Nonsuch Book

we love you so

Being a little wild thing myself, Where the Wild Things Are was (and is) one of my favorite picture books. If this is your story as well, and you can't wait for the movie, and you tear up a little every time you see the preview, get yourself over to the We Love You So website from the creators of the film. Where you can see awesome stuff like this entry from the "Where the Wild Things Ought to Be" contest. If you know in your heart of hearts that Max could have fronted The Clash, you can't miss it.

Now back to the end of 2666...

beautiful banned books

Do you see these gorgeous new Penguin Hardback Classics designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith? They are due to be released on October 5 in the UK, and I will be first in line. Some of you may remember my love affair with the first set of releases last year as I blogged about it here? Once I received them for Christmas, I began waiting for the next cloth-bound beauties. I have gestated that love some 9+ months, and now the babies are coming home from the book hospital.

But friends, you know how busy I am. So I want one of you to take one of my children. Any one from the cradle above. Just pick the one that suits your fancy. I can't possibly care for all of them. I will ship it to your house in a mailer just like Flat Stanley travels.

But in order to get an entry into my little competition, I want you to do something that will put us all in the proper frame of mind for Banned Books Week. Look at the titles above - The Hound of the Baskervilles, Oliver Twist, Emma, The Odyssey, The Woman in White, Treasure Island, The Sonnets and A Lover's Complaint (Shakespeare), Lady Chatterley's Lover, Little Women, and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - and take a guess as to which two have not been challenged or banned in some well-documented way. Don't look it up. Just guess. You get an entry no matter what - right or wrong.

Take a guess by close of day this Sunday, October 4. Win a beauty of your choice. Then let's all meet up here next week, and challenge some of our assumptions? 

stand the storm by breena clarke + giveaway

Sandy, Stephie and Nadia win!

7:15 sounds like a great starting time for book club unless perhaps we are talking am instead of pm. Nevertheless, last Friday, with the help of another teacher and a community activist, I launched "Last Fridays," a monthly book club held in the school library where I work. A book club that welcomes parents and family as well as school staff members and neighbors in the great DC community of Shaw. An opportunity to both create a greater sense of community centered around the children in whose needs we are all invested and, as a bonus, an opportunity to let the kids "catch" the adults reading.

Miriam at Hachette is always a dream of a publicist to work with, and this time, she is really coming through for our high needs community. How do you make a book club work when a large number of those we are inviting do not have disposable income for books, and the neighborhood public library is a small interim branch lacking enough multiple copies of books to serve the needs of a book club? You rely on the kindness of strangers. Hachette sent over books enough for all, and have also kindly helped us with our upcoming October meeting by supplying copies of the new Oprah pick, Say You're One of Them.

The book we discussed Friday was Stand the Storm by Breena Clarke, the story of a slave family who manages to purchase their freedom (at least nominally), and support themselves through the skilled labor of the needle arts. However, their freedom proves a bit of an illusion as they attempt to claim their own identities in an unsettled nation and city meeting the challenges of a civil war whose outcome will determine their legal freedom. The novel raises subtle yet probing questions as to how an ex-slave distances themselves from the legacy of slavery.

Our discussion was rich as we explored the connections of a story set in our own city, connected to the personal histories of some of our participants. Then our conversation and investment in the text was taken to another level by the participation of the author herself. The iPhone of one librarian plus the docking station with speakers of one helpful neighbor, and it was as if Breena Clarke was in the room with us sharing her personal connections to Washington DC, her insight into the difference between a slave narrative that takes place in the typical agrarian setting versus a city setting where skilled labor is valued, and most interesting to me, how she gave voice and agency to her female characters in a time when they were accorded none by society. We were all quite taken with Ms. Clarke and her easy, discursive sharing. 

For more insight into this wonderful novel, check out the Washington Post review or the author's website or the info page over at Hachette. To further encourage a few of you to give it a read, I have three copies to give away. Please comment here by Saturday, October 3. Will ship anywhere.

sunday salon: white's books, the return of flavia, lovely things

FaceOut Books and The Casual Optimist are my favorite book design sites, and the latter's Something For the Weekend posts are the first thing I look for in the blogosphere on Fridays. This week, Dan pointed me to an irresistible new book publishing venture, White's Books. This boutique publisher out of the UK boasts the talents of David Pearson, designer of the Great Ideas series for Penguin, and the results are stunning. Want to see another?

This Pearson quotes captures my own current hopes about the future of the book: 

"Due to the arrival of eBooks, many prophesied the death of the printed word, but we see it as an opportunity to turn the spotlight back on the traditional methods of book production and to luxuriate in the craft and tactility of the physical book and the printed page. It’s lovely to be designing with longevity in mind as we aim to create objects that will be retained and cherished by their readers."

Now just one more.

In other exciting book news for me this week, I finally saw the cover of The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag, the follow up to The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. I adored this book, and was happy to see that the wait for a new Flavia mystery will end in February. And the cover is purple in a shade not often seen in book design. A little offbeat just like the protagonist that named her bike Gladys.

Finally, because the world always needs more lovely, I picked up AbeBooks new list of thirty old books you will want for the cover alone from the aforementioned FaceOut Books Twitter feed. Count your cash and pop over here to this candy counter for the eyes.

This week, I read like a madwoman - Britten and Brulightly, Goldengrove, Stand the Storm, and most of Let the Great World Spin which I will finish today. As soon as I am done with the poetic prose of Colum McCann, I will move on to the final part of 2666 for the group read I have been loving all summer.

What are you reading in the Sunday Salon today?

P.S. Doing a little housekeeping here, and am not done yet so please excuse justification and other problems as I sort through, and try and get that new banner to center instead of going from side to side. Felt I needed a bit more white space, a little less clutter. Thanks for your patience.

britten and brulightly by hannah berry

Flipping through a fall Holt catalog recently, I came across the book you see above. Now I may enjoy the occasional graphic novel, but I do not actively seek them out. In fact, I usually speed by them in stores and catalogs, but something about Britten and Brulightly made me stop.

It wasn't just the unusual but well-played partnership of depressed private detective Britten with a teabag named Brulightly (as in "brew lightly").

It wasn't just the nuanced and moody illustrations that so successfully evoke Britten's isolation and depression after following the world's unfaithful lovers about as occupation. Notice the image of the detective's head hanging down into a permanent slouch above.

It wasn't just the spot-on and often hilarious treatment of the femme fatale in distress as she chain smokes her way through the mystery uttering one foul-mouthed invective after another. Or the darkly humorous descriptions of her - "Gliding serenely past the troubled clientele she looked how I imagine a swan might if it were on lithium."

It wasn't just the overall quality of the design - the oversized edition with the thick pages, the full page illustrations that transport one to the grey domain of the constantly wet, the glossy image of Britten standing out from the matte background of the cover.

It was everything about this graphic novel that comes together to amuse and capture the imagination including the excellent writing. A novel that begins, "As it did every morning with spiteful inevitability the sun rose," offers no promise of redemption or salvation. Britten navigates the muddy waters of blackmail, revenge and murder in search of some higher truth that will free him of himself. But is that possible in this brilliantly executed work? Or does it even matter? Classic noir murder mystery infused with black humor and made gorgeous with detailed illustrations of great artistry. Loved it.

Update: Check out this link on the Macmillan site for high resolution, full page views.

the mailman brought me lydia davis

And I love him for it. Uninspiring and unworthy of its contents cover design aside, I am Christmas morning excited over this. Will be dipping in all fall. Beyond words. Please read following publisher release while I stare lovingly at the ugly salmon dust jacket.

"Lydia Davis is one of our most original and influential writers. She has been called “an American virtuoso of the short story form” (Salon) and “one of the quiet giants . . . of American fiction” (Los Angeles Times Book Review). Now, for the first time, Davis’s short stories will be collected in one volume, from the groundbreaking Break It Down (1986) to the 2007 National Book Award nominee Varieties of Disturbance. 

 The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis is an event in American letters."

Release date next Tuesday, September 29.

the dog who came in from the cold

No one eats huge meal upon huge meal as a means of sustenance. There are snacks and small bites and quick tastes, and this allows us to consume pleasurably without dulling the palate. Likewise, no reader can ingest doorstop after doorstop, serious tome after serious tome without feeling a bit deadened at some point. 

Last year, I had the pleasure of a series of literary small bites when I read Alexander McCall Smith's Corduroy Mansions online at the Telegraph's online book club. One small chapter a day, very little time consumed, and wonderful diversions into the cast of characters in this building. Now, the follow-up novel, The Dog Who Came In From the Cold, starts serialization today at the same site, and I encourage you to give it a try. If you missed Corduroy Mansions, catch up with these notes. And then one small bite a day until it is gone. Yum.

• Listen to Andrew Sachs read the first chapter
• Catch this interview with Alexander McCall Smith
• Check out fellow bloggers reading along - Simon of Savidge Reads, Karen of Cornflower, Jackie of Farm Lane Books and Claire of Paperback Reader.

sunday salon: whew!, winners, and walking a wire

Whew! What a week in the book blogosphere. I feel as if I have a bit of a blogger hangover after visiting so many great sites new to me. Which is really the best part of the whole thing. Awards and giveaways are swell but it is the sense of community celebrated that is the bright and shiny part of the week. Many thanks to Amy and company for their tireless efforts in creating and supporting an event that is a gift to us all.

And speaking of giveaways, it is time to announce the winners of 2666. Enjoy this photo of Bolano in Mexico in the 70s for a moment while you wait for the names. 

• Literary Feline
• Amy
• Leafing Through Life
• In Spring It Is the Dawn

Many thanks to all who stopped by to enter. For those of you who won, I will be emailing you shortly for your mailing addresses. Congratulations!

And finally, today I am reading Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin, and I am enthralled. Somewhere, I don't know where because I never write these things down, I saw this book described as "soulful." And that is exactly it for me. The story begins and hinges upon an actual occurrence, the August day in 1974 when Philippe Petit walked a tightrope between the World Trade Center towers. And all the fictional characters that looked up to see the "dark toy against the cloudy sky." What happens when much of a city becomes transfixed by a single moment? A celebration of magic and beauty in form. 

Let me share this bit from the author's note in the back of the book because it is about to send me scrambling off to Tennyson today and because it might inform your decision about whether or not to read:

"The title of this book comes from the Alfred, Lord Tennyson poem "Locksley Hall." That in turn was heavily influenced by the "Mu'allaquat," or the "Suspended Poems," seven long Arabic poems written in the sixth century. Tennyson's poem mentions "pilots of the purple twilight dropping down with costly bales," and the "Mu'allaquat" asks, "Is there any hope that this desolation can bring me solace?" Literature can remind us that not all life is already written down: there are still so many stories to be told."

So for all of you that have heard whispered in the wind somewhere that this is a 9/11 book, it is but it isn't. It is never mentioned directly. And yet we see it clearly in the quote above. The reader creates the ties between one moment of creation and another of destruction and how America writes itself in between. 

What are you reading in the Sunday Salon today?

putting it aside: the angel's game

Once or twice each year, I put a book aside that I simply do not want to continue reading. Ever. The odd thing is, it always seems to be a book that oodles of people love. Like The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, and now, The Angel's Game. I have been forcing my way through it all week and have only covered half of the 500+ pages. 

The writing is, well, purplish. And not in a Proustian way. In a cliche laden way that begs for a better editor. At first, encouraged by the author's ability to wonderfully conjure a sense of place in old world Barcelona, I entertained the idea that the prose was deliberately delivered in this manner as a reflection of the narrator's job writing sensational lit for a second tier daily. But no. And then I thought all the focus upon books and writings would enthrall me and carry me along. But no. And now, as the Faustian story line reaches an "Oh please!" moment for me, I am putting it back on the shelf. 

Go ahead. Tell me you loved it. I am waiting for it. It always happens. Or better yet, tell me the book that you thought you would like because everyone else did and then you didn't.

book blogger appreciation week giveaway: wolf hall

This Booker shortlisted, drool-worthy title is not available in this attractive US edition until next month, but, thanks to the largesse of the kindly people at Henry Holt, three of you BBAW celebrants will soon claim a copy as your own. What do I have to do, oh holder of the splendid book booty, you say? Tell me your favorite book blog from the UK. Many feel like our friends across the pond were under-represented in this year's award selections so let's show them some love. 

My UK book blogger love story? So many loves but Cornflower stands out clear and true for me. She was one of the first book blogs I followed, her two spaces are gorgeous, she is concise, insightful, and has wonderful taste. And wonderful aesthetic sensibilities. And takes amazing photographs. And has a kind and generous heart. Did I ever tell you that she bought my students some MUCH requested books and had them shipped to the school where I teach? I really should comment on her posts more and stop being such a lurker. So that is my UK blogger love story. What is yours?

Book info:

"In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII’s court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king’s favor and ascend to the heights of political power England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. The quest for the king’s freedom destroys his adviser, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and leaves a power vacuum. 

Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell is a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people and a demon of energy: he is also a consummate politician, hardened by his personal losses, implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph? 

In inimitable style, Hilary Mantel presents a picture of a half-made society on the cusp of change, where individuals fight or embrace their fate with passion and courage. With a vast array of characters, overflowing with incident, the novel re-creates an era when the personal and political are separated by a hairbreadth, where success brings unlimited power but a single failure means death."