The first book which is available for purchase now (and flying off the shelf) is Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie.

This narrative biography is up to par with all the Russian histories that this Pulitzer Prize winning author has previously written, Peter the Great, Nicholas and Alexandraand The Romanovs.

We learn about Princess Sophia Augusta Fredericka of Germany’s not to happy childhood with a mother who never showed much interest in her daughter until the possibility of a marriage between Sophia and Peter, the Grand Duke of Russia, came up.  Sophia had a natural curiosity and constantly questioned her tutors about all subjects and continued this love of learning well into her adult years.

After marrying Peter and becoming Catherine her life did not become much happier.  Her new husband paid little to no attention to her after the marriage and a heir to the throne was slow in coming which Empress Elizabeth blamed Catherine for.  Catherine soon learned that things in life can be worked to her advantage and continued to study especially works of Enlightenment philosophers, foreign policy and the ways of the Russian court.  She used all this when she ‘took’ the Russian throne from Peter to guide her decisions while ruling the backward Russian empire.

You will meet all those who were Catherine’s friends, favorites, family, lovers and of course enemies and who had the most influence over the decisions that turned a minor German princess who rose to become one of the most powerful and captivating women in history.

Also be on the lookout in January 2012 for a wonder historical novel, The Winter Palace by Eva Stachniak.  The story is told by Varvara and servant in the Russian court of Empress Elizabeth.  When Princess Sophie arrives at the Russian court Varvara (who is a spy or ‘tongue’) is given the task of befriending the young girl and reporting all she hears to the Empress. The two soon become fast friends and as the years go on Varvara makes the decision to side with the Grand Duchess as she makes her descent to the throne to become as we know her Catherine the Great.

The Civil War didn’t start with the firing on Fort Sumter, said the great African-American abolitionist Frederick Douglass. It started with John Brown’s 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry.

In a feat that was at once brave and reckless, brilliant and stupid, a scheme of inspired lunacy – John Brown and a band of 21 dedicated abolitionist fighters managed to capture and occupy a U.S. government arsenal containing a stockpile of over 100,000 rifles. It wasn’t Brown’s capture of these weapons that triggered the Civil War, but what he intended to do with them: distribute them to slaves in northern Virginia so they could rise up, kill their masters and assert their God-given rights of freedom and liberty.

The moral confusion of a nation dedicated to the principles of freedom, yet acquiescent to the institution of slavery, would be reduced in John Brown’s hand from shades of gray to the clarity of day and night.

The raid on Harpers Ferry exposed the precarious position of the few who enslave the many, triggering panic and unfounded rumors of slave revolts across the South. Southern politicians responded with harsh and abusive new slave laws, bellicose anti-U.S. rhetoric, and ultimately, a fateful decision to secede from the Union. Within two years of Harpers Ferry the United States would be convulsed in its bloodiest and deadliest war ever.*

In Midnight Rising, author Tony Horwitz has chosen this epic break-point in American history to explore a poorly-understood phase of our nation’s adolescence and paint a clear picture of one of history’s most obscure and controversial anti-heroes: John Brown, a sober and deeply religious old-line Calvinist whose hatred of slavery grew to consume his life and ultimately destroy it.

Horwitz preps his reader with the saga of Bleeding Kansas: the violence that erupted over whether Kansas would become a slave or free state, and where John Brown cut his teeth as a militant abolitionist. Pauses in the action are filled with rich biographies of Brown, his band of raiders, the women who supported them and the Secret Six: a cadre of wealthy Northern abolitionists who helped finance Brown’s covert operations.

Armory Guard House and Fire Engine circa 1862

The book hits its crescendo with the raid at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, which Horowitz renders with an unflinching and emotionally devastating blow-by-blow of the 32 hours John Brown and his men controlled the U.S. arsenal. The imagery is stark, the violence vivid; the raiders picked off one-by-one until only a handful remain to make a futile last stand against U.S. troops led by Col. Robert E. Lee (yes, that Robert E. Lee). Horwitz delivers a history lesson that reads like an action film – marking him as a true modern genius in the art of turning ‘boring-old’ history into page-turning literature.

There is one element common to Horwitz’s other books that readers will not find in this one: a great deal of lighthearted humor. In Midnight Rising Horwitz relinquishes his congenial first-person perspective to deliver a straightforward and sobering historical narrative. Those looking for a laugh-out-loud road trip spiked with hilarious characters, vis-à-vis Confederates in the Attic, will not find it in Midnight Rising. John Brown was called many things by the people of his time. Funny wasn’t one of them.

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* It merits mention for Lemuria readers that among John Brown’s personal items were found maps derived from 1850 U.S. Census data showing counties in the South where the slave population outnumbered whites. Among these were Hinds, Rankin and Madison counties in central Mississippi – all of which contained more enslaved people than free people at the dawn of the Civil War.

-Written by Richard Dortch

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.

It wasn’t the language that impressed me as the most foreign thing about Paris, though knowing a bit of French from school helped with that; for many Americans it is the architecture, its decadence and age. A few years ago, my dad took me and my sisters to Paris. We were there only a few days, but that was enough time for Paris to enchant us. Standing in front of Notre Dame Cathedral I experienced an awe no building in the U.S. could ever hope to inspire.

In David McCullough’s new book, The Greater Journey, he writes about Americans who spent time in Paris from the 1830s to 1900. The tale he weaves is yes, about their experiences in Paris, about what they gained there and were inspired by, and the differences they returned to America to make.

Charles Sumner was inspired by his time at the Sorbonne, studying side by side with blacks, to be a major voice for the abolition of slavery.

Emma Willis, a schoolmistress, was so impressed with the freedom of the young ladies who studied painting at the Louvre, that she went back to revolutionize higher education for women in the States.

William and Henry James came to Paris as young boys, and it shaped their sense of “foreignness” early on, which would figure greatly in Henry’s novels. These stories and many more McCullough weaves together to present a grand history of Paris during the nineteenth century that is from a very different perspective — one that is distinctly American.

As I read, I couldn’t help but keep referring to maps of Paris, reminding myself of the experiences I had shared with my dad as Americans in Paris. Some of the places McCullough evokes, like the Palais des Tuileries, no longer exist, destroyed by fire in 1871.

When we walked down the Champs-Élysées to the Tuileries Garden, the open Louvre courtyard, with the imposing glass pyramid at its center, was our view. Some, though, like the Pont des Arts, the first metal bridge in Paris, constructed by Napoleon I in 1802 solely for pedestrians, still stands, though it was reconstructed in 1981. My dad and I walked that bridge from the Louvre to the left bank, gazing at the Île de la Cité and Notre Dame which was just visible upstream.

It is these experiences of Paris, brought to life through the eyes of the American characters McCullough highlights using their letters and journals, that work his magic for him, bringing Paris to life so vividly. This is Paris before it was a moveable feast, and it will appeal to the history lover / traveler (armchair or otherwise) dad in your life. For as Oliver Wendell Holmes was fond of saying, “Good Americans, when they die, go to Paris.”

Dodd is a frugal professor from Chicago and brings his wife, son and daughter, Martha, along with him to have the opportunity of a lifetime.  Very soon, Martha becomes seduced by the extravagance of the ‘New Germany’ and becomes involved with many men including the first chief of the Gestapo and a Soviet spy.  Dodd, of course, comes into contact with many high ranking Nazi officials including Hitler and while having to attend all these glittering parties becomes gradually suspicious and some might say paranoid that what is being presented to him might just not be all there is to this “New Germany”.

Meanwhile, back at the State Department there is a growing faction of people working against Dodd and they continue to ignore his letters and telegraphs that voice these concerns.  Dodd and Martha continue through the year to find their  lives gradually transformed and beliefs changed until the fateful night that reveals to the world Hitler’s true character.  Larson has once again written an excellent historical narrative that “sheds fresh light on why America stood by as Hitler rose to power”.

Even if you normally do not read nonfiction but are interested in this era of history, you will certainly find this book informative and simply thrilling to read.

In the Garden of Beasts will be available on May 10.

Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation

by Mitch Horowitz

Bantam (2009)

Thirty-four years ago I opened Lemuria to offer books for sale that were at the time not offered in my community. I felt the need to reflect the life-style of the counter-culture movement through my inventory with a lot of emphasis on New Age therapeutic spirituality and occult (hidden or obscured) texts. I named the bookstore Lemuria. I figured “Lemuria” was a label to inform my desired readers that books of alternative knowledge and hidden wisdom would be included as part of my inventory.

Horowitz’s book is a readable reflection of the physic highway from our nation’s Free Masonic roots to the birth of the New Age era. Occult America fits this jigsaw puzzle of Ouija boards, Astrology, clairvoyant religious teachers, women’s rights, symbology, numerology, etc. into a well-organized historical presentation. Occult America is well written and interesting without academic-like pitfalls.

Enjoyable sections on Manly P. Hall and Edgar Cayce were well done. My favorite essay was “Go Tell Pharaoh: The Rise of Magic in Afro-America” focusing on Voodoo and Hoodoo and Frederick Douglass’ story of his John the Conqueror root. However, I did feel that the last section, “Aquarius Rising,” to be rushed with not enough information concerning the state of counter-culture thinking today.

Over the years Lemuria has expanded its inventory, keeping at its roots the need for alternative thinking and ideas.

The research done by Francesca, and one of her fellow students, leads them to the archives of the Mattei family who were patrons of Caravaggio generations before.  Sergio Benedetti used X ray and infrared photographs of paintings to discover the authenticity of the work as well as the artist’s techniques, by looking under the layers of paint to the under drawings.  In Caravaggio’s case, however, the drawings were actually made in the gesso with the end of a paintbrush, not charcoal or paint.  The restorer’s process is important because it helps us distinguish between the original paintings and their multiple copies.  Harr’s nonfiction story takes us into a detailed account of how The Taking of Christ was rediscovered.  This New York Times Bestseller keeps the characters and the process of their research interesting until the end of the book, whether you are an art expert or not.

-Sarah Clinton

-Yvonne

The last two weeks I’ve spent reading this book have been nothing short of eye-opening. What is the What is by far one of the most memorable reads I have had in quite some time. Eggers tells the story of Valentino Achack Deng, beginning with his current living situation in America, but more importantly how he came to be a U.S. citizen. Forced from his hometown of Marial Bai, a small town in southern Sudan, Achack quickly finds himself alone in search of a new beginning. Unaware that civil war has broken out in Sudan, or genocide is underway by hands of his own government, Achack is soon joined by thousands of other “Lost Boys” all seeking shelter where there simply is none. It seems there is no escape from the bloodshed, no refuge for the thousands of now homeless Sudanese, and simply not nearly enough food or water to go around. Even in the “safety” of the refugee camps, food remains scarce, and the violence still ensues. Eventually, Deng does find refuge in America, only to discover that even in “paradise” there is violence and prejudice lingering around every turn. Sadly, he realizes he is searching for hope in a seemingly hopeless world, but more importantly he never gives up.

I could go on and on about this book, and would still not cover it all. I honestly feel you owe it to yourself to read this book. In my opinion, the best part about this book is how educating it is about the current situation in Africa. Unfortunately, I was mostly unaware of what was going on in places like Sudan, Darfur, and most recently Kenya before reading What is the What. That’s the beauty of this book, it leaves you wanting to know more. Why is this happening? Who is responsible, and most importantly, HOW CAN I HELP? Sadly, the media does a poor job informing the public about the conflict in Africa, however, Eggers does a marvelous job telling not only Achack’s story, but the story of so many in Africa over the last few decades.

I am also compelled to tell you that all the profits from this book are put back into the Valentino Achack Deng Foundation. After fleeing his home and family over twenty years ago, Achack just recently returned for the first time to reunite with all that he was forced to leave so long ago. With the proceeds, he broke ground on a new school that is scheduled to be finished sometime this year.

Links:
-Check out Eggers’ reading
-Find Out More at The Valentino Achak Deng Foundation
(and check out their projects and videos)