An update from some of the Read This booksellers

One question I've been asked at nearly every event I've participated in for Read This! is: "What is one book you've read since publication that you would add to the list?"

So I asked the contributors for one thing they've read recently and really enjoyed. Per usual with this fun cast of characters, we got some great responses.

Flora by Gail Godwin (Bloomsbury, May 2013, 26.00)

The narrator of Gail Godwin's brilliant new novel is a older woman looking back upon her life
as a ten year-old in the summer of 1945. Helen's mother died when she was three and Helen
lives with her father and her wise, dear grandmother, Nonie. Her father is called "to the other
side of the mountain" to work at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, on something called the Manhattan
Project, and when Nonie suddenly dies, her father summons Helen's mother's 22 year-old
sister, Flora, to take care of the girl for the summer. Helen has cynical tendencies and is very
precocious, while Flora, occasionally stunned by the girl's sharpness, is cheerful and dutiful.
A polio quarantine forces the two into a rather unwanted constant companionship, and when
Finn, the appealing but mysteriously discharged veteran, appears as their grocery delivery man,
a rivalry is exacerbated. Gail Godwin's masterful plot tension (not to be spoiled here) and her
power to create characters with remarkable depth, as well as her gift for prose, elevate the whole
into entirely successful literature and reading of high pleasure. If you think there is no one
today who can write with the skill of a Peter Taylor or, for that matter, George Eliot, read Flora.(Richard Howorth, Square Books)


The Teleportation Accident by Ned Beauman

Follows the insane exploits of Egon Loeser in the 1930s, from Berlin, where he falls for a girl named Adele Hitler (no relation,) to Paris and Los Angeles, where he pursues Adele and also manages to get himself involved in the craziest of capers. On top of being uber-smart and hilarious, the ending will make you take your eyeballs out, rinse them off, and put them back in, just to be sure you read the last few pages correctly. You did. MIND=BLOWN. (Liberty Hardy, RiverRun)

John Le Carre's A Delicate Truth (Viking, May) reminds us why we're fond of him in the first place. It's genre writing but with the literature thrown in, as he tells a story of a counter-terrorist operation gone badly wrong not with through the pop-pop pyrotechnics of a Tom Clancy but with an economy of style and understatement, with crackling wit and a strong sense of morality and characters fully drawn. Proof that good writing doesn't have to be inaccessible. (Matt Lage, Iowa Book)

A CONSTELLATION OF VITAL PHENOMENA
by Anthony Marra
(Hogarth, hd., $26)
May 7, 2013

Every few years there comes along a debut novel that just steals my heart because the work is so transcendent and such an unexpected joy to read. I'm thinking of Tea Obreht with The Tiger's Wife or Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything is Illuminated for example. Well, now it's Anthony Marra with his remarkable A Constellation of Vital Phenomena. Set in contemporary Chechnya against a back drop of war and insurgency, it is a testament to Marra's skill that the novel is heartbreaking but ultimately uplifting. It even made me want to read up on Chechen history and that's something that I never thought I would say. Do yourself a favor and check out this splendid new writer of whom Ann Patchett says, "If this is where Anthony Marra begins his career, I can't imagine how far he will go." (Cody Morrison, Square Books)

LIFE AFTER LIFE
by Jill McCorkle
(Algonquin, hd. $24.95)
March 26,2013

Is there some sort of energy used by novelists that when not used builds up and when finally sent out in a book is like a dam breaking with torrents of emotion and story so powerful that the reader is helplessly swept away? After reading Jill McCorkle's first novel in 17 years, one has to wonder. Set in a retirement home where some have come to die, but there is so much life to live as well. Joanna, who has had her own troubles in life, now volunteers for hospice care, gently guiding those who are leaving this life. Sadie, a retired school teacher and the boddi satva of the home, is compassionate to all as she wields her scissors and glue to create photos of residents in places all over the world. Rachel Silverman, a lawyer, who, while knowing no one in town, has come to live there from her home in Massachusets. C.J., rebellious, pierced and tattooed, but trying to be the best mother to her young son that she can. Stanley, faking dementia to encourage his son to move on, and Abby, a young girl seeking the positive reinforcement she can't get from her mother, all make their place here. A novel to remind one that everyone has a story. (Lyn Roberts, Square Books)

Dust to Dust by Benjamin Busch. Here's what I said about the hardcover, and I stand by this strong recommendation a year later: In this completely original memoir, Busch meditates on materials such as water, soil, blood, stone, and wood, telling his life story from childhood curiosity to wartime high alert with breathtakingly detailed observations. There is very little of the usual memories of relationships, but instead this is a journey into the mind of a boy and man who sees differently, and has the words to beautifully describe his experiences and thoughts. This is a profound book, with lasting impact that I want to press this into the hands of everyone I know.(Carla Jimenez, Inkwood Books )

Wise Men, by Stuart Nadler

Oh, so you like Great American Novels, huh? But you think that none have been published in a few decades? You poor soul! You're wrong! Stuart Nadler's debut novel has it all: love, money, race, airplanes, baseball, beach houses. It's a book to read now or in fifty years. Delicious and satisfying.(Emma Straub)

Most of my reading attention lately was focused on Hugh Howey's Wool. It's a book that, like the 50 Shades series, started as a self-published phenomenon but ended up at a major publishing house. Unlike EL James' books, Wool is really freakin' good. (Hey, I can say this. I subjected myself to 50 Shades of Grey. Sacrifice!) Set in a future US where the environment is toxic and mankind has retreaded to underground silos, the world of Wool is brilliantly realized. There's a satisfying undercurrent of menace from the very first page, as is the wont of all good dystopias. And it's got a kick-ass female protagonist! The ending is a bit too tidy, and I have a few quibbles with Howey's writing in the early chapters, but neither issue is big enough to stop me from recommending the book. In fact, it's probably my favorite dystopian novel since Justin Cronin's The Passage.
(Josh Christie. Sherman's Books)

Benediction, Kent Haruf, , Knopf, $25.95

Without ever slipping into sentimentality Kent Haruf has laid bare the hearts of a dying man, Dad Lewis, a sort of Everyman, and the family and friends of his present life, along with the memories and ghosts from his past. A more painfully “human” character than Dad Lewis is hard to imagine—someone whose refusal to bend results in tragedy for more than one person; someone chary of open emotion; someone who, paradoxically, is capable of the deepest kind of love. The rest of the cast consists of his wife of many years; the daughter who has come home to help care for him; an estranged son who visits him in memory and in dying dreams; assorted neighbors, children and adult alike; the Pastor and his family—all with troubles of their own. For all its rural grace, the high plains town of Holt, Colorado, is no Eden. Bigotry and violence are as much a reality there as they are everywhere. But there is also a wealth of caring that seems to be part of Holt’s rural character—or more accurately, part of the character of humanity as Haruf sees it, sees us. He seems to see in each of us the capability for hope as well as pain, the capacity for redemption as well as sin. Kent Haruf has crafted a tale that is as riveting, as shot with joy, anger, fear, love, regret, as life itself—and one that, in its compassionate and profoundly honest view of humanity, really does feel like a kind of benediction. – Betsy Burton, The King’s English Bookshop, Salt Lake City, Utah

In the spirit of Richard Yates’ novel Revolutionary Road, Caroline Leavitt peels back the neat façade of suburban life in the 1950s to uncover the ways in which the demands of conformity leave a trail of loneliness and pain for those who lie outside its bounds. Ava Lark, the divorced Jewish mother of twelve-year-old Lewis, struggles against the judgment of neighbors as she and her son befriend the only other fatherless children around, Jimmy and Rose. Jimmy’s sudden, unexplained disappearance taps into every parent’s worst nightmare. Blending taut suspense with deeply moving portrayals of fierce parental love, childhood friendships and first crushes, Leavitt has created a novel with haunting characters and much to say about how we move through tragedy. (Libby Cowles, Maria's)

The Illusion of Separateness by Simon Van Booy (Harper Collins, June 2013, $24.99, 9780062112248)
The incandescent prose of this slender novel transfixed me until my heart shattered. Each character I met—with such deep longing in their souls and generosity of their spirits—seemed to be painstakingly carved from the granite of profound emotional truths, and I quite literally collapsed under the weight of it all. Moving backwards and forwards in time, we follow a starburst of people, from France to Los Angeles, whose smallest gestures have grand, echoing reverberations over the course of 66 years. I was (and continue to be) rendered utterly speechless for the magnificence of it.

There's a lot of stuff I've read and loved since our little red book came out, but this one crippled me.(Stacie M. Williams, Boswell Books)



“Folks in a small town from ex-prisoner to preacher, outcast boys to the very old, try to get by facing what seem to them to be the imperfections of their character while pursuing their longing for connection to community—community of others and community with themselves. Rhodes masterfully paints their many layered complexity in language so vivid and kind, it nearly renders the reader breathless. This is a damn fine novel—one of the best kinds—where ordinary people living ordinary lives are drawn by the deft & lyrical touch of the author in such an achingly rich way, one quietly marvels. When you read a novel like this where you dearly wish to move in with the characters, they have already moved in with you.”
—Sheryl Cotleur, Copperfield's Books, Sebastopol, CA

"The Map and The Territory - Michel Houellebecq, long the literary bad-boy of France, has decided to move on from the prostitutes and sex dungeons that made his earlier work so infamous (if just). Consider it the literary equivalent of Woody Allen going on to make Annie Hall. Also, like Allen, Houellebecq excels at the darkly comic. His style here can best be described as "depressive lucidity," or highlighting the impoverishment of everyday life. Or even to put it more bluntly; '"fuck it. Let's go get drunk."

Houellebecq's language is his power. He wields his mighty axe both for comic aggression: there is a vicious and delightful take-down of Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons, or for beauty: the description of an art installation of photos of Michelin Maps is gorgeous. Even a side-plot involving the man character's father is deeply affecting and powerful.

This is an amazing novel: lucid and enlightening, comic and terrifying. Stefan loved." (Stefan Moorehead, Unabridged Bookstore)

The young Turks

I can tolerate, and understand, a lot of complaints about novels and the world of fiction. Bad endings, sloppy editing and overly done storytelling or style are all valid complaints. The two that I hear most frequently that I have no patience for: it seemed unrealistic(the headlines from CNN every single day are more implausible than any novel) and the old 'there is no good writing since year fill-in-the-blank.' I'm afraid that not much can be done to combat either statement--those people need to believe what they want to believe.

For those who don't believe the latter, or are willing to have their mind changed, I do have some promising news. In the last 4-6 weeks I have read four outstanding novels by young writers. Three, in fact, are debut novels and the other one is the authors second book.



The first is Elliott Holt's "You Are One Of Them" which is something I was made aware of by my friend Casey Peterson at Graywolf Press. Casey reads contemporary fiction like mad and I am always interested in what he likes. Holt has put together a story that I think perfectly captures the angst and worry of children witnessing the Cold War arms race. Set in both Washington, D.C. and Russia the book centers around a friendship between two young girls. As North Korea is currently trying to go off the rails and doing its peace talks with Dennis Rodman(defense item #1 of actual world events being totally nuts)this novel was a great reminder of what this kind of chatter can do to the minds of children. I read this book over the course of two or three days and immediately handed it to my wife who also cruised through it. It has a perfect balance of being a page-turner and very well-written. She will be reading at Magers&Quinn on June 4th at 7:30 p.m. I plan to be there.

The next three have become a trio that I want to discuss as a grouping. And a big part of that has to do with the marketing that is being done for them individually. All three have comparisons to Cormac McCarthy. Blurbs and marketing are a tough business. You want to say that something is completely original but also compare it to past success. Anything vaguely Southern or gothic or tough or masculine tends to get the Cormac tag which is an unfair(and mostly not correct) link. Yet I did love Bill Cheng's "Southern Cross The Dog," Philipp Meyer's "The Son," and Kent Wascom's "The Blood of Heaven." All three are set outside our current world in American frontier times. 1799, early 1800's and 1927 are each of their starting points in reverse order.

All three have some historical research and characters both real and imagined. The storylines are each their own thing but it seemed, to me, while reading them in succession that they are somehow spiritual book cousins. I'm no mastermind at interpreting trends in the book world either by color of book jackets or thematically. But I do wonder what has turned these novelists to American history(and not so recent)? There are no footnotes or traces or David Foster Wallace. There is no use of heavy irony or modern technology and its trappings. These are old-fashioned character and prose-driven works. I have tried to force myself to pick which one was my favorite and it keeps shifting.

I try to stay away from talking about too many books that are not yet published because it seems like a tease. So if you'd like to learn a little bit more about them you can find some stuff here. Bill Cheng. Philipp Meyer and Kent Wascom.

Elliott Holt can also be found here.

Always good to have some books to look forward to.

The truth? You can't handle the truth.

With thanks to a semi-young Jack and a not yet loco Tom Cruise

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5j2F4VcBmeo
The book industry is currently in major limbo. None of us know what is going to happen in the next 3-5 years. Or beyond.

Big boys are in trouble. B&N is nearly done. Borders is gone already.

There is a very real chance for small places to assert their strength.

Yet, again, all of this is guess-work.

The book world quakes and shakes and re-configures.

And yet, I strongly believe, the book itself is not dead.

The e-book and the e-reader are waves of the future.

The book. The actual book. It remains and will not leave.

Looking over the shoulder at 2012

Last year I did a little write-up about my mistakes. It became clear that people love to read about other people screwing up. So it would make some sense to do the same thing this year--but I'm skipping over that as mistakes can be difficult to confront.

What I will be doing is a scatter-shot review of the year for us and, to a lesser degree, the book world at large.

After talking to a number of other stores and sales reps I feel it's pretty safe to say that 2012 was a pretty good year for most stores. Things started well for a good majority of stores and rolled along until a strong holiday season. As has been reported elsewhere, this year featured no smash-hit country wide. No Mark Twain bio. All in all, it's a positive sign for the industry that things can go well with everyone sharing a little of the success.

Last week I posted our bestsellers for the year and for the month of December. Outside of those books we were lucky to have a number of other books do quite well. "Stockholm Octavo" and "Leon and Louise" were two nice surprises. "Press Here" and "Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site" were big hits in the kids book realm. We had a number of locals do well: Peter Geye's "The Lighthouse Road" and Carrie Newman's "War on the Prairie" being the most notable.

Trying to sense any solid trend is risky business for our store. We've been here for 10 years(officially in August 2013)and that is still a small sample size. Two things I can say is that this past fall was very strong for us in terms of hardcover book sales. And cookbook sales have gone bonkers. The cookbook thing really should be its own post(note to self). It's most likely a combination of the ever increasing interest in cooking shows(Bourdain, Top Chef, Chopped, etc.) and the quality of these books getting better and better. It's also one area of the book world not easily or well replicated on a tablet/reader. A recipe is a recipe. But the pictures and other miscellany count for a lot. The hardcover sales are something I can't really put a finger on.

The last thing I'd be remiss not to note is the fact that bookstores(real, physical, spaces) had a renaissance of sorts in 2012. There were a number of books on books and bookstores. We were lucky to be involved in a couple of them. Ann Patchett, whose store in Nashville, TN has been open for just over a year, became a perfect spokesperson for us and kept us the regular media loop. I also had the great fortune to edit a book of lists from booksellers and it put me into contact with stores all over the country. What I learned, and continue to appreciate, is that we all play for the same team. In December I spoke on the phone, daily, with booksellers from Magers&Quinn, Common Good and Subtext. We called each other to find books that weren't in stock at our own stores. It was a sign of respect/admiration for one another to be sure. It was also a concerted effort to help customers find books locally if at all possible.

I've said this many times before but I feel strongly about it: the MN/Twin Cities book world is as good as, or better than, anyplace in the United States. We have a strong community of bookstores, publishers and assorted others in the biz as well as a group of readers that allows us to do what we love to do. For that I thank all of you. It was a great year and we look forward to many more.

A little trip to Stockholm(Wisco)

Sometimes we can't see the forest for the trees--isn't that how the old saying goes? The book world is large and varied like the number of creatures alive in the ocean. Bookstores are certainly not one thing. Mystery stores, kids stores, poetry stores. Used Books. Antiquarian and collectible. Remainder stores.

Locally, even, there are groups of book-lovers whose circles I never enter into. The Ampersand Club, for example. In that vein, this past Sunday, my friend Ben and I ventured over to Stockholm, WI to visit Gaylord Schanilec and his studio. I've written briefly about Gaylord and his work on this site before. I have always appreciated his taste in books and other art, his devotion to place and his work--throwback is simply the tip of the iceberg.

In any case, he's always told me I could visit his workspace and we finally made it happen. The drive alone was worth our time. Heading into roadways lined by ancient rock and more and more turkey vultures, hawks of all kinds and eagles coming into view. Maybe it's silly to say that this natural beauty paled in comparison to seeing how his work is made. But for me it's true.

To say he operates in a different part of the book world is a vast understatement. His website lists him as wood engraver and fine paper worker. It doesn't say what is quite obvious: he is a link to old world art and is absolutely a master craftsman. Watching him walk around the studio and tolerating our rapid-fire questions about his tools and machinery, I couldn't help but think: I am in the midst of real artistic genius. Such talk embarrases him but it's the truth.

It was great fun to look through his archives and the amazing library he has amassed on a wide variety of topics: paper, print-making, poetry, you name it. His most recent and ongoing project involves the great river and the studio is filled with books and maps on the topic. We looked at DNR manuals from the 1920's on the fish of MN. Books he had obtained from James J. Hill's personal library. We share a mutual love of Thomas McGrath and he was happy to show us some stuff he had done with McGrath's work. He was so willing to let us paw through all of his stuff whose worth is great in monetary value but even moreso in more ethereal ways. Several times I said, "We should get out of your way and let you work." He shrugged me off and was happy to have us as a diversion/mild annoyance.

Our conversation brought up so many names from the history and present of books in this area. I have great respect for those who have helped to form what is now our vibrant and diverse book world. Names like Pat Coleman and Will Powers and Jim Sitter and Rob Rulon-Miller. In fact, I have a Bookslinger coffee mug sitting on my shelf right now--Bookslinger being a book distributor that pre-dates both Bookmen and Consortium and that Mr. Sitter helped found.

While I am quite obviously a fanatic for his work in general it became clear to me, on this visit, that this newest work is going to be something on a new level. It's attention to detail and the amazing colors. The map that will fold out from the front of the book. To see all of the woodcuts he has and the paper on the drying racks and revision after revision. The total man hours poured into this is stupefying.

Here is one final link to another paper artist who visited the workshop and was equally impressed.

In short, buy this guys work and you will not be disappointed. We're lucky to have him in the vicinity and kicking out stellar books and prints.

2012 bestsellers

I'm still mulling over the end of 2012 which was supposedly bad for retail in general but mostly good for smaller stores(including us). Early next week I'll put together some thoughts on the year past. Here are our bestsellers and a mixed-category list of our top-selling titles in December.

December Top 20(Interesting to note that 13 are written by women)

Read This!--Hans Weyandt(ed.)
Round House--Louise Erdrich
Flight Behavior--Barbara Kingsolver
A Thousand Mornings--Mary Oliver
Behind The Beautiful Forevers--Katharine Boo
Help, Thanks, Wow--Anne Lamott
Goblin Secrets--William Alexander
The Signal and the Noise--Nate Silver
Dogfight--Calvin Trillin
Tiny Beautiful Things--Cheryl Strayed
War on the Prairie--Carrie Newman
Dear Life--Alice Munro
Smitten Kitchen Cookbook--Deb Perelman
Things That Are--Amy Leach
The Old Ways--Robert Macfarlane
The MN Book of Skills--Chris Niskanen
Snow Child--Eowyn Ivey
Wolf Hall--Hilary Mantel
The Paris Wife--Paula McLain
Train Dreams--Denis Johnson

Top 10 Hardcover 2012
Wild--Cheryl Strayed
Round House--Louise Erdrich
This is How You Lose Her--Junot Diaz
Things That Are--Amy Leach
Phantom--Jo Nesbo
Behind The Beautiful Forevers--Katharine Boo
Flight Behavior--Barbara Kingsolver
Rez Life--David Treuer
Quiet--Susan Cain
Bring Up The Bodies--Hilary Mantel

Top 10(or so) Paperback 2012
Read This--Weyandt(ed.)
War on the Prairie--Carrie Newman
Tiny Beautiful Things--Cheryl Strayed
Train Dreams-Denis Johnson
The Hare With Amber Eyes--Edmund DeWaal
Cutting For Stone--Abraham Verghese
Open City--Teju Cole
The Art of Fielding--Chad Harbach
Hunger Games--Suzanne Collins
Salvage The Bones--Jesmyn Ward
Sense of an Ending--Julian Barnes
The Half-Blood Blues--Esi Edugyan
The Tiger's Wife--Tea Obreht
State of Wonder--Ann Patchett

What I Don't Read

I want to preface this by saying that what will follow will sound like jackassery--and I don't intend it to. Yet the truth of the matter is that I get asked to read a lot of books. Asked by eager authors, publicists, friends of friends of writers, other booksellers, friends and random strangers. It's often quite difficult to decide what to read(I know, tough problem).

My reading habits trend towards feast or famine. Meaning there are seven or eight things I want to read at one time or none at all. The logic--if there is any--behind what I choose to read and when is a very inexact science. In the past week two or three very perfect examples of this have taken place.

I started Thomas Maltman's "Little Wolves" several months ago. And by started I mean that I read the first two pages and decided it wasn't my thing. But the momentum kept building by word of mouth with other booksellers and writers. And I remembered hearing good things about his first novel. And Soho Press--a fine publisher of literary mystery and novels--published this one. So after much prodding I began it again this past weekend. And for the past three days its all I've wanted to do when I wasn't wrestling with my 2.5 and 5 year old boys. It has some wonderful MN angles but is equally good for people who know or care nothing about Minnesota.

The second book is entitled "Here If You Need Me" by Kate Braestrup. I heard her a few weeks back on Krista Tippet's NPR program 'On Being.' I listened to a small portion of the program while sitting on the side of the road and was totally hooked. Her ideas on love and living and death seem both faith-based and no nonsense. I must confess to an aversion to organized religion as a k-college Catholic eduacation left me dizzied by the big C Catholic organization. Yet I felt at home with Braestrup's ideas on faith and loss.

In both cases I listened to others and ignored my gut instinct. First thought=best thought might be the old wisdom regarding standardized tests but it has not proven to be the smartest idea in my personal life.

Our reading paths are fragmented and non-linear. What we choose to pursue and continue on with is often only as important as what we choose to ignore. In these cases I feel lucky to have been guided to things I really enjoyed.