Knopf 100--Day 24

We are so close to the end! Gianna's going to bring me brownies when we're finished. 

89. The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer, originally published in 2010. Gianna hinted that this book would make the list back when she chose How to Breathe Underwater, Orringer's great short story collection. The Invisible Bridge was my favorite novel of 2010 and a book that I'd like to reread at some point (a down side of our jobs is that rereading is rarely a possibility because we always have a pile of manuscripts to plow through for work). This is the type of big, sweeping, war epic that I love to get lost within, swirling around a Hungarian family during World War II. Great characters and unimaginable situations lead to a terrific sense of tension over the survival of this family. It's a compulsive read that is both satisfying and ideal for discussions. 

90. The Yokota Officers Club by Sarah Bird, originally published in 2001. I was a younger bookseller when Yokota was published, and lunch with the author was my first experience of the sort. I'd also never read Sarah Bird's books before then, but one day the fan belt on my piece of shit car broke and I spent an entire day at a Firestone while it was being fixed. During that day I successfully blocked out the daytime TV by losing myself in The Yokota Officers Club. Based upon her own childhood as a military brat, this is the story of Bernadette, a college aged girl spending the summer back on the base in Okinawa, and the family secrets that begin to push toward the surface. Sarah Bird's humor is present (it's irrepressible), but this is also a novel of great heart and family drama. And since reading it at that car repair shop, I've never been able to here "Brown Eyed Girl" and not think that the first line is "Hey Roderigo." It's a book that wormed into my head and stuck. 

I'm glad this cover
didn't last. Yikes. Pink.

91. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, originally published in 1981. Salman Rushdie has authored some terrific books, but I think this one is his masterpiece. It not only won the Booker Prize the year it was published, it won the "Booker's Booker" for being the best of among all of the Booker winners over the years. That's some decent awards cred. This is the story--told by a great narrative voice--of Saleem Sinai, the child born at the stroke of midnight that also signaled Indian independence. He and the country grow up on parallel paths, mirroring each other over the course of several decades, and the writing is simply breathtaking. Writers read Midnight's Children and wish they could create such a magnificent book. 

92. The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook by Deb Perelman, originally published in 2012. Knopf has a long history of publishing iconic cookbooks (hello, Julia Child), but from that list I chose to single out Smitten Kitchen (or "Smitchen," as I called it for the year I was selling it). I am not ever going to feel like spending time in my kitchen is time well spent, but I admire those who do enjoy working with and preparing food. This cookbook was the one a close friend started bugging me about a full two years before it was published. She was a fan of Deb Perelman's website and couldn't wait for the book. It's also the book that I've never heard complaints about. The recipes are delicious (I can vouch for that, as I'm an able sampler of others' creations), straightforward, and don't require anything crazy like artisanal barnacles or some crap like that. 

Best of 2011 Countdown: #27

Gianna:

The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb

Melanie Benjamin

Delacorte Press

How famous would you have to be in order for your 1863 wedding to knock the Civil War off the front pages of newspapers all over the country? Well, you would have to be 32 inch tall Lavinia Warren about to marry General Tom Thumb (Charles Stratton) in front of 2,000 guests.

 

Think Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt without the Jennifer Aniston controversy. Think Kim Kardashian, but a marriage that lasted two decades longer.  Think Lindsay Lohan and that girl DJ (but without the ankle monitors, drugs, and alcohol). Think Liz and Gianna…adorable right? [Not really.]

Anyway, Lavinia was the most photographed woman of her lifetime. Let me say that again, she was the most photographed woman of her generation. Every other famous person on the planet, including kings, queens, and Presidents, knew her. Lincoln gave a reception at the White House for the newlyweds (think Bono minus sunglasses).  But why, if Mrs. Tom Thumb was so famous, don’t we know her today? Well, take note reality TV star wannabes: maybe because she became famous because of her stature, not because of a talent or works, her legacy didn't endure. And that is the tragic part of this novel, that such a wonderful woman--a brave, strong, optimistic, smart (so smart) woman--could be lost in history. She chose the life she had, she sought out the limelight, but for her it was a way foreword; she couldn’t have known that it would lead to what had to be a good amount of loneliness (especially after the death of her younger sister). She had visitors daily, but they paid to see her.  They certainly had no personal investment in her, they didn’t care about her. It's an interesting footnote that tombstone next to General Tom Thumb merely reads “his wife.”

 

Well Lavinia has the last laugh now because she’s on Facebook!

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lavinia-Warren/112916715424926?sk=info

Benjamin has managed to write one of the most interesting historical novels I think I have ever read. It's an absolute page turner. At its core this book is a fascinating travelogue of America, a who’s who and lesson on every page.  If you read and enjoyed Ragtime by Doctorow, I think you will like this as well.  

Liz:  

The Gap Year

Sarah Bird

Knopf

What would a best of list be without an author from our neck of the woods?  Every Sarah Bird novel is different, but the common bonds among them are 1. her outrageous sense of humor, and 2. a Texas-sized heart.  (You'd think that some of this compassion for people would rub off on my pal Gianna, but no.  We technically don't even work together and still she tortures me with emails that say things like "Fuck the comma!" Do you know how hard I work to proofread her posts before flinging them onto the web?  You need that comma, I need that comma, but why must I suffer for her?  Why?! Moving on.)  Sarah Bird is at her absolute best when her stories draw from her own life, and such is the case with her newest book, The Gap Year.  Sarah channeled her anxieties about her child going to college into her latest novel.

Sarah Bird

The Gap Year follows a single mother and her daughter through the course of the girl's senior year in high school.  Cam, her mom, is doing the motherly thing and looking at colleges for Aubrey.  Both Cam and Aubrey are anxious about this major step looming, but for different reasons.  Cam is facing that empty nest thing, while Aubrey doesn't know what she wants to do with her life.  She does know, though, that she wants to spend as much time as possible with Tyler, the golden-boy quarterback with mysterious roots.  The Gap Year is a traditional coming of age novel, but with distinctly Sarah Bird touches.  Remember how I mentioned Sarah's sense of humor?  Cam, she's a lactation consultant, and the scenes involving Cam's profession and her lactation classes are full of humor and warmth.  As someone who's vehemently anti-baby, I was squirming a bit, but also laughing.  

Your book group should be reading The Gap Year.  Fans of The Gilmore Girls?  You'll like The Gap Year.  And when you're finished with The Gap Year, go back and read The Yokota Officers Club, another book that draws from Sarah's life.

"The Best Book I Ever Received": Book Industry Folks Pick Their Holiday Favorites, Part 2

Gianna has gathered another group of holiday/gift-inspired book recommendations from some of our favorite people in the book business.

Karen Valby is the author of Welcome to Utopia, one of our favorite books of the year, and a generally awesome person.  Here's a trailer for her excellent book.


And here is Karen's pick:
On my 12th birthday, my mother gave me a hard-bound copy of Jay Leech’s How to Care for Your Horse. I loved horses--I lived for horses!--so at the time the present felt like a validation of not just my passion but my ability to be a good, capable friend and guardian to them. That year my mother’s bipolar disorder started chewing away at some crucial fibers a person needs to be a parent. As she unraveled, I dug deep into chapters like “Do You Really Want a Horse?” and “Diseases of the Horse” and “Common Unsoundnesses of the Horse.” I would read and study and practice and learn so that I could understand horses and their weaknesses and how to make them happy and healthy and whole. I like to imagine that my mother, who died six years later of a sucide, was already preparing me to take care of myself.

 

Sarah Bird – Author of The Yokota Officer’s Club, the upcoming novel The Gap Year, and a whole bunch of other great books. 

Oddly, Gianna, you are virtually the only person who has ever given me books (other than to blurb or send to my agent.) I guess I’m sort of the book giver in my circle. And I have loved every book you’ve given me, but The Frozen Thames still occupies a special spot in my heart. Maybe because it’s small, maybe because it’s beautiful, maybe because it’s unlike anything else I’ve ever read, it has stayed with me in a way few others have. Gorgeous illustrations coupled with a gorgeously-written vignettes about the few dozen times in recorded history that the Thames River has frozen has kept this wonder of a book forever frozen in my memory. Thank you again for sharing it with me.

Scott Montgomery is the mystery expert at BookPeople in Austin, and the driving force behind the creation of the store's mystery specialty store-within-a-store, MysteryPeople.  Here's his pick: 

A first printing of The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley. I already had one first that was signed by the man; I purchased it a week before he came to the store I worked at in LA, for four dollars. Even unsigned, it was worth around four hundred.  He told me he had forty copies of that printing when it came out. "I gave them away so I could nail stewardesses."

I started a friendship with this author I admired so much, watching him hold court at whatever bar we were at, talking about the soldiers, criminals, and actors he met, occasionally dispensing writing advice when nobody was looking. We had a mutual friend in Wyoming, writer Craig Johnson. Both would pick on one another and use me as messenger to send their jibes back and forth to one another. It was Craig's wife who called me over two years ago to tell me Jim had died. The news hit me like it was a family member.


That Christmas I got a package Craig. He said they were Wyoming/ Montana themed gifts- a fine cheroot cigarello, a hat band made by an inmate in the Wyoming penitentiary, and another first edition of The Last Good Kiss. I now have two very expensive bookends that remind me of a great hero, mentor, and friend that is the epitome of those larger-than-life characters you meet in this business. With its Hunter Thompson-esque look at the modern West and America in this tough, heartbreaking book, any edition is priceless.

The lovely one on the right is Gianna's mom.
And Gianna is the other one.

Margaret LaMorte - Proud (ish) parent of Gianna.  She may be the most fascinating woman on earth...I mean, she's to blame for Gianna. 

 

The best book I have ever been given is Janet Evanovich’s One For the Money. It was the first book that truly made me laugh out loud. I would read it in the break room at work and my coworkers would come in and ask what the heck I was reading, they thought I was crazy. [No comment upon Gianna's mom's sanity.] We had a little group of people and we would all share the Stephanie Plum books – it was a great little group and a lot of fun. I have many ideas for the movie series but I have yet to have a call from a single Hollywood producer asking my opinion.


Gianna

My choice is pretty low brow – but the thing is, I don’t really get very many books as gifts; keep that in your judgmental mind! Okay, the best book I have ever been given was Hollywood Babylon (thanks Mom!) – I guess I was like… 11 or 12, certainly not age appropriate, what with the Fatty Arbuckle rape trial and the graphic photos of Jayne Mansfield’s car accident, not to mention the Lana Turner drama and Sharon Tate murder. Now that I am thinking of it – it’s the earliest form of TMZ. However you have to understand my obsession with Hollywood – I read every biography of every Hollywood celeb I could get my hands on. I know that this book is … oh boy… sleazy…but I just loved it and would read and re-read it all the time. I don’t know what happened to it – I can’t imagine that I got rid of it, it must have been stolen or tossed out by my girlfriend who had the sense to be embarrassed for me. Don’t fear…it’s still in print as all classics remain (although as a mass market, not a big hardcover).