10 Cool Things: Lemuria Books

Lemuria Books is the outstanding bookstore in Jackson, Mississippi, owned by lifelong bookseller John Evans.  It's located on Interstate 55, so if you're driving through Mississippi you pretty much HAVE to pass it, and therefore you should stop.  We've featured Lemuria on our blog before, both in our profile of bookseller Nan Graves Goodman and our feature for Chuck Palahniuk's event in October.  We've never just talked about the store itself, though.  I'd never heard a bookseller talk about "working" on a book until I (Liz) started selling to Lemuria. I don't know if that's a common expression at other stores, but it's true for Lemuria--they WORK on making books big sellers.  Recent National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward even gave the store a shout-out in her acceptance speech.  That's pretty cool.

Now THAT's a
Halloween costume!

10 Cool Things about Lemuria Books


1. Truly outstanding booksellers who aren't opposed to bribery.  Keep them happy and they'll sell your books all damn day. (You feed the beast with a constant supply of good books.)


2. Lemuria has one of the most active, best bookstore blogs out there.  Updated daily, there's always something interesting to read there.

Chuck Palahniuk signing books

3. Book collector?  Lemuria has a terrific First Editions Club, as well as a great collection. If you belonged to their club this year, you'd have signed first editions of NYT Best Book Swamplandia, NYT bestseller The Night Circus, and National Book Award finalist The Tiger's Wife, among many other great picks.

John Evans,
Lemuria's owner

4. John plays some..."interesting" music in the store.  I think some of it is Mississippi Delta Blues.  I think some of it is fever dream-induced and may cause seizures.  (Admittedly, I--Liz--am not a music person.)


5. There's an amazing rare book room in the store....that Liz isn't allowed to peruse without constant supervision.


6. Gianna is June to Liz's Johnny, and this is our song: 

 (Gianna wrote this one.  Liz doesn't understand.)

Eudora's picture 

7. Four words: Eudora Welty was here.  It's hallowed ground.


8. Creative author events.  These people know how to host a shindig and aren't afraid of the booze.

Night Circus event, complete with circus tent.

9. Liz's boss used to work at Lemuria.  And in today's job market, sucking up is never a bad idea.


10. Cool things all over the store--from signed author pictures to original Barry Moser engravings to cool Rockwell Kent art.  The place is a treasure hunt adventure and book lover's paradise.

Best of 2011 Countdown: #20

We're into the Top 20 people!  In other news, the random Google search of the day that pulled up our blog was "super calamity physics."  It's so awesome being the site that has the answers to all of the world's great questions.  I wish I could share this magical feeling with all of you.

Moving on to the countdown...#20

Gianna:

Red on Red
Edward Conlon
Spiegel & Grau

From the author of the acclaimed police memoir Blue Blood, is a smart, gritty, piece of crime fiction. Now be warned that this is not for your average Jimmy Patterson fan; the writing is more along the lines of Dennis Lehane or Joseph Wambaugh. 

Red on Red is the story of two very different police detectives, one introspective and damaged (hello, sexy), and the other is very ambitious and doesn't always play by the rules. Like Liz and Gianna's partnership and future marriage [we are not getting married...but you can still send gifts], this duo works. This is not a book where you will be racing to solve a crazy, twisting crime (and completely unbelievable to boot), but a high caliber (no pun intended) character driven crime novel. It is incredibly well written and hard to put down, a rare feat. Let me just say one more thing about the quality of writing and the character development: fans of Richard Price, and I am a huge fan, will fall in love. 

Edward Conlon

A note about Conlon; he's a bit on the bright side. Fourth generation NYPD, went to Harvard (also wrote some for the Harvard Lampoon), just got back from a year stint doing intelligence work in Jordan, and now works in intelligence for the NYPD. If you read interviews with him he is a bit on the quiet side, a man of few words. Dreamy no? [Is he single?]

Liz:

Snowdrops

A.D. Miller

Doubleday

Snowdrops is the little book that popped up on the Man Booker Prize shortlist that was still pretty much grossly overlooked.  It's a shame; there's a lot to love about this novel.  It's a crime story, a portrait of modern Russia, a gritty, well-written narrative. (As always, I must state that I'm partial to all things Russia; it's my Canada of the East...or West if you choose to look that direction from Sarah Palin's house.)

A.D. Miller

Miller's book is told in the form of a letter from Londoner Nick Platt, a confessional letter to his fiance about his time spent in Moscow.  This is the Post-Soviet Moscow of the early 2000's and shady business goes hand-in-hand with a nation still trying to figure out capitalism.  This is Putin's Russia where former KGB operatives are poisoned with polonium. Good times.  Anyway, Nick, British lawyer, met two sisters, Masha and Katya in a train station.  Nick rescues them from a purse-snatcher, and then in the aftermath, the sisters convince him to help their aunt find an apartment.  Nick convinces himself that he's in love with Masha.

This is Russia, though, and the seedy underbelly of the country begins to emerge.  It's a psychological trap. A "snowdrop," by the way, refers to a body that is frozen and covered in snow and ice during the winter and only surfaces with the spring thaw. My kind of country.

Best of 2011 Countdown: #21

We're going non-fiction today.  Whip out those holiday gift idea lists--these two are perfect for Uncle Bob and Cousin John...and Aunt Suzie for that matter.

Gianna:

In the Garden of Beasts
Erik Larson
Crown

Larson’s fascinating book is set in 1933, just as Hitler begins his reign of power. America’s first ambassador to Germany has relocated to Berlin with his wife, son and uh, how to say it nicely…rather outgoing daughter Martha. Martha is like a Kardashian; she enjoys the limelight, the nightlife and the men of Germany. Of course, instead of professional athletes she favors the men of the Third Reich, including the head of the Gestapo.

The Dodd family

The Dodds are initially content in Germany, but they quickly become disillusioned. In hindsight, they were slow to understand what is about to unfold, yet when William Dodd does begin to alert the United States of Hitler’s actual motives, he is largely ignored. As William learns more about Hitler’s plans and Martha moves her way up the Third Reich food chain, they both become major players in Hitler’s Germany.

This is a terrific piece of history written only the way Larson can. There are many Larson wannabes, but in the end he is the master. Isaac’s Storm, Thunderstruck, and The Devil in the White City are all amazing, yet this is his best book to date. 

Liz:

The Destiny of the Republic

Candice Millard

Doubleday

Readers might remember Millard from her previous book, The River of Doubt, the true story of Theodore Roosevelt's failed expedition to navigate a previously uncharted river in the Amazon Basin.  (It's a must-read.)  Now Candice Millard is turning her historical eye to another President, James A. Garfield.  

If you were paying attention in the fifth grade, you might remember that Garfield was one of four Presidents assassinated, and if you saw the Stephen Sondheim musical, you might even know that Charles Guiteau was the guy who shot him.  Chances are, though, that you don't know that Garfield was one of the greatest statesmen this country has ever known.  He was dedicated to ending the Gilded Age corruption in Washington.  And that he didn't die from Guiteau's bullet.

James Garfield was a legislator, but he never sought the Presidency.  During the Republican convention, Garfield was giving a speech to nominate a colleague and his oration was so powerful that when he rhetorically asked at the end of his speech, "Who do we want?," somebody yelled back "We want GARFIELD!"  Days later he was the Republican nominee.

Garfield

Millard also gives the engrossing back story of Charles Guiteau (and you know I love any story that involves weird, cultish commune living), and the details of the assassination.  As I stated earlier, the bullet didn't instantly kill Garfield, and The Destiny of the Republic is as much a history of 19th Century medicine as it is a Presidential biography.  In fact, Alexander Graham Bell, telephone inventor, raced time and disease to find a method to save the President.

The Destiny of the Republic is a compelling read about a mostly forgotten President, and Candice Millard is the perfect writer to tell the story.

Best of 2011 Countdown: #22

Gianna:

My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business
Dick Van Dyke
Crown

Last year Carol Burnett’s book This Time Together made my year end list, so I guess it's no surprise that Dick Van Dyke's really sweet memoir My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business has made my 2011 list.

If Dick Van Dyke had only done one thing in his career, and if that one thing was The Dick Van Dyke Show…well, he would still be an icon. That’s right, no Mary Poppins, no Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Liz’s heart just sank at the mere thought of that!). Without Dick Van Dyke (and of course Carl Reiner, who wrote the foreword to My Lucky Life), there would be no television. Okay, so that is an overstatement, but there wouldn’t have been Mary Tyler Moore, or Rhoda, or All in the Family, or God help us all, no Newhart! [I've never seen any of these shows. How old is Gianna?  Sheesh!] I know, scary right? [Obviously not for me....] All I have done since 1970 is watch television, so trust me, I’ve considered this often.

Anyway, Dick Van Dyke is a trailblazer of the highest order, but this is far from just a career memoir; he writes about his childhood (great bit about his mother trying to sell him a bill of goods about how he was born prematurely, but it turns out she moved his birth date because she got pregnant before she was married – his grandmother sells her out), his marriage, his children and his thirty-plus year relationship with Michelle Triola Marvin who died in 2009. [He's single?  I do love Mary Poppins....]

What I love about this memoir, as well as Carol Burnett’s book, is that it captures a time in Hollywood, and certainly a type of actor (the singer/dancer/comedian) that is so incredibly rare these days (not to mention their amazing grace and class). 

Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest

Wade Davis

Knopf

I'm a mountain person, despite my Houston address.  Some people are recharged by the rhythmic thrashing of ocean waves, but I find sanctuary surrounded by mountains, tall trees, Stellar's Jays darting among branches of evergreens.  If I disappear, (don't) look for me in places like Yosemite and Mount Rainier.  I also find mountain stories captivating, even if I don't really possess the courage or desire to summit peaks myself.  Because of Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, there's an entire reading generation enthralled by Mount Everest, a passion that has spread to documentaries and TV shows (if you haven't read Into Thin Air, you must, or listen to the outstanding audiobook version).  One of my college majors was history, too.  And one of my favorite novels is Mrs. Dalloway, in part because of the World War I veteran Septimus.  These interests converge for me into Wade Davis's outstanding tome, Into the Silence.

George Mallory

Davis, a National Geographic explorer-in-residence, manages to spin gold from the history of the early expeditions of Mount Everest, and this book should be on every holiday wish list for non-fiction readers.  The larger-than-life George Mallory was a British soldier in World War I, surviving in the trenches during the Battle of the Somme.  He saw horrific things, the birth of modern warfare and inhumanity.  The British Empire, like the surviving soldiers coming home from war (one million died in the war), faced a crisis of identity.  No longer was Britain the impregnable force of global domination.  The soldier and the nation were shell-shocked.  They turned East to the Himalayas and if the nation couldn't rule the civilized world, it could conquer the natural one.  

Mallory, fearless, charismatic, probably pretty annoying in camp, and fellow Britons set off to climb Everest in a series of expeditions in the 1920's.  On the mountain these men faced their war demons and looked to lift their country back to global prominence.  Mallory wrote home often and the expeditions were a source of national pride (even if the native Tibetans found them confounding; why climb a mountain?), and they were scaling the side of the world's tallest mountain without the benefit of modern equipment.  One aspect of Krakauer's book on Everest is that it particularly captures the incredible danger of Everest, and it takes place 70 years after the Mallory expeditions.  

Mallory, of course, never returned.  The mythology suggests that he was last seen making a fearless assault on the summit before disappearing into a cloud.  Did he make it to the top, or was New Zealander Edmund Hillary really the first to summit the mountain?  Into the Silence is the story of a mountaineer and a story of a nation in crisis, a worthy addition to the great history books that make the 20th Century, at least for me, the most engrossing 100 years on record.  While there are other books about Mallory and about World War I, I think that the way that Davis blends together his story is something special.

Best of 2011 Countdown: #23

Hey look, we're a week into our countdown!  23 is a lucky number, right?  It's Michael Jordan's jersey number!  Today's post is going to be awesome, I just know it.

Gianna:

Austin Chronicle Music Anthology

Edited by Austin Powell and Doug Freeman

UT Press

Gianna rocking the Glock

As many of you know, Liz and I are in a band [Oh crap.  It's going to be one of those days.  You failed me, 23]. I play an insane Glockenspiel and Liz is up front wailing on her ax. It’s an actual ax, which as it turns out is much less expensive (and easier to play) than a guitar. Right now we are primarily playing in jails, prisons, and the occasional halfway house in what seems to be a never-ending effort to find Liz a husband. We are just finishing up an extended tour of the prison system of Huntsville, TX…what can I say; Liz wants to shop local for her feller [I believe in supporting the local economy].

Anyway my point is, we are really embedded (and not to brag, but pretty well known) in the music scene here in Austin and that is why we find The Austin Chronicle Music Anthology indispensable as musicians, Texans, and book lovers.

Liz playing her ax

More than just a retrospective, it is an excellent history of the music scene as told through thirty years of reporting by the Chronicle.  Starting off with a foreword by Daniel Johnston, the book rips through names from The Butthole Surfers to Stevie Ray Vaughan, to The Gourds, Townes Van Zandt to Spoon.  The highlight for me was REM’s interview with Roky Erickson.

Complete with great photographs on nearly every page, this is a must have for the music lover in your life…or just your lover. [I would like to take this opportunity to point out, once again, that I do not date felons...or Gianna.]

Liz:

Girls in White Dresses

Jennifer Close

Knopf

Okay, so long, long ago, my former post-college roommate and supposed good friend Tracy decided that she wanted to marry her boyfriend Aaron, which was fine (though Aaron is somewhat to blame for Zorro's disciplinary issues).  Tracy, however, ignored the many, MANY overt and obnoxious statements I'd made and decided that I should be a bridesmaid in her wedding.  I should point out that I sent out running commentary on the torture inflicted upon me by this wedding, and Tracy and her family all received these.  They thought I was funny or something.  I'm not sure they fully comprehended the hell they'd asked of me.  On top of this, the maid of honor, Marnie, decided that the two feeble requests I'd made regarding the dress--no black, with sleeves--would be disregarded entirely.  I looked like a cadaver in a black satin shroud.  No alcohol can burn away this trauma.

There's nothing okay about this.

Which brings me to Girls in White Dresses.  Jennifer Close's debut collection of linked short stories perfectly captures the anxieties, social obligations, petty jealousies, drunken musings, and dear friendships that characterize--for me anyway--women in their 20's and early 30's.  These are women who are just out of college, beginning careers, still young enough to join friends at bars after work, searching for companionship.  Close nails the whole wedding ordeal, as all of your friends wed and you attend numerous showers and fork over hundreds of dollars on gifts and it's never reciprocated if you're the single one, and then the babies start coming and there are more showers and more dollars spent and conversations revolve around poop and everyone is supposed to find this adorable or some shit.  ....I might be projecting.  My point is that I loved Girls in White Dresses.  Jennifer Close is a strong writer, and on top of that she's a bookseller, so she gets a gold star from me.  And don't think that this is just a "chick book," much as I hate women being called "chicks."  This is a literary debut from a talented writer that actually was a favorite of many of the men working in the Knopf offices.  I can't wait to read what she writes next.  

Territory Update

We interrupt our normally scheduled countdown with some news--Liz has added a new state to her territory.  Hello, Colorado!  Your fresh air will do wonders to clear out the malarial swamp rot of too many trips through the scenic Butte LaRose and Grosse Tete, Louisiana.  Also, we had to edit that part of our blog description to excise that part about national park-worthy scenery.  We've heard there's some scenery there.  Like this guy:

The good news is that we'll have new bookstores and booksellers to harass and no doubt fun inclement weather issues to relay.  No doubt at some point Liz will be shooting her own low budget parody of The Shining at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park.  All work and no play makes Lizzie a psychotic book rep!

Best of 2011 Countdown: #24

Anybody placing bets on what our #1 books of the year will be?  I know what Gianna's going to pick.  If you have betting pools, keep in mind that I am not above accepting bribes.  First, though, let's keep the countdown rolling with #24.

Gianna:

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
Ransom Riggs
Quirk Books

Sixteen-year-old Jacob adores his grandfather, although he knows the over the top, rather bizarre stories the old man has told him his entire life are just that, stories (no matter what the old guy says).  Stories of a faraway land, magical children (one invisible and one who could hold fire in her hands), and even monsters? No, that can’t be true. But then Jacob’s grandfather dies, but not before uttering very cryptic last words that propel Jacob to search out that faraway place. BOO!

Complete with some creepy vintage photographs, this novel (the author’s first) is probably the most unique book on my year end list. Certainly a teen crossover book, I think fans of The Night Circus and even the cult hit House of Leaves will find this book fascinating.

Look for this to become a series. It’s packed with rich content and great characters … not to mention a cliffhanger. 

Liz:

Please Look After Mom

Kyung-Sook Shin

Knopf

This novel was a HUGE bestseller in South Korea, but name another South Korean book.  I know I can't.  I don't know much about South Korean culture.  What I liked about Please Look After Mom, though, is that humans and families are, to some extent, all the same, and beautiful writing transcends language and culture.  Some of my colleagues said this book brought them to tears.  As we all know, I mostly choose stoic resistance to emotional releases, but I mocked them less for their tender feelings for this book.  (The wienies.)

Please Look After Mom is a stirring novel about a Korean family of aging parents and three grown children.  One day, the mother misses the subway that her husband boards, and then she's gone.  Vanished into the city.  The story is told variously from the perspectives of son, daughter, husband, and mother herself, and what is revealed is the inner life of a woman who spent most of her life caring for others....and how little her loved ones actually knew her.

Remember how Cutting for Stone became THE book group pick a couple of years ago?  Please Look After Mom, in a just world, would be the next book to explode.  This is a book that will linger in your mind long after you turn the last page.