Lemuriabooks.com Blog

The below is from todays Washington Post - Alex Rose will be at Lemuria on December 2nd at 5:00.

BYLINE: Michael Korda,; editor-in-chief emeritus of Simon & Schuster and author of “Charmed Lives,” “Queenie” and other books
AMERICAN RIFLE
A Biography
By Alexander Rose
Delacorte. 495 pp. $30

The title of Alexander Rose’s marvelous book says it all: Although “American Rifle” is ostensibly about the history of a piece of machinery, a tool, a killing instrument, it is only in America that the rifle has become an ineradicable part of the culture and can be written about as if it were a living person. “My rifle is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus I will learn it as a brother,” runs an old hymn still memorized by both Army and Marine recruits. That hymn was intended to serve as an instructive and inspirational credo for young men joining the armed forces who, increasingly, no longer came from a rural or ranching background in which boys started shooting as small children with a BB rifle, got a .22 for their 10th birthday or sooner, and were taught how to shoot and look after a gun by their father, uncle or grandfather, in a rite of passage as old as the republic.

Let me confess that I myself received my first rifle (a Browning .22) when I was 10; that I went to school in Switzerland (home of William Tell and of an armed militia in which every Swiss adult male keeps his service rifle at home), where we were encouraged to shoot on the rifle range frequently; and that I am a life member of the NRA. However, this book can be read with pleasure regardless of one’s position on gun control.

In the Old World, firearms were a class indicator: prerogatives of the military or, when intended for sporting purposes, of the landed aristocracy. In the 17th and 18th centuries, throughout Europe and Great Britain, poaching was a capital offense; the ordinary non-landowning man had no need, and no right, to keep a firearm at home, and hanging judges gleefully sentenced those of the starving rural poor who killed a pheasant or a deer. The biggest difference between America and Great Britain was not just the abundance of wildlife, but the all-important fact that in the Colonies it didn’t belong to anybody; a good marksman could put meat on the family table every night without being hanged for the act. The firearm above the fireplace became a symbol of self-sufficiency, of freedom, of a potentially classless society (at any rate, one without a hereditary aristocracy), of sturdy independence and of self-defense.

Rose begins his story with the German invention of the rifled barrel in the 15th century and its introduction to the New World by German settlers and gunsmiths in the first years of the 18th century, where its merits over the smooth-bore musket were quickly appreciated. Within a few decades, the American rifle had taken on its unmistakable appearance — the very long barrel and the accurate, long-distance sights — as well as taking its place in myth and legend as the Kentucky rifle or the Daniel Boone rifle, and backwoods Americans were already cultivating standards of marksmanship undreamed of in the Old World. Indeed, when George Washington posed for a portrait by Charles Willson Peale circa 1789, his rifle appeared clearly in the painting, for ownership of a good rifle and the ability to shoot it accurately were already becoming popular attributes for aspiring politicians.

English aristocrats cherished their expensive, handmade shotguns, but in America the weapon that mattered was always the rifle. With a marksman’s eye for detail and a gift for describing odd characters, Rose describes the way in which the rifle helped create and transform American industry. As the frontier moved farther west, the great and growing market for cheap rifles generated mass production: The first mass-produced artifact with interchangeable parts was, unsurprisingly, a rifle, produced by unskilled labor in Vermont. Rose tells the extraordinary story of how the American yearning for technological improvements led to the repeating rifle, first used in warfare in the Civil War, and eventually to the Winchester lever-action rifle, ultimate settler of arguments and killer of Indians and buffalo. He works in the complex and fascinating story of the U.S. Army’s ceaseless pursuit of perfection in military rifles, sometimes resulting in triumphantly successful weapons like the World War II Garand, sometimes in costly failures like the M14 and the still controversial high-tech, small-caliber M16. Rose sensibly reaches the conclusion that “for some years to come the rifle of the future will be the rifle of the past,” which pretty much sums up 250 years of military thinking on the subject.

Like David McCullough in “The Great Bridge,” Rose has the rare ability to make technology come alive even for the non-technology-minded. He is not only a good historian but also a gifted storyteller, and I hope his book will make its way beyond the readership of American Rifleman and Shotgun News to everyone who wants to read about a singular and enduring artifact in American life and history.

Freeing Yourself From the Narcissist in Your Life
by Linda Martinez-Lewi, Phd
Narcissism, an excessive desire for controlling ones self interest, is very interesting and I enjoy thinking about this concept.

Everyday interaction with people, especially for me, working in a retail bookstore for 34 years: where any conversation can happen (on the spur of any moment, about any topic or opinion) has opened my eyes with this continuous observation. I love watching how people think and talk, especially about what they are reading and why they are moved by books. I was excited to read this book.

Freeing yourself, kinda sneaks up on the reader, luring you into the lifestyles of some great successful (in some ways) narcissists: Picasso, Frank Lloyd Wright, Ayn Rand etc. All these fascinating grand achieving personalities are so interesting yet they each seem to have flawed a valuable part of their life by an excessive ego-control and a super-abundant self love.

I appreciated the way our author used these fishhook personalites to catch this readers interest and make me address my own issues. Addressing individually the handling of life’s enjoyment, creativity and the sharing of genuine compassion within the authentic representation of self.

This is not a heavy book, but an entertaining look using superstars. Yet always coming back to the readers own mirror of self. Freeing gives helpful hints of how to look at our own self and create an understanding of blocks handicapping us from more fulfilled lives.

Lemuria bookstore is thrilled to invite all former Jackson Academy Raider football players to a special reunion with Coach Sherard Shaw. The event will take place Tuesday, November 25^th from 5:30-7:00 at our store in Banner Hall on I-55. We anticipate an excellent turnout and look forward to meeting you.

As part of this event, we would be honored if former players would join Coach McInnis in autographing several dozen store copies of the new book Y’all vs. Us, Thrilling Tales of Mississippi’s Hottest High School Football Rivalries. The book details 15 of the best rivalries in the state including the now mega-rivalry between Jackson Prep and Jackson Academy. The chapter on the Prep-JA rivalry takes the reader from the early days of the two schools before they started competing against one another, to the first meeting in 1984, and through the controversial championship game in 2007. It is a wonderful read for anyone who has been a part of this cross-town rivalry and makes and excellent Christmas gift.

Wednesday night around 9:30 pm the National Book Award winner will be announced in New York City. This years nominees are:

The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon (signed copies here)

Home by Marilyn Robinson

Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen (signed copy here)

Telex from Cuba by Rachel Kushner

The End by Salvatore Scibona

Five young writers have been recognized by former winners of the National Book Award at the “5 under 35″ celebration this year:

One More Year: Stories by Sana Krasikov

The Boat by Nam Le

All the Sad Young Literary Men by Keith Gesson

The Farther Shore by Matthew Eck

Last Last Chance by Fiona Maazel

Have you read any of the nominated titles???

I had the pleasure of reading The Boat by Nam Le. As many other readers have noted, Le’s exploration of emotional and intellectual landscapes over an expansive geography is remarkable in this short story collection.

Luna Park Review asked Nam Le if he saw his own writing as somehow different from the majority of short stories being published today. He responded:

“Well, on balance, my stories are longer, I guess. But not so much as to be distinctive. I had to answer this question recently, of what it was I thought I was trying to do, and I came up with this formulation: that, for me, the project of fiction is to articulate consciousness with integrity. That’s what I try to do. What we talk about as ‘style’ is intrinsic to execution, of course, but should be, in my opinion, secondary in the reckoning of how ‘good’ something is. Barthelme and Bellow, Lydia Davis and Alice Munro, all different stylists, are all ‘good’; they just sit differently on each of the three branches (of ‘articulation,’ ‘consciousness’ and ‘integrity’). It’s a big tree. To mix metaphors, I think anyone who manages to pull off that trifecta is necessarily doing something new, something transformative. Maybe I’m old-school in that I still believe the finest thing a story can do is move its reader—to set off a little sob in the spine, as I think Nabokov called it. I don’t believe in technical self-limitation. I do believe 21st century consciousness is a complicated thing—and that its complications are without precedence. At bottom, I believe it’s a tough but good time to be writing.”

http://www.lunaparkreview.com/NamLeInterview.htm

Working at Lemuria, I have noticed that many readers shy away from the short story. Who could not love the short story? I rarely have the time to finish a novel at this point in my life. Though I have always loved reading and have degrees in English, I have many other passions. The short story allows me to experience another world, another view point in one sitting and there is never any guilt for having not finished. There is always the intellectual curiosity and wonder at how the writer is going to resolve the story, or perhaps not, in such a minimal number of pages.

I take care of the foreign fiction section and I had been eying The White Tiger (click here) on the shelf, facing it out for customers thinking that it might prove to be an excellent read. Well, my hunch proved to be a very popular one. Aravind Adiga was awarded the Man Booker on October 14. Now I am midway through the book and have been amazed, saddened and humored as the main character, Balram Halwai, explains through entertaining detail in the confines of a small, dark room to the imagined Chinese Premier his story of rising up from the “Darkness” of India’s caste system.

Also, Nan has decided that The White Tiger will be the January selection for Lemuria’s book club. And for those of you who prefer, The White Tiger is already out in paperback!

At the Man Booker Prize website, there is a great interview with Adiga:

Aravind Adiga talks about the inspiration behind The White Tiger

Congratulations on being longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2008. Has the news sunk in yet?

It’s a great thrill to be longlisted for the Booker. Especially alongside Amitav Ghosh and Salman Rushdie. But I live in Mumbai, where not many people know of the Man Booker Prize; I’m still standing in long queues and standing in over-packed local trains in the morning and worrying about falling ill from unsafe drinking water. Life goes on as before.

This is your first novel but you’re known for your journalism. Has it been a smooth transition to writing literary fiction?

I’ve wanted to be a novelist since I was a boy. I studied English literature - a lot of Elizabethan drama - at university, and wanted to write a novel about India that would be vivid, political, and funny, like The Duchess of Malfi set in Delhi. While I was figuring out how to do this, journalism paid the bills - and also gave me a chance to travel throughout India (and the rest of South Asia). When you work for a mainstream publication, even a very good one like TIME, there is a limit to what you can put into your stories; there is so much you see or observe that goes not into your official reporter’s diary but into another, secret diary-which became The White Tiger.

What inspired you to write The White Tiger?

The novel began as an experiment of a kind. Visitors to India from South Africa or Latin America often asked me why there seemed to be so little crime in India, given the vast (and growing) disparity in wealth between the classes - a condition that had led to much higher levels of crime in their countries. Why was it, I began to wonder, that even though rich people in India keep so many servants, and the servants have such regular and intimate access to their master’s households, that the servants in India, by and large, stay so honest? What keeps the class system in place - and what are the conditions under which it might start to crumble? I began to think of a servant in Delhi who would, cold-bloodedly, steal from his master - and do something even worse to him. And imagining what that servant would think, and feel, and do, I began making notes that turned into this novel.

The White Tiger has been described as a new vision of India with one reviewer calling it ‘a witty parable of India’s changing society’. How do you feel about that?

The White Tiger is not a political or social statement: it’s a novel - meant to provoke and entertain its readers. The narrator is a tainted one - a murderer - and his views are certainly not mine. But there is something I’d like my readers to think about. I’m increasingly convinced that the servant-master system, the bed rock of middle-class Indian life, is coming apart: and its unravelling will lead to greater crime and instability. The novel is a portrait of a society that is on the brink of unrest.

What made you choose to write an epistolary novel? What makes it work as a vehicle for this particular story?

This isn’t an epistolary novel: there are no real letters involved. The narrator is lying in his small room in Bangalore in the middle of the night, talking out aloud about the story of his life. It’s a story he can never tell anyone-because it involves murder-in real life; now he tells it when no one is around. Like all Indians, who are obsessed (a colonial legacy, probably) with the outsider’s gaze, he is stimulated to think about his country and society by the imminent arrival of a foreigner, and an important one. So he talks about himself and his country in the solitude of his room.

http://www.themanbookerprize.com/perspective/articles/1125

This years shortlisted titles are The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry, Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh, The Clothes on Their Backs by Linda Grant, The Northern Clemency by Philip Hensher, A Fraction of the Whole by Steven Toltz.

I enjoyed my time at the site . . . you can also find audio and text excerpts from shortlisted titles for the Man Booker along with interviews from other shortlisted authors.

John’s friend Tim wrote a great post about one of his (and John’s) favorite poetry books, Mountain Home. Check out Tim’s blog, We Reckon, you will not be disappointed…

I’m so glad today has turned into such a beautiful Saturday! I’m looking forward to stopping by the Jackson Street Festival this afternoon and checking out some of the festivities. The buzz at the store has been about the new movie M for Mississippi and the blues guys featured in the movie who will be playing at the festival.

One of my favorites, L. C. Ulmer, (the attractive gentleman on the left) will play after the Jackson premiere of the movie. The movie viewing is outside and starts at 7 o’clock… hopefully L. C. Ulmer will be breaking it down on stage..Beautiful Saturdays indeed.   

John and Joe had an interesting blues related conversation last night with our featured author of the week, Ted Gioia. Gioia is touring for his book Delta Blues and must know his stuff (in spite of his Yankee roots) otherwise I doubt he could have hung in with John in a convo about the blues for too long…

Social Intelligence

Daniel Goleman

In the near past, I read an essay, probably from a Best Zen Writing book, pulled from Social Intelligence. It was good and I put Social Intelligence on my to be read list. So in May ‘08, I got around to getting a copy-Wow- I was knocked out.

Goleman explores an emerging new science with startling implications for our interpersonal world. Studying our reactions to others and theirs to us, reveal for reaching biological impact:

Good Relationships=Positive impact on physical health

Bad Relationships=Poison

Daniel Goleman has made me think about my relationships using the computer world, and how this type of binding is changing emotionally ow we feel and interact. Also, his sections on raising healthy minded children and preserving healthy family relationships seem right on to me. I wish I had this book 30 years ago when my first child was born.

More so, I feel I enjoyed his sections on the dark side of narcissism and on the inspiring techniques of rewarding work relations the most. I also enjoyed thinking about his presentations on the sexual attraction and how we detect and feel honesty in our human interaction physically and virtually.

Social Intelligence is a very current thinking book, most aware of our present. Its hard to think anyone could not benefit greatly from reading this book. In fact. I can recommend this book to anyone to read, its a good use of your time. (click here to order)

Hey. My name is Emily Grossenbacher and I’m new here at Lemuria. I come to Lemuria from Yellow Dog Books, the now closed bookstore in Madison, MS. I’m a senior English major at Mississippi and working here is like being in a toy store.

Recently, I finished On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan. (click here for a first edition) Much like his other works, On Chesil Beach focuses on a couple and how minor infractions can forever change the dynamics of the relationship. McEwan almost preaches at his audience in this novel, writing about how patience, acceptance, and forgiveness are necessities in the beginning stages of a relationship.

McEwan knows how to pull at his audiences’ heartstrings, and he once again creates a novel full of regret and heartbreak that makes the audience want to rewrite the ending. At 200 pages its a good short read for anyone with a busy schedule.

Well, I’ll be back soon. Keep reading.

Emily

Lemuria bookstore is thrilled to invite all former Jackson Prep Patriot football players to a special reunion with Coach John McInnis. The event will take place Thursday, November 20^th from 5:30-7:00 at our store in Banner Hall on I-55. We anticipate an excellent turnout and look forward to meeting you.

As part of this event, we would be honored if former players would join Coach McInnis in autographing several dozen store copies of the new book Y’all vs. Us, Thrilling Tales of Mississippi’s Hottest High School Football Rivalries. The book details 15 of the best rivalries in the state including the now mega-rivalry between Jackson Prep and Jackson Academy. The chapter on the Prep-JA rivalry takes the reader from the early days of the two schools before they started competing against one another, to the first meeting in 1984, and through the controversial championship game in 2007. It is a wonderful read for anyone who has been a part of this cross-town rivalry and makes and excellent Christmas gift.