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August 2010 Archives
A
lot of the things most important to a child's development are going
out the window nowadays; reading and nature are on the top of the list.
So, Indigo combined the two into this year's Passport to Reading!
While I'm sure some of the kids just read for the free Ivanna Cone
ice cream, many more were enjoying themselves for the sake of reading
alone. In addition, they learned about the food chain, the structure
of a story, and enjoyed delicious cupcakes.
These
days, when my hours are long and my time is short, there is nothing
more refreshing than a group of kids learning, laughing, and enjoying
themselves. I'm very anxious to see if our reading programs grow,
and on the heels of this success, I'm certain they will.
When it comes to beating the heat and enjoying those last, long summer
days to their fullest, nothing can compare with making some time for a
good book. And if you're gearing up to go back to school, you can always
sneak a few pages in around your required reading. Tucking into the right
work of fiction can help us to refresh, revitalize, and re-think ourselves
beyond the borders of our daily lives. As Frau of the Fiction section, I
love scouting new titles and watching what people are excited to read.
What's important to me isn't just what sells or what's popular (though we
do like to make enough money to keep the doors open) but what you - our
customers - are enthused and inspired by.
It's in this spirit that I give you my Endless Summer Fiction Fix list for
2010. The 10 item list, in no particular order, is a showcase of both new
titles and intriguing selections that may have passed you by before, books
that are in our store today. These are all books and authors that our
readers have been buzzing about, and I'm certain one of them will grab
your interest and bring you in for a conversation.
If at any time you'd like me to help you find one of these books, reserve
you a copy, or recommend similar titles we have in stock, come visit us in
person or e-mail me at mel[at]indigobridgebooks[dot]com.
--- MeL
The Passage by Justin Cronin - Hardcover, $27
Don't be intimidated by this sweeping, epic novel's nearly 800 pages, The
Passage is a delicious read that has you hungry for every next bite and
licking the dustjacket (metaphorically!) clean. Spanning over the course
of centuries, this tale of a government project gone wrong is nonetheless
present in every engrossing facet of the characters and the tangibility of
their tense world. Army-created super-soldiers, a vampire-zombie virus,
and one strange young girl change the shape of the world forever. The
story isn't entirely new, as anyone who is familiar with sci-fi horror
series could say, but the grandeur and humanity of the storytelling is.
Fans of Stephen King or Dean Koontz may have a new favorite author; fans
of World War Z will cheer.
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann - Paperback, $15
It's summer, 1974, Watergate is a scandal and the war continues in Vietnam
- as a man is walking a wire between the World Trade Center towers in NYC.
This true life feat is the focal point for myriad tales about the many
varied lives beneath the wire, becoming a grand, subtle, and breathtaking
story about a judge, a hooker, a priest, a grieving mother, an artist, and
other characters, all intertwined on the same day as the high-wire event.
A loving portrait of the city that encompasses us all, Let the Great World
Spin just keeps flying off of the shelves and into hearts.
Mr. Peanut by Adam Ross - Hardcover, $25.95
You'll know Mr. Peanut when you see it by the incredible cover, many small
circles of gradient colors forming the shape of a skull. In this case,
the cover does give you something to judge the book by, for as
disturbingly dark a tale of modern marriage and the warp of tender love
can become. Husband David Pepin is a suspect when his wife of 13 years,
Alice, is found dead at the kitchen table - with a peanut, to which she
had a deathly allergy, lodged in her throat. The men investigating him
have their own marital issues, and the novel spirals away from the murder
to explore with other couples why Happily Ever After in matrimony ain't
what it used to be.
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski - Paperback, $19.95
A cult smash, the House of Leaves is at once horror and mental puzzle,
telling stories within stories within a mad, whimsical structure all its
own. We follow Johnny Truant's footnotes about a record of a documentary
film written by a blind man named Zampano, which is in turn about a
photojournalist who finds a bizarre and frightening house. Like a
broken-down labyrinth, this book will have you chasing dead ends,
following winding paths that lead to places unknown, and doubling back -
both literally and figuratively, for a number of unique printing quirks.
The perfect challenge for someone longing to read outside the box, this
postmodern work of avant garde word-art meets pop culture references is
sure to engage.
Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen - Paperback, $13.95
Ninety-something year old Jacob Jankowski ran away and joined the
third-rate Benzini Brothers circus as a young man, and learned the hard
way that it was a far cry from a youthful fantasy. Water For Elephants
shows the reader the well-researched world of the Depression-era circus in
all of its filth and brutality, all of its nonetheless seedy wonder. As
animal caretaker, Jacob sees to their health under poor conditions, comes
to know the flawed characters he works with and for, and falls in love
along the way. This evocative tale captures hearts as easily as it cages
animals, and a copy never sits on our shelves for long!
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters - Paperback, $16
The award-winning author of Tipping the Velvet is back to revitalizing
lesbian-undertoned Victoriana in Fingersmith, with a spellbinding and
well-wrought Dickensian story set in London, 1862. The lives of two
orphan girls are intertwined as Sue Trinder becomes a member of a family
of thieves, or "fingersmiths", that target heiress Maud in an attempt to
rake in her fortune with a con. The characters, much like in Dickens, are
often finely detailed and psychologically comprehensive, the atmosphere
engaging and alive even amidst the bleak, cruel grays of the time.
Thriller, melodrama, love story, strong female heroines - sure to please
historical alternative romance fans.
War Dances by Sherman Alexie - Paperback, $14
Sherman Alexie is a compelling contemporary voice in Native American
fiction, and we are proud to offer a rotating selection of his works here.
Both laugh-out-loud funny, achingly sad, and defiantly angry, War Dances
is a collection of tragic comedies across mediums. These stories, poems,
and dialogs that directly confront issues such as race, sex, class, the
creative process, mortality, and so on. In all of his works, for both
teens and adults, Alexie has a talent for finding both intense poignancy
and yet tender and still hopefully light-hearted despite the worst in the
hearts of others. To read Alexie is to take a bittersweet inventory of
ourselves.
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell - Hardcover, $26
Naive and sweet Dutch trade official Jacob de Zoet falls headlong and
head-over-heels into the allure of Japan at the turn of the 19th century.
Suddenly thrust into the corrupt and culturally confounding Nagasaki,
Jacob struggles with his own honesty and the demotion it awards him along
with the ire of his superiors. But Jacob also discovers love, smitten
absolutely by Dutch-trained midwife Orito Aibagawa despite the forbidden
nature of this romance. Though the plot is slow to kindle, it builds to a
tense and wondrous final act, with stunning depth and gorgeous imagery in
every well-times character step along the way.
The Alchemist by Paulo Cohelo - Paperback, $14.99
With what begins as the simple tale of a shepherd boy, Santiago, seeking
wealth and venturing away from his flock in Spain unfolds into a
multi-layered fable that resonates deeper. He dreams of the pyramids in
Egypt and determines to see them for himself, and the reader journeys with
Santiago through exotic locations, meeting characters that usher him
further along his path not only across land and water, but also through
timelessly true, achingly tender lessons of the soul. Just as the
legendary alchemists of old made gold from lead, the Alchemist is a
classic fairytale that nurtures the heart while engaging the mind. This
unassuming title is consistently a bestseller in our store.
Cutting For Stone by Abraham Verghese - Paperback, $15.95
Reviewing Cutting for Stone is difficult, when the scope and magnitude of
the story reaches so far beyond the curt synopsis of the plot outline. In
brief, it tells us the story of two twins born to an Indian nun, who dies
in the effort, and their British surgeon father that abandons them
immediately after. Marion, the twin that narrates their tale, and Shiva,
his brother, grow into men through trials and tribulations that craft them
into surgeons to rival their father's absent greatness. His name is
Thomas Stone. This skillfully written novel is perhaps not for the
squeamish reader, as the medical facets are at times explicit, but so too
are the vivid details that bring a tumultuous Ethiopia to life, carry the
tale to America, and assure us in the end that all which is broken
deserves to be tended.
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