October 21st at 2 pm
Two Sisters Bookery
Susan Tyler Hitchcock discusses and signes copies of her book Frankenstein: A Cultural History
Angry mobs, flaming torches and brain in jars not allowed.

October 25-27
Cape Fear Crime Festival
New Hanover County Public Library, Northeast Branch
Register here

Featuring: Jon Jefferson, William Bernhardt and John Hart

November 2 & 3
Dee Gee's will take part in the Crystal Coast Book Festival. Authors! Readings! Booksignings galore!

November 10th from 1-5 pm
Come to Dee Gee's for our Holiday Open House!
Neal Conoley will be at the shop from 1-3 to sign copies of his book Carolina Flare: Outer Banks Boatbuilding and Sportfishing Heritage (email us to reserve a signed copy)

November 17 from 1-6
Come on down to Two Sisters for our Holiday Open House!
Ellen Elizabeth Hunter will be at the store to sign copies of her latest Magnolia Mysteries book: Christmas Wedding.

More events information here

Fall Books, More Fall Books, ... and, More Fall Books!
(click on a jacket to read about the book)

Denis Johnson's new book Tree of Smoke ($27) is 614 pages of what I can only describe as a sort of fever dream.  It's a novel of the Viet Nam War that begins in 1963 as President Kennedy is assassinated, and moves year by year through the war until 1970.  Skip Sands is a CIA recruit who is awaiting orders in the Philippines.  Unsure of what his covert mission will be, he joins his uncle, the Colonel, a legendary CIA operative who casts a long and troubling shadow over the jungles of Viet Nam.  Gliding in and out of the narrative as well are Kathy, a Canadian nurse, the Houston brothers, two unsettling GIs, a North Vietnamese spy named Trung, and Sgt. Jimmy Storm, who takes us to the heart of endless battles.  The section that covers the Tet offensive was hard to get through. . .I doubt I'll forget it.  This is a challenging book-the characters are often in a fog that envelopes the reader as well.  The dialogue can get so short and clipped that I sometimes lost track of who was saying what. . .but that's part of the story too.  Johnson gives the finale of this giant novel to Kathy in 1983. . .and it's a perfect ending.  Viet Nam continues to fascinate and to haunt-I think Tree of Smoke is a really important book-and maybe Johnson's best.

The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness ($24) may have been the perfect book for me to read after Tree of Smoke!  Rinpoche Yongey Mingyur is one of a new generation of lamas who trained outside of Tibet, and he's recognized as a talented teacher and meditation facilitator.  He's also recognized as the "world's happiest man", a title he was given after scientists studied his brain function during meditation.  Minyur's interest lies in connecting the spiritual with the scientific. . .understanding the physical nature of how our brain works, how neurons converse, and then integrating spiritual concepts into that conversation.  His meditation guidance is simple and effective, and his discussion of the science of the brain is very accessible.  Buddhist concepts such as the need to release ourselves from attachment and aversion sit side by side with the latest medical information to make this a great read no matter what direction you're coming from!

Bitch is one of my favorite magazines, and in celebration of ten years of a smart, feminist perspective on pop culture, the editors have released Bitchfest ($16), a collection of essays and criticism.  Whether they're taking on movies that stick skinny actors in fat suits for uncomfortable laughs, taking the pulse of young adult novels' portrayal of gay youth, or discussing the comedy central roast of Pamela Anderson, the writers of Bitch pull no punches.  Remember that odd idea that women were expected to somehow not offend anyone on their way to liberation?  Well, Bitch magazine is a great response to that.

I spent the last week of September in Atlanta at the annual fall trade show of the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance. This is the book industry's most important event in the south-all the publishers and bookstores come together to talk about new and upcoming fall titles. There are hundreds of authors, and an endless series of readings, signings, panel discussions and whatnot. There was even a special screening of the movie The Kite Runner, which I highly recommend everyone see when it is released in theaters.

But while there are lots of very famous authors at these shows (I got to meet Jeff Lindsay, who is a much nicer man than his character Dexter Morgan), the best part of the show is often meeting writers you never heard of, and discovering books you would never find otherwise.  So here are a couple of the books that caught my eye:

At the Mercy of the Sea by John Kretchmer is a nautical adventure story along the lines of The Perfect Storm, with rather less distressing detail on the mechanics of drowning, and rather more attention to nature of bravery and the character of three different sailors caught in a hurricane.  The book is based on a true story about  three boats that in 1999 found themselves  caught in the middle of hurricane Lenny-a storm that defied all predictions and moved east towards the Leeward Islands rather than staying on its western, southernly course as every other storm of its ilk had done. 

Lenny reached category 5 strength as it sat over the Virgin Islands, catching three small sailing boats in its fury.  One of those boats was Le Vie en Rose, captained by an ex army lieutenant colonel named Carl Wake and a friend of the author's. Carl, it seems, was the kind of guy who had failed at almost everything at least once.  But when he finds himself in the eye of a category five hurricane, the only boat close enough to answer another vessel's SOS, he decides that this is a situation he absolutely can't fail at.  A very moving, breathless story.

I also got to meet Pat Duggins, whose name some of you may know as the space reporter for National Public Radio. I was bitten by the space bug early-I still remember my mother calling me indoors to watch the launch of the Apollo mission. I'm actually one of those people that will turn the channel away from college football or the PGA tour to watch a shuttle lift off. I've held my breathe over every lift off and landing since the Challenger disaster.

Duggins' new book is called Final Countdown: NASA and the End of the Space Shuttle Program.  This is a riveting history of the shuttle program through all of its high points and its tragedies, and is also, at the same time, a fascinating account of the likely future of space exploration. This book is great not just because of what you learn about the Shuttle and the forthcoming Orion Exploration Capsule, but because Duggins was able to interview most of the astronauts and mission control people in the pogram. It puts a very human face to each massive, breathtaking launch.

Other cool space books:

Carrying the Fire by Michael Collins
First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong by James R. Hansen
Last Man on the Moon by Eugene Cernan and Don Davis
Riding Rockets by Mike Mullane
Into That Silent Sea by Francis French and Colin Burgess
Sky Walking by Thomas D. Jones
Letters from Mir by Jerry M. Linenger
Live from Cape Canaveral by Jay Barbee
Red Moon Rising by Matthew Brzezinski
America in Space by Robert Jacobs

Halloween books from Two Sisters

Tell Me a Scary Story. . .But Not Too Scary  by Carl Reiner  illustrated by James Bennett

"Before we begin. . .I hope you'll like this story, but if it gets too scary for you, just say, "Stop reading!" and I'll stop, because I love you very much."  This is a cute book with just enough fright for a young child.  The illustrations are VERY scary. . .they gave me a fright. A strange new neighbor moved in next door and introduced himself to our young narrator as John Neewollah.  He had a crooked, mysterious smile and this was not a good smile.  While moving a big box into the house , something round and shiny fell out of the box. . .it was a marble only this marble stared back at the narrator.  It was scary and he knows he will not be able to sleep until he returns it.  So at midnight out young storyteller goes to Mr. Neewollah's house and the scary-ness begins. And every so often the reader is asked: "Is it getting too scary for you? Should I keep going?  Okay, if you say so. . ."

The Little Big Book of Chills and Thrills  by Lena Tabori and Natasha Tabori Fried

This is a great book filled with practical Halloween knowledge.  Inside the book are ghost stories, tales of magic and fantasy, Halloween poems, spells, curses, superstitions, legends and lore, magic tricks and treats.  My favorite recipe is for "Eyeball cookies", sugar cookies with a thumbprint filled with peanut butter or jelly and a chocolate chip completing the eyeball.  There is a wonderful Witches Brew made with apple cider and cranberry juice spiced with cinnamon, whole cloves and honey. Serve hot on a chilly frightful night.

The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything  buy Linda Williams, illustrated by Megan Lloyd

"Once upon a time there was a little old lady who was not afraid of anything!"  The little old lady has gone for a walk in the forest to collect herbs, spices, and nuts and she has gone farther than she realized and it is much later than she thought.  As she walks down the dark path she encounters a pair of shoes in her way, the shoes go CLOMP, CLOMP.  "Get out of my way you two big shoes! I'm not afraid of you."  And on she walks but she can hear the shoes behind her.  Soon she is met by WIGGLE, WIGGLE, SHAKE, SHAKE, CLAP, CLAP,  AND NOD! Now the little old lady who was not afraid of anything is very afraid.  This is a fun read-a-loud book, the wiggle, shake and clap adding levity to a sort of scary young read.

Also for your Halloween fun Two Sisters has on hand Nancy Roberts, Ghosts of the Carolinas, Brooks Preik's, Haunted Wilmington, and Ghosts and Legends of the Carolina Coasts, Ghosts of the Battleship NC, and Ghosts of Old Wilmington.  There many more children's Halloween reads and for the pumpkin carving impaired and handy book titled How to Carve Pumpkins for Great Results. And Two Sisters is filled with lots of spooky and not so spooky Halloween decorations too!

--Susan

The Secret Store: Ghost Stories

Woman in Black by Susan Hill
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
The Ghost Writer by John Harwood
The Ghost Stories of Muriel Spark
The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton
The Royal Ghosts: Stories by Samrat Upadhyay
Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories by M. R. James
Madeliene's Ghost by Robert Girardi
With by Donald Harington
Tamsin by Peter S. Beagle
Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill
So I Am Glad by A.L. Kennedy
In the Country of the Young by Lisa Carey
The Night Country by Stewart O'Nan
The Unburied by Charles Palliser
Life After Death by Carol Muske-Dukes
Eva Moves the Furniture: A Novel by Margot Livesey

In the publishing world, March/April and September/October are the seasons for new releases.  Generally, I find myself scouting the shelves for the next great book by a seasoned author whose work I already love.  I was surprised when I sat down to write these reviews that I had chosen all novels of first-timers.  So, here's to great beginnings. . .

Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen ($20.00) - Asheville, N.C resident Sarah Addison Allen has made a fan out of me.  In her first novel, Allen gives us great characters, a pinch of magic and a beautiful cover that draws us in.  (I don't think readers consciously think about this, but as a bookseller I can tell you that a wonderful cover DOES make a difference in book sales particularly if an author is not yet well-known).

The Waverley women have always been peculiar. For generations they have had special powers that have made them outsiders and yet envied in their small hometown of Bascom, North Carolina.  Claire Waverley is a master gardener who runs a thriving catering business.  Claire makes delicious food with her edible plants but more importantly to the folks of the area is the ability of the food to invoke a particular feeling or some might say, cast a spell, on those who partake.  When prodigal sister Sydney Waverley returns home with no explanation of her mysterious ten-year absence with a five-year-old daughter, Bay, in tow, the Bascom gossip begins and everyone in the Waverley household is about to experience a spell or two.  From the sensitive old apple tree in the backyard whose fruit is rumored to tell the future to the eccentric third cousin, Evenelle, who is compelled to distribute odd gifts that hold secrets of their own, this book is enchanting.  Allen is a masterful storyteller and weaves the magic into the story in a believable, endearing way.

Lottery by Patricia Wood ($24.95) - Perry L. Crandall has an IQ of 76, but he is definitely not dumb.  He has been raised by his irreverent grandmother who has taught him what is important.  She home-schools him using the Reader's Digest Word Power and daily crosswords as her guide.  As an adult, Perry holds down a stock clerk job at a local hardware/tackle shop and enjoys the ritual of life with his grandmother - bingo, work, McDonald's and a movie on Friday, and the purchase of one Washington State Lottery ticket a week from the local Handy Mart.  Gram tells Perry that the "L" of his middle name stands for Lucky and Perry truly feels he is. 

Then Gram dies and Perry is forced to pick up the pieces of his life as best he can without his grandmother's steady guidance.  Gram's greatest gift to Perry turns out to be teaching him who to trust and who to distrust.  This comes in handy when several months later, Perry wins the Washington State Lottery of $12 million.  Suddenly, relatives and "friends" abound with endless requests.  Perry's reaction to his sudden notoriety is comical and yet wise.

I loved this book.  It reminded me of a cross between the Peter Sellers' movie Being There and the award-winning Forrest Gump.  The wisest advice often comes from the most unlikely source. . .we would all do well to remember that.

Loving Frank by Nancy Horan ($23.95)- At the turn of the 20th Century, Edwin Cheney and his wife, Mamah Borthwick Cheney, commission up-and-coming architect Frank Lloyd Wright to design a new home for their family.  While Mamah has grown accustomed to her wealthy lifestyle of servants and social events, she has a restless spirit that longs for a more meaningful existence.  When Wright enters her world, it is turned upside down.

While this is Horan's first work of fiction, she is no stranger to writing and it shows.  As a journalist, she is adept at being accurate with the historical details.  This gives a wonderful framework for the story that keeps the fictional part of the tale moving quickly.

Mamah and Frank fall in love and their love turns into gossip fodder for all of Chicago society.  Both have spouses and families that are well-loved and they are surprised to find themselves cast as the villains. 

They abandon their previous lives for one another and their own creative callings.  Very little is mentioned in previous works about Mamah's role in Frank Lloyd Wright's life, and while this is a work of fiction, it is obvious that she was a major influence.

Also of interest is Mamah's own struggle to balance motherhood and traditional women's roles in her own life. Set against the backdrop of the suffragette movement in America and the more lenient mores of European society where Mamah and Frank lived for many years, this work is an interesting study of women at the turn of the century. 

Christmas Wedding by Ellen Elizabeth Hunter ($15): Wilmington's social event of the season is about to unfold: Ashley and Melanie's lavish Christmas-theme double wedding with their princes charming, Jon and Cameron. Vows will be exchanged at St. James Church, out-of-town guests are comfortably ensconced at picturesque B&Bs, and the wedding planner in none other than Colin Cowie himself. What could possibly spoil the nuptials? A hyper-critical mother-in-law known to an older generation as the Sweetheart of the Silver Screen? A Wall Street hunk who has vowed to proclaim his love for one of the brides? A "Queen of the Tarot Cards bridesmaid who is predicting catastrophe for the wedding day? Or is it the mysterious wedding crasher whose life of lies just might cost the brides their own?

Cook's Canvas 2: Coastal Carolina Artfully Entertains ($27.95): The new edition of Cook's Canvas celebrates our coastal lifestyle and the art of entertaining. Whether you are an expert or a novice, this is a cookbook with recipes for every occasion, from a simple weekday dinner with the family to an elegant dinner party. The recipes may be easy or complicated, but each reflects a dish that one would be proud to serve. The recipes in this book were collected from more than two hundred Wilmington cooks as well as from friends around the country with Wilmington connections. Each recipe was tested by volunteers at tasting parties and then selected. The more than 300 recipes are easy to follow, and the results are distinctive and unique. The Cook's Canvas 2 reminds us of the importance of sitting at a dinner table, laughing with friends and family, and enjoying the moment. Eating should be an experience to share with your family, a special someone in your life, or a gathering of friends, formal or informal.

Following the Tambourine Man by Janet Ellerby: Set during the sexual revolution of the sixties, this moving work recalls the decade's prodigious effect on a generation of Americans that came of age during that transformative time of changing mores. Janet Mason Ellerby follows the crooked path she took from a protected and privileged childhood and early adolescence to her unplanned pregnancy and banishment and to her daughter's birth and adoption. She then delves into the complex journey embarked on over the next thirty-five years, haunted by her first child's memory and attempting to compensate for her loss. Ellerby crafts an autoethnography, relating and reflecting upon the changes in middle-class American attitudes that informed the conservative suburbs of the fifties, through the political revolution of the sixties, seventies, and into today. In so doing, she provides a personal commentary on the shifts in adoption culture and describes the overlooked heartbreak that many birthmothers endure.

Choice: True Stories of Birth, Contraception, Infertility, Adoption, Single Parenthood, and Abortion($24)  by Gramont, Nina De , Bender, Karen: A moving collection of personal essays about the real, human experiences behind the highly politicized issue of reproductive choice. At a time when a woman's most complex decisions have been reduced to political rhetoric and impersonal theory, and political debate has been hijacked by pundits and name-callers, Choice joins the discourse with an assortment of candid voices in an effort to humanize the debate about reproductive rights. In addressing a wide range of women's choices--from using birth control to taking the morning-after pill, from adopting a child to putting a child up for adoption, from having an abortion to bringing a pregnancy to full term--Choice explores the complexities inherent in every reproductive decision. Including twenty-four honest, heartrending essays from established writers such as Francine Prose, Jacquelyn Mitchard, Pam Houston, Ann Hood, and Sarah Messer and emerging talents such as Kimi Faxon Hemingway, Stephanie Anderson, and Ashley Talley, Choice will allow you to truly understand the meaning of the word "choice"--regardless of what side of the debate you stand on.

Contributors:
Stephanie Andersen
Karen E. Bender
Janet Ellerby
Carolyn Ferrell
Denise Gess
Nina de Gramont
Katie Allison Granju
Kimi Faxon Hemmingway
Sandy Hingston
Ann Hood
Pam Houston
Valina Hasu Houston
Kate Maloy
Deborah E. McDowell
Sarah Messer
JacquelynMitchard
K.A.C.
Catherine Newman
Francine Prose
Ashley Talley
Katherine Towler
Harriette E. Wimm
Susan Ito
Elizabeth Larsen

Bookclubs: Read Banned Books!

Books Removed From Library Shelves or Class Reading Lists

Allende, Isabel -- House of Spirits
Anonymous -- Go Ask Alice
Blume, Judy -- Then Again, Maybe I Won't
Chbosky, Stephen -- The Perks of Being A Wallflower
Codell, Esme Raji -- Educating Esme
Cole, Brock -- The Facts Speak For Themselves
Duncan, Lois, editor -- On the Edge: Stories at the Brink
Funke, Cornelia -- Inkheart, Inkspell
Garden, Nancy -- Endgame
Green, John -- Looking for Alaska
Guest, Judith -- Ordinary People
Henkes, Kevin -- Olive's Ocean
Hrdlitschka, Shelley -- Dancing Naked
LeGuin, Ursula -- A Fisherman of the Inland Sea
Limb, Sue -- Girl 15, Charming but Insane
Lynch, Chris -- Slot Machine
Mac, Carrie -- Charmed
Mackler, Carolyn -- The Earth, My Butt & Other Big Round Things
Paulsen, Gary -- Zero to Sixty
Pilobolus and John Kane -- The Human Alphabet
Rowling, J.K. -- Harry Potter (entire series)
Stine, R.L. -- Nightmare Hour
Strasser, Todd -- Give a Boy a Gun
Tyree, Omar -- What They Want
Walker, Alice -- The Color Purple
Zindel, Paul -- Loch

Source: 11th Annual Report on Banned and Challenged Books in Texas Public Schools 2006-2007, ACLU of Texas

Past the First Fifty Pages: Frankenstein: The Myth Behind the Monster

It was a dark and stormy night...

The story is a famous one-a group of writers, bored, wintering in an Italian villa and kept inside by the inclement weather, challenge each other to write a ghost story. Two of the group-Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron--were already literary rock stars and one might have expected great things from either man's pen.  But it was a third member, a young, quiet woman named Mary Wollstonecraft, whose story against all expectations would end up a literary and cultural classic.

Who is Frankenstein? What is his monster?   How did a scribbled tale dashed off one dark and stormy night in an Italian villa become such a universally recognized character?  How did the monster become what some people have called "our first modern myth"?

These are some of the questions that Susan Tyler Hitchcock attempts to answer in Frankenstein: A Cultural History--an extraordinary work of cultural, literary, cinematic and historical investigation. Hitchcock, whose expertise comes from a twenty-year old fascination with Frankensteinia, carefully dissects (pun intended) the many layered meanings in Frankenstein's monster; a symbol of the rewards of scientific pride and arrogance, the unholy, immoral consequences of man trying to play God, attempting to enter woman's domain and create life-only to be repulsed at the horrific result of his presumption. Hitchcock's fascinating history delves into the intricacies of the evolution of the monster from Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's original story through its myriad of Hollywood incarnations-Boris Karloff's lumbering horror, Gene Wilder's Young Frankenstein and even Tim Curry's sexual satire in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.  

The author divides the book into three parts.  In the beginning there was the Birth-in which she tells how the original story came to be written, and gives the kind of social and personal background to the characters involved that would keep a Freudian psychologist salivating for years.

How Shelley, Mary, and Claire ended up in an Italian villa with the scandalous Lord Byron (in exile from England where he faced charges of incest, sodomy and adultery), is a story that deserves a book in itself, and Hitchcock's brief account serves only to whet the reader's appetite. But there is no denying that in that house "electric with testosterone and nerves" were three of the most brilliant poets of the era.  When, one evening, one of them pulled out a book called Phantasmagoriana and started to read aloud from its collection of ghost stories and supernatural tales, it seems almost inevitable that someone in the group would say "we can do better."

The one who did better was Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, who read a newspaper account of a London doctor who was giving demonstrations of the application of electrical current to the bodies of executed prisoners in the name of science. Newspaper accounts were gratifyingly lurid in that day and age, and Mary was-well "inspired" is perhaps not the right word:

"I saw-with shut eyes, but acute metal vision,--I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion"

How that vision metamorphasized from fireside story to the symbol we know today is the subject of Part II, "Coming of Age."  It is revealing that the word "Frankenstein" refers equally in our mind to the mad scientist and his monster (who, in Mary Shelley's account, never has a name). It is as though we are unable to distinguish between the creator and the created-as if they were two sides of the same coin.  How this came to be is what Hitchcock explores in the middle part of her book, where she chronicle's the monster's evolution from a literary character to a cinematic one.  Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein at a time when the pursuit of "science" was often a pursuit of horrors and graveyards and corpses. It is no accident, then, that the most famous Frankenstein film ever released-starring Boris Karloff in all his square-topped, neck-bolted glory-was first shown in 1931; at the height of the Great Depression, to a nation still reeling from the mechanized horror of The Great War. 

This was the film that cemented the image of Frankenstein in our minds as a huge, lumbering, sometimes pathetic, beast. From this point on, whenever the monster appears he is an incarnation or imitation of Karloff's original creation.  And like all imitations, his successors become more and more shallow and reductive, until we are left, in the end, with a "monster" whose horror is so diffused that he can be trademarked as a candy brand name. 

The final section of Hitchcock's book is an attempt to survey where the Frankenstein monster appears in our modern culture-from comic books, candy and Halloween costumes to social symbolism, bioethics debates, and even high drama.  At this point, the symbol has become so endemic in our culture that even a cursory survey provides a bewildering array of images that range from the trite to the deeply moving. This is the creature that lives on, for example, in both Tim Curry's sexually satirical character in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and in Johnny Depp's gentle Edward Scissorhands. 

In the end, Susan Tyler Hitchcock gives the reader more of a history of the Frankenstein monster, than an explanation. But she can not be faulted for this. It is in the nature of archetypes that they must be redefined in every generation. The myth is ever-changing, ever-evolving.   Perhaps the best "explanation" for the ring of universal truth in Frankenstein comes from another Hitchcock: "This is our monster." writes Alfred Hitchcock, "To know him is to know ourselves."