tickets to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, which is conveniently located in NYC - the city that hosts BEA. Feel free to ohh and ahh over how cute and sweet he is. He's pretty awesome. Anyway, the book ...

"The Guggenheims" is a group biography that you can read as a flash through modern history. The family definitely lived through it and more often than not they touched it beginning with Meyer Guggenheim's entrance into industry in the 1850s. The Ungers rather nonchalantly deliver lines such as "in ten minutes of conversation, the fate of the American rocket program was settled." The participants of this ten minute conversation were Daniel Guggenheim, Harry Guggenheim (by proxy), and Charles Lindberg and they went on fund Robert Goddard's research on rockets. Goddard's grant from the Guggenheim family allowed him the freedom to develop new rockets that when on to influence World War II. I just can't get over that - a ten minute conversation.

That's probably what I enjoyed most about this book, it read as a historical text but added names and faces to the events. In my opinion that's what good nonfiction does, it links story and history into something cohesive. I find that easier both to digest and remember. In the case of "The Guggenheims" the narrative is indeed historical (it's a family history after all) but not linear. I would call it more tangential. The Ungers focus on one aspect of the Guggenheim's life and follow it through to its conclusion then move on to the next aspect, which may have had its temporal beginning in the center of the previously described events.

The book starts in the 1800s with the first Guggenheim's immigration to America, follows Meyer's rise into industry, and the family's decline as an industrial player. This was the part I as a bit leery of. I'm not incredibly fascinated by the mining industry and I worried that I would find most of the book dry until I got to the part I was interested in, Peggy Guggenheim and her involvement in the art world. Let's be honest, parts of the beginning did drag a little as the Ungers described the ups and downs of the Guggenheim's business interests. But the book never became a chore to read because of the characters it was peopled with. Every time you begin to be bored with business prospects and contracts the Ungers throw you a bone in the form of an interesting historical aside such as the fact that Meyer's son Benjamin was a passenger on the Titanic. He was the guy you see in James Cameron's movie who is dressed in his tuxedo, having a drink in the dining room as the ship goes down. That actually happened. Benjamin's last known words, were "we've dressed in our best and are prepared to go down like gentlemen." Or, a chapter or so later you'll get this gem of a quote from Meyer's grandson, M. Robert Guggenheim: "Every wealthy family supports at least one gentleman in leisure. I have elected to assume that position."

The later half of the book deals with the aspects of the Guggenheims I was more familiar with. Solomon's museum, Harry's fellowship, and Peggy's liaisons. The Ungers point out in the beginning of their chapter on Harry that the lasting influence of the Guggenheims is not their contributions to the world of industry but to that of art. The family has started museums, newspapers, art gallerys, even a publishing house. It was fascinating to see how far their influence reached. It wasn't that they were famous creators of art (though many in the family did become artists) but they surrounded themselves with and supported many of the modern creators of great art. At one point the Ungers provide a list of famous recipients of Guggenheim fellowships, and seriously these are the names that everyone recognizes.

By the time I reached the section on Peggy Guggenheim (the Guggenheim I was originally most interested in) I was a little disappointed (but just a little). Her salacious lifestyle couldn't hold a candle to the stories of Harry Guggenheim influencing multiple strains of history or the many stories of family politics gone awry. All in all, this was a really good read. It's kind of a beast in length but definitely worth the time - and while you're reading it it won't feel like much time. Fully recommended.

So, BEA was this week and I'm sure I'll be posting about it next week, but for now here's a picture of John and me in front of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, "a daring and adventurous building."

My Reading Life*

I went to Twitter this morning to post my #fridayreads and noticed that some people were using the amended hashtag #goodfridayreads. Some people say it's in regard to Good Friday others say it's Goodreads. Whatever the case may be it got me thinking. My reads during holy week should be a bit more, well, holy. I'm currently reading a fantastic middle-grade fantasy/fairytale by Catherynne M. Valente called "The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland" but I'll talk more about it when it comes out next month. All of this leads me to today's post: I'm usually a one-book-at-a-time kind of lady, but I've got a little book polygamy going on this year. It's all because...

I'm finally doing it! I'm reading arguably the most culturally important book in the western world. You probably have a copy in your house even if you haven't read it (I have six) - it's The Holy Bible. When I told John I was going to be writing about the Bible today he said "are you going to review it? Because you could start with 'really impressive debut!'" and knowing that I'm currently working on the Old Testament he added "and I'm looking forward to the sequel." My husband being a cute and funny idiot aside, no, I am not reviewing the Bible. Who would even want to try? Moreso, I want to write about my experience.


I was raised in a religious household, so I've always been familiar with the Bible; I've even read various bits and pieces throughout the years, but I've never read it through. A few months ago I searched and researched looking for the right study Bible for me. In a philosophy class in school I was introduced to Robert Alter's translations. I can tell you from both a scholarly and spiritual reading perspective they are awesome. Trouble is, he hasn't translated the whole thing. I've got the books he has translated to read later, but for now I wanted the whole thing. I wanted to watch the spine break and hear it groan as I made my way through this 2,000+ page trek, so I kept looking.

I finally settled on "The Harper Collins Study Bible" in the New Revised Standard Version. This particular study Bible is well suited , much like Alter's translation, both to spiritual and scholarly study. Having grown up Southern Baptist it was hard to leave King James behind, but I'm sure you will be happy to know that this translation totally lacks the word begat. Everyone is the better for that.

I've only just finished Exodus (hint: that's only the second book) and at the rate I'm going (five chapters a day, which averages just under ten double columned pages) I'll finish in a year. This is a grand endeavor and I'm really glad I've started it. Every book I read I approach with the goal of bettering myself from having read it. This book just happens to be meant for that. Plus, my dad is really proud of me, so there's that. The only downside is that now all I really want to talk about is the Bible and people are starting to think I'm a weirdo. So, should you want to go on this journey with me - please do! I am dying to talk to someone about it, and difficult tasks are always made easier through the buddy system!

*Yes, I stole that phrase from Pat Conroy's new memoir. But it's perfect!