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.
As with most 22-year-old American males, my childhood was
spent weaning from the electric mother of television and video games. (You
wouldn't know it, because I deleted it, but I just absent-mindedly capitalized
both "Television" and "Video Games" as though they were deified.) According to
some people that I read somewhere once, I can blame the electronic sedentary
behavior of my younger days for the attention deficit that I blame for my most
of my shortcomings (including not being able to write a succinct sentence
<ooh, "succinct sentence", I like that word-pair>).
ANYWAY!
To make a short story long, I've replaced (for the most part) the sweet,
light-giving life of the television for the cold pages of a book.
Unfortunately, it's difficult to allow your brain to meander endlessly and
still get anything out of a novel. So, like so many people I know, I have
half-read Tolstoys andDostoevskies
adorning my nightstand and desk like some dilapidated tent-city.
My
inability to finish anything by "The Russians" (close your eyes and give your
voice the snootiest possible tone whenever you say "The Russians";it's a lot of fun) has automatically
restricted me from the category of "well-read"by the literati. So, without even realizing it, I read two books in a
row by Russians! I'm not sure if either of them counts as part of "The Russians", but I have still gotten
away with pretentiously referencing both of them.
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
This
one's just long enough and has just enough characters with unpronounceable
names to warrant pretention. Although the setting is of course dated (19th
century Russia) and the targets (Russian landowners, or Barins) no longer exist, the satire is easily applicable to
modern-day life. After all, it's a small step from the frivolity and greed of
the Russian nobleman to the attitude of the Wall Street culture. The "hero",
Chichikov, is essentially a Serpent in the Garden character, a careful manipulator
of the narcissism that plagues the wealthy and impoverished alike. His mission:
collect the "dead souls", those peasants who have died under the watch of their
feudal lords, but still remain on the census. The main interplay is between
swindler and oppressor, begging the question of who the real licentious
character is. Gogol spares nobody, showing that the lazy and the workaholics
alike suffer from the same disease of personal hubris.
The
history and structure of the manuscript is sort of strange one, and leads to
some continuity that takes getting used to. He originally intended it to be a
sort of Divine Comedy. Part one of
the book is a beautiful, haunting, and hilarious panorama of Russian life
during serfdom; just as in Inferno,
there are several levels to our social hell, all reserved with different
punishments and trials for the different classes. Part II isn't exactly
different, and I don't see many analogues to purgatory. Apparently, Gogol had a
tumultuous time with the manuscript, destroying much of the final version. The
entire novel ends in mid-sentence, but that actually makes sense.
Some
have commented that the "dead souls" as a plot device makes the novel too
ridiculous to have any merit. Personally, I think the metaphor translates beautifully
to all the useless stuff we put value into, and makes the scenes of the
flabbergasted landowners all the more entertaining. Not to mention, while all
the characters in the novel are living, all save a couple seem to be dead in
soul.
Apparently, Gogol, who by the end
of his life had become highly entrenched in spiritualism, meant to write an
uplifting part III about the redemption of the human soul. Well, that's not
exactly how it turns out; but that's all I'll say for now.
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
The
next time I hear a politician reference 1984
in comparison to our social situation (especially one who supported the USA PATRIOT
Act), I'm going to take her or him hostage and make them read We. It is the prototype for all
dystopian literature to follow, and unlike 1984,
it is constantly poetic and beautiful. After all, Zamyatin's whole bent is that
our imaginations are the thing that a dystopian government would find the most
dangerous. Instead of a technical rundown of the way the omniscient state (One
State) works, we get sketchy details about day to day life. Buildings are
entirely glass, everyone's name is a number, and the Benefactor (essentially Big
Brother, except you meet him in this book) has the use of a giant machine that
zaps away his enemies.
The
whole book is a series of journal entries by the guy who's working on the
INTEGRAL, the government spaceship designed to bring the idea of this "perfect"
society to other planets. He starts breaking down into a neurosis whose
symptoms are moral conflict, emotional love, and dreams. He sees the state
doctor- and the diagnosis? He has a soul, a totally incurable and degenerative
disease! As you can see, the dystopian
context makes the everyday decisions we all make into a sadly hilarious drama.
Zamyatin's
prose-poetry is constantly biting and poignant, and the progression of the
narrator's "disease" is absolutely brilliant. The way the events and settings
are fantastical and imaginative lends it a higher calling than other dystopian
novels. It doesn't present a socialist or reformist agenda; although Zamyatin
himself was a socialist, he was much more interested in the importance of
preserving creativity and the human "soul", which got him exiled by both the
Tsar and Lenin.
It's so
easy for any of us to look at any of the classic dystopian novels and say, "If
I were there, I would realize it in a heartbeat! This is ridiculous, why would
anyone act like this?" Zamyatin, I think, realizes this, and constantly
lambasts "the ancients" (us) for their ways, satirically criticizing things
like free elections, etc., but also pointing out that the society of streamlined
logic and mechanization, metaphorically as well as literally, is very alive,
well, and growing.
I could
go into "America as dystopia", but that would be a subject for an entirely
different blog.
Several fun and creative nonfiction books have come in recently, and I'm very excited.
The Big Book of Dummies, Rebels, and Other Geniuses is a large hardcover volume that recounts the unlikely stories of 26 influential people. The individuals included range from artists to scientists to political activists to authors to entrepreneurs. The presentation is loads of fun: a mix of photographs and quirky sketches accompanying paragraphs of lively narrative and quotes.
From the introduction:
"Here is a portrait gallery of men and women who left their mark on literature, the arts, the sciences, and history, despite their chaotic beginnings. At school, many were declared mediocre, incompetent, slow - in a word, dummies!
Over time, history has bestowed genius and fame upon them... Encyclopedias describe them in hushed and serious tones, their pockets stuffed with virtues. But these pockets are more unevenly stitched than might be guessed."
Maybe this book is so striking to me simply because I know too many unappreciated geniuses - especially kids. Whatever the reason, I'm purchasing a copy for myself today.
Harlem Stomp!: A Cultural History of the Harlem Renaissance fills a gaping hole in our kids American History section.
The works of art, literature, and music from this era are among the best ever produced, but too often they are overlooked. This book is wide-ranging in scope and very informative, and the colors, pictures, and fonts do well to capture the energy and spirit of the Harlem Renaissance. Every middle or high school English teacher should have a copy!
Also noteworthy is a new Kingfisher book, The Middle East, a region that is written about very little, and almost never presented to kids. Its vibrant pictures and well-articulated descriptions of culture and history capture the beauty and complexity of this part of the world.
Welcome back, book fans! It is my fervernt hope to get caught up with reviewing last year's
books so that I can also discuss this year's books...you know, before the year is out. With that
in mind, I'm hoping to either have longer reviews or more frequent. We'll see how it all plays out.
Until then, here is the next batch of awesome and/or approaching terrible books.
52. Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bible! by Jonathan Goldenstein. (Humor)(B-) The catch with
this book is that you have to have a sense of humor and you have to have a pretty good working
knowledge of the bible. That makes this book somewhat exclusive to non-religious people who
have a sense of humor.
53. Skin Trade by Laurell K Hamilton. (Fantasy) (C) I've invested a lot of time in this series.
Enough that I figured spending four hours on her latest book made more sense than not. And
there were definitely some parts that I really liked. I'm pretty sure. But I'm a college educated
woman who, not to toot my own horn, is pretty intelligent. And I couldn't remember who was who
and what they looked like and where they came from and why I was supposed to care. For, like,
three-fourths of the characters in this book. Okay, so, Haven used to be called Cookie Monster
and he has blue hair? And he worked for the mob. So he can't get involved with the cops. But he
is her tiger to call? Wait, no, that's Crispin. Who is Crispin? Did I meet him. When? I liked
Auggie. He worked for the mob. Is he in the same area? Why didn't I see him? Where am I?
How am I not myself? Why is this so complicated? I need to make a diagram.
54.The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. (Young Adult/Historic Fiction) (A) This book is amazing! I
read it for Young Adult book club and we all agreed it was so well written. My rule of thumb,
though, held true: no happy endings in Nazi Germany. I cried through the last three chapters of
this book. (Sidenote, not the only time I cried.) And yet, I think it brings up a pretty good point.
At what point do we hold people responsible for going along with the crowd? When they do it
without question? When they question but do not act? When they act but not hard enough? I do
not have any answers. I recognize that there is always shades of gray but also that we like to
soften history. We like to make our actions more palatable. This is a well written story that
depicts almost every side a person could be on during that time. Tragic but ringing truth.
55. The Sisters 8: Annie's Adventures by Lauren Baratz-Logstead with Greg Logsted and Jackie
Logsted. (Children) (B+) (Sorry to 180 on subject matter.) This was light, cute, and meant for a
younger reading set than I normally gravitate towards but I've always loved books/stories about
large, unconventional families. A set of octuplets find that their parents have gone missing (Are
abducted? Been killed? Who knows?) They DO know that a mysterious person has
communicated with them that they must each develop a special skill that will come in to play to
save their family!
56. The Sisters Grimm: 1 by Michael Buckley. (Children) (B+) Now this, while still younger, is
only a bit younger. It deals with more adult fare that is written superbly. If you are a fan of fairy
tales you might give this a try. Tough as nails "orphans" (who find out what happened to their
parents if not where they are being kept for rescue) aren't going to be fooled by anyone. Of
course, the giant didn't exactly trick them. He just picked up the car with Granny in it and walked
away. They can't turn their back on the only family they have left but they also know NOTHING
about the family line of work: fairy tale detective sleuthing. YES!
57. Ghost World by Daniel Clowes. (Graphic Novel) (Unable to rate due to personal bias). This
really captures exactly the feel it was going for - I just didn't appreciate it. I have trouble
witnessing people be humiliated and I will forever be haunted by the guy they set-up thinking he
was going to meet someone who he might connect with. We all want that in life. To connect, to
be loved, to love in return. And he'd done all the right things. He looked normal (actually, nearly
precisely like my dad which might be why it was hard on me) he was thoughtful to bring a flower,
and he waited in case she was just running late. I still tear up thinking about it. WHY. WHY.
Sorry. Like I said, haunted. I'm not sure I would recommend reading this unless you like
depression and/or your awkward teenage years.
58. Guide to the Ghosts of Lincoln: 3rd Edition by Alan Boye. (Sci-fi, Fantasy and Horror) (D)
OH, man. You'd think this would be awesome, right? Ghost stories. TRUE ghost stories. True
ghost stories set right here in Lincoln! And yet...I had some serious issues with the editing.
There was a lot of devolving into how the author was intricately involved in some aspect of the
story.
59. Finger Lickin' 15 by Janet Evanovich. (Mystery/Awesomeness) (B+) Oh, man. See, the
classic debate is Ranger vs Morelli. And I have to ask myself, why just one? Why can't she love
both? This is pretty much everything you would expect from a Stephanie Plum story. Which,
since I love them, was what I had hoped for and received.
Going on, favorite quote of all the books happens in this installment. Lula: Fire! Fire! We're all
going to die! We gonna burn like we was in h*ll! (Needless to say, they did not die in a fire.)
Note: Next in the series, Sizzling Sixteen , was just released!
