There’s a lot to be said about Winter Institute 7, a conference attended by booksellers, publishers and authors this past week in New Orleans, but one thing is for sure: it was a literary love fest. There were so many people talking about the books they love, and for a change, Kelly, Emily and I were hand sold books for the upcoming season. One of the most talked about books right now is The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson. It was great to meet Adam at the conference. Adam came to the bookstore in 2003 for his novelParasites Like Us, and he’ll be here Friday to sign his new book at 5:00 with a reading/talk to follow at 5.30. He loves Lemuria so let’s love him back! Come over for a $1 beer and a book!
That’s Nathan Englander on the right of Adam signing copies of his new book What We Talk about When We Talk about Anne Frank. Look for it in February!
Previous Lemuria Blogs on The Orphan Master’s Son:
‘”What about mamma?” The woman psychiatrist asks her patient, another woman, who is lying on a divan in the early 1960s. “What about mamma been doing to you, dear? I know she’s given you the enemas,” the psychiatrist continues. “And filled your bladder up with cold water, and I know she used the flashlight on you, and I know she stuck the washcloth in your mouth, cotton in your nose so you couldn’t breathe…What else did she do to you? It’s all right to talk about it now.”
“My mommy,” the patient answers groggily. She is in a hypnotic trance, induced with the help of the psychiatrist.
“Yes.”
“My mommy said I was bad, and…my lips were too big…she slapped me…with her knuckles…she said don’t tell Daddy. She said to keep my mouth shut.”
“Mommy isn’t going to ever hurt you again,” the psychiatrist answers. “Do you want to know something, Sweety? I’m stronger than mother.”‘
These are the opening lines of Sybil Exposed by Debbie Nathan a book about the three (or nineteen) women behind one of the most famous multiple personality cases in history.
Meet Shirley A Mason from Dodge Center, Minnesota: artist from a young age, only child in a devout Seventh-Day Adventist family with a nervous, controlling mother. This is the young woman who would later claim to have sixteen different personalities while in the care of the famous Dr. Connie Wilbur.
Sybil Exposed takes you through Shirley’s life, Dr. Wilbur’s psychiatric practices and the writing career of Flora Schreiber, author of Sybil. The book tells the story of how these three women meet and end up in business together to create the cultural phenomenon of Sybil.
You the reader get to decide if Shirley really did indeed suffer from multiple personalities or if these women were only out to get their own.
When the opportunity arose last fall for a week long vacation to Hawaii, there were no second thoughts for this girl. And, since no vacation is complete without several books in tow (not to mention that it is a loooong flight from the main land to this gorgeous island,) I packed my carry on bag with some great reads – including a few advanced reader copies that will be available this spring…
[This blog is posted under my name, but was written by my wife Lizby. -- Mark]
Because my husband works at Lemuria, my addiction to reading has a constant stream of books to feed it. Needless to say, I read quite a bit, and it’s always easy to choose my next indulgence, because my husband picks out books for me. He’s awfully good at it, but recently he outdid himself when he placed a book in my hand called Following Atticus. He bought it because the pictures on the cover and in the center fold were so darn cute, but as soon as I began to read, I realized what a gem he’d hit on.
Every once in a while, I find a book so compelling, that once I’ve read it I find myself unable to stop pestering friends to read it, too. This is one of those books. This true story is about a twenty pound miniature schnauzer and a middle-aged, overweight man and their attempt to hike all forty-eight of the deadly four-thousand foot white mountains in New Hampshire. In the wrong hands this could have been a sappy, cliched, cloyingly sweet story perfect for Disney to take on as their next animated feature. Fortunately, when Tom Ryan authored this book, he did it so masterfully that it transcends the simple plot and becomes so much more than a book about a little dog climbing big mountains.
What made the book so good was the love that Ryan clearly has for three things: literature, nature, and, of course, man’s best friend. As I read, I put a sticky note on every page with a quotation from other authors. By the time I was done there were so many bits of paper sticking up out of the top of the book that it looked like it had a mohawk. I got the sense that Ryan was so intimately familiar with the works of Kipling, Lewis, Frost, Emerson, Thoreau, and countless others, that quoting their words came as naturally as breathing. His descriptions of the mountains made me long to be back in my native New England, and see the those mountains again for myself. His account of his faithful companion captured the essence of “dog-ness” as only a real dog lover could.
In the Prologue of Following Atticus, Ryan says “I have come to judge a good story as one that makes me feel as if I’m losing a friend when I read the final page, close the book, and put it down for the last time”. This was one of those books for me. But here’s the best news – when I finished reading, I discovered that it wasn’t actually over. Little Atticus is still climbing mountains, and he has a blog with beautiful writing and photographs. So buy the book, check out the blog for pictures of all of Atticus’ adventures, and I hope you will be as enchanted by Following Atticus as I was.
I have been reading some great thrillers so far in 2012. I really enjoyed this one from Penguin, Dark Revelationsby Anthony E. Zuiker, the conclusion of the Level 26 Trilogy.
I became interested in this trilogy because I love CSI and Anthony E. Zuiker is the creator of the television series. I was introduced to Steve Dark when I read Dark Originsand thought and still think he is a total bad ass and I was introduced to Sqweegel, who is one of my favorite ‘bad guys’ of all time. I absolutely loved that book. I was equally excited whenDarkProphecy came out and then couldn’t wait for Dark Revelations. Dark is still chasing bad guys and has somewhat figured out how to balance that with being a father because he works from home with state of the art equipment in his basement. Steve Dark has been asked to join an elite special force that come together to capture Level 26 killers. This group has been able to capture killers that government agencies and even Special Circs have been unable to solve in the past. The killer on the loose now is known as “Labyrinth” and he uses riddles, puzzles and wordplay to announce who his next victims will be. With the use of social media he has created a media sensation and has followers from all around the world. People are almost seeing him as a modern day Robin Hood because of the political and social messages that are behind his killings. Can Steve Dark and his elite team of crime fighters stay a step ahead of “Labyrinth” and stop him before he kills again?
If you are interested in a really good fast paced thriller then I would recommend this entire trilogy. What is really cool is that this is a digi-novel. As you read these books books will you will come across codes to access a cyber bridge that will allow you to watch a mini-movie on your computer to give you a little more of Steve Dark’s story. I have enjoyed watching those as much as reading the books!
I reckon the idea of a rapture-like event has existed for a while. I’m not an expert on The Rapture, or even Christianity for that matter, but I have always been aware of the possibility of waking up to find the world picked of its morally elite. The circumstances of such an event have always been mysterious to me, even pondering the idea of a sky engulfed in flame and menacing creatures torturing the remaining. What seems unanswered is the question as to how long it will take for the world to end after millions of people suddenly disappear. Having never read any Tom Perrotta, I was very welcoming to the idea of starting with his post-rapture story laced with suburban trends.
I found exactly what I was looking for with The Leftovers. Beginning three years after the Sudden Departure, Perrotta follows a family who have fallen apart due to differing personal beliefs concerning the missing. The son joins a cult, the mother joins a creepier cult, the daughter shaves her head, and the father becomes mayor. The problems of a normal family are magnified by the lack of knowledge concerning why people of all nationalities, religions, and beliefs suddenly disappear. After three years, some people in the town are beginning to build a life that they once knew, equipped with softball leagues and white collar jobs. But as Stephen King wrote in his review for the New York Times, “The Leftovers is, simply put, the best Twilight Zone episode you never saw.” While some are searching once again for suburban happiness, there is a group known as the Guilty Remnant who stalk the town’s most morally questionable while wearing all white and maintaining a vow of silence. And just like the Twilight Zone, Perotta juxtaposes the wrecked with the rebuilt so beautifully, you can’t help but shut the book and giggle.
As if a fun, different read weren’t enough, Perrotta mapped out just how people would react to such a change. While reading it, I felt if there were such an event like the Sudden Departure, everything that happened in the novel probably wouldn’t be that far off. It just wasn’t that far-fetched, which really is quite terrifying. I’m relieved to know Harold Camping was wrong. Let’s see how wrong the Mayans are, huh?
You can read Stephen King’s review here. Below is a song by a duo from San Francisco called Two Gallants that deals with a rapturous breakup.
In the winter of 2006-2007, Lemuria’s book club, named “Atlantis”, came onto the scene at our book store. Created to give Lemuria readers a forum in which to delve into cutting edge literary releases, primarily fiction, the club has grown as each year passes. When I first came to work at Lemuria, I had asked our owner, John Evans, to tell me about the Lemuria book club. His response was, “We don’t have one. Why don’t you start it, Nan?” I was thrilled, having once been a member of a very vigorous book club, sadly disbanded when one of our primary members had moved from Jackson.
So, we began with maybe two or three members in attendance for each meeting. Our first title chosen was Margaret Atwood’s novel Oryx and Crake. From there we moved to other great titles, primarily literary or contemporary fiction, with a sprinkling of some noteworthy non-fiction titles such as Three Cups of Tea.
Our members show diversity both in their literary taste, as well as in their professional and personal lives. Age is not an issue, nor is gender. The common feature that we all share is a love of noteworthy literature. Multiple cities and states of origin promote interest and create diversity in thought and comment. Though primarily composed of local Mississippians, especially native Jacksonians, we also have members who are natives of Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan. To add to the mix, two members give us an international flair with their countries of origin being Germany and Brazil. Therefore, we gain a cultural diversity of thought and opinion and experience which adds to the richness of the group.
We meet the first Thursday of each month, year round, at 12 p.m. Discussions around a table or two kick off at 12:15 p.m, so being a little late creates no problem. Meeting at our dot.com building, which is just outside of the Broadstreet Bakery north, side door, we meet for an hour. Members are free to bring a snack or beverage of choice. Centered around tables, our diverse group of around 10-12 members thoroughly enjoys our provoking literary discussions.
Atlantis members also receive a 10% discount on Atlantis selections.
Contact Nan Graves Goodman at Lemuria (601-366-7619), or by email: nan@lemuriabooks.com
Having just completed in October my 36th year as a small business owner, I was interested in reading Cortese’s book as soon as I learned of it. Having always been interested in the promotion of importance and betterment of local business for my community, Locavesting caught my eye.
Locavesting is fundamentally about fixing our broken economic system. It’s about restoring a more just and participatory form of capitalism, one that allocates capital for productive use in the community. It’s about forming alternative ideas and practices rather than a win or take all economy. It’s about rebuilding our savings, our communities and strengthening the core of our culture, and hopefully about influencing the culture of our country, which I feel is being challenged by too much government influence. As announced this week, the U.S. debt is now equal to our economy which means our entire debt is as big as everything we produce in our country.
Locavesting emphasizes investing in what you know, local companies that you can see, touch and understand their community value and contribution. It’s about spending your dollars for services where service is strengthened and the dollar investment is recirculated in the local market, planting the seed for further growth equals a more self-reliant community.
As it seems to me, our government is intent on growing our dependency on manipulated entitlements. Locavesting is offering new considerations and explanations on how the work we do is one with ownership. A work lifestyle like this might help us make more of a difference. Perhaps the contributions we make for our community can somehow combat the reckless spending of “Too Big to Fail” business and government. Local business can at least take the bull by the horns in our communities and contribute to the local well-being day by day. We all know about the battle “Main Street” is fighting. It’s up to each of us to be a part of the solution. We don’t need to accept the malaise, and we must remember that our small steps can lead to a broader awareness.
Cortese presents arguments and statistics reinforcing the financial benefits of dollars being recirculated in the local markets. She explores which small businesses make a difference to our community culture. However, Locavesting is not anti-big business. The emphasis is on considering the implications of how our choices benefit local enterprises.
Reading Locavesting has enhanced my feelings as we move into 2012 on the importance of broadening this type of awareness. Not only do I want to be more aware of community from a personal standpoint, but also as a part of the Lemuria team as we broaden our outreach interests. We need to be more aware and more effective with our local community efforts and work with greater determination to achieve our outreach goals.
I was disappointed when I finished that Cortese does not have a two or three page suggested reading list. I feel that by not suggesting more reading on this subject, she missed the boat on further stimulating her message to her readers.
Consciously, Lemuria plans to utilize the core of our work to expand our mission into a larger community footprint. We welcome your input and participation.
Even if you have never heard of Mr. Fox, the design of the book cover should snare you into wanting to read this book, but the desire goes even further within the pages to keep you reading. To further interest the reader, the type set changes often, moving from an old fashioned font of an antique typewriter, which designates the specific letters written between the two main characters, or to italics, or to basic modern day typeset. The author obviously uses the font changes to reflect the shifts in mood or perception of the two main characters.
Concerning the two main characters, one is a writer, hence the title: Mr. Fox, and the other, well, the other, is not real, but the reader comes to know her “as real”. Her name is Mary Fox, but she is of no relation to Mr. Fox. So, who is she? Well, to be precise, she is Mr. Fox’s muse, but not in your ordinary way, because, you see, Mary appears in the writer Mr. Fox’s short stories which are in essence what make up this book.This may sound confusing, and at the beginning of the book, things are rather confusing, even though the reader already knows the premise of the book. But, as the book flows along, one learns the power of the imagination which can summon or coax or even fear the muse. A third character, Daphne Fox, who is Mr. Fox’s wife, appears from time to time in the book. She is super jealous of Mary, even though Mr. Fox tells her that Mary is “not real”. Yet, Mary seems very real to Daphne who often loses her sanity due to her husband writer’s attention to Mary.
Once Mr. Fox tries to explain to his wife Daphne about Mary, “Daphne. There is no girl on the side….She’s in my head…I know this sounds unlikely, but you’ve got to believe me. If you don’t, I’ve got nothing else to tell you. ….Not a lot to tell. Her name’s Mary. You’d like her, I think. She’s kind of direct. No-nonsense. I made her up during the war. She started off as nothing but a stern British accent saying things like, ‘Chin up, Fox,’ and ‘Where’s your pluck?’ Just a precaution for the times I came dangerously close to feeling sorry for myself. Don’t look like that D., I don’t need a doctor. Anyhow–you see now, don’t you, that she couldn’t possibly call the house? That’s just people getting wrong numbers, or one of your brothers phoning you up to ask for money and then losing his nerve. ”
The author of this clever little novel, Helen Oyeyemi, also wrote The Icarus Girl,The Opposite House, and White Is for Witching, which won a 2010 Somerset Maugham Award.
Ashley is another great reader from the Lemuria Book Owls Book Club. She is a smart reader and has reviewed the new book from writing duo Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguie, Unleashed:
I’ve read several books about werewolves and loved all of them. Unleashed was no exception. When Katelyn McBride moves to Arkansas from L.A. because of her parents’ deaths, she is dreading living with her grandfather who she barely knows, not to mention having to leave her best friend, and possibly ending her gymnastics career. When Katelyn arrives in Arkansas, she is in culture shock. She thought that the new town she was moving to would be boring, backwards, and extremely country. She is in for a surprise when she discovers the town has charm and the people are close to one another.
Katelyn stumbles on a dark secret of wolves while she is doing a history project with her strange new friend, Cordelia. She discovers that something more dangerous than anyone thought lives in the woods near her house and around the town as well as a mystery of an ancient legend hell hound guarding a lost silver mine. Katelyn also meets a guy named Trick who has had trouble fitting in and has a growing crush on her.
Unleashed is a book about starting over and surviving tragedy, losing friends and creating new bonds of family and love. This book is filled with dark tragedy, mystery, werewolves, and love. It is also the beginning of a series called the Wolf Springs Chronicles that I am looking forward to reading more of in the future!
The Book Owls meet once a month and discuss young adult books. To be a part of this book club, or any of our Lemuria Kids books clubs, email emily@lemuriabooks.com.
That’s Nathan Englander on the right of Adam signing copies of his new book What We Talk about When We Talk about Anne Frank. Look for it in February!
What made the book so good was the love that Ryan clearly has for three things: literature, nature, and, of course, man’s best friend. As I read, I put a sticky note on every page with a quotation from other authors. By the time I was done there were so many bits of paper sticking up out of the top of the book that it looked like it had a mohawk. I got the sense that Ryan was so intimately familiar with the works of Kipling, Lewis, Frost, Emerson, Thoreau, and countless others, that quoting their words came as naturally as breathing. His descriptions of the mountains made me long to be back in my native New England, and see the those mountains again for myself. His account of his faithful companion captured the essence of “dog-ness” as only a real dog lover could.
television series. I was introduced to Steve Dark when I read 
If you are interested in a really good fast paced thriller then I would recommend this entire trilogy. What is really cool is that this is a digi-novel. As you read these books books will you will come across codes to access a cyber bridge that will allow you to watch a mini-movie on your computer to give you a little more of Steve Dark’s story. I have enjoyed watching those as much as reading the books!
In the winter of 2006-2007, Lemuria’s book club, named “Atlantis”, came onto the scene at our book store. Created to give Lemuria readers a forum in which to delve into cutting edge literary releases, primarily fiction, the club has grown as each year passes. When I first came to work at Lemuria, I had asked our owner, John Evans, to tell me about the Lemuria book club. His response was, “We don’t have one. Why don’t you start it, Nan?” I was thrilled, having once been a member of a very vigorous book club, sadly disbanded when one of our primary members had moved from Jackson.
