Take Your Child to A Bookstore Day is December 1st

Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day is set for this Saturday, December 1st!

I just saw this today but over 400 bookstores are participating. If you don't have a bookstore in your community, you could still take your child to a store that sells books to browse and purchase.
In Jackson, Michigan The Book Exchange would be a great choice. Located at 130 E. Washington, they have plenty of parking.

Mysterious Sculptor Strikes Again!

JM Barrie's Peter Pan Photo: Chris Scott

The unknown sculptor has struck again. All anyone knows is that the person is a woman who loves books. Once again she has left new works in random places around Edinburgh, Scotland. Read more about this wonderful mystery at The Guardian.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year - Best Books of 2012

It's that time of year when everyone starts publishing lists of the best titles of the preceding year; and some of us realize that even though we've read many and wonderful books, they aren't on the lists.

Here's one from Kirkus, which bills itself as a tough reviewer. The link is to fiction but feel free to wander around and see what else they liked.

Leave a comment if you'd like to brag about how many books on the list you have read or reassure me that I am not alone.

Disclosure: I have read Beautiful Ruins and Gone Girl.

NIGHT TERRORS, a new Daniel Rinaldi entry

A note on Facebook from author Dennis Palumbo: 

"For any Daniel Rinaldi fans out there, I'm happy to announce that I've just turned in the manuscript for the third Rinaldi crime thriller, Night Terrors. The new novel should be out in late spring or early summer of next year, published by Poisoned Pen Press."

Earlier entries are Mirror Image (2010) and Fever Dream (2011) both read, reviewed and recommended by me!

What's in a Name 6 (A Challenge)

Apparently bloggers and avid readers love challenges. This one, hosted by Beth @ Beth Fish Reads has been around for six years. If you are interested in more details or want to join in the fun, you can visit her site and read more details.

Between January 1 and December 31, 2013, the challenge asks you to read one book in each of the following categories (the titles are ones I am considering):

1. A book with up or down (or equivalent) in the title: Once Upon a River or Follow Me Down
2. A book with something you'd find in your kitchen in the title: Gilly Salt Sisters, The Baker's Daughter, or maybe Sharp Objects
3. A book with a party or celebration in the title: I Never Forget a Meal
4. A book with fire (or equivalent) in the title: Catching Fire
5. A book with an emotion in the title: Misery Bay, Love You More
6. A book with lost or found (or equivalent) in the title: Where'd You Go Bernadette, Then She Found Me, Wendy and the Lost Boys: The Uncommon Life of Wendy Wasserstein

THE BUDDHA IN THE ATTIC (2011)

I have happily stumbled onto the Japanese Literature Challenge #6. I say happily because I just finished reading Julie Otsuka's The Buddha in the Attic and have an overwhelming need to share its haunting beauty with other readers.

An exquisite gem of a book. The Buddha in the Attic is an emotional experience and not a casual read. It borders on poetry.

Rather than telling a story in the traditional manner, Otsuka interweaves the voices of many to create an impression of a whole and by doing so makes the argument that we dehumanize by labeling. It is the small particulars that she brings to the readers attention that make this book unique and moving.

Almost a century ago women were brought from Japan to San Francisco as 'picture brides' for the immigrant Japanese workers. The story follows them through the arc of their history up until their removal during World War II..

I had never heard about the internment of Japanese Americans until I had a roommate in college whose family had lived through the experience and ultimately left this country for Canada. A number of years ago my husband and I drove to the site of the Hart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming, a desolate, isolated place that once was home to over 10,000 detainees. Apparently an interpretive center opened in 2011, but when we were there, it appeared abandoned.

The basic facts are of internment are devastating by themselves. The Buddha in the Attic makes the story personal and heart breaking.

Otsuka's  first novel, When the Emperor was Divine (2002), could be considered a companion piece in some ways. I read that stark and beautifully written novel suspecting it was drawn from family history, and in fact discovered that her grandfather was one of many suspected Japanese spies arrested shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Otsuka's mother, uncle, and grandmother were interred at a camp in Utah for three years.

My father always told me the world was not fair, but what he didn't stress is how randomly cruel it can be even for the innocent.

Grace: A Memoir (2012)

A rather recent fascination with fashion and style has led me to purchase Grace Coddington's book Grace: A Memoir.

As creative director of Vogue, she has become an international icon of the industry.

It's a hefty book with large print, pictures, illustrations, and an orange jacket that is even more vivid in person.

In her acknowledgements she writes: "Given that I've barely read two books in my life that aren't picture books, no one is more surprised than me that I have produced a memoir."

I hope it will surprise me.

Places of Wonder (Independent Bookstores)

I can't think of a better introduction to my year of exploring independent book stores than this article in today's Parade magazine that comes with the Sunday paper. Written by author Richard Russo (who won a Pulitzer for his 2001 book Empire Falls and whose newest book Elsewhere: A Memoir was released on October 30, 2012), he explains the importance of bookstores. I was moved.

"But to me bookstores remain places of wonder. Like libraries, they're the physical manifestation of the world's longest, most thrilling conversation."

And the people who work in these places will . . . "put in your hand something you just have to read, by someone you've never heard of, someone just entering the conversation, who wants to talk to you about things that matter."

His first 'place of wonder' was Alvord & Smith, which was actually a stationers store in Gloversville, NY In business for 103 years, it finally closed in 1993. What is your 'place of wonder?

It turns out that Places of Wonder is excerpted from My Bookstore: Writers Celebrate Their Favorite Places to Browse, Read, and Shop (Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers). Guess who will shortly own this book?

THE SECRET RIVER (2006)

The Secret River by Kate Grenville
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was the choice of our new book group aptly named IN GOOD COMPANY. It is the first in a trilogy I don't plan to read, not because it isn't an excellent book. It is. It won the Orange Prize and was a bestseller in Australia. But historical fiction has never been my choice.

On the other hand, I learned a lot from Kate Grenville's beautifully written story of the settling of Australia by criminals transported to New South Wales. She follows William Thornhill and his family as they struggle to exist first in London through petty crime and later in the wilds of a strange, new country. William is caught and sentenced to death, but he is pardoned. Being banished to an untamed country affords William and these other resourceful men a second chance. They land can be theirs.

Unfortunately that opportunity comes at the expense of the native population. (Does this sound familiar?)

Whether by choice or chance the author tells the husband's tale and the reader is left to guess at the internal turmoil of the wife with the hardships of isolation and terrible burdens placed upon her.

Poetic language and an eye for detail brings this book alive.

I particularly loved this quote, "It was as if he had thought his way along a considerable conversation, but only this end-point had surfaced as words."

View all my reviews

IN THE WIND (2008)

In the Wind by Barbara Fister
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Barbara Fister was recommended to me by a friend whose judgement I trust. We often separately choose to read the same authors. And when she mentioned that the author was also a librarian, I had to see what I could find. Unfortunately, my library didn't own either of her two mysteries. But Interlibrary loan found me both titles at the Delta Township District Library!

I quickly read In The Wind (2008) and enjoyed it. I probably won't be able to read the second title Through the Cracks before it is due back to the library. Reading time is going to be at a premium now that the holiday season is underway.

The book's cover carries a quote that Barbara Fister is "the heir apparent to Sara Paretsky" and having read Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski series, I concur. Actually in some ways they seem almost too similar in concept. But on reflection, Barbara Fister has actually created something a little more than unique.

The following quote took me so by surprise that I felt the need to copy it:

"By the way, December twenty-sixth isn't just the day after Christmas. It's the anniversary of the largest mass execution in the nation's history. In 1862, officials in Minnesota hanged thirty-eight Dakota Indians for alleged involvement in the Sioux Uprising. Following the mass hanging, the entire Dakota Nation was deported from the state, the men shipped off to prison, the women, children, and elders put on boxcars and sent to a godforsaken part of South Dakota with nothing but burlap sacks to keep themselves warm. I'll bet you don't remember this from history class."

Anni Koskinen, an ex-Chicago cop, now trying to earn a living as a P.I., struggles with her strong conscience concerning right and wrong. It is fascinating to see how today's counterintelligence practices aren't much different than what was going on during the Vietnam War era, and Anni gets caught in the middle when she is asked to help a good woman accused of crimes in the past. Complications escalate when the F.B.I. becomes involved targeting everyone including Anni's older brother Martin, who is autistic.

This definitely is a 'literate mystery'. Barbara Fister writes beautifully and creates a world we want to explore.

View all my reviews

 

New Years Resolution #1 - 2013

I know it's a bit early, but I just inadvertently made my first resolution for 2013 and it's one that could be a lot of fun to keep!

I blurted out that I was going to visit as many Independent Bookstores as possible during the upcoming year.

For some reason, I have avoided bookstores on occasion because I already have 1) too many books waiting for me at home and on my Kindle and 2) I feel like I shouldn't go into a bookstore if I'm not going to buy something. Those two silly excuses, most likely,  have caused me to miss out on some extraordinary experiences.

Unfortunately there are no longer any NEW bookstores where I live in Jackson, Michigan. There is a fabulous USED bookstore, the Jackson Book Exchange, where I visit and make donations to from time to time. And, of course, there are places you can buy books like superstores Meijers and Target. What I want to explore is places like Aunt Agatha's in Ann Arbor and Page and Palette in Fairhope, Alabama.

Do you have a favorite bookstore?

Used Books

Maybe this is the reason I keep adding to my collection. Unconsciously, of course.

 

Man Finds $20,000 in Used Book.

The Five Laws of Library Science

Ever heard of S.R. Ranganathan? Neither had I until after I was a degreed and working librarian. How did he escape my attention considering he proposed the Five Laws of Library Science in 1931? Worldwide they are accepted by many as the foundation of library philosophy.

1. Books are for use.
2. Every reader his [or her] book.
3. Every book its reader.
4. Save the time of the reader.
5. The library is a growing organism.

At first glance they may seem rather elementary but contemplation reveals their enduring importance. And I use that to introduce "Books are for use." and in some cases perhaps not necessarily for reading.

Check out this website that lists 21 Uses for Old Books.