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Staff Picks
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Joan's Bookshelf
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Written by Joan Travis
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Monday, 02 March 2009 11:41 |
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 I really can’t say enough about Steve Toltz’ first novel Fraction of the Whole (14.95). Really…I can’t! It’s a unique father/son story that sets off in Australia, rolls across several continents, and manages to never lose its way. This is a dysfunctional family of the highest dark comedy order…we’re talking comas, prisons, fires, philosophical conundrums, a real life Heart of Darkness (sort of!), celibacy, sex (oops…whose mother was that?)…yep! Toltz has written a funny, sad, smart novel…it made me think of Mark Twain, Confederacy of Dunces, maybe John Irving…but this is a classic that stands in its own unique space. Prepare for a few sleepless nights!
 The first time I saw Brad Warner’s name was in the early 80’s on the album notes for a raucous punk rock band called 0DFx—“Drop the A-Bomb on Me” anyone? Well, imagine my surprise years later when I saw his name again, this time as an author and Zen master. What? His first book, Hardcore Zen, was a hip, honest look at how he became interested in Buddhism, his second, Sit Down and Shut Up, continued in that vein and got into a lot more of the philosophy and practice of Zen. Now he has a third book, Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate (14.95) that gives us a glimpse of how his philosophy works in real life. It covers the year in which his mom died, he divorced, and he lost an important job. This isn’t a heavy exploration of Dharma…more like one guy’s year in Hell and how Zen helped him through it. Warner is straight up and conversational…I feel like I’m catching up with an old friend (who you sometimes want to bop upside the head!).
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Nicki's Bookshelf
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Written by Nicki Leone
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Monday, 02 March 2009 11:37 |
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 I’ve always liked Shakespeare, ever since I was a kid and my mother used to take us to see productions of “Shakespeare in the Park” in the summer time when I was growing up. (I’m not sure why, but I mostly remember the comedies, especially Taming of the Shrew and Twelfth Night. Perhaps mom didn’t take us to the tragedies?) Lately, my attraction to Shakespeare has threatened to turn into a full-blown obsession. One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to see—either live or on DVD—every single play I could find. Talk about a fun resolution! Lately it’s been Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson in Much Ado About Nothing. I find myself humming “hey nonny , nonny” whenever I feel sad.
 Also as part of the obsession I’ve been reading and re-reading biographies and histories, the most recent of which is The Lodger Shakespeare: His Life on Silver Street by Christopher Nicholl. William Shakespeare defies his biographers at every turn, for it is famously known that not a single letter, not a notebook, diary, journal or any personal correspondence of his of any sort remains. It is an omission so great and glaring that it is generally agreed it must be deliberate. At some point Shakespeare must have destroyed all his personal letters. The only thing we have to prove he even existed are his plays, his signature on a few bills, one will, and a couple entries in church registries marking his birth and death. And one short deposition in an obscure court case over a bride’s dowry given on Monday, May 11th, 1612. On that day and that day only we hear the echo of William Shakespeare, actually talking.
Nicholl uses the event of that court case as a starting point to reconstruct what Shakespeare’s life might have been like during a couple of years that he was known to be living as a lodger with a French family on Silver Street in London. And I was riveted. It is a book not so much about Shakespeare as it is about what it might be like to live when Shakespeare lived. If anything, it is the story of the Mountjoy household—“Mountjoy” being the name of the family from whom Shakespeare rented his room. Nicholl sets his reader down on Silver Street and points in one direction, towards Cripple Gate, describing the houses you can see and who lives there, up to and including the physic garden recently installed at the Alchemist’s Hall at the end of the street by no less a person than the famous herbalist John Gerard only a few years earlier. He points in another direction towards the unsavory Turnbull Street, infamous for its brothels and bawdy houses (including an inn owned by one George Wilkins, a pimp and wannabe writer who is actually known to have collaborated with Shakespeare on Pericles.) He opens the door and lets you peer inside to the workshop of Mr. Christopher Mountjoy, a French immigrant and “tire-maker,” meaning he had a business constructing those elaborate headdresses, wigs and hairpieces that one sees in portraits of Elizabethan and Jacobean noblewomen. I could go on and on about wigs and how infrequently Elizabethan women washed their hair, but this newsletter is long enough. I do go on and on about it here if you really want the awful details! |
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Last Updated ( Monday, 02 March 2009 12:55 )
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Susan's Bookshelf
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Written by Susan Dillard
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Monday, 02 March 2009 11:34 |
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 RUN
By Ann Patchett
Beautifully written novel about family, what we believe our family to be. Teddy and Tip Doyle have been raised by their father, former Boston mayor Bernard Doyle since the death of their mother. A car accident on the snowy Boston streets changes all they believe about family. Run brings into focus issues of race and class but most of all family.
 IN THE WOODS
By Tana French Incredible psycho-thriller! Detective Rob Ryan and his partner are assigned to the murder investigation of a 12-year-old girl. Katy's body was found in the same woods where 20 years earlier a young Adam Ryan played with his two best friends. Adam and his friends went to the woods to play one day at the end of the day Adam was found gripping a tree in terror wearing blood filled sneakers and a t-shirt with slashes on the back. His friends were never seen again. |
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Brooks' Bedside Stack
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Written by Brooks Preik
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Monday, 02 March 2009 11:30 |
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 FLANNERY: A LIFE of FLANNERY O’CONNOR
By Brad Gooch
For diehard fans of Southern literature in the Gothic tradition, Flannery O’Connor, Eudora Welty and Carson McCullers are the indisputable icons. Though her life was cut short by lupus, the same disease that killed her father, the small body of work that Flannery O’Connor produced in her thirty-nine years puts her at the forefront of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. Her fans will be overjoyed to read this just-published biography by Brad Gooch. Shedding new insight upon the life of this complicated writer, Gooch “has composed the life that admirers of the fierce and hilarious Georgia genius have long been hoping for.” Brad Gooch is the recipient of National Endowment for the Humanities and Gugenheim fellowships and is also the author of a much-acclaimed biography of Frank O’Hara, City Poet. Reviewers of this biography have given Gooch high praise for his work. The Los Angeles Times had this to say: “Not only is this book a joy to read, it’s a necessary chronicle of a fascinating, often overlooked key character in modern American letters.” I found the book difficult to put down. It was easy to read, very illuminating and written in the style of a true storyteller. I loved it!  TIME IS A RIVER
By Mary Alice Monroe
For a bit of light entertainment, this book is a quick and easy read. It made the Indie Bound pick list and is the latest of several books by this South Carolina Low Country author. Mia Landan, recovering from breast cancer, attends a fly-fishing retreat for cancer victims in the beautiful Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. Returning to her Charleston home unannounced, she surprises her husband in the midst of an adulterous affair and immediately rushes back to her mountain refuge. She is offered the use of a run-down mountain cabin owned by her fly-fishing instructor, Belle Carson. Carson’s grandmother, Kate Watkins. a legendary fly fisher and journalist of the 1920s, was the last resident of the cabin and died there under a cloud of suspicion, accused of murdering her lover. In her quest to deal with the trauma in her own life Mia is irresistibly drawn to the mystery of Kate Watkins, particularly when she discovers Kate’s hidden journals. Surrounded by the beauty and solace of the mountains and the river Mia is able to effect her own personal healing transformation as she concentrates on unraveling the compelling mystery of Kate. There is a poetic lyricism in Monroe’s fiction and a warmth and believability in her characters that leaves the reader with a good feeling. Monroe’s newest book Last Light over Carolina is scheduled for release in July 2009. It is hoped that we will be able to get her to join us for a booksigning at Two Sisters Bookery soon afterwards.  SWEETSMOKE
By David Fuller
Another favorite among the books I have recently read is this vivid and very moving fictional account of the life of a slave named Cassius Howard. It is a story of courage and bravery in the midst of almost insurmountable obstacles, and it gives a complete and poignant picture of the indignities and sufferings of daily life in the time of slavery. The meticulous research behind this fiction is evident and adds a dimension of believability that is truly gripping. The story is intriguing, mixing the element of mystery with the pathos of a love story. The author has been a screenwriter for 25 years and the drama he brings to this, his first novel, demonstrate the benefits of his vast experience in that genre. I would certainly recommend this book and most especially to anyone with a love of history, in particular the Civil War period. |
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 12 August 2009 21:46 )
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Joan's Bookshelf
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Written by Joan Travis
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Sunday, 30 November 2008 14:20 |
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 Picture yourself at the matinee on a Saturday, there’s a steady rain outside, and the temperature has just taken a nosedive into the fifties. The popcorn is fresh and you’re getting ready to watch a very cool sci-fi movie that has a little meaning to it (enough to justify telling others that you actually saw the movie!). That’s a great feeling isn’t it? Well, grab a big bowl of popcorn and curl up with Matt Ruff’s new book, Bad Monkeys (13.95). Think Phillip K. Dick meets the Matrix and a little bit of Pulp Fiction. The book opens in the psychiatric ward of a prison where our narrator Jane Charlotte is in handcuffs and telling her story of being in an elite agency that rids the world of “bad monkeys”…kind of an underground justice society. As her story unfolds, we get fun gizmos and action-packed cliffhangers alongside some darker comments about human society. I really couldn’t put this down, and it kept me guessing until the very end (right after the evil clowns showed up). Two thumbs up!
 I’m just finishing Selden Edwards novel, The Little Book (25.95), and I’m thinking it has a lot to say about everything we want historians to look back at the 20th century and understand…not just the facts, but the emotion, the pain, the state of the human spirit that lived through so much…maybe it wants to do that. It’s the story of Wheeler Burden who is a former baseball star and current rock star in contemporary San Francisco. He ends up travelling back in time to late 1800s Vienna, a place he knows well since his most adored teacher in junior high was obsessed with sharing his knowledge of the city. Wheeler meets and discusses psychotherapy with Freud, listens to Mahler’s great symphonies, and hears the early rumblings of anti-Semitism. It’s when he meets certain other people that we get a real idea of what’s going on here…sort of. To say much more would give away some fun twists, but as much as I’ve enjoyed the plot, I’ve probably enjoyed the character of the city of Vienna even more.
 Danny Goldberg’s Bumping Into Geniuses ($26) is a treat for those of us who enjoy reading about the music business. Goldberg got his start at Billboard magazine and ended up being one of the early critics at the famed Crawdaddy magazine. He’s had a pretty varied career as a critic, a PR person (for Led Zeppelin), and a manager (Stevie Nicks, Nirvana), and the real sense you get from his book is that he genuinely enjoys music. That’s not always true of people writing in this genre. But he also really understands the business side of things, and whether he’s talking about the beginnings of the FM radio format, the early rock record labels, or the disintegration of the manager/artist relationship, he never shorts either side of the equation. Patti Smith is a fan…’nuff said. --Joan
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 30 November 2008 17:18 )
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Staff Picks
