I got my hands on an early copy and read it this past July on vacation.

This book came out last month with much fan fare. If you missed it here is a shot of the billboard from Times Square:

Crazy for a literary book. eh?

Well, I don’t know if the billboard sold books, but this one deserves to be widely read. This is Eugenides attempt (successful in my book) at a postmodern love story. Madeleine and Leonard are young and in love – it’s the 1980s and they are steeped in college life. But while Leonard is quite brilliant he also tends to be very erratic. Meanwhile the Religious Studies student Mitchell has been in love with Madeleine since freshman year. I won’t tell you who ends up with who.

The story is captivating and the writing is never to wordy or verbose – I actually tended to think that Middlesex had some boring sections.

The secret to The Marriage Plot is that it makes the reader feel smarter. While you are reading about Madeleine’s post modern fiction class you feel like you are engaging with the Derrida or Barthes. Everyone in the store that has read this book has rushed over to the foreign fiction shelf and picked up Barthes’ A Lover’s Discourse thinking they would read it as soon as they finished The Marriage Plot only to be thwarted by lines like “Everything follow from this principle: that the lover is not to be reduced to a simple symptomal subject, but rather that we hear in his voice what is “unreal” – sheesh.

At any rate, you should pick The Marriage Plot up, you won’t regret it.

- Jack Cristil, Feb. 23, 2011

Voice of the MSU Bulldogs is signed by the author Sid Salter and Jack Cristil.

To reserve a copy of Voice of the MSU Bulldogs for IN-STORE PICK-UP or for UPS delivery, please call the store at 601.366.7619.

You may also place an order for UPS delivery on our website by clicking here.

If you have questions, please do not hesitate to give us a call!

With these words Karl Marlantes began his amazingly powerful novel about the Vietnam War, Matterhorn. The first step to becoming, as Sebastian Junger says, “the preeminent literary voice on war of our generation“, and in no way were we left unsatisfied. Matterhorn quickly became a bestseller, hundreds – many of them vets themselves – commented on our blog about Matterhorn (here) and we had a wonderful evening with Karl at Lemuria books. Then, back in the winter, we discovered that there was more – Karl has written his non-fiction/extended essay – with the title that says it all – What Its Is Like to Got to War.

There have been many reviews of What It Is Like to Go to War, but none of them do the book any justice. LISTEN: this book is so good, so well balanced, so exactly what we need to understand about war. The reviews haven’t done justice because a review never could. This book is about what it was like for Karl – as an individual – to go to war and what it has been like for him to have been someone who went to war.

As Karl says, “All conscientious citizens and especially those with the power to make policy will be better prepared to make decisions about committing young people to combat if they know what they are about to ask them.”

Please don’t miss this chance to meet Karl Marlantes on Wednesday, October 5th for a signing and reading from What It Is Like to Got to War at 5:00 and 5:30.

“Luce’s new stranger children were small and beautiful and violent”

The first line of the shiny new Charles Frazier novel that we’ll have the pleasure of selling on Tuesday. And a great line it is. As a parent of small children I at first thought that these children surely aren’t so different from all small children, but, well, they are. The next line:

“She learned early that it wasn’t smart to leave them unattended in the yard with the chickens. Later she’d find feathers, a scaled yellow foot with its toes clenched.”

No, Frazier’s protagonist in his third novel, Nightwoods, is in deep. She believes that “you take care of whatever needy things present themselves to you otherwise you’re worthless.”

Nightwoods is very different from Frazier’s earlier work. Set in the early sixties with bootlegging, juke joints, and mountains as a backdrop the reader might think of Thunder Road or the fiction of Ron Rash or even Tom Franklin’s Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter. The plot is one that builds in suspense as Luce finds that she loves these new stranger children and that she is at risk of losing them.

Join us on Tuesday, October 11th for a signing and reading with Charles Frazier at 5:00 and 5:30.

Sometime after moving to Mississippi in 1999 I began to notice some pretty interesting music on the radio. First I noticed a station that played classic soul music in the Stax vein. Then I noticed WMPR – a great station that plays blues, gospel, and talk shows. But the blues on WMPR didn’t sound a whole lot like the blues I know – very little Muddy Waters and very little John Lee Hooker. No, this music sounds more like a soul/blues fusion. In fact to my East Tennessee ears it sounded like a throw back to 1980s soul music, but it became apparent that this is not throw back music at all, but a vibrant and alive music culture.

Soon I started to hear a lot about a guy named Bobby Rush (find some of his CDs here) – a man who refers to himself as the King of the Chitlin’ Circuit. I did think, “what is the Chitlin’ Circuit” but I also thought, “wow, I like this”. If you’re in Lemuria late on a Friday afternoon Marvin Sease, Latimore, Ronnie Lovejoy, and Ms. Jody are just a few of the sounds you’ll hear. All of this led to Bobby Rush eventually playing a live show in our dot com building in 2007.

Now after all of these years of enjoying the music and the culture Preston Lauterbach gives us a wonderfully well written history of the Chitlin’ Circuit that explains how all of this came to be and fills a gap in American music history. To me this book fits perfectly between Robert Gordon’s Can’t Be Satisfied and Peter Guralnick’s Sweet Soul Music. So you can see why, to me, this feels like a “secret history”. The music is right here all around us in Jackson, MS, but for the first time the history has been researched and brought to light.

Join us Tuesday evening at 5.00 for a signing and reading with Preston Lauterbach, author of The Chitlin’ Circuit and the Road to Rock ‘N’ Roll.

We Mississippians are always looking for the next big writer to come out of our state – you know John Grisham and Greg Iles did it so who’s next? Well, if you haven’t caught onto the fact that Ace Atkins is the real deal then now is the perfect time.

The Ranger is the first of a new series for Ace. The protagonist comes home to Mississippi from Iraq and uncovers crime and mystery in his hometown. His uncle has died under mysterious circumstances and some unruly characters have taken over the town. The Washington Post has referred to The Ranger as redneck noir and compared Ace to Greg Iles – not a bad description and not bad company.

And in other news Ace’s wife just gave birth to their second child – so please come out and slap on the back, shake his hand, drink a beer and enjoy his reading from The Ranger.

John asked me to give a round-up of the authors we’re excited about this fall,  he mentioned three “big fish” – Jim Harrison, Michael Ondaatje, and Paul Hendrickson – here are a few more:

Authors we think we have a pretty good chance of scoring:

Charles Frazier is firmly in the category of bookstore friend. He’s been here for both of his books and is truly a wonderful person. The rumor is that Frazier’s new book is going to be great – a page turner set in the 60s so a bit of a departure.

Our new friend Karl Marlantes of Matterhorn fame already has another book coming out. This is non-fiction, the title says it all: What It Is Like to Go to War. Read all about his visit to Lemuria last year here.

I’m pretty sure we’re going to be able to get Jeffrey Eugenides. The author of The Virgin Suicides and Middlesex‘s first book since winning the Pulitzer in 2002.

A few authors that have been to Lemuria before, but we would love to have back include: Daniel Woodrell of recent Winter’s Bone fame, Tony Horwitz author of Confederates in the Attic and A Voyage Long and Strange, Hillary Jordan who wrote Mud Bound, Tom Perrotta, and, it’s been a while, but we can always hope for James Lee Burke to come back to Lemuria.

A couple of new up and comers that we’re excited about are:

Erin Morgenstern author of Night Circus. A bunch of folks on staff have already this book and really really want to meet Erin.

Jesmyn Ward grew up in DeLisle Mississippi and is currently the Grisham writer in residence at Ole Miss. We’re hearing a lot of good buzz about this one.

We’re thrilled to announce that we already have Chuck Palahniuk on the Schedule!

Authors who have never been to Lemuria, but we’re shooting for are: Mark Bowden, Ha Jin, and Haruki Murakami. Murakami’s 1Q84 is said to be his Magnum Opus and is certainly a huge book for this fall – think Cormac McCarthy big or Jonathan Franzen big.

and last but not least a few Children’s authors that we’re working on:

Christopher Paolini, Anna Dewdney (Llama Llama), Loren Long (Otis the Tractor), Rick Riordan, Jane O’Connor (Fancy Nancy), William Joyce, Mem Fox, and Kate DiCamillo (again!).

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The Bookstore Key Series on Changes in the Book Industry

Lemuria’s Headed for NYC (May17) Barnes & Noble Bankrupt? (April 28) Decluttering the Book Market: Ads on the latest Kindle (April 14) Independents on the Exposed End of the Titantic? (April 6th) Border’s Bonuses (March 30) The Experience of Holding a Book (March15) Finding “Deep Time” in a Bookstore (March 8th) Reading The New Rules of Retail by Lewis & Dart (March 3) The Future Price of the Physical Book (Feb 18) Borders Declares Bankruptcy (Feb 16) How Great Things Happen at Lemuria (Feb 8th) The Jackson Area Book Market (Jan 25) What’s in Store for Local Bookselling Markets? (Jan 18) Selling Books Is a People Business (Jan 14) A Shift in Southern Bookselling? (Jan 13) The Changing Book Industry (Jan 11)

There was a time when we went to a juke joint. And we used to go hear live blues and dance until the wee hours. In fact a few pictures of such activities have appeared on this blog. Now days we have little ones and if we’re up in the middle of the night it’s because someone has to go potty or because someone else is sick. Instead of juke joint pictures on the blog you get lots of pictures of cute kids.

And they are cute. And we don’t regret any of that. It’s ok. Really.

But wouldn’t it be nice if you could bring the kids to the juke joint? Or if you could have that same experience only not late at night?

This Friday Lemuria’s juke joint will be in effect. Always wanted to go over to Bentonia to Jimmy “Duck” Holmes’ Blue Front Cafe, but never been able to? Well, Duck Holmes will be playing for free on Friday at our juke joint (dotcom building) starting at 5:00.

The occasion is the release of Roger Stolle’s new book Hidden History of Mississippi Blues. Roger is also one of Mississippi’s hidden secrets. (not so hidden actually) He is the owner of the Cat Head Delta Blues and Folk Art store in Clarksdale and an avid spokesperson for the blues. In his words:

I moved to Clarksdale to circle the wagons, to mount a defense, to help the last generation of cotton-farming, mule-driving, juke-joint playing bluesmen deeply inhale the final breath of this amazing tradition we call Delta blues. My idea was to help other like-minded individuals and entities organize and promote this uniquely American art form from within and by all means necessary.

So, Jimmy “Duck” Holmes will be playing, Roger will talk about his books, Duck will play some more, we’ll have beer for a buck, and to top it all off the event is co-sponsored by Mississippi’s own Cathead Vodka. We’ll see you Friday the 13th at 5:00, right?

So, to get the idea of the book project across to those of us who are uninitiated Melody isn’t just doing signings, no, she’s bringing the boar hunting culture to each event. That’s right, a whole bunch of hunters showed up in their hunting garb with a mounted boar head, a video of the hunt, they decorated the store with prints from the book and bamboo, and they were all guzzling beer and telling tall tales and hunting stories. I think you get the idea. I’ll tell you what though, this book is a cool document of a part of southern culture, but it’s also documentary evidence of what all Mississippians believe – it’s all about the people. Thanks Melody.

Bringing Adam Home by Les Standiford and Det. Sgt. Joe Matthews

Monday, March 21 starting at 5:00.

I think people often think of Lemuria as a literary store or a store that features fiction – this is not always the case. Bringing Adam Home is great piece of non-fiction about the Adam Walsh case. Les is a great old friend to Lemuria who came here frequently when he was writing his Deal series in the 90′s. Non-fiction is not new for Les, but this new book is a new direction. The true story of the Adam Walsh story is compelling on its own – a sad story for any parent, but because it is also the back story for America’s Most Wanted it has an added dimension in our culture. This will be a great reading for people interested in law enforcement or for anyone who followed the tv show or remembers the case from the 80s.

The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht

Wednesday, March 23 starting at 5:00

Now this one is a literary event for sure. For those of you who like to be up on the hottest thing this is it. Téa has been all over the media for the past few weeks and Téa was named one of  The New Yorker’s 20 under 40. The book is ambitious and great and this is a guaranteed great event. Come by Wednesday night – you’ll regret it if you miss this one.

Georgia Bottoms by Mark Childress

Thursday, March 24 starting at 5:00

Looking for a good laugh? Mark is great friend of the store and the author of  Crazy in Alabama, Gone for Good, and One Mississippi. This will be a guaranteed entertaining event. Mark always has funny and interesting stories to tell. He spent a good chunk of his childhood in Clinton, Mississippi, so we consider him a hometown boy even though he lives in Alabama now. Georgia Bottoms is the story of a Southern woman who has lost her family fortune – her solution? discreetly “entertaining” a few of the gentlemen in town.

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell

Friday, March 25 starting at 5:00

Another great literary event. Another of the 20 under 40 authors. Swamplandia! has been on the NYT bestseller list for the past couple of weeks, but Karen has been hot ever since the publication of her book of short stories St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves was published five years ago. If you’re interested in Southern authors who promise to be around for a while then this is the one for you.

Every Day by the Sun: A Memoir of the Faulkner’s of Mississippi by Dean Faulkner Wells

Saturday, March 26 at noon.

Finally after a week full of great events we have a real treat. If you don’t already know, Dean Wells father was William Faulkner’s youngest brother. Sadly Dean’s father died in a plane crash just before she was born. Every Day in the Sun is Dean’s memoir of growing up almost as a daughter to William Faulkner. This is a fascinating and passionate memoir and a really special event for Mississippians.