Good and Cheap (Books)! Day 8

April 9th. It's a day when I tend to contemplate the passage of time. Mortality. Specifically, it's a day year when I contemplate Gianna's mortality. Each year a moment comes when I'm reminded that 1. she's old, and 2. she thinks my singing is "horrendous." Time marches on. So, in honor of this special day, I decided to select theme appropriate books.

Einstein's Dreams is a weird little book, and I say that with great fondness. Alan Lightman's day job is as a physicist, and his writings tend to challenge perceptions of the universe. In Einstein's Dreams, the reader is treated to the musings of Einstein the patent clerk as he attempts to create a new theory of time. Most of the book consists of these dream vignettes, and while the prose is clear and elegant, the concepts demand that the reader slows down and ponders the worlds he describes. In one, time moves backward, and peaches go from rotted fruit to fresh and tasty to growing on the tree to flower, and so on. One world consists of no memories; people live only in the present, and in order to provide context for themselves they constantly take notes and read the stories of their lives anew every day. One of my favorite dreams plays with the notion that time moves slower at higher altitudes, so in order to defy the aging process, everyone moves to the tops of mountains. That's not good enough, though, so they build houses on stilts on the tops of the mountains. I love the idea of the Matterhorn covered with spindly-legged houses swaying in the wind. Time is static, time is a wave, time is a god to be worshiped. Einstein's Dreams is a physics fantasy by a brilliant writer and thinker.

And after Gianna has finished pondering the ways in which time has passed, year after year, in her life, she can turn to the afterlife.

Neuroscientist David Eagleman is another one of those super-smart guys with a day job in the sciences and another career as a writer. Sum, like Einstein's Dreams, is written as a series of vignettes, but these provide scenes of various post-death possibilities. What if, when you die, you become the background characters in others' dreams? What if God is a microbe, completely unaware of we humans? What if  God is actually a married couple? What if you're doomed to spend your afterlife in the company of all of the potential annoying versions of you that could have existed? (And can we make sure that Gianna has this fate?) David Eagleman is a brain guy who is fascinated by the workings of our most complex organ, and he's a life guy who is intrigued by the myriad possibilities of things we've yet to discover. Mostly, though, I love Sum because it's an upbeat, intellectual, literary romp.

Both Einstein's Dreams and Sum are imaginative achievements that surpass their few pages. They are quick reads--probably good since Gianna is getting up there in years--but they linger. They are books to revisit and they are books to enjoy and they are books that challenge. They are perfect reads for April 9th.

Happy Birthday G.

Generally Horrible Questions: Anne Kimbol

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"The Best Book I Ever Received": Book Industry Folks Pick Their Holiday Favorites, Part 1

As the holiday season kicks into full gear, I’m once again reminded that the gift I most want—more books—is the one I’m least likely to receive. Just because I work in the book business doesn’t mean that I don’t NEED more books. I’m convinced that anyone who works beyond the college part-time job level in the book industry is in it for the love of the product (just as I’m convinced that anyone who makes a career of it is mentally not-right). It’s more than a job. Give us our books!


To that end, I asked a few booksellers to tell me the best book they ever received as a gift. Gianna says she’s going to ask her mom, too, and that Gianna’s mom will probably recommend “porn.” Something to eagerly anticipate!

Sara Glassman sells books at The Little Professor Book Center in Homewood, Alabama. Sara actually had several recommendations:


Dead Men Do Tell Tales by William Maples

This is a really engaging book about forensic anthropology. If you've got a "Bones" fan who likes the nitty gritty this is great for them! I got it when I was 15 and it actually set me on the course that ended with a graduate degree in Anthropology. Maples is great at balancing detail with anecdote and gives insight into cases as varied as identifying the Romanovs to the murders of Ted Bundy.

D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Mythology by Ingri & Edgar Parin D'Aulaire

My mom gave me a copy of this when I was very young, six or seven maybe. I'd checked it out from the library 10 times by the time she bought it for me. I loved Greek mythology. I knew the names of the Olympians before I knew the names of the Seven Dwarves. It's still one of my favorite books to sell so that I can introduce more people to these wonderful stories.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
This is cheating a little since it was a "gift" from Toni Hetzel (Toni is my Gianna for stores east of the Mississippi River, selling books to the stores in the Deep South, and a big fan of Juicy Couture), but I was having really bad week and I mentioned it to her when she was here for a meeting. She went out to her car and got an ARC (advance reading copy) of Sweetness and handed it to me. I started reading it then on my lunch break and it was the first thing that week that made me smile.

Brian Contine is a bookseller at BookPeople in Austin, Texas, who happens to be married to the store’s adult book buyer. He’s also a skilled amateur chef, a skill his wife joyfully exploits. Here’s Brian’s advice for holiday book giving:


In this season of giving, is there a way I can make it a little about me? Yes. Give your spouse a cookbook and you'll win every time. A couple of years ago, my wife gave me a copy of Simon Hopkinson's Roast Chicken and Other Stories. Hopkinson is the British Alice Waters, creating succinct, refined, homestyle recipes which will challenge the cook and warm the belly. I suggest Salade Frisee Aux Lardons. If it matters to you, and it should, this is the best written cookbook I've ever read, you could read it cover to cover without cooking a thing and feel full.

Anne Kimbol is an expert in a particular genre, mystery, working at Houston’s elite specialty store Murder By the Book. Nonetheless, the best book she ever received as a gift transcends genre boundaries:

A friend of mine gave me a copy of Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman. I have since given it as a gift to many friends. It is a book about different theories of time told as dreams of Einstein's. I know that sounds terribly boring, but the writing really brings you into the worlds Lightman created on Einstein's behalf. It is still the book I go to when I really need an escape from the everyday craziness of life.

Check back for other picks from some of the biggest book lovers in the country…and Gianna’s mom.