Two days? Two books!

One of the best things about traveling is the actual travel time. For me, time on an airplane = time spent reading = happy time. Last weekend I went to Santa Fe for an entirely too brief (one might say crazy-short) amount of time. Here's what I read and recommend:

THE COOKBOOK COLLECTOR by Allegra Goodman. This novel is full of humanity at its best and worst impulses. Set mostly in the Silicon Valley and NYC during the rise of the “dot.com” business and IPOs, it features sisters Emily, a brilliant programmer, and Jess, a romantic philosophy student. Each sister tries to prove to the other that her way of life is superior, despite their parallel searches for life’s greater meaning, but when September 11, 2001, comes along, both sisters realize that what’s really important has been in front of their faces all along. Currently on the IndieBound bestseller list for hardcover fiction, published by Dial Press.


ONE DAY by David Nicholls. I bought this book hoping to find a quick and absorbing read for a flight to Santa Fe, but I soon realized that in addition to being those things, it was also full of heart. Emma and Dexter meet on the day they graduate from university and this novel follows each one every year on that date for two decades. Their relationship goes through many phases—they are variously penpals, friends, allies, indifferent acquaintances, unrequited and requited lovers—and along with the glimpses into their lives we get parallel histories ranging from pop culture and politics. Simultaneously funny and heartbreakingly true, this book will appeal in particular to fans of Nick Hornby. Currently on the IndieBound bestseller list for paperback fiction, published by Vintage Books.

I'm tricky...

I found a way to get around my husband's 25 book rule! As I've mentioned before, my husband, daughter and I are moving to Camden, ME for the fall.

When we were up visiting for a few days this past weekend, I bought books from the local bookstore and then LEFT THEM THERE.

Take that 25 book rule!

Emily Russo Murtagh

The Sunday Question

What is the most frightening book you’ve ever read?

I’ve been reading James Howard Kunstler’s The Witch of Hebron, a post-apocalyptic tale set in upstate New York, the second book in a planned trilogy about the end of our oil-based civilization. I often forget that the book is set in the near future, and slip into a kind of complacent nineteenth century mind-set. The horse is the best means of transport, everyone grows their food and barters. The descriptions of the lovely rural landscapes are beguiling. But once in awhile, a character makes a reference to “the old times” of Internet access and cell phones. The old times of easy travel and knowledge of the world. The deserted McMansions molder away, homes to skunks and highwaymen. This for some reason creeps me out no end. So I started thinking about which books scare the bejesus out of us, and why, prompting this weeks Sunday Question. The answers have been fascinating in their diversity.

Marika couldn’t read Neil Gaiman's Coraline at night, because the buttons for eyes creeped her out.

Nieves discovered Poe when she was eight, and was terrified and fascinated in equal measure. “I didn’t understand it all, but enough to be like, whoa!"

One customer told me that her most recent reading fright fest was Audrey Niffenegger’s Her Fearful Symmetry, which I agree is amazingly creepy in the traditional ghost-and-graveyard way.

Another customer claimed he was most frightened by a recent biography of Mao. I could see that, too.

I confess to a love for all things creepy. I adore Edith Wharton’s ghost stories, H.P. Lovecraft is a fave. I write creepy books. But they don’t really scare me. I am a fairly recent convert to Stephen King’s books, but I’m not too fussed by the scary bits there, either. No. What really makes my skin crawl and my stomach churn are true crime books. I can’t comfort myself with the thought that they are only fiction, because, gee, they’re not. When I read Vincent Bugliosi’s Helter Skelter in high school, I couldn’t sleep with the book in my room. I read Truman Capote's chillingly gorgeous In Cold Blood not long ago, perhaps the perfect true crime book, and even though I’m older and more hardened, I had to make a special trip to leave it out on the porch before I could sleep. For me that’s the true test of a frightening book.

Which books must you relegate to another room before turning out the lights?

~ Chrysler

Howard Norman, folks. He's amazing!

Howard Norman’s new novel, What is Left the Daughter, was
actually the Odyssey Bookshop’s July selection for our signed first editions club. He was originally scheduled to come to our store for an event but he had to cancel due to a family emergency. So Joan Grenier (the co-owner) and I had made a little trek to Saratoga Springs, NY, to meet Norman and to get our books signed for the club. He was as sweet and unassuming as can be and we enjoyed our time with him very much. Here's hoping he'll be able to make an Odyssey appearance on the next go-round!

There are some authors out there who, when you hear they have a new book coming out, just make you sit up and take notice, and Howard Norman is one of them. This is the story of a man named Wyatt, whose tragedy-marked early life seems to start a trajectory of doomed events over which he has no control. In the opening sequence, we learn that his mother and father commit suicide on the same day, each jumping off a bridge in Halifax, Nova Scotia, because they are both in love with the same neighbor woman. Wyatt is then taken in by his aunt and uncle, where he apprentices with his uncle to build world-class toboggans and not incidentally, falls in love with his adopted cousin, Tilda. Meanwhile tensions are building over World War II, and when Tilda falls in love with a German student at her university, it sets yet another tragedy in motion. This quiet novel is really about the provinciality of small towns, particularly economically depressed ones, and all of the attendant yearnings, prejudices, and dreams of escape associated therein. Norman’s deceptively simple prose is poignant and fitting, reminding us that life doesn’t usually come with Hollywood endings.

~Emily Crowe

Amazing coincidence?

Okay, so is it a coincidence? Or is it just an instance of cosmic harmony where two of my best loved books for the fall happen to mention the same obscure historical figure? Mary Toft was an English woman living in the early to mid 18th century who convinced leading medical authorities of the day that she had given birth to rabbits. Yes, live rabbits. Apparently she had them going for quite a while and eventually 'fessed up. What an embarrassment to the Royal docs, eh?

Bill Bryson makes reference to it in his wonderful book called At Home: A Short History of Private Life in a section on medical history, particularly the woefully inadequate medical care given to women up through the 20th century. Not only was it indelicate for a doctor (always male) to actually examine his female patients, his patients didn't even have the vocabulary to describe their ills when something went amiss "down there." It's a wonder that every woman didn't die in childbirth.



In Julia Stuart's charming new novel called The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise, it's a minor character who stumbles across the interesting information about Mary Toft and then shares it with his friend Balthazar, a Beefeater living in the Tower of London, as a means of distracting his friend from mourning the death of his son.

I had read Bryson's book first and found the Mary Toft tidbit extraordinary, but that was nothing compared to how I felt when I ran across her name once more in Stuart's novel. Is there anybody out there who can calculate the chances of that happening? I dunno. But it seemed so rare that it deserved its own blogpost.

~Emily Crowe

My new favorite book for the fall

If I had only one word to describe this book, I’d be hard-pressed to choose between “delightful” and “charming.” It’s one of those rare gems that introduces you to indelibly quirky characters, showcases a meandering plot that is utterly rewarding, and provides just as many laugh-out-loud moments as poignant ones. Balthazar Jones is a Beefeater who lives in the Tower of London with his wife, Hebe, who escapes during the day to run an outrageous Lost and Found office for the London Underground. Because of Balthazar’s proprietary relationship with Mrs. Cook, the world’s oldest living tortoise, the Queen decides to transfer the royal bestiary from the London Zoo back to the Tower, where Queen Elizabeth I originally housed it. Along the way we encounter missing penguins, a purloined bearded pig, the troublesome ghost of Sir Walter Raleigh, and the Tower chaplain, who moonlights as both a rat exterminator and a bestselling writer of women’s erotica with a strong moralistic tone, under the pseudonym Vivienne Ventress. I can’t tell you the last time I read a book filled with such wonderment, and it really is a joy to read a book whose literary value isn’t compromised by its sparkle and charm. People who loved The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society or Major Pettigrew's Last Stand will love this one, too, as will anybody who enjoys books that are pleasantly offbeat and filled with British humor. It was simply enchanting.

~Emily Crowe

The Sunday Question

Which book do you wish you’d written?

I was lucky enough to have attended Jon Clinch’s reading on Thursday. He’s quite the raconteur, and of course has written two amazing books, his much-touted debut Finn, and now Kings of the Earth, a gorgeously written story in the rural gothic vein -- think Faulkner in upstate New York. I’m just now reading the book, and every time I close it, I think “Damn, I wish I could write something as heart-wrenching and spare and funny and fine.”

Which gives rise to this week’s question: which book do you wish you’d written?

Diana says definitely Chekhov stories, because they are so timeless, so lasting. Who wouldn’t want their books to be studied for a hundred years and counting?

Kevin would claim Stephen King’s The Shining. “I’m thinking of the bank account,” says Kevin in his forthright fashion. But there’s also Stephen King’s amazing ability to create the most compelling characters and to access the dreams and horrors of the collective consciousness with such precision.

Marika’s answer was my favorite. She feels no need to claim anyone else’s work. She can’t wait to see what she herself will write.

For better or worse, I know what I write, and I’d still love to have written, oh, say, A.S. Byatt’s Possession, a tour de force that captured the Man Booker Prize. Not for the prizes and acclaim, although those things would be nice, but because Dame Antonia is so erudite, so bold. I admire no end her hutzpah in creating two famous nineteenth century poets, not only their world entire, their sensibilities, their curiosities, but also their poetry, and in the styles of Emily Dickinson and Robert Browning, no less. It helps that she is a Browning scholar, but still.

If you have a secret longing to have written Emma, or The Great Gatsby, or even Archie comics, let us know!

~ Chrysler