A reminder to myself

I met with my book club last night at the The Local--where we always meet in a cool little room. Aside from meeting in a bar, this club is different like any book club is different. But the main real differences are that the group is all men and only reads fiction. The only rules are that is has to be 350 pages or less and that none of the six of us can have read the book previously.

It's been good for me in a number of ways. Giving up control of my reading life and having discussions that otherwise wouldn't take place. I always come away feeling like I understand the book better and best of all it is fun. Reading gets pushed at people for any number of reasons: continued growth/education, interacting with a somewhat silent object, it's good for you, etc. Yet it should be fun--maybe not always--but mostly, in my opinion.

Last night's discussion involved Steve Erickson's "These Dreams Of You." Europa has a reputation of publishing international fiction and books that are a bit outside the norm. While I wouldn't really term this book experimental, it does do some interesting things in both its form and telling. I kept thinking, "This book is messy." And it is for both better, and sometimes, worse. Yet its emotion and contemporary cultural themes are very strong. Adoption, race, the housing crisis and music are just a few of its main themes.

While walking back to catch the lightrail I was reminded that some of the best discussions about books go so far beyond, "It was good." Or, "I didn't like it very much." The differences in opinion lead to discussion and the personal things we all bring to the book and its reading twist things up.

Before joining this group I didn't get the appeal of these groups. Many become set times to drink wine or catch up on the kids. And that's fine. Moreso, I was wrong in some of my assumptions. I enjoy all of our meetings regardless of how much I liked the book, which I almost always have. It's a common reading experience that I gain from. I can't wait to hear what our next book will be.

It's easy to pigeon-hole things you know next to nothing about. Are there lots of groups reading the same stuff because other people are? Sure. Are there groups where people don't read the books? Sure. I also get to see all the great stuff the book clubs we deal with are reading. The range and scope is broad. The time periods encompass most of the last 100 years. Poetry, fiction and all kinds of non-fiction. It's a good thing for Micawber's, to be sure. It is also good for many of the readers and it's been very good to me.

One meeting I missed was held at one member's house because Bruce Machart, the author of the book we read, skyped into the meeting to discuss the book and people loved it. I always tell people to mix it up--read a book and watch the film. Pair two similar or dissimilar books. Read a classic followed by something contemporary. Read something in translation. Do it all for the fun that can be had.

Europa's design department is always on point but this cover is striking. Many people asked me what I was reading at the park or on the train. Our server last night went home with my copy. Maybe she'll read it with her book club.

Field Notes National Crop Edition(and on inspiration for the entire brand)

http://vimeo.com/40182652 This is a link to a video done by the good people at Field Notes. Totally going against the grain of electronic notes and messages, these notebooks have great design with some actual history behind them. Aaron Drapin is quite an interesting fellow but do be warned that his language isn't always pg-rated.

Field Notes entire collection can be perused here.

We'll have the Crop Edition in next week and currently do have in stock most of the 50 states editions. $3 each.

Last week's Besties

Hardcover Non-Fiction

Passage of Power-Robert Caro
Are You My Mother?-Alison Bechdel
The Republican Brain-Chris Mooney
Behind the Beautiful Forevers-Katherine Boo
Rez Life-David Treuer
Quiet-Susan Cain
Why Nations Fail-Daron Acemoglu
Breasts-Florence Williams
Prague Winter-Madeleine Albright
Turn Here Sweet Corn-Altina Diffley

Paperback Non-Fiction

Rhubarb Renaissance-Kim Ode
In the Garden of Beasts-Erik Larson
Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey-Fiona Carnarvon
The Wilder Life-Wendy McClure
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down-Anne Fadiman
The Hare With Amber Eyes-Edmund De Waal
The Happiness Project-Gretchen Rubin
Stand Up!: The Story of Minnesota's Protest Tradition-Rhoda Gilman
Triumph of the City-Edward Glaeser
Lost in Shangri-La-Mitchell Zuckoff

Hardcover Fiction
Bring Up The Bodies-Hilary Mantel
I Am a Pole-Stephen Colbert
Train Dreams-Denis Johnson
Rules of Civility-Amor Towles
Beginner's Goodbye-Anne Tyler
Death Comes To Pemberley-P.D. James
The Lifeboat-Charlotte Rogan
The Year of the Gadfly-Jennifer Miller
City of Bohane-Kevin Barry
I Am An Executioner-Rajesh Parameswaran

Paperback Fiction
Open City-Teju Cole
The Tiger's Wife-Tea Obreht
Half-Blood Blues-Esi Edugyan
State of Wonder-Ann Patchett
South of Superior-Ellen Airgood
Sisters Brothers-Patrick DeWitt
The Art of Fielding-Chad Harbach
The Last Warner Woman-Kei Miller
Ashes to Dust-Yrsa Sigurdardottir
The Confederacy of Dunces-John Kennedy Toole

It Comes and Goes in Waves

My wife and I are expecting our third child in about 40 days. As that number begins to dwindle and the reality of that becomes more real it is a time of joy and waiting and nerves. That last emotion is, of course, about the new child but it also is about the change that will soon impact my reading life. For the first few months my free-time(reading) will shrink considerably. So I'm trying to crash through some books before that happens.

There are times when I get in a reading rut which, I assume, is akin to writer's block. Nothing appeals to me or grabs me and forces me so sit down with it. Luckily, my more usual problem is that of too many good things. The following five books of fiction are things I've just finished or am almost done with. They are dissimilar is too many ways to count but they do share some commonality as well. Good historical themes. Good looks at modern culture. Beautiful sentences with some humor thrown into the mix. They will forever, for me, form an odd fiction gumbo of a particular time in my life--pre-baby-numero-tres.

I don't often review books per se on this blog. That's not really my goal--just more of a small taste of what these books contain and, hopefully, whet the appetite of some of you out there.

Ben Fountain had a book of stories, "Brief Encounters With Che Guevara" a few years ago. One of the things I enjoyed was how well Fountain dealt with the variety of locales the stories took place in. Myanmar, Ghana and Haiti to name a few. He was also the focus of a great Malcolm Gladwell piece in the New Yorker. So I've been waiting on "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" with great anticipation. It's told in one day at, off all places, a Dallas Cowboys game. Soldiers who have returned from Iraq are the central characters and they are bold and funny and changed by what they've gone through. The novel in one day is no new trick but it's done rather well here.

Christopher Tilghman is an author I got to meet this past winter in New Orleans. He and Lydia Netzer(author of forthcoming "Shine Shine Shine" 07/12) had dinner with a dozen or so booksellers. Just being around him for that short period of time gave me an understanding of his storytelling ability, wit and charm. His historical look at a Chesapeake Bay estate in the 1920's is evocative and compelling. "The Right-Hand Shore" is a book to be savored while sitting on the porch. It deliberately doesn't move quickly and the rewards along the way are many.

I've been a fan of Emily St. John Mandel since other booksellers got me to read "Last Night in Montreal". Her third book with Unbridled Books is "The Lola Quartet" and she fully displays her ability to mix mystery with varied points of view. All three of her books make it seem simple for a novel to fun while not being simplistic--a trick not easily accomplished.

Nell Freudenberger is another author whose previous work compelled me to look at hew newest, "The Newlyweds." It comes with a pretty, colorful, jacket with birds. So it looks good, yes, but reads even better. She manages to tell a story about 'elsewhere' yet never gets heavy-handed in the telling. She was on the most recent list of twenty under forty writers to watch and it's easy to see why. It got a very nice review from Maureen Corrigan, who, for my money is one of the best reviewers at it.

Finally, we've got Rajesh Parameswaran's "I Am An Executioner: Love Stories." As Jason, one of our Random House sales reps, explained to a group of Twin Cities booksellers this past weekend, they are love stories but with varying twists. Surprise is the one element that joins the stories together. With each one I found myself guessing at what would occur and found myself being proved incorrect again and again. It's a book that is a little difficult to discuss briefly because it is an odd mish-mash. Walter Mosley did it well in saying, "Pitch-perfect stories that recalibrate the notion of love and power with dark humor and unbearable tenderness."

"Comes and Goes(in Waves)" is a song written by Greg Laswell. He's pretty neat.

I'm sorry. Maybe next time.

How to decide what to read? The big question for any of us. As a reader by profession and persuasion this is a daily battle. I pick things up, skim a few pages, and move onto something else. As a rule I try to only read two novels at one time or my brain scrambles the characters and plots into one bizarre mess. Generally I am reading 2-4 non-fiction titles at a time. Lately, however, everything has gone haywire. In the past few weeks I have finished novels by Peter Geye, Joshua Henkin, Lou Berney, Esi Edugyan(for the second time) and Michel Houellebecq. There are dozens of others I have stared at and thought, "I really should read that soon. Maybe when I'm done with the next one." Karl Taro Greenfeld's "Triburbia" is the novel I currently read 10-15 pages a day of. Piles and stacks of books consume my life--and I'm happy with that fact.

There are several novels from Clarice Lispector that I just got in the mail from my friends at New Directions. I want to read Jesmyn Ward's amazing "Salvage The Bones" again because it throttled me the first time. Re-reading, depressing as it is, seems like three steps back for me. I promise myself no more new books until I finish the current group. But that promise is empty as the 'current' pile never really gets to an end. In the non-fiction world I am currently reading David Halberstam's NBA classic "The Breaks of the Game" despite the current woes of the Minnesota Timberwolves. I am also very, very, close to finishing Douglas Brinkley's "The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast" which is a beast of 768 pages of pure sorrow. I love it and it terrifies me. I've just begun to stick my toes into Benjamin Busch's "Dust To Dust" which was recommended by several customers and I loved many of his father's, Frederick's, books. Maureen Stanton and Cheryl Strayed are two writers I keep taking glances at despite the fact that I've read their most recent work. Every single day a customer says something along the lines of, "I really don't need to buy this because I have a stack at home." I get this sentiment and feel it myself.

But the waves of things we(or I) must/should/could read always keeps moving. All of this goes without mentioning the collections of poems I've been perusing for National Poetry Month. It's, I've been told, a fairly good problem to have. Too many good books and ideas. Too many pretty pictures. Sometimes, I must admit, it drives me a little crazy. What to read next? How to decide? I am, in the end, just like every other reader out there--choosing randomly and hoping the pile goes in the right direction. Which way that is I'm not entirely sure of. I really try not to discuss books that aren't available to the public yet but I do need to post one blurb regarding Peter Geye's "The Lighthouse Road" which comes out 10/16/2012. "THE LIGHTHOUSE ROAD is a small marvel of a book. The story is set in northern Minnesota in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and Geye's expert rendering of a time long past -- the brutality of backwoods logging camps, the heartbreak of an era when immigration meant never going home again, the logistics of whiskey-running -- is matched by the complexity and depth of his characters. A beautifully written, elegantly constructed novel." - Emily St. John Mandel I've got one free copy to the first person who responds to this post.

Mutually Exclusive(but both A+)

I'm a big fan of pairing books together--even books that, on the face of it, have very little to do with one another.

My newest duo is Kirby Gann's "Ghosting" and Kevin Barry's "City of Bohane".

Gann is the managing editor of Sarabande Books. Sarabande is a place that discovers new talent and works with them to develop their skills. Very frequently when I look at major award winners it turns out that one of their first books was published with Sarabande. So he knows talent. Apparently, he can also write it. "Ghosting" is a thriller with a literary bent. The characters are compelling and real and a list of other words might come up with to appeal to readers. It's about drugs, sure, but also about choices and the lives we end up with.

Kevin Barry is a new, refreshing, voice in the world of Irish fiction. Graywolf Press, my dear friend, has again hit the jackpot. This review gives it better praise than I can. Set in the future, yet dealing with the currently real, this novel is a crash through it type of work.

Both of these books reminded me of why I enjoy fiction. They create new worlds--old, current, future--that take me away from my life and make me consider it in new ways.

God Bless those folks who continue to toil in the shadows--the editors and writers--who make us feel life in new ways.

When I Was a Child I Read Books

Marilynne Robinson is considered to be one our finest living novelists. I'm not trying to make this a back-handed compliment, but I think she is a better essayist. Her new book is a look at art and books in an uncertain artistic time. She is all over the map in her interests and she's not the kind of person whose opinions are predictable. She challenges the reader to think and re-think. She dazzles in a very quiet manner.

In the preface alone she uses canard, magnanimity and shibboleth. She's cool like that.

This does a good job summing it up.