The Sunday Question

Which literary settings do you find the most compelling at the moment?

I've been unwell for the last two weeks. Our house is a wreck. It looks like a small tornado touched down in the living room, and strewed books and dirty dishes and clumps of dog hair and used tissues everywhere. I can't bring myself to describe the state of the kitchen. Every time I take the dogs out in the yard I risk a broken limb, even with ice grippies on my boots. I think T.S. Eliot was wrong. April isn't the cruelest month, February and March vie for the title. At least in New England. If I had a small fortune (or a large one, for that matter) these are the months I'd choose to be elsewhere. Since I won't be going to Barbados anytime soon, or even Florida, I use books for my escape. 

Some writers can evoke the spirit of a place so completely, you feel as if you'd been transported into the world of the book. I just finished Alice Hoffman's amazing new novel, The Red Garden, and its magical, imaginary town of Blackwell, Massachusetts still haunts me. 

But as I said, I'd rather be anywhere except Massachusetts just now. What book will I read next to transport me, and where will I go? Where would you go literarily, dear reader, just for a little visit to escape the dregs of winter? Which literary settings compel us right now?

I asked Emily Crowe before I'd really formulated the question, and her reply was that J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth was the most completely imagined literary world she'd like to visit. 

Rebecca Fabian, the Odyssey's former children's bookseller extraordinaire, popped in for awhile yesterday, and her answer was Scarlett O'Hara's house in Ireland, Ballyhara, from Scarlett, Alexandra Ripley's sequel to Gone With the Wind.  

My own desire is to re-read Barbara Pym, go to that world of slightly dowdy (but usually clean) British vicarages and villages. What I'd like most of all is to visit Harriet and Belinda Bede, the most excellent women in Some Tame Gazelle, and have them fix me a nice tea in their comfortable uncluttered house, with maybe the post-WWII luxury of a boiled egg, or thin slices of toast with quince jelly. Maybe I could even stay in their guest room for awhile, and be invited to a jumble sale.

Which literary setting most compels you?

~ Chrysler

Must-read Monday: Books for Valentine's Day

These are seriously yummy!

Why, yes, it is that time of year again, when commercialism and the chocolate and flower industries reign supreme.  It's Valentine's Day, my friends.  And whether you're swooning from the grand passions of love, planning an Anti-Valentine's Day party like I did in grad school, or somewhere in between, we've got the books for you.  Books for friends, books for lovers, books for family.  The Odyssey has got you covered, whether you're looking for something traditional (dark chocolate covered caramels with sea salt.  trust me -- they're amazing!) or something unexpected, so call or drop by if you see something here you like. 

 I like you 

And I know why

I like you because 

You are a good person

To like
Perfect for that platonic friend, or a friend you hope might become something more, or for your children, or for your parents, or for anybody else you really, really like.  The line drawings are charming, but it's the verse that's so great.  Here's the introductory verse, but it also goes on to celebrate shared silliness, laughter, anger, and quiet time.  Really, it's a perfect gift book for anybody, but especially on Valentine's Day.

 Or maybe something a little unusual, like The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan, which is a novel told strictly through dictionary entries.  Marika McCoola, Odyssey children's bookseller, recommends it:

"Some of the words are what you might expect, others are surprising. The story (and there is an overarching narrative) is not arranged chronologically, but alphabetically, as a dictionary would be.  Love stories are easily overdone, but I found this story sweet.  Then again, sometimes a quietly sweet book is wonderful!"

If you'd like to read a longer entry on this lovely book, please check out our former children's bookseller blog entry from Rebecca at Wildly Read. 

And for a book of poetry that is just different enough to set it apart from the love poems that usually circulate today, take a look at Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems About Birds, edited by Billy Collins with images by David Allen Sibley, recommended by Emily.  This lovely collection features selections ranging from Chaucer & Catullus to Walt Whitman & Emily Dickinson to Mary Oliver & James Tate, interspersed throughout with Sibley's gorgeous bird portraits.The book is beautifully designed and fits in the hand so nicely & intimately, that even if you're not a birder, you'll be immediately drawn into this world of flight & fancy. 


~Emily

The Sunday Question

Who is your favorite villain in literature?

I've been thinking about villains lately. I often end up identifying with the villains in books more than the protagonists. This is certainly true in my own writing, because to create a believable villain, I really have to struggle to find out why he or she is villainous, what makes them so? What in their past has turned them evil or treacherous or just plain mean? The fact is, we need villains in every book, even mild ones, as foils to the protagonists, and to create tension and conflict. They work hard. It's really the villains who do the heavy lifting in literature, I think. We should acknowledge and appreciate them every once in a while. I therefore dedicate this Sunday Question to our favorite villains.

My own favorite is the unctuous, sweet-talking, canary and mouse-loving Count Fosco in The Woman In White by Wilkie Collins. He is such an unlikely villain, with his gentle manners that belie the perfectly black heart beneath his lovely embroidered waistcoats.

I don't think nineteenth-century authors were as concerned with the psychological underpinnings of evil, so they let us enjoy the scheming Wickham in Pride and Prejudice: 

and just plain nasty Wackford Squeers in Nicholas Nickleby:

without undue concern for the whys and wherefores of their behavior. It's one of the reasons it's just such a pleasure to sink into those works. Only the Bronte's seemed to be exercised by why villains acted as they did. Let's face it, Rochester had to have a dissolute youth and a mad wife, or the story would be a little thin.

Unfortunately I haven't been out of the house in a few days, so haven't had the opportunity to ask my fellow readers who they favor as villains. And I'm coming up short on female villains as well as twenty and twenty-first century ones, so please comment and enlighten me as to your favorites!

~ Chrysler

Hello, my name is Nieves and I'm a Cover Lover...

On this week's edition of dust jackets I've fallen in love with... Paranormal edition. Actually the only thing that is strange about these books is how drawn I am to the stories behind the covers. First up:

  Journal of a UFO Investigator, by  David Halperin, Viking Books, 25.95. David Halperin, a professor emeritus of religious studies at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill writes his fiction debut. Set in the 1960's the troubled, teenage protagonist Danny Shapiro has a lot on his plate of life. A Dying mother, hostile father and nary a friend in sight. It is because daily life is so miserable that Danny creates a fictional landscape that helps him cope with the realities beyond his understanding. Sounds amazing! For more info check out this video!
   




Next up: Elizabeth Stuckey-French's The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady, Double Day Books, 25.95,

 Marylou Ahearn, is not the kind of woman to take deceit sitting down, even at seventy-seven. Fifty years earlier on a visit to Dr. Wilson Spriggs, she was given a radioactive "cocktail" as part of a secret government study. When she finds his home address after fifty years she sets out for revenge. What Marylou finds is a retired Dr. Spriggs living with his daughter and her highly dysfunctional family. Hilarity ensues, and I think I have found a new favorite voice in American fiction writing.




Last but not least.  The Illumination, by Kevin Brockmeier, Pantheon Books, 24.95.
This book has a more subtle and stunning cover, that my co-worker Emily Crowe pointed out to me. The story line seems to follow the same tone. In his latest work, Brockmeier poses and answers the question, "What would it be like if our pain was visible?" After a strange occurrence, just such a thing happens to the fictional characters of his book. People begin to illuminate different colors for the different kind of pain that they have suffered.





Well that about wraps it up. Got any covers you want to give a shout out to?
Just let me know!

Paz,

Nieves

Book Brahmin: Ellen Meeropol

Book Brahmin: Ellen Meeropol

We couldn't be prouder that our own bookseller and book group coordinator, Ellen Meeropol, was featured in today's Shelf Awareness, a daily e-newsletter for the industry. Click the link to read all about it, and better yet, come to her reading tonight at 7:00 pm to hear her read from her debut novel, House Arrest.

~Emily

Book Brahmin: Ellen Meeropol

Book Brahmin: Ellen Meeropol

We couldn't be prouder that our own bookseller and book group coordinator, Ellen Meeropol, was featured in today's Shelf Awareness, a daily e-newsletter for the industry. Click the link to read all about it, and better yet, come to her reading tonight at 7:00 pm to hear her read from her debut novel, House Arrest.

~Emily

Terrific Tuesdays Book Release: Open City by Teju Cole

Tuesday is the major release day for new books each week, and this week we're particularly excited to direct your attention to a debut novel called Open City by Teju Cole, published by Random House. We have previously reviewed the book, which you can read here, but here's the short & sweet version of it:

"Open City is one of the most literary and thoughtful books I have read in a long time.  It opens with our narrator Julius, a Nigerian-born psychiatrist who daily takes to wandering the streets of Manhtatan, where he now lives and practices, as a means of warding off insomnia.  As his feet take him in various directions, his mind freely meanders elsewhere: his military school upbringing in Nigeria, his German mother, his visit to a local immigrant detention center, a trip to Belgium, where America stands in the current international political climate, and even the nature of New York City itself.  This book is perfect for readers who are interested in narrative structure, ambiguity, and the quiet but erudite, politically-tinged musings of a man who may or may not be what he seems."  ~Emily

If this book sounds like it's right up your alley, please join us for a reading by Teju Cole on Friday, February 11, 2011, at 7:00 in tandem with other debut novelist Hannah Pittard.