What I'm Reading on My Summer Vacation -- redux

Hi, readers,

In 72 hours, my week of BLOB (Books, "Lost", Oysters and Beer -- preferably on the deck of the Waterfront Restaurant overlooking Camden Harbor) begins.

For months, I've been looking at my bookshelves wondering what titles I should bring with me. Do I bring only backlist titles (those published more than a year ago) with me, or can I bring books yet to be published? How many books can I conceivably read in 10 days while visiting my very talkative family? Additionally, Michele Filgate got me hooked on the television show "Lost" and I still have four seasons to get through.

My colleague, Emily Crowe, reads the first few chapters of each book in contention for the coveted "vacation prize" to determine whether it's finalist. I, however, can't do that. If I start something and I like it, I wouldn't be able to put it down.

When I first started thinking about my vacation six months ago (yes, I plan that far ahead), I swore I was only going to bring books published before April 2008. Well, as the saying goes, best laid plans...

That was before I saw the Fall 2009 list (see earlier post). It's incredible. By far the best Fall list I've seen. I simply cannot exclude some of these books. They're calling out to me: "Please include me, pretty please.? I love you." How can I say no to that?

In all likely-hood, I won't be able to finish the 8 finalists, but I'm going to try. So, without further delay, here they are:

1) Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
2) The Book of Night Women by Marlon James
3) A Monster's Notes by Laurie Sheck
4) The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
5) The Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
6) The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt
7) The Gone Away World by Nick Harkaway
8) America, America by Ethan Canin

I'm finishing up Dave Egger's new book, Zeitoun, about an Arab-American family's experience during Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. It's absolutely riveting. More on that later this week!

Summer Escapism or The Great Staycation!

Greetings Readers!

In the summer time I can't help but want to escape to an exotic, foreign, or alien locale. Lucky for those of us who cannot jet off to some tiny tropical island, or road trip across route 66, that we can afford the ultimate escape. That's right people I am talking books. Ahhh books the original staycation.
Remember what it was like the first time you were so immersed in a page turning mystery, so engrossed with a far off fantasy world or so thoroughly engaged with a story that when you finally looked up from it's pages and saw the room around you, you could not help but wonder where it all had gone to?

Well here is my list of some budget friendly staycations that unlike a far away island, you can revisit again and again.

The Odyssey has just received a new batch of some whopping good remainders... just take a look...

For the Literary Beach Reader...





TheHighest Tide, the debut novel of Jim Lynch (who will be visiting the Odyssey on July 13 for the release of his latest novel Border Songs) is the coming of age story of one boy who finds both beauty and mystery in the sea. Prompting his community to question his ability to see things that no one else observed before him. Originally 23.95, Remaindered now at 5.99 (quantities limited).

Working hard for your money....


Like me, the main character of this novel is spending his summer working, albeit he might be considered luckier that I, in that he has a whole warehouse of books to contend with. Songs for the Butcher's Daughter takes place in Western Massachusetts and tells the story of a young man who begins working with a 90-something Russian immigrant, who considers himself to be the "last Yiddish Poet." Originally 25.00, Remaindered now at 5.99 (quantities limited).




There is no frigate like a book to take us lands away



Part of my staycation plans are visiting local spots of interest, and the only thing I love better than a museum about historical people are graveyards where they are buried. If you would rather bring someone famous back to life, perhaps this book (a fictional story about one woman's tentative friendship with poet Emily Dickinson) is more your speed.
Originally 24.99, Remaindered now at 6.99 (quantities limited).



Nothing like a good misadventure...


If you want to visit the Dickinson Homstead, but are a bit accident prone like the hero of our next featured book, perhaps you will refrain after reading his great misfortune. Brock Clarke writes a hilarious story about one man mistakenly accused of burning down one author's home. I hope this book inspires you to visit local famous homesteads! Originally 23.95, Remaindered now at 4.99 (quantities limited).






Mo' Dickinson & Mo' Scandal


If reading Non-fiction is more your speed, but you still love scandal as well as local history then Polly Longsworth's Austin and Mabel is just the ticket. I love nothing better than a victorian scandal, and Longworth uses massive amounts of research to examine the forbidden relationship between Austin Dickinson (older brother to Emily) and the wife of an Amherst College professor Mabel Loomis Todd. Originally 22.95, Remaindered now at 4.99 (quantities limited).

Reguarly Priced Summer Adventures... err books.




Summer Required Reading...

I bought three of this book, which is saying something. It is the prefect book for escaping not only into another world but into someone else's mind altogether. Reif Larson’s Selected Works of T.S. Spivet has got to be my favorite book this year. T.S. (short for Tecumsah Sparrow) is not your typical 12-year-old Montana rancher’s son. He has a knack for cartography and writes articles published by the Smithsonian and other scientific texts. Not knowing that T.S. is merely a pre-teen protégé the Smithsonian offers him an award for his work in cartography. The catch T.S.’s parents know nothing about his work and he has to travel from Montana to Washington D.C. to receive it.As T.S. travels across the country via sneaking aboard a train he maps out his journey and the world around him as he understands it. It is a beautiful story about family, loss and finding one’s place in an inconstant world. You will not be disappointed with Spivet or
the journey Larson takes you on. The Odyssey has signed first editions avaliable at the regular price of the book, $27.95 (quantities limited), well worth the price as this is a story you will be revisiting long after summer has come and gone.



More Required reading!

Like Reif Larsen, the Odyssey is pleased to have Katherine Howe visit us (July 29 at 7pm) for her debut novel The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane. The story is about a Harvard graduate student (and Mount Holyoke Alum!) who inherits her grandmother's old cottage just outside of Salem, MA. The house as well as some of it's contents have been in the family since the first pilgrims came to America. When Connie Goodwin begins to clean out the abandoned estate of her grandmother she uncovers secrets that deal with her family's and Salem's dark history, as well as abilities she never even knew she had. Signed first editions avaliable after July 29 at the regular book price of 25.99.

That about does it for now dear readers! Have a great escape!

~Nieves

Markets and Gardens

The South Hadley Farmers' Market opened today on the Town Green. Despite the rainy, thunderous, and down right icky weather we've been having, we managed to have an clear afternoon for the market! South Hadley residents turned out for the occasion in wonderful show of support for local food.

If you are interested in reading more about local food and gardening there are some great books for adults and children alike.


One of my favorite new children's books is The Curious Garden by Peter Brown.
The book is about "greening" a city by planting gardens in unexpected places. A group of New Yorkers put this idea to work in real life and opened up a garden along an old railroad track in Manhattan. You can visit their website at http://blog.thehighline.org/



For those who enjoyed Michael Pollan's book Omnivore's Dilemma, Pollan is coming out with a young readers edition of the book. The Omnivore's Dilemma for Kids: The Secrets Behind What You Eat, will be out this coming fall.

~ Vanessa

A book to look forward to...

Well, I'm back from my summer vacation, which now seems like quite the blur. Having set a personal record of reading 17 books in 15 days, I guess I'm not really surprised. Some of them were great pieces of literature (Cormac McCarthy, J. M. Coetzee, & Audrey Niffenegger backlist), some of them were delightful pieces of fluff (a book called Jane Eyre's Daughter, for one example). I also took along a few advance readers copies to get a head start on some later summer/early fall reading. One forthcoming book that I'm looking forward to handselling is called Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gaile Parkin, due out in August from Delacorte Press. This deceptively sweet debut novel set in Rwanda is, much like main character Angel Tungaraza, full of hidden depths. On the surface she bakes cakes for all occasions for a cross-section of people, ranging from the wife of the US ambassador to the "baby mama" of a young man who struggles to make ends meet. Her higher calling as a generous listener, though, showcases a forgiving soul who is always ready to be burdened with other people's dark secrets, and in post-genocide Rwanda, there is no shortage of those. This is a lovingly imagined story of people who have somehow found a way to look past their neighbors' (or their own) misdeeds to find a hopeful future in Kigali. If you love Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency books, you're sure to enjoy this new novel, too.

~Emily Crowe

Summer Reads!

Warm weather has finally come! School is almost out and beach vacations are being planned. It's time to think about summer reading. While a good book can be read anytime of year, I think certain books are that much better while read in a beach chair, in the sun.

In need of some suggestions? Stop by the store because we a have plenty of new books to share.

One book, that I admittedly read before it was quite bikini weather, is the perfect summer read. Partially because the cover consists of a young man standing on a beach in awesome sunglasses, but mostly because it is incredibly well written and a wonderful story.



Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead

Every teenager goes through that awkward phase when friends are growing up and changing, the opposite sex suddenly becomes so important, and you are constantly trying to figure out what is “cool.” Whitehead’s new novel illuminates this period of time for Benji Cooper, who is spending the summer of 1985 at his family’s home on Sag Harbor. Whitehead describes the African American enclave on the Hamptons in the time of “The Cosby Show,” the early days of Hip Hop, and “New Coke.” This is a bright, funny, semi-autobiographical story that touches on important issues of race, class, and adolescence. A literary and affectionate summer read with a large helping of humility and ice cream. ~ Vanessa

Now I'm happy that I watched all those Seinfeld episodes...

In today's Shelf Awareness, a daily email newsletter that goes out to folks in the book industry, there was a notice about Connecticut's great independent bookstores that ran in a local paper. The article began with a quotation from Jerry Seinfeld himself. And though I'm clearly biased, I couldn't agree more: "A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking."

Short & sweet tonight, y'all.

~Emily C.

It's a lovefest here in the bookworld.

I love my job. No, seriously, I do. I love books and what's more, I love booksellers. Two days ago I got to make a bookstore roadtrip with my colleagues Joan and Rebecca. Since Rebecca had already planned to be in Portland that weekend, Joan and I drove up after work on Sunday evening to meet Jon and Carrie Platt, the owners of Nonesuch Books. They greeted us like old friends and opened their home to us, despite the fact that they barely knew Joan and had no acquaintance with me whatsoever.

The next morning all of us from the Platt household met up with Rebecca at the South Portland location of Nonesuch Books and thus our adventures began. We spent quite a while exploring their terrific store from every angle, furiously taking notes and swapping bookseller survival stories. From there we moved en masse to the Saco location of Nonesuch, making friends along the way with a big, tumbly goofball of a mastiff puppy who charmed us all in the parking lot.

After parting ways with our new friends Jon & Carrie, the three of us made our way to RiverRun Bookstore in Portsmouth, NH. After admiring the clean lines of the decor we chatted with owner Tom and events coordinator Michele about the current state of the book world and the importance of Buy Local programs and incentives.

From there we traveled south once more to Newburyport to visit Jabberwocky Books and the sister store Eureka, a child's delight filled with toys and educational products. Unfortunately the owner had gone home sick earlier that day, so we just poked around on our own.

The trip overall was quite educational. All four of these stores were very different from each other and from our own store, ranging from an intimate storefront in a vibrant downtown to a cavernous, rambling space in a renovated waterfront building. One serves primarily a working class clientele while another serves primarily a tourist one, and so on. But each had carved a niche for itself in its respective market and we came away from each store having learned something valuable to take back to our store. The best part, though, was chatting with the booksellers at each location, all of whom welcomed us warmly and paused to answer the dozens of questions we threw at them. They're a generous bunch and I couldn't be prouder to be a part of any other group.

~Emily C.