(Jackson Street) Books on 7th

Department of Book Reports: Border Songs

2012-01-28T16:10:00.000-08:00

Border Songs, by Jim Lynch (Knopf paper $16)Six foot eight inch Brandon Vanderkool has always stuck out. His dyslexia and attention to the details of the landscape and birds give him a unique perspective as a new Border Patrol officer. Noticing details that others miss as soon gotten him the title of "Shit Magnet" among the rest of the patrol. He mother is slipping more and more into early onset alzheimer's, while his father worries over the condition of his diary cows health, and the boat he has been building in a back barn but may never finish and sail.

This story is set along the once casual border, near the Peace Arch, where lucrative smuggling has lured locals into helping both people and B.C. Bud into America. Brandon's life-long friends and townspeople all seem involved in the now lucrative transportation. Canadian mountains sprout McMansions overlooking what had been diaries, now turned to raspberry farms complete with immigrant workers.

The job gives Brandon plenty of time to indulge in his daily Bird Counts and his art; patterns in leaves and stones which he compulsively builds. This natural art is compared to Andrews Goldsworthy by a neighbor who puts on an opening for the town on the day the new Casino opens up the road. After I finished reading this, we watched "Rivers and Tides" which I very much recommend:

Jim Lynch is also the author of the Award-winning YA novel, Highest Tide and the forthcoming Truth Like The Sun, which looks at the 50th Anniversary of the Seattle World's Fair(!) On April 29th, I'll be selling books at his Westport appearance, sponsored by the Timberland Library. Let me know if you'd like a signed copy then, or your can get unsigned copies from us now.

SOPA & PIPA

2012-01-18T00:00:00.000-08:00

More here.

Department of Book Reports: At Play in the Fields of the Lord

2012-01-14T10:11:00.000-08:00

Peter Matthiessen's At Play in the Fields of the Lord is one of those mid-20th century novels I've meant to read and never got around to doing so. Well, I've finally read it, and it was well worth the time. Matthiessen can be, at turns, a dense writer, full of metaphor, and flights of reverie, but always interesting.

The novel itself is one of the clash of culture works that abounded then, and still do. The Martin Quarrier family, Martin, Hazel and their son, Billy, are small town fundamentalists who venture to the wilds of South America to convert the Niaruna Indian tribe. who live in a remote area, but an area that the government would very much like to develop and would love to have vacated by the Indians. The Quarriers are aided by another couple, the Hubens, solidly Christian folk. Along the way, the two families encounter two American Ex-Pats, Lewis Moon and his pilot buddy, Wolf, who the local commandante has "hired" to bomb the Indians out of the area. The Quarriers set up their mission which had once been a Catholic outpost, until members of the tribe murdered the missionary priest. What ensues is chaos, clashes and the dissipation of faith.

Matthiessen has richly written characters that are not stereotypes. Each is imagined vividly and all are memorable. Lewis Moon is a "half-breed" Cheyenne, brilliant, and lost. Martin Quarrier falls in love with his environs, and the people while his wife goes slowly mad. Andy Huben, the wife of Leslie, is the object of many a male fantasy. Wolf just wants to go home to his rather beatnik life in San Francisco. All are given compelling stories to share.

Matthiessen, you may recall, is also the author of In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, a non-fiction work about Leonard Pelletier, and over which he was sued by an FBi agent for defamation. He was also a founding member of the Paris Review, along with George Plimpton and the poet, Donald Hall. At the time of the magazne's beginning, he was also working for the CIA. He experimented early in the sixties with mind-bending drugs, an experience that lends to a long sequence in the novel when Lewis Moon also partakes and has visions. A very interesting man, indeed.

At Play was adapted to the screen in the early 1990's by Hector Barbenco, director of Kiss of the Spider Women. It received a mixed critical response at the time. I loved it, and not just because I got to see Darryl Hannah naked in it. The cast is terrific, with the aforementioned Ms. Hannah, John Lithgow, Aidan Quinn, Tom Berenger, Kathy Bates and Tom Waits. If you can find the movie, I highly recommend it. The Netflix doesn't seem to have it, though there are a few clips at the Imdb. The movie certainly piqued my interest in reading the book. Both achieve the level of art. Watch and read if and when you can.

Department of Book Reports: Occult America

2012-01-07T13:30:00.000-08:00

Occult America, The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation by Mitch Horowitz (Bantam, $16) Mitch Horowitz is an editor and author of occult and esoteric topics and here he places out a fine history of their influences in America's history. Starting with the German philosopher Johannes Kelpius' pilgrims arrival in Philadelphia in 1694 and the "Burned-over District" of upstate New York he shows how these early thinkers promoted social progress and individual betterment.Albany and the Hudson Valley became known as The Burned-over District because it was once home to so many prophets and ideologies that burned bright and launched religions across the country. Mother Ann Lee's Shakers settled here and Joesph Smith found his Seeing Stones here. Millerites, or Seventh-day Adventists, the Universal Publick Friend, Masons, Mesmerism, and Transcendentalism all had homes here.Horowitz moves his history through Spiritualism, Seances, Madame Blavatsky's secrets of the Eastern Masters; how these secret or hidden histories influenced the beginnings of the New Age Movement and also William Dudley Pelley's Silver Shirts and White Supremacy movement. Hoodoo influenced Frederick Douglas, Professor Black Herman, and Marcus Garvey, Ghandi credited Theosophy for his principle of equality of universal brotherhood of man and his non-violent ethics that would later touch Martin Luther King, Jr.Astrology, The Age of Aquarius, and Creative Visualization were the beginnings of Prosperity Philosophies from Dale Carnegie and Napoleon Hill most recently seen in the popularity of "The Secret".I haven't even managed to mention Rosicrucians, Ouija, Edgar Cayce, Tarot, Wicca or Voodoo. Trust me, it's all covered in this engaging volume. This is a great book for anyone interested in the spiritual evolution of our country. In this day when politicians are compelled to tell us of their personal mission from God, it's good to remember this has always been a nation with a wide spectrum of religious experience.Occult America is available at Jackson Street Books , as well as fine independent bookstores everywhere.ps: sorry about the formatting, Blogger hates me today. Really, I did put spaces between the paragraphs.

Department of Book Reports: Happy New Year.

2011-12-31T23:55:00.000-08:00

The very exhausted bookstore people wish you and yours a very Happy New Year.We're looking forward to talking about good books next year.

Department of Book Reports: A Christmas Carol

2011-12-23T23:11:00.000-08:00

It has become our tradition to post this passage from A Christmas Carol every Saturday before Christmas here at the General's place. It remains as relevant today as it was when Dickens first had it published in 1843. This year I will add this passage from the first Stave, as it may have reflected English society then, and may soon again.

"At this festive season of the year, Mr Scrooge, ... it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.""Are there no prisons?""Plenty of prisons...""And the Union workhouses." demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?""Both very busy, sir...""Those who are badly off must go there.""Many can't go there; and many would rather die.""If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

The following is, of course, from the climax of Stave Three, as Dickens called it, when Scrooge is abandoned by the Spirit of Christmas Present. Among my English major friends, Charles Dickens is regarded as a rank sentimentalist, and, worse, a writer who achieved popularity with the reading public of his time. At the same time, I argue that he was also one of the most acute social critics of the 19th Century, and a critic that helped transform that world for the better.

The scene below contains one of the most powerful images in English Literature. And it still holds true today.

From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment. "Oh, Man, look here! Look, look, down here!" exclaimed the Ghost. They were a boy and a girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread. Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude. "Spirit, are they yours?" Scrooge could say no more. "They are Man's," said the Spirit, looking down upon them. "And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!" cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. "Slander those who tell it ye. Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And abide the end."
"Have they no refuge or resource?" cried Scrooge.
"Are there no prisons?" said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. "Are there no workhouses?"
The bell struck twelve.

Department of Book Reports: Marshmallows

2011-12-17T10:11:00.000-08:00

We're very busy this week, as I'm sure all of your households are too. I hope you find the time to relax with some cocoa and a good book. Perhaps you might even find time to make your own marshmallows for that cocoa. Here's a delightful interview from a book I recently told you about, Make the Bread, Buy the Butter.

Of course, I do urge you to shop locally and Shift your Shopping. You may just discover the perfect gift that will delight its recipient. The folks inside those stores will genuinely be delighted to see you, and I'm sure you will get a much-felt "Thank You!" rather than a bored "have a nice day."

"Our choices of what and where to buy impact not only us and the people we give to, but the prosperity of our community and even our country. Along with helping your neighbors and community, you might find “going local” turns holiday shopping into a far more enjoyable experience." via

Have a wonderful week! What's on your night stand?

Department of Book Reports: Happy War on Christmas

2011-12-10T13:05:00.000-08:00

All the talk this week has been about this mornings eclipse, so I thought I'd showcase our Science Bookshelf. Here are a couple fun science lessons I found in my reading this week. In Seattle (and locations at the same latitude)the time of sunset moves up early each day until we get to Winter Solstice. The effect has to do with the tilt of the Earth's axis and you can read more here.
Did anybody get to see the eclipse? We we too cloudy to be able to watch it. At certain latitudes, you might have been able to see the Sun & the Moon in the sky again at the same time (!)

It's been an exciting week in our small town. The local paper, Seniors Sunset Times, ran an front page article about the bookstore and it certainly has gotten us some local notice.

This past Saturday was the First Annual Ho Ho Hoquiam with a cocoa & tree stroll so that folks could vote on the best decorated tree in several categories. I had had the idea of decorating with birds and bird titles, but it was the hand knitted Angry Red Bird that helped me snag the title of "Funniest Tree".

And, finally, if you'd like to keep up with news of the publishing industry and whatever catches his fancy, check out Dan's Book Booth column at thepoliticalcarnival.net

I'll leave you with appropriate Seasonal Salutations. How's your War on Christmas going?

Department of Book Reports: We're Making a List and Checking It Twice

2011-12-03T09:02:00.000-08:00

It has come to our attention that the authors you'll find on this list have turned out to be no-good commie rats. I'll bet some of your favorite writers are on this list. I'm shocked! Shocked!

Occupy Writers

And, most assuredly, many of these authors and their books can be found at Jackson Street Books and other fine independent bookstores.

Today is Take your Child to a Bookstore Day, and the first annual Ho Ho Hoquiam. Here's hoping to see you in a bookstore today, perhaps even ours!

Department of Book Reports: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

2011-11-26T15:10:00.000-08:00

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford (Random House, tp $15)I hadn't had a chance to read this back when it came out, and recently a customer was telling me how much her whole book club enjoyed reading it together. Carol was right! This is, as the title says, a bitter sweet love story set in Seattle's Chinatown and Nihonmachi district. Henry Lee has just lost his wife Ethel to cancer in 1986, when he learns that the belongings of 37 families have been discovered in the basement of The Panama Hotel. On the eve of relocating to the Japanese internment camps of WWII, people had stored their possessions in hopes of returning someday to start their lives over again. This part of the story is entirely true, The Panama Hotel stands today, and you can see the trunks and cartons through a piece of plexiglass set into the floor of the renovated Tea Room.

Henry was a scholarship student at an exclusive all-white school in the lead up to Pearl Harbor, and his best friend was the only other Asian "scholarshipping" student, Keiko Okabe. Henry's father hates the Japanese and feels the deportment is "Better them than us", and he makes Henry wear an "I am Chinese" button whenever he goes out. Henry has to hide his friendship and later love of Kieko from his family. Sheldon, a sax playing street busker protects Henry & Kieko from teasing and abuse as they walk to school or sneak into the after hours Jazz clubs along Jackson Street. When Sheldon gets a gig with Oscar Holden at the Black Elks Club, he gets to play on the only recording ever made of the band, and this album will a longlost touchstone for Henry & Keiko. Sheldon will come to help Henry visit Keiko at Minidoka, a very long trip those days in the belly of the big dog (Greyhound). Later, back in Seattle, Henry thinks Keiko has forgotten him, never suspecting his father of intercepting her letters. It won't be until the mid-eighties that Henry & Keiko will hear the Alley Cat song again that Oscar Holden had dedicated to the young couple.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is a love story during one of America's most horrible episodes and a touching examination of father and son dynamics, both the staunch autocrat of his father and Henry's relationship with his own most modern son, Marty. The setting is historically accurate as you can see by the links I included above.

The book, of course, is available at Jackson Street Books, as well as other fine independent bookstores.

Department of Book Reports:The Man in The Moon

2011-11-19T08:09:00.000-08:00

Children's Literature, I have to admit, is not my strong suit when it comes to bookselling. Oh, I'm acquainted with much of it, for sure. I read voraciously when I was child myself, and when our son came along, I rediscovered much of it. Not that I'm disparaging of KiddieLit; there are some fine authors and great stories out there, that go on beyond Zebra, and make it fun to have fun, though you have to know how. (Also some of the best book people I know are devoted to children's books). But since my maturity (or some would say my lack therof), I've tended to read books meant for adults.

But several years ago, I stumbled across the work of William Joyce. Specifically, I read his book Santa Calls and was enthralled by both his art and his story. Naturally, being the fine father I am, and with my son at an appropriate age, I brought Santa Calls home and read it to him many times. So when William Joyce produces a new book, I will read it, even if my son is no longer at a convenient age to be read to.

So I was excited when in the last month a new book by William Joyce was published. It is called The Man in the Moon (Atheneum $17.99) and it does not disappoint. It is a boldy illustrated tale, the first in a projected series Joyce is writing entitled The Guardians of Childhood. The book (and the other titles to come) explain the origins of some of our best loved symbols of childhood, like the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. The Man in the Moon, then, tells the tale of how the Man in the Moon got there, his parentage, his friend, Nightlight and nemesis, Pitch, who is aided by his henchmen, the Nightmare Men.

Joyce has a wonderful sense of what appeals to the young mind and it is no wonder that he has worked with Disney Studios and Pixar on many of their pictures, including Toy Story, as well as the PBS series George Shrinks. Even if you have no taste for children's stories, his illustrations are breath-taking and it is worth having this book and others by him just for the sheer beauty of them. And if you do have a young child in your life, I highly recommend you check out The Man in the Moon. That child will love it.

The Man in the Moon is available at Jackson Street Books and other fine independent bookstores throughout the land, and, perhaps, even on the moon itself. What are some of your favorite books of childhood?

UFO Collides With Author William Joyce from Moonbot Studios on Vimeo.

Department of Book Reports: New to the shelves

2011-11-12T09:51:00.000-08:00

It's been an exciting week in Hoquiam's smallest bookstore: we kicked off the week with a Monday night party for the much anticipated release of Christopher Paolini's 4th book, Inheritance, from his Eragon series. The story of these books is remarkable in itself: as a home-schooled student, Christopher wrote the first book and self published it. He had good success locally and Carl Hiassen's son picked up a copy at an indie bookstore while vacationing in Montana. He loved it and told his dad, who was able to present it to his Knopf editor, and the rest is publishing history.

We also have a couple new cookbooks on the shelves. Pacific Feast tells you what to do with fiddle head fern sprouts, nettles, dandelions and many other roots & shoots. I've tangled with nettles in my youth, so I appreciate the author's instructions on how to not be stung, and also not to put the stems into your food processor (the fiber of the stems are so strong that they are used by native tribes to twine into fishing nets and baskets). I'm going to try some of the seaweed recipes soon. Be sure to visit her website for more inspiration.

Make the Bread, Buy the Butter comes from the blogger at The Tipsy Baker. I recommend you bookmark that site for all the recipes she cooks from her collection of thousands of cookbooks. Often opinionated, and constantly delightful, the book examines what you can make at home, and what you really shouldn't.

These books and more are available at (Jackson Street) Books On 7th and fine Independent bookstores everywhere. Visit us on Facebook Jackson Street Books.

Department of Book Reports:We Were Stardust

2011-11-05T10:03:00.000-07:00

We Were Stardust by Kathrin King Segal (Bucket List, $15.00) Today's book is from a dear Second Life pal, Seacat, whose first novel Wild Again (link to hilarious vid) was published by Dutton way back when I worked for the publisher. (Wild Again is an erotic thriller set in NYC and long out of print, but Kathrin does have some copies available & we can put you in touch with her.)

"I found my grandmother on eBay." Juliette, our young narrator tells of finding bits from her grandmother's life, unknown to her family after she put her baby, Juliette's father up for adoption in 1971. Juliette catalogs her finds for us, the posters, the newspaper clippings, the glossy photos and LPs, and uses them to piece together the years in smoking night clubs and coffee houses. Juliette assures us the story is "mostly true".

We Were Stardust follows a cast of friends as they each try to find their place in the early Rock and Roll years. Julie will dazzle and spin through their lives, her bi-polar depression will spin her further and further from their lives, even as she worries it will be they who abandon her. She is madly in love with Luke, who will go onto the record deals and platinum records. Elliott who wants to be a music producer and finds himself partnered with Mafia, Arlene who will become his dutiful wife, and Rochelle, who ends up being the sensible business woman. Record deals and betrayals will split them up and reunite them in unexpected ways.

The world of music is lovingly re-imagined here, all the major points and places will have you remembering those days from Woodstock to the day Peter Thorkelson mentions he has a call-back from his audition for this new television show just being cast: The Monkees. New York to the L.A. scene, real life events reverberate this novel. Juliette gives us the proof in her eBay purchases, the ticket stubs and forty-fives and their winning bid price.

This is a world Kathrin, a writer, singer, songwriter and actor knows well, her own music and voice grew up in New York and she really did meet the many musicians who flicker across the pages in cameos. Kathrin was part of these early scenes and, as she says: She can remember the 60's! I recommend this as a great read for anyone looking for characters you come to love and a story you really wish wouldn't end. I just hope we don't have to wait another 20 years to read Juliette's story.

Jackson Street Books has signed copies of We Were Stardust, and you can find out more at Kathrin's website and purchase copies of her CDs. Her novel's FB page is here.

Congratulations, Kathrin! We are so happy to see this book in print!

Department of Book Reports: Ted Williams: The Biography of an American Hero

2011-10-15T09:18:00.001-07:00

Continuing in our biography binge, and with the playoffs being played and the World Series looming, I thought I'd look at Leigh Montville's Ted Williams: The Biography of an American Hero (Broadway Books $18.00), a book published originally in 2004. It is a fascinating book about a fascinating man.

Williams grew up in San Diego, the son of an unhappily married couple. His mother was a Mexican-American, who devoted her life to the Salvation Army and pretty much neglected both Ted and his brother, Danny. His father seemed to be mostly a non-presence in their lives. Ted early on, with some adult mentors, focussed his life on baseball and especially hitting a baseball. (Danny ended up a ne'er-do-well, whose life was tragic.) Ted seemed to miss getting much in the way of social graces, and throughout his life was loud, brash, and supremely confident in his abilities, whether it was in baseball, or hunting and fishing which he also excelled at. His cockiness probably cost him an extra year in the minor leagues, as the Red Sox management felt he need a year to mature.

Williams won the Triple Crown twice (leading the league in batting average, home runs and runs batted in), but his most famous season in 1941, when he hit .406, the last time any major league player has hit over .400 for the season. It was the year before the United States entered the Second World War; it was also the year that Joe DiMaggio had his 56 game hitting streak. (The naturalist Stephen Jay Gould wrote an essay some years back on why no one will ever have a .400 season again; it's likely no one will soon break the Joltin' Joe's record either). Montville has a nice little riff, paraphrasing Robert Creamer, on DiMaggio and Williams. DiMaggio was champagne; Williams was beer; Joe was the New Yorker; Ted was Field and Stream.

Ted was politically conservative, but his life belied whatever political stances he took. He was generous to a fault, especially with children and the Jimmy Fund in Boston was special to him. He was also a soft touch and aghast whenever confronted by abject poverty. And he was one of the primary movers in getting Organized Baseball to take note of the Negro Leagues and the many stars it had. He took the occasion of his induction into Baseball's Hall of Fame to say: "I've been a very lucky guy to have worn a baseball uniform, and I hope some day the names of Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson in some way can be added as a symbol of the great Negro players who are not here only because they weren't given a chance."

Williams later managed the Washington Senators and then the Texas Rangers, the first year the franchise was shifted. His later years were complicated by his relationship with his only son, John Henry, who had problems with money. Montville writes with great authority and easy style and without academic pedantry, that makes the book accessible to all, even those with little interest in baseball. I'm sorry it took me so long to get to this book, but I'm glad I have. The book is available from Jackson Street Books and other fine independent bookstores. Enjoy.

Department of Book Reports: Autobiographies

2011-10-08T09:01:00.000-07:00

We've had a busy week here in our little town. Garth Stein's visit & reading was a lovely evening, enjoyed by all attendees. Many thanks to our wonderful Timberland Regional Library for sponsoring this event.
I finally got the big old Neon sign going Thursday afternoon. I had 2 people in who said I saw the sign! I didn't know there was a bookstore here! On Friday, 4 people came in because they saw those shiny red letters. I want to get some shelving set up so that it is at the top of the window, but it's kinda tricky in such an old building.

Lately, I've been reading memoirs. What I had thought would be a bit of popcorn reading has turned out to actually have timely lessons.
Cecil Beaton was given his first camera at age 11, and preferred to use it the rest of his life. Son of a lumber and coal family fortune, this book could have been way too twee in anyone else's hands. Lavishly illustrated with his iconic photographs, this volume centers on his longtime love of Greta Garbo. His devotion is evident in every sentence.
Charlie Chaplin provides quite a contrast, being born into abject poverty and spent much of his childhood in and out of London's Workhouses before his stage work became popular. He remains acutely aware of class struggles and bristles when introduced to someone with the assurance "he comes from a very good family." Chaplin had no patience for the romanticizing of poverty and resented what he called Somerset Maugham's annoying nonsense. This is a great read, which much insight into old Hollywood. I'm going to track down more of his writings, especially the unexpurgated volumes that were published posthumously. It was his great desire that Hitler be laughed at which gives us this most timeless speech:

Department of Book Reports: The Art of Racing in the Rain in Hoquiam

2011-09-30T17:27:00.000-07:00

I've got big news for Hoquiam! Next Wednesday evening, Garth Stein will be in town & will read and sign his books at the 7th Street Theatre at 7pm along with many other events around the county. Timberland Library is hosting Garth for their annual Timberland Reads Together program. Local folks can come meet Garth and get a book from us, and those of you reading along at home can order one & we'll get Garth to personalize it for you! The Holidays will be on us before you know it, and this would be a perfect gift! Just tell us how you'd like it inscribed in the "ask a question of the bookseller" box when you order, or drop us an email. In the 3 years this book has been out, it has become my all-purpose recommend, I have never met anyone who didn't absolutely love it, and I really cannot tel you how many people have come back and made a point to let me know it is now their all time favorite too!

The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein (Harper, $24.95) Narrated by the big hearted Enzo, this story reminds us of the grace of everyday, the preciousness of each moment. “In Mongolia, when a dog dies, he is buried high in the hills so people cannot walk on his grave. The dog's master whispers into the dog's ear his wishes that the dog will return as a man in his next life." Enzo, watches everything, the untimely death of Denny's wife and the 3 year battle with his inlaws for custody of their daughter, doing all he can to keep this family intact. Heartbreaking and achingly perfect this book is really impossible to describe. Enzo is a dog who can explain what it is to be human.

This is a book I'm going to be evangelical about! Really. You must read this one. Yes, it's about car racing. Yes, it's narrated by the dog. Trust me here. There is plenty of heart in this novel, and a compelling story with characters that will stay with you long after the read. Don't forget the Kleenex™.

The Northwest Booksellers gave Garth the annual book award for his last novel, How Evan Broke his Head. That's another recommended read.

Garth has been busy since I last talked about his books, this past summer he got 36 authors to co-write a novel over a 4 day period at Hugo House, a Writer's Resource in Seattle. The Novel: LIVE! has some videos you can watch here and was given the finished title Hotel Evangeline.

In case you are wondering what the book with the puppy is about, this is a Young Adult version of the story, so that Garth could address some of the issues for younger readers.
These fine books are available at (Jackson Street) Books On 7th which has been open in Hoquiam for a whole year now!

Department of Book Reports: Banned Books Week

2011-09-23T23:07:00.000-07:00

Image via ABFFE

For the past thirty years, the last week of September has been Banned Books Week, a celebration of the Freedom to Read and the First Amendment, and this year is sponsored by the American Library Association, the American Booksellers Association, American Booksellers Foundation for Free Experession, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, the PEN American Center, among others. Libraries and bookstores across our great land will have displays of the many books that have, at one time or another, been suppressed in some fashion.

What are some of these tomes? Some examples:

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee has been challenged many times, including in 1980 by the Vernon Verona Sherill New York School District as a "filthy, trashy novel". I've read it a few times, and I guess I missed that part.

Alice Walker's The Color Purple has also been challenged and banned. The Souderton PA School District banned it as "smut" in 1992 as inappropriate 10th grade reading.

Ulysses by James Joyce was banned from the United States, England and Ireland for obscenity during the 1920's and not because it was deemed "too long".

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov was banned as obsecne in France from 1956-1959, England in 1959, and Argentina that same year. Florida's Marion County had its DA office look into the book for ideas of incest and pedophilia.

Even winning Nobel Prize in literature does not keep a writer from censorial minds. Toni Morrison's Beloved has also been challenged many times. In 2007 two parents objected to the use of the book in an AP high school English class because it addressed issues of bestiality, racism and sex. The Principal of the school ordered it replaced by Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, which, of course, has nothing to do with sex. Other Nobel Prize winners whose books have been banned include John Steinbeck (both The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men); Ernest Hemingway (For Whom the Bell Tolls...did the Earth move for you, too?); William Faulkner (As I Lay Dying); and F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby).

This past Monday the School Board of Monarch, Kansas voted to end the ban in the school library of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. Kind of. The kids cant really check it out, but it is available in certain portion there for their parents to check it out for them. The Vonnegut Library has made an offer to help kids decide for themselves.

These obscene books are available from Jackson Street Books and other fine independent bookstores.

What are your favorite banned books?

Department of Book Reports: Alcoa's Book of Decorations

2011-09-16T22:34:00.000-07:00

Maybe it's the change in the weather, there's no denying Fall is here, after a week or so of summer. Maybe it's the folks who open my door & cackle "is this a Liberry??" Or, demand I find out just what the hell is going on with our shipping department, because Dover Publications has not delivered the book he ordered with that last tear out page in his book... (Turns out, he thinks I'm a subsidiary of the publisher... because I have a Dover rack in the front window.) Lately, the arching Eyebrow of Death just hasn't had it's usual withering power. Maybe you feel like me... In need of a new hat. Well, I have just the book for you!

Talk Like a Pirate Day is coming up on Monday. In Second Life, we'll be partying at Redwood Rhiahdra's place. If you are stuck in RL, perhaps this hat would help.

Tin Foil is so versatile, you can fulfill all your childhood fantasies with your very own Pippi hat. Be the Pippi!

Maybe you'd just like to be a Space Cadet.. on your own little world.

Did you hear Henry Winkler got honorarily Knighted for his Hank Zipfer books?

There just isn't any holiday this book can't turn into a nightmare.

I trust I have not infringed on copyright here, but if Alcoa does decide to pursue photo useage, I'm pretty sure Dave vonE can successfully argue it was a bad idea to produce this book in the first place.
I hope that you have found your very own Fall hat here. Which one will you be wearing? Alcoa's Book of Decorations is available at Jackson Street Books. I'm pretty sure the other Fine Independent Bookstores have the good sense not to stock it.

Department of Book Reports: In the Garden of Beasts

2011-09-10T09:24:00.000-07:00

In 1933, freshly inaugurated President Franklin D. Roosevelt named William Dodds Ambassador to Germany. Dodds was not FDR's first choice. Two other men had turned down the post, as Germany seemed to be to embroiled in becoming a fascist state. Nor was Dodds a typical choice. Most Ambassadors were chosen from America's wealthy elites, usually big political donors to the President's Party. FDR's choice was sneered at by many in the State Department. Dodds was unusual in that he was an Academic, the chair of the History Department at the University of Chicago, who had hoped to use his years in Berlin to write his magnum opus, a history of the Ante-Bellum South.

Erik Larson, who I reported on some years ago when his book Thunderstruck was published, has written a fascinating account of Dodds' years as Ambassador in In the Garden of Beasts: Love,Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin (Crown Books $26.00). He brings to life the years before World War 2, years when Hitler had many admirers in the United States. Dodds brought his family to Berlin with him, and central to the story is his daughter, Martha, a young woman at the time, who proceeded to take on a number of lovers, including many Nazi officials, as she was initially enthralled by the glitz and the parties. But as the family stayed on, and Hitler's intentions to the Jews became more and more apparent, she reeled from those previous affairs, and eventually aided the Soviets in their espionage against the Fascists. (She continued to take on lovers, notably Thomas Wolfe, author of Look Homeward Angel, as well as Carl Sandburg.) Dodds himself continued to warn his superiors at the State of his concerns, to no avail, and he left Berlin in 1937.

One of Larson's greatest skills is that he has a novelist's eye for telling history. He writes lucidly, develops the characters into flesh and blood, and has knack for keeping the narrative flowing. In the Garden of Beasts (the name of the street near the Ambassador's home) is not only popular history at its best, it is also great story telling. The book, of course, is available at Jackson Street Books, as well as other fine independent bookstores.

Department of Book Reports: The Man Who Never Died

2011-09-03T08:49:00.000-07:00

Happy Labor Day to all the "parlor radicals", leftists, anarchists, unionists, Socialists, nihilists, ordinary "wage slaves", bums and hoboes out there! Here's the perfect book, a new biography of Joe Hill, songwriter of the IWW, the Wobblies. The Man Who Never Died, The Life, Times and Legacy of Joe Hill, American Labor Icon by William M. Adler (Bloomsbury, $30.00) Adler has spent 5 years researching this and his painstaking attention to detail bring out new evidence of Hill's innocence in the murder case he was accused, tried and executed for.

Joel Hagglund's childhood in Sweden was during a time of political and social upheaval of Sweden from the Theocratic government into a socialist democratic society. (It is important to note that his mothers birth certificate was labeled "oakta", or "whore's child" and his grandmother had been marked as "slampa", or slut.) He came from a very musical family, singing in their Church choir and learning piano at an early age. After the death of his mother, the siblings went various ways. Joel and his brother Paul had caught "America Fever", they immigrated to America in 1902, where Joel assumed the New World name of Joe Hillstrom, which was later shortened to Joe Hill. Joe's early life was itinerant, traveling across the new country from job to job, until he found the Industrial Workers of the World in the labor camps of the West. Hill was in San Francisco during the great earthquake and his account was printed in his hometown newspaper in Sweden. After being pressed into service as a fireman, he then traveled by rail to Portland Oregon, where he worked as a longshoreman and was recruited into the Wobblie movement and participated in a 40 day mill strike. This was to be the first of many strikes and labor organizing efforts he participated in, including the Mexican Revolution. Adler has done an amazing job of laying out the history and background of each of these momentous battles, showing all the players and their own particular self-interests. From Los Angeles Times owner Harrison Gray Otis and his Baja empire to Utah Governor William Spry who would ultimately ignore Woodrow Wilson's request for a stay to allow the Swedish ambassador to review the case.

The IWW ignited his sense of social justice and equality and his songs gave voice to those beliefs and a voice to the workers. His songs were parodied gospels, rewritten hymns that the Salvation Army (or, the Starvation Army as Hill would call them) used to drown out the worker's protests. As he explained in a letter from jail:

"A pamphlet, no matter how good, is never read more than once, but a song is learned by heart and repeated over and over; and I maintain that if a person can put a few cold, common sense facts into a song, and dress them... up in a cloak of humor to take the dryness off them, he will succeed in reaching a great number of workers who are too unintelligent or too indifferent to read a pamphlet or an editorial in economic science."

Hill was accused of attempting to rob and then killing Salt Lake City shopkeep John G Morrison and his 17 year old son January 10th, 1914. Ignoring evidence of other suspects, the legal system was as determined to convict Joe Hill as he was adamant of not providing himself an alibi. Adler gives us three possible reasons, his conviction of his presumption of innocence, his romantic devotion to Hilda Erickson (given the history of how women in his own family were labeled), and his need to shoulder the expectations of the labor movement. Hilda Erickson was the girlfriend of Hill's long-time friend Otto Appelquist, they had argued over her that January night and Otto had shot Hill in the shoulder. Hill refused to explain this to the court and maintained his demands for a new trial after being sentenced to death by firing squad.

And here is the heart of this book. Bill Adler's research led him to Hilda Erickson's daughter, who had in her attic old letters of Hilda's, including one from 1949 in which she explains the incident to an earlier biographer. Why she never came forward at the time of the trial is still unknown.
One particular detail that I found delightful, Hilda Erickson moved to Aberdeen, WA after Joe Hill's execution. Bill told me that there was a plaque to her located at 1620 Simpson, but the house address is used as storage for the Aro Glass Company and I was unable to find it. This definitely calls for more research!

This is a particularly resonant book for our times. That this Labor Day weekend a columnist would opine that "Registering the poor to vote is like handing out burglary tools to criminals" tells me it's time to get out the Little Red Song Book and raise your voice:

While we would love you to buy the book from us, if you are near any of the cities Bill will be speaking at, I urge you to attend an event. There will be singing.

Labor Day

2011-09-02T23:05:00.000-07:00

it's complicated.

As progressive booksellers, we are all for a day off for working stiffs & bindle-bums. It's not a 3 day off weekend for us. But then again, there never really is a 3 day weekend when you have to run the joint. Robert Gray had a very thoughtful meditation on
Bookselling Is Harder than It Looks

They say it all the time. Right this minute, somewhere in the world, a customer is waiting at the POS counter, chatting with a bookseller while purchases are rung up, appropriate currency exchanged and selections bagged (or not, depending upon local custom and environmental awareness). They may be talking about one of the chosen titles or the weather, favorite authors or town politics. But sooner or later the customer will be compelled by some mysterious cosmic force to embark on the requisite traditional litany.

"It must be so wonderful to be surrounded by books all day," he or she will say. "You have the best job in the world. I've always wanted to work in a bookstore."

Of course you do, dear.

Part of the magic and mystery of bookselling is never letting customers see below the surface. Who wants to look at a duck's feet when they can just watch the tranquil pond? The other part is that you wouldn't have it any other way because, for the lucky ones, bookselling is a vocation as much as a job. You could have done something else and certainly made more money. You chose this profession. If you're one of the best, it also chose you.

For Dan & I.. there really was no choice. We sell books. We'll be here all weekend. Try the veal & tip your waitress. We will be closed Monday.

Department of Book Reports: I'll Never Get Out of this World Alive

2011-08-27T09:38:00.001-07:00

I thoroughly enjoyed Singer/Songwriter Steve Earle's first novel, the recently published I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive (Houghton Mifflin $26.00), It is 1963 and Doc Ebersole has his problems. Doc has a twice-a-day heroin habit; he lives in the red-light district of San Antonio, where he performs illegal abortions, and patches up the occasional knife or gun wound, as he has lost his license to practice medicine; and he is haunted by the ghost of country legend Hank Williams, to whom it is rumored that Doc delivered the fatal morphine shot. Doc spends his days 'straight', haggling with his dope dealer, Manny, having conversations with Hank's ghost, and drinking at the bar next door to his rooming house. A young Mexican woman, Graciela, is brought to him one day in need of his services; she's been knocked up by a sweet-talking Mexican-American who needs no further use of her. Doc performs the abortion, almost losing his patient to bleeding; but Graciela recovers and never leaves. Doc takes a shining to the girl. They go to see JFK's arrival in San Antonio and before the President's fateful trip to Dallas, where the girl, who very much wants to see 'Yackie', sustains a wound to her wrist, that never seems to heal. But she herself has her own gifts of healing others. Her presence turns Doc's life around, as well as Hank's ghost, as he strongly disapproves of her preoccupying Doc's time.

Earle, as you'd think, has a gift of straight forward narrative and storytelling. The dialogue is natural and his characterizations are true and empathetic. I'm certain that in his portrayal of Doc's habit, Earle drew on his own personal experience of using. Outside of William Burroughs' novel of addiction, Junky, it is the most vivid description of a lifestyle and evocation of desperation I've read. The book begins:
"Doc woke up sick, every cell in his body screaming for morphine- head pounding- eyes, nose, and throat burning. His back and legs ached deep down inside and when he tried to sit up he immediately doubled over, racked with abdominal cramps. He barely managed to make it to the toliet down the hall before his guts turned inside out.
Just like every day. Day in, Day out. No pardon, no parole. Until he got a shot of dope in him, it wasn't going to get better...."

The title of the book is from one of the last songs Hank Williams wrote. It was true for Hank, as it is for all of us. Some of us manage to get out in better shape. Some of us can experience the hope that someone like Graciela provides.

I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive is available from Jackson Street Books as well as other fine independent bookstores.

2011-08-20T11:31:00.000-07:00

I'm going to post a re-run today. We're busy getting ready to run up to Seattle this afternoon. Myrtle Edwards Park is so nice this time of year. See ya there tomorrow!

Alcohol causes 35,000 deaths in America each year. No-one has ever died from effects of marijuana. Domestic abuse and violence often has it's origins in alcohol consumption. Marijuana has not had this effect. So, why are we driving people to drink?

Marijuana is SAFER, by Steve Fox (MPP), Paul Armento (NORML), and Mason Tvert (SAFER) (Chelsea Green Publishing $14.95) Part history lesson and part activism handbook, this volume provides a full range of facts to counter the empty "just say No" prohibition arguments that have been given too much credence to date.
Broken down into 3 parts, the authors first cover The Choice: Marijuana vs. Alcohol, looking at the differences to both person and society from the effects of usage. Available studies and anecdotal stories of Frat Row and drunken brawls after sporting events have led to the realization that the continual promotion of alcohol to celebrate has had much more damage than promoting marijuana would have. Here is a great recap from their website.
Former Seattle Chief of Police, Norm Stamper has written the intro and (sadly after) his retirement has become a leading voice in the Legalization movement. Here is a short video from him.

Choice Interrupted examines covers the history of Reefer Madness and the consequences of following the zero tolerance policies. Last year SAFER published a "WANTED" poster that pointed out the fact that Cindy McCain's money came from alcohol and the hypocrisy of a major manufacturer of alcohol funding her husband's presidential run to further advocate for marijuana prohibition.
Freedom of Choice breaks down traditional arguments and shows that marijuana use could be an alternative and not an additional vice. This section gives you a good basis for advocating locally and enlarging the discussion.

Recently our local paper ran a story of a 15 year old boy who died of alcohol poisoning. I'm certainly not for encouraging children that young to partake of anything, but it can't be denied that our society's continued glamorization of alcohol contributed to the young man's death. And if you think 15 year olds can't get their hands on either substance, well, dream on.

On Monday night at 6pm, I'll be joined by Mason Tvert to discuss Marijuana is SAFER in Second Life. We have a new reading hall just down the street from the bookstore. Join us at Lacamas Hall for an eye-opening evening.

SAFER is on twitter

This book report was originally published Oct, 2009

Department of Book Reports: The Joy of Short Stories

2011-08-13T14:05:00.000-07:00

I've been in a short story binge lately, so I thought I'd point out a couple of the gems. I was especially taken by the story set in Brazil of Leiningen Versus the Ants in 21 Great Stories. Interestingly, someone else was thinking about this story this week too, in terms of it being an apocalyptic ecology story. Leiningen has carved out a plantation in Brazil, and faced with an army of ants scouring the countryside, decides to remain and protect his farm. This is a wonderful story, which quickly establishes place, characters and conflict.

In Aiiieeeee! An anthology of Asian Writers, John Okada's No No Boy gives us insight into the Seattle Japanese community as they confront feelings of guilt and shame during WWII.

I really thought I had read every story ever written about horses in my youth, so I was pleasantly surprised to find I had not read National Velvet, from Stories to Remember. This is actually a novella sized work. This story of Velvet and her poor family's life in rural England and how she came to posses her 5 horses and become the champion jumper at the annual exclusively male jockied National Hunt really puts you on the back of the horse.

I've talked with authors about short stories, and it seems half love writing them and half are horrified at the prospect. Everything that is in a novel, needs to be present in a short story. But the elements need to be put in position and the drama played out in a much shorter span. A full length novel gives the author time to draw out these details, where as the short story writer must accomplish that in 5 to 7 pages. In that, the form is a bit like poetry.

I would like to take a moment to remember a great bookseller who passed this past week of cancer. Enid Schantz and her husband Tom ran Rue Morgue Bookstore in Boulder, and later established Rue Morgue Press so that they could publish their favorite mysteries from the 30s 40s & 50s. She was a wise and generous woman and she will be missed.
Happier days in Key West.

These books and more are available at (Jackson Street) Books on 7th and fine Independent bookstores everywhere. Visit us on Facebook Jackson Street Books.

Department of Book Reports: Incognito

2011-08-06T09:56:00.000-07:00

Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain by David Eagleman (Pantheon, $) A recent discussion in Second life led us to this title. It sounded very intriguing and based on the author's website, we ordered in a copy in order to write this book report. I mentioned it when we received our copy on FB, and it sold immediately! So, I'll have to rely on that same material to tell you now.

"This book will shine light on some of the hard-to-reach places in the brain, showing the ways in which we are not the ones driving the boat. In the following chapters we will see why our brains are wired to think the way they do. Why does the conscious mind know so little? What do visual illusions unmask about the machinery running under the hood? How much of our lives are determined by choices and behaviors that are hard-wired, unconscious, and beyond our control? Do we have any management over who we find gorgeous or repugnant? How is it possible to get angry at yourself: who, exactly, is mad at whom? If the drunk Mel Gibson is an anti-Semite and the sober of Mel Gibson is authentically apologetic, is there a real Mel Gibson? Why did Supreme Court Justice William Douglas claim that he was able to play football and go hiking, when everyone could see that he was paralyzed after his stroke? Why do people willingly give up their money to banks for Christmas accounts (and why don't monkeys do this)? Why do patients on Parkinson's medications become compulsive gamblers? Why do athletes follow routines, like bouncing the ball three times before taking a free throw? Why did Charles Whitman suddenly kill his family and shoot forty six others from the UT Austin tower, and what did this have to do with his brain? How much of who we are is in the genes, and how much in the environment? Does free will exist or not, and how does that affect our view of blameworthiness and credit?"

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Table of contents
1. There's someone in my head, but it's not me
2. The testimony of the senses: what is experience really like?
3. Mind: The Gap
4. The kinds of thoughts you can think
5. How the brain is like a team of rivals
6. Why blameworthiness is the wrong question
7. Life after the monarchy

The author makes some interesting points, re: criminal behaviors and our justice system. "The Brain on Trial" is posted at this month's Atlantic magazine. This is a fascinating book for anyone interested in how our brain functions to make us, us.

And I have found a special treat for the cooks in the audience. Yes, here is the book you have been waiting all summer for... On A Stick! by Matt Armendariz (Quirk Books, $16.95) As you know, everything is better On A Stick, and this book will enable you to re-create these time honored State Fair staples at your next dinner party.
These books and more are available at (Jackson Street) Books on 7th and fine Independent bookstores everywhere. Visit us on Facebook Jackson Street Books.

Department of Book Reports: What's New

2011-07-30T10:54:00.000-07:00

SeattleTammy had hope to prepare a celebration of the short story this week with a report on some anthologies she has been reading, but, unfortunately, some family business has come up at the last minute. Instead, I want to bring to your attention a couple of new book titles that we just received and are anxious to read.

In these days where you cannot go to the bookstore without stumbling over the latest vampire and/or zombie book, Knopf has just published a novel by Londoner Glen Duncan entitled The Last Werewolf (Knopf, $25.95). The book appears to be a literary attempt to look at the werewolf legend as told in a first person narrative by Jake Marlowe. Jake is 201 years old and is the last of his kind, his last compatriot having recently been killed. Jake has settled into a state of despair, and plans to do himself in, ending once and for all, the legend of the werewolf. But it appears he is also being pursued by two different groups who are determined to keep him alive. Duncan is being compared to Bram Stoker. Having loved the Wolfman movies in my youth, I'm eager to read this one.

And for us Science for the Layman geeks, David Kaiser has written How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival (Norton $26.95). Kaiser tells the tale of some Berkeley physicists formed the "Fundamental Fysiks Group" in the 1970's. Delving into and using ideas of Eastern mysticical thought, and New Age ideas, this group transformed the then moribund field of Quantum mechanics with new insights. Kaiser himself is a professor at MIT and a historian of science.

And back in stock is Adam Mansbach's picture book for every exasperated parent in the world Go the F**k to Sleep (Akashic Books $14.95). It is very funny and will bring a smile to your face.

These books are available at Jackson Street Books as well as other fine independent bookstores.

Department of Book Reports: Ernest Hemingway

2011-07-23T07:06:00.000-07:00

When I was a lad, not yet SeattleDan, but more like EncinoBoy, I thought myself sophisticated as compared to my peers, when it came to politics and literature. After all, I spent a summer reading Steinbeck, Fitzgerald and Hemingway (interspersed, of course, by the James Bond books). I watched the Jack Paar show, That Was the Week That Was, and made forays into the Tonight Show. My parents had introduced to the satirical stylings of Tom Lehrer.These were the heady days following the Assassination of JFK, the first years of the Great Society, and the great marches for freedom in the South. I was on top of it. I could name all 100 US Senators, the Cabinet heads, and, heck, even many of our Ambassadors abroad.

Of course, to help me keep abreast of the world, I had a subscription to Time Magazine. And my grandmother had one to Life that she would pass onto me when she was finished. I knew that they were Luce publications, and not without much bias. Still, the news was the news, and long before the days of cable TV. On a weekly basis, I was one well-informed adolescent. And so it came to be that I had in my hands one fine Saturday morning a copy of the Life Magazine that contained many of the excerpts from the recently and posthumously published A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway, the memoir of his days in Paris and the Lost Generation.

The book was a revelation to me. Hemingway had, of course, known anyone who was anyone in Paris. He knew their brothers and sisters, their wives, their mistresses, as well as their uncles and aunts. And many of them ended up fictionalized in his first important novel, The Sun Also Rises. The revelation was two-fold. First, I became acquainted with many writers from that time whom I hadn't known about before reading Hemingway. His chapters are vignettes of the people he had known. He tells of a rather blustry Ford Madox Ford, who claims to be snubbing the writer Hilare Belloc. He describes the charm of visiting the Gertrude Stein household, and his later "break' with her (which seemed to come upon realizing that Ms. Stein was a lesbian, though I probably misread it at the time, as I don't think Hemingway was that naive). Hemingway tells the story of Ezra Pound's work to get T.S. Eliot out from under his job in the bank, which was unseemly, to Pound; poets did not and should not work for banks. (Pound himself was getting wrapped up in the monetary theories of one Major Douglas and would soon move onto Fascism once he'd made his move to Italy.) There is a lovely story of being with James Joyce and watching a puppet show on a Parisian street corner. Or, in Joyce's case, listening to the show, as his eyesight had significantly deteriorated by this time. His longest story concerns F. Scot Fitzgerald before he had become "poor Scott Fitzgerald" and a long car trip the two took across France. Hemingway relates along the way of Fitzgerald's many insecurites, including about the size of his penis, which prompted an apparent bathroom check for comparison's sake. And of the even sadder Zelda Fitzgerald whom Hemingway "realizes" was crazy when, at a dinner party, Zelda asks him, "Don't you think Al Jolson is greater than God?".

The other revelation for me was the tone of the stories Hemingway tells. He is gentle, wistful, and almost nostalgic. One writer friend once described Hemingway to me as "that bully" and in many ways my friend was right. Hemingway had created his own public personae that included a brusque way of conducting himself; of a kind of machismo that would be called out for what it was these days; and an insensitivity to other people that bordered on the cruel. A lot of that 'Grace under pressure" is crap, and in his better moments, Heminway probably knew that. But the stories in A Moveable Feast belie all that. He remembers those days in Paris with a fondness and kindness that is remarkable, considering his usual public displays. He recalls the days with his first wife, Hadley, whom he eventually divorced when he fell in love with someone else. Reading of his marriage here, i got the impression he was sorry that he hadn't stayed married to her.

Finally, I think it fairly remarkable that Hemingway achieved this tone here, when his personal life was going to Hell. I'm pretty sure he'd always been somewhat manic, but his later years he had become a complete paranoid.He was certain that he was being followed and had had his phones tapped by the FBI and CIA But, as his friend A.E. Hotchner recently pointed out, his paranoia was not without foundation. The FBI was tapping his phone and watching his every move. (A hat tip to my friend Brian for pointing out this article to me). That Hemingway was able to write such a fine book (he believed you could consider it a "fiction") under these very trying circumstances is remarkable to me. A Moveable Feast, in my very humble opinion, is Hemingway's best and most mature book.

Ernest Hemingway's books remain in print and as always can be obtained from Jackson Street Books as well as other fine independent bookstores. A Hello to other Oak Park denizen, Dave Von Ebers and Democommie, don't be a stranger. You are missed in these here parts.

Department of Book Reports: More This and That

2011-07-16T14:46:00.000-07:00

I've found many more fascinating books in the "42 Cartons". What wide ranging interests these folks had!
Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon, BOMC edition Another book from the actresses' collection. This is a nice little hardback with some chipping to the dust jacket, but still bright with a bit of sunfading to the spine. June Moore wrote on the front end paper: To Judy, My Beloved Daughter. And Margaret Landon's Cousin. From Mama on 7-29-79. Family history notes are written on a solicitation card from President Carter that is still tucked into the front of the book.

Best Russian Short Stories, Modern Library, Compiled and edited by Thomas Seltzer Including stories by Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Tchekov, Gorky, Gogol, Bunin, Andreyev and more. This 1925 volume is in fantastic shape. The dust jacket is near perfect, and when taken off the book, has the entire list of ML editions to date: "Which of These 415 Outstanding Books Do You Want to Read?"

The George and Ira Gershwin Song Book, Illustrated by Milton Glaser, 1st printing 1960, Simon and Schuster. This oversize folio is a hardback over spiral binding with a slipcase. The slipcase has wear to the bottom opening, else this is in great shape. The Glaser graphics are eye-poppingly bright throughout the sheet music.

200 Omnibus of Jazz by Leonard Feather, Hansen House 1974. A very good copy, with minimal wear and slight creasing to back cover. Jazz bios and sheet music. This copy has newspaper clippings from the mid-80s on how to select a stereo system.

The Center Magazine, Vol I Number 3, March 1968: Harvey Wheeler on the Politics of Revolution. This magazine was published by the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, located in Santa Barbara, and was a leading think tank from 1959 to 1977, ultimately closing in 1987. At one time William O. Douglas was the Chair of its board. This issue includes the aforementioned Harvey Wheeler article, as well as an interview with nuclear scientist, Hans Bethe, an article by Thomas Merton, as well as many others.

Of course, there are more cookbooks! Innards and Other Variety Meats by Jana Allen 101 Productions, 1974. I think the title tells you all you need to know.

Uncle John's Original Bread Book by John Rahn Braue, 3rd Printing Exposition Banner Books. The author here is a third generation Baker, and shares his family recipes and a really good explanation of the different rising techniques and results. Charmingly, his essays are sprinkled with corny German jokes.

Future Food by Colin Tudge, Harmony Books, 1st printing TPB 1980. An early look at food politics. From the back:

"By growing or buying good things and cooking them well, you, and your neighbor, can effect the small but collectively crucial changes that could easily take the human race, and its fellow creatures, safely through the twenty-first century. People often ask me, when I proselytize in public places: 'But what can I do?'
Cook, is the answer, Cook with knowledge. Cook and evangelize."

These and other fine volumes can be found at (Jackson Street) Books on 7th. As always, as a gift to our online pals we'll include a free bonus book from our stash of publisher's Advance Reading Copies.

Hokium, through the years

2011-07-11T12:27:00.000-07:00

I thought I had published this last year, but somehow I left it lingering in "drafts".
Hoquiam in the 1910's
1930's
1940's
1950's
and the 1960's
The photos shown today are from The History Link's Hoquiam history page, where I learned the earlier spelling of the name was actually Hokium. I think it's time to bring that back!

Department of Book Reports: "We Called Each Other Comrade"

2011-07-08T23:59:00.000-07:00

Allen Ruff's "We Called Each Other Comrade": Charles H. Kerr & Company, Radical Publishers (PM Press $24.95) is social history at it's best. The subject of the book is Charles H. Kerr, who began publishing Unitarian tracts and books, starting in 1886, was a pioneer of books published in cheap editions and made accessible for the average man. Kerr (1860-1944) led a very interesting life, filled with ideas with many stops along the way. The books he published reflected an intellectual curiosity and showed his migration from Unitarianism, to Marxism, the Socialist Party, the Industrial Workers of the World, and finally to the Proletarian Party, a splinter group of the original Communist Party of America.

Ruff's gift to us in this book is not only the examination of one mans life, but an exploration of ideas current in the late 19th century and into the Pre-World War One years on the left. Along the way we get a history of book publishing (centered mostly in New York, but with a strong presence in Chicago, where Kerr's house was located); the drift of Unitarian thought from it's Congregational roots to the church we would recognize now; to Marxist ideas in American thought; a history of the origins of the Socialist Party, which had a big hand in the founding of the IWW, otherwise known affectionately as the Wobblies; to the suppression of Left opposition to the "imperialist" first world war; and it describes the fractious and turbulent history of the American Left, which resonates even today. It is fascinating stuff.

Kerr himself revolutionized in many ways book publishing, offering books, pamphlets and ephemera at low cost to the customer. Always a man who thought education important, he wanted to make readily available these ideas to the common person. He also started the journal, International Socialist Review (ISR), which along with the Masses, was a very important vehicle for left-wing thought, and became another victim of the Great War when Kerr was not allowed to send it through the mails.. Kerr also translated from the French, the English lyrics to the Socialist anthem, The Internationale, which begins Arise Ye Prisoners of starvation/ Arise Ye wretched of the Earth, which many of you might recognize from the Franz Fanon anti-colonial book. He was a man of solid, middle-class background, who, as he got older, moved more and more to the Left.

The Charles H. Kerr Company still exists today and it's slogan is "Subversive Literature for the Whole Family Since 1886. This is the second edition of "We Called Each Other Comrade", first published in the mid 1990's and reissued by PM Press with a new foreword by Paul Buhle, a noted historian of American radicalism. I should note that the publisher provided me with a copy & a super cool sticker gratis. This book brims with ideas and reminds us that what we suffer today is not new, and must be opposed. "We have been nought/ We shall be all".

I will continue my commentaries on the American Modernist writers soon, with some thoughts on Ernest Hemingway, coming up soon. For now, I did want to tell you about "We Called Each Other Comrade", which is available at (Jackson Street) Books on 7th and fine Independent bookstores everywhere. Visit us on Facebook Jackson Street Books.

Department of Book Reports: Quality Street

2011-07-02T08:12:00.000-07:00

Quality Street: a comedy in 4 acts, by J. M. Barrie, Illustrated by Hugh Thomson (Hodder & Stoughton 1901) Here's a lovely volume from the 42 Cartons I wrote about last week. Id like to talk about why markings in a book (usually markings of any sort mean the value of the book is dramatically reduced) can actually be a fascinating aspect. This would be a valuable volume without these defects, but I'll try to show you why I think these are quite charming defects.

The text block is tight, and the boards are not separated from the body of the book. The illustrated endpapers show little browning.
Over all, the book does have a few problems, the main being that the text has numerous cross-outs and both pencil and ink notations heavily throughout. The half title page tells us the original owners name was June Moore. A taped in newspaper clipping has browned the paper due to pH issues over the years. The very final page has a rectangle cut out of the top outer corner.

Here's the title page to give you an idea of the Thomson drawings.

Here is the newspaper clipping, which is the San Francisco Chronicle's Mon, Mar 10th obituary for George Stevens, the director & producer of many Hal Roach & RKO movies, including I Remember Mama, Shane, Giant The Diary of Anne Frank and of course, Quality Street.

And here we have what I consider the hidden jem of this book:

At an audition
Mr.Stevens, chose
me for the lead!
Then he was ill
and had to give
up directing! The
new director bro't
along his own
leading lady----
& I, was left with
nothing. TRAGIC!

I really can't believe she's referring to the Stevens film of Quality Street, as all movie databases say that Katharine Hepburn begged Stevens to make it as a come-back vehicle for her. The only reference I find to QS from Hepburn herself is on page 201 of her memoir, Me

I had made a string of very dull movies.

The tipped in plates are lovely and bright with coverlet pages that have a pen & ink drawing and the picture's title printed on them. Some of these sheets are loose, but are all intact.

And here is a page typical of the mark-ups and writings. First penciled in, then later finalized in ink, these are the working script notes from Ms. Moore's audition. I've been unable to find exactly which production she was referencing, probably somewhere in California, the family had lived in San Diego & San Francisco.

The last page has yet another touching note to the reader:

I memorized this whole play.

Quality Street and many other fine volumes can be found at (Jackson Street) Books on 7th. As always, as a gift to our online pals we'll include a free bonus book from our stash of publisher's Advance Reading Copies.

Department of Book Reports: This Old Book

2011-06-25T12:11:00.000-07:00

We had a huge estate of books come in this week so I thought I'd show some of the treasures we've found in the 42 cartons we are sorting through. This lady never met a cookbook she didn't buy. I think there is probably a full run of those little sideways format Nitty Gritty cookbooks. There are hundreds of the 9x12 Sunset/Better Homes & gardens/HP titles. And she collected cookbooks from foreign cuisines.
Here are Norway's Delight, by Elise Sverdrup, HT Cook Like a Jewish Mother, by June Roth, and Elena's Famous Mexican and Spanish Recipes by Elena Zelayeta.
Tasty Thai Cuisine (the recipes are in English & Thai), Tempura and Sukiyaki, The Pleasures of Japanese Cooking by Heihachi Tanaka, and The Pleasures of Chinese Cooking by Grace Zia Chu.

The Galloping Gourmet, Vol 1 Favorite Dishes: Deep South Pacific. This has a spot in my heart from my childhood watching this (now) local chef on teevee.

There are a couple dozen of various "community" cookbooks, from organizations across the country. Favorite Recipes of Home Ec Teachers, and perhaps my favorite title: Favorite Recipes of Methodist Women: MEATS. I'll let you make up your own jokes.

Now, here's an interesting volume from an author Dano has discussed last year. It's a first printing of the 1963 Pullitzer Prize winner Anti-intellectualism in American Life, by Richard Hofstadter. The delicate dust jacket has some small chips and tears, but it still quite bright considering the age of the book.

Here's a sweet one from the many Home Repair titles, The Handywoman's Guide to Repairing Small Appliances. The interior line drawings all show nicely manicured fingers fixing various household machines.

We have both volumes 1 & 2 of these technicolor beauties, Flower Arranging A Fascinating Hobby. Printed in 1940 and 1941, they have lovely bright photos of mid-century modern floral sculptures, and it isn't apparent until the final chapter that these booklets were produced by the Coca Cola company. Next time you need to decorate in Coca Cola, you'll wish you had these volumes.

This 1974 edition, Exotic Plant Manual is chock full of photographs, 3,600 in fact.

I apologize for the quality of my pictures, but this slim volume quite surprised me. Draw Horses It's Fun and Easy by Paul Brown in 1949.

There's many more Craft books (the Seventies are coming back, right? We'll have any macrame book you could ever need) Pet Care, mostly fish & cats, (some bird books), Gardening, Natural Healing, Fiction and Non Fiction, and oh, did I mention cookbooks?
Today's selections are from approximately 10 cartons. We'll be getting the database updated as soon as we possibly can. The range of books span Great Grandma's books from 1902 and onwards. I'll be posting more pictures on our blogspot throughout the next couple weeks.

Department of Book Reports: F. Scott Fitzgerald

2011-06-18T11:19:00.000-07:00

"Poor Scott Fitzgerald", the protagonist of Hemingway's The Snows of Kilimanjaro muses. "Poor son of a bitch", Dorothy Parker muttered at Fitzgerald's funeral. There is something to the epithet. Pathos permeated both his life and his writings. Of the four great American authors of the first half of the 20th century, Fitzgerald lived a much shorter life, dying in Hollywood at age 44 in 1940.

There is still much to admire in his work. He was obsessed with the rich. I think we can all remember his famous quotes: "The rich get rich and the poor get...children"; "Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me". His novels, This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and the Damned", The Great Gatsby, Tender is the Night and The Love of the Last Tycoon, all deal in some way with the rich and the privileged. And his novels describe the corrosive effects wealth has on its holders. Fitzgerald, who was always short of money, had insight and wrote well about them. It is true of Nicole and Dick Diver (who were modeled on Sara and Gerald Murphy, American ex-pats in Paris who also figure in the film-bio pic De-Lovely, the recent picture about Cole Porter). It is true of Jay Gatsby who says, "Can't repeat the past?...of course you can!", who pathetically is murdered in a case of mistaken identity.

But even more so, Fitzgerald was able to create art from his times. He was the author of the phrase Jazz Age, and was its main portrayer. And, oddly, none of this translated particularly well to the screen Both film versions of Gatsby were not great. And the latter one not only starred Robert Redford, but had a screenplay by Francis Ford Coppola and directed by the fine Jack Clayton. Perhaps, it is irony at work. Fitzgerald worked in Hollywood the last years of his life and never had one of his screenplays produced. (Checking the Imdb, apparently a remake of Gatsby is in the works for next year; perhaps this one will have better luck).

That Fitzgerald is not held in the greatest regard these days probably has to do with his obsession with the rich. Reading him superficially can be like watching an episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. I would tend to agree with that assessment, but there are things worth reviewing. His own view of himself at the time Gatsby was published was that he was a magician with words. And there are flashes of that. Even Andy Kaufman agreed! Maybe he was wrong, Maybe there are second acts in American Lives.

His books, and numerous biographies, can be found at Jackson Street Books and fine Independent bookstores everywhere. Visit us on Facebook Jackson Street Books.

Department of Book Reports: There's this, and then there's that.

2011-06-11T11:26:00.000-07:00

from here.
It's been a wild week here in our small town, what with the assault while carrying a dead weasel/marten incident going viral. The mayor was not amused, but did mention the bookstore in this interview.

HOQUIAM, Wash. (AP) - Police say a man was carrying a dead weasel when he burst into an apartment and assaulted a man in Washington state.

The victim asked, "Why are you carrying a weasel?" Police said the attacker answered, "It's not a weasel, it's a marten," then punched him in the nose and fled.

The Dave Barry rule applies here: You just can't make this stuff up. Hoquiam Police Chief Jeff Myers was contacted by the Game Department, as martens hadn't been seen on the Harbor for 50 years. After seeing a photo, they replied "Never mind, it's a mink."

Both Seattle Dan & I find ourselves between books to report on this week. We received a call asking if we could take a bunch of books, to help the family clean out grandma's house. They estimated there were a couple hundred books and they needed us to take everything. Well, 42 cartons of books later... the living room floor is bare. We'll be cataloging and listing this truly wonderful cache of titles. Watch for our cookbook list to expand a great deal. I saw many Japanese and Chinese cookery and early teevee chef books from the 60s & 70s. There are also a great many volumes of classic authors, both fiction & nonfiction.

I'll leave you with this video, Carolyn Parkhurst has totally convinced me to read her new book The Nobodies Album and buy lots of swag from her

What are you reading these days? Share your recommends in the comments.

Department of Book Reports: John Steinbeck

2011-06-04T08:28:00.000-07:00

There were a couple of things that happened this week that go me to thinking about American Literature, and some of the great writers our country has produced. One was hearing the NPR story about the Library of America's inclusion of Kurt Vonnegut into its canon. (The Library of America does publish beautiful editions of American authors. Unfortunately there are not inexpensive.) The other was viewing John Ford's classic re-telling of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, published in 1940 and the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, which SeattleTammy and I did earlier this week. I thought it might be fun and instructive to do a series of book reports on American authors, and start with the American modernists, John Steinbeck, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner. Later in the series we can see who might be comparable in the latter half of the 20th century.

Of the four listed, Steinbeck is probably the least critically regarded. I'm not sure why that is, except that his prose can be a bit "preachy", but I never found him to be as didactic as, say, George Bernard Shaw, who tended to write history lessons in his plays. Part of that is, in relation to the other big four, Steinbeck spoke most directly to injustice in America. That is certainly true in what is thought of as his Dustbowl trilogy, In Dubious Battle, Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath. Steinbeck was also at ease with writing both epics (like East of Eden), and small stories (The Red Pony), all dealing with the hopes and dreams of real people, and how those dreams can be thwarted by the evils of capitalism and the worse angels of our society. But the dreams are never forgotten and never completely beaten. There is always hope at the end.

I'm thinking especially of the end of The Grapes of Wrath, which has both a devastating and yet, ironically, uplifting end. Obviously, for the time it was made, Ford could not shoot the Steinbeck ending of the novel, and substituted the equally uplifting speech from Ma Joad. But the book end with RoseofSharon giving birth to a stillborn baby, malnourished, but willing and able to suckle a dying boy in a barn.

And speaking of the Ford movie, Steinbeck, of all the great American modernists, created the most cinematic work. As good a job as Hollywood did with Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls and A Farewell to Arms (Gary Cooper version), I believe both films of The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men (Burgess Meredith and Lon Chaney jr. is prefered, though the Sinise/Malkovich film is good). The Ford movie is a classic, and though it doesn't follow the narrative of the novel with complete faith, the spirit of the book is in there. It also served as the basis for Woody Guthrie's epic song, Tom Joad. I think Steinbeck wrote with the eye, visually constructing his work. His scenes, his vision is vivid. And it is not like there is not some depth to his work either. One thinks of the Trask family in East of Eden representing the original family of the Judean-Christian bible. Or Preacher Jim Casy, who may have lost his calling, but sets out with the twelve members of the Joad family for the pastures of plenty.

I heartily recommend reading, or re-reading John Steinbeck. As it would seem, his stories are not out-dated and still touch us today. Many of his books are available at Jackson Street Books and fine Independent bookstores everywhere. Visit us on Facebook Jackson Street Books.

Department of Book Reports: The Wilder Life

2011-05-28T07:38:00.000-07:00

The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie, by Wendy McClure (Riverhead, $25.95) She had me at the opening sentence:

I was born in 1867 in a log cabin in Wisconsin and maybe you were, too.

Why, yes I was! I was immediately charmed by the cover of this book, and, to see it was by one of my favorite BUST columnists, well.

The Wilder Life is a most entertaining history of the American West. Wendy McClure sets out for her "year on the Prairie" after her mother's death reunites her with the yellow spined paperbacks of her childhood. The Little House on the Prairie ( or, LHOP, as it were) series was dear to my heart while I was growing up on the farm. I had my bonnet, and calico dress for the Yelm Prairie Days Parade. When I saw this book: I was so there! Transported entirely. I am of the book generation of the Laura World, not the television version. Wendy was too, because, as she explains: "It was up against WKRP, and Holy Howard Hesseman, that show was funny!"

This bright, humorous travelogue took me to all the places I've only imagined before. Wendy tracks down the houses and museums that have sprung up at the original home sites. It's here she meets other Laura devotees and learns there is a home schooling curriculum. The LHOP books are also being used for inspiration by survivalists. And here's something I hadn't known: in her later life, Rose Wilder Lane would become one of the founders of the early Libertarian movement, and indeed the first use of the term "Libertarian" is credited to her in 1947(!). After growing up in poverty, she considered herself a Communist, but a trip to Russia changed her views (in some logic I still don't quite follow). Rose was befriended by Roger MacBride, and willed all her belongings to him, including the valuable copyrights to all the LHOP works. It was the Libertarians who franchised it to the television series.

Warning! 27 minute video from the avclub (the narrator sounds as if he went to the Troy McClure school of dictation, but you'll wish they had gotten the real Troy McClure to read this).

I do enjoy this sort of personal memoir, and this one is funny and irreverent while still holding a great deal of affection for the LHOP Laura World. You certainly don't need to be a Bonnethead to enjoy this, but if you are, this book is a real treat.

The Wilder Life is available at (Jackson Street) Books On 7th and fine Independent bookstores everywhere. Visit us on Facebook Jackson Street Books.

**I do want to send a virtual Thank You to Donna, long-time member of the Troops, for the box of books for the store. Much appreciated!

Department of Book Reports: A History of the End of the World

2011-05-21T11:51:00.000-07:00

Well. if you find yourself still around today, ya know, left behind as it were, you might enjoy this book: A History of the End of the World: How the Most Controversial Book in the Bible Changed the Course of Western Civilization (Harper, $14.95, or used HC$15) Jonathan Kirsch is a biblical scholar, who really lays out the history of this single book in the Bible that has caused so much turmoil over the past 2,000 years. Long claimed to be authored by the John of the gospels, Kirsch argues it was actually written by yet another John, one with a real axe to grind about the Roman occupation of his day, some 50 to 60 years after the death of the Christ. He traces the origins of this controversial book right up to current times, and its ties to modern fundamentalist churches.

I wanted to go read reviews, to refresh my memory, since it's been a few years since I read this. At first I thought the New Oxford Review had a good overview, but I was disappointed by the conclusion:

Endeavors to marginalize people on the Religious Right (the narrative's bête noire) unfold as Kirsch blends spiritual thrill-seekers, stooges, and crackpots into the ranks of the reasonable devout. The Branch Davidians (of Janet Reno fame), the Heaven's Gate cult, and the Left Behind book series are employed to demonstrate Revelation at work on unstable minds, but Kirsch makes too much of low-level televangelist theater and weirdo tales spewing from discredited apocalyptic charlatans. The book continues a slide into political correctness, a newer feature of post-modernism that blurs morality and reduces integrity to negotiable transactions.

"spiritual thrill-seekers, stooges, and crackpots ", um, I pretty much think that's the folks we're seeing give $70M of donations in negotiable transactions. It may have seemed Kirsch was overstating when he wrote this book, but it kinda looks like time has proved him right. At least, this week.

Warning! This is an hour long panel discussion from the 2007 Los Angeles Festival of the Book. But hey, you got that long before you have to fly away.

The History of the End of the World is available at (Jackson Street) Books On 7th andfine Independent bookstores everywhere. Visit us on Facebook Jackson Street Books.

Department of Book Reports: Iron Pants: Oregon's Anti-New Deal Governor

2011-05-14T09:31:00.000-07:00

Gary Murrell, Professor of History at Grays Harbor College (and in full disclosure someone both SeattleTammy and I have met on a couple of occasions), has written a fascinating study of the life of the Depression Era politician, Iron Pants: Oregon's New Deal Governor, Charles Henry Martin (Washington State University Press, $20.00). Martin was a man of his times. Having attended West Point, he served a 40 year career in the US Army, and was stationed in many of the hot spots in our history, among them, the Philippines, China during the Boxer Rebellion, as well as World War 1. He "led" the all-black Ninety-Second Division after that war, and finally retired as a major general after commanding the Panama Canal Zone in 1927. Martin then turned his attention to politics, serving as a Democrat in Oregon's congressional delegation from 1931-1935, and then elected as Oregon's governor in 1934 during a three-person race.

During the campaign for governor, Martin gave lip-service to President Roosevelt and to the New Deal, but once he was in office, Martin's stances as a "Hoover Democrat" emerged. He opposed Social Security, Public ownership of power ( a huge issue with Oregon's new Bonneville Dam and the power of the Columbia River), relief for the destitute (he claimed in 1936 that the Depression was over in Oregon), and, above all, he hated the Labor Unions and the burgeoning Labor Movement. He went so far as to set-up "Red Squads" to bust the unions which he believed were more or less communist inspired. As Governor, he faced a movement to recall him (which never got to a ballot), and lost the Democratic primary in 1938 for re-election. He became an active supporter for the Republican candidate that year.

A military man, he held strong opinions. Although he commanded black troops during the time of Jim Crow, he believed "...the negro is of very little importance...the average negro is by no means equal to the average white man...". H wrote one friend that if a national Old Age Pension were to be adopted, that in the South, "...an old Colored fellow and his wife getting $400.00 a month. All the people in the neighborhood would live off them and all work would stop." He believed that Roosevelt's Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins, was the head "red". Viewing the political situation across the Columbia in Washington state, he wrote, "That state is too much influenced by Seattle, which sad to say early became a dumping point for the refuse of Alaska and the Orient", concluding that "Seattle is today Russian territory". In order to help balance the Oregon budget, he supported a plan to chloroform the "aged and feeble-minded wards of the state". As for striking workers, he instructed the state sheriffs to "beat the Hell out of 'em" and "crack their damn heads". Nice guy, no?

Although an academic study, Murrell writes with great ease and lucidity for the general audience. He provides a great deal of context for Martin and his times, giving much background for American imperial designs during the Governor's military service in the Philippines and China. His career is instructive and resonates today with such luminary reactionary governors now installed in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Florida. The book is available at (Jackson Street) Books On 7th andfine Independent bookstores everywhere. Visit us on Facebook Jackson Street Books.

Department of Book Reports: Wicked Bugs

2011-05-07T00:20:00.000-07:00

Wicked Bugs: The Louse that Conquered Napoleon's Army and other Diabolical Insects by Amy Stewart (Algonquin Books, $18.95) This handsome little volume matches Wicked Plants, Stewart's book that I reported on a while back. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill is one of those presses that produce beautiful and fascinating books. They are a joy to touch and hold.

Bugs! They're everywhere! It's estimated there are over one million species of insects, and perhaps ten quintillion insects alive on the planet right now. As this public service announcement shows, there are probably bugs in your house right now!

Stewart sets out over 100 bug biographies, in her disconcertingly cheerful stories. I love how she lets the basic story speak for itself, which will have you sneaking a look over your shoulder and scratching.

Do wicked bugs include spiders and other noninsects?

In this case, yes. An entomologist will tell you that the term "bug" refers to a subset of insects in the order Hemiptera that has piercing and sucking mouthparts. But most of us use the word to describe any number of tiny slithering and crawling creatures, and that's how I'm using it here. Spiders, worms, centipedes, slugs, and scorpions all made it into the book.

Yikes! did you know there are stinging caterpillars that can kill you? There are 6 kinds of bugs that could be eating your books right now? (The best cure for that, from Desiderius Erasmus the Dutch humanist, "books, to be saved from the worms, must be used.") 9 inch centipedes! After reading about the lice, flies, worms, and midges that can infest the human body, I scarcely shuddered at the spider chapters.

I highly recommend this to all armchair Nature enthusiasts, and your niece/nephew, who has odd science fixations... You'll both love it!

Wicked Bugs and Wicked Plants are available at (Jackson Street) Books On 7th andfine Independent bookstores everywhere. Visit us on Facebook Jackson Street Books.

Department of Book Reports: Some Notable New Books

2011-04-30T09:48:00.000-07:00

This spring is bringing out what looks to be some very interesting novels that I wanted to direct attention to. The first two come from authors who are probably better know for their other creative endeavors.
First off is country singer and erstwhile political gadfly to the Right, Steve Earle who has written his first novel, I'll Never Get Out of this World Alive (Houghton Mifflin $26.00). In it, Earle tells the tale of Doc Ebersole, one of the last men to see Hank Williams alive, and is rumored to have administered the morphine dose that killed Williams. Ten years later, in 1963, Doc has lost his license to practice and has been reduced to performing back room abortions in the seedy side of San Antonio in order to maintain his own habit. A young Mexican immigrant girl, Graciela, comes to him for attention and magic seems to re-appear in Doc's life, including the ghost of Hank himself. The book has just been released, as has Earle's new album with the same title, his first since his widely acclaimed homage to Townes Van Zandt.

John Sayles is probably better known for his filmmaking, which include such fine cinema as Lone Star, Matewan and Eight Men Out (in which Sayles cast himself as Ring Lardner, who covered the infamous 1919 World Series). But he has also penned some very good novels as well. His new book, A Moment in the Sun ($29.00), will be released on May 17th from Dave Egger's publishing firm, McSweeneys. It's going to be a long sucker, coming in at 968 pages, but advance word has been terrific, with comparisons to Doctorow's Ragtime and Pynchon's Against the Day. The novel takes place against the backdrop of the Yukon Gold Rush and the Spanish-American War, continuing on into America's great Imperial adventure in the Philippines. And, according the wiki, Sayles next film will be about that insurrection.

Jennifer Egan just won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction for A Visit from the Goon Squad (Anchor Books $14.95) and as luck would have it, the book has just been released in paperback. The plot apparently is quite rambling, perhaps more of a series of interlocking short stories, but seemingly centered on Lou, a Record mogul with elements of both Proust and the Sopranos.

Finally I wanted to point out a book that wont be available until October, but is already getting great word of mouth. This is the book all sleep-deprived parents will want to read to their kids, along side with Goodnight Moon. I think the title tell it all: Go the F**k to Sleep (Akashic Books $14.95), and is written as a faux children's picture book with text by Adam Mansbach and illustrations by Ricardo Cortes.

These titles (and 9564 more!) can be browsed 24 hours a day at our catalog page, available at (Jackson Street) Books On 7th andfine Independent bookstores everywhere. Visit us on Facebook Jackson Street Books.

Department of Book Reports: Twice a Spy

2011-04-23T14:43:00.000-07:00

Twice a Spy by Keith Thomson (Doubeday, $25.95) In this delightful follow up to last years Once a Spy (Now in paperback Bantam, $7.99) we find Charley Clark in Switzerland hoping a new therapy will help his father Drummond's advancing Alzheimer's. NSA operative has accompanied them and is trying to exonerate them from their hasty departure following the explosions in the basement of the Manhattan Project.

Their peaceful time in the chalet won't last long though, before Alice is kidnapped by members from Drummond's old CIA op, the Calvary. The Calvary was established to sell inoperative nuclear weapons to the black market, disguised as Perriman washing machines. One machine is still at large in the Caribbean. Thomson uses brilliant plot twists to produce a fast-paced suspenseful action read with plenty of hight-tech spycraft. As if this weren't enough, his writing has wildly humorous bits and characters you will really come to love. You can check out more of his writings at Huffington Post.

Once and Twice a Spy are available at (Jackson Street) Books On 7th andfine Independent bookstores everywhere. Visit us on Facebook Jackson Street Books.

Department of Book Reports: Baseball in the Garden of Eden

2011-04-15T23:46:00.001-07:00

Once again Spring is here, and with it, Baseball Season! And Baseball, always the sport that lends itself best to good writing, has a new treasure in John Thorn's Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The Secret History of the Early Game (Simon and Schuster $26.00). For years, John Thorn has been the leading historian of the National Pastime and has quite recently been named Official Historian of Major League Baseball. Here he examines Baseball's earliest days, and it is quite a story, really.

For years the "origin" story has been the long debunked one of how Abner Doubleday, at age 20, laid out a diagram of the playing field in Cooperstown, New York, in 1839. Despite the fact that Doubleday himself was 1. actually attending the West Point Academy at the time; 2. Never once in his voluminous writings ever mention that he did invent baseball, or ever actually mention baseball at all. In fact, Thorn shows that the game evolved from any number of bat and ball games that came to America from England, including Rounders, Cricket, One 'o Cat or various "safe" base games. Jane Austen mentions "...base ball...." in a group of outdoor activities in Northanger Abbey, which she wrote in 1798. The other competing myth is that of Alexander Cartwright, a member of the New York Knickerbockers club. Cartwright, in 1845, certainly lent his hand to one of the first existing set of rules for the game as we now know it, but his teammates, Daniel Lucius Adams, William Rufus Wheaton, and Louis Fenn Wadsworth had an equal influence on the development of the game.

Author and historian John Thorn speaks with Garrison Keillor at the Fitzgerald Theater on March 29, 2011.

Thorn shows how the game, and its popularity, grew with the country at large in the mid-nineteenth century, with gamblers, hustlers, capitalists, and grew into a professional game, suffused with class struggles and racism as well. It's a fascinating history. And none was perhaps more intriguing than the baseball star, turned entrepreneur, Albert Spalding who established the great sporting goods enterprise that still bears his name.

Spalding was convinced that Baseball was a uniquely American invention, having little, if anything to do with English bat and ball games (as was claimed by Henry Chadwick, the British born journalist who was the game's biggest booster in its early days). As one of the sport's leading lights, he called for a Commission to get to the bottom of the game's origins. As it turns out, and Thorn goes into great detail here, Abner Doubleday was one of the leading American Theosophists of his time, Theosophy being one of the spiritual movements of the late 1800's, developed by one Madame Blavatsky, and for whom Doubleday took over as the American head of the movement. And it seems that Spalding's second wife (and previous mistress) was also a leading light in the Theosophy movement in the U.S. Hmm.

This is not only just a fine book on early Baseball, it is also excellent social history of the growing nation. John Thorn is great historian, and a very good writer. Please indulge and enjoy his work. Baseball in the Garden of Eden and other titles by John Thorn are available at (Jackson Street) Books On 7th and fine Independent bookstores everywhere.

Like us on Facebook Jackson Street Books.

Department of Book Reports: New to the shelves!

2011-04-09T12:56:00.000-07:00

At the urging of several friends, we've bought in Keith Richard's autobiography, Life (Little Brown, $29.99). He assures us on the jacket flap copy "I remember it all" and judging from my flipping thru the book, he does! 576 pages of Rock n Roll history, told from a true insider. The book has been received very well critically, seeing most celebrity bios are not so absorbing, and this one is something of a history of our times.

Jean Auel's recent release The Land of the Painted Caves, (Doubleday $30) has been a bit of a surprise best seller for us. Weighing in at 757 pages, fans are delighted to revisit Auel's special blend of prehistoric fantasy and anthropology after a 9 year wait.

And of course we are adding more used stock weekly. We just received 5 boxes of books from a fellow bookmonger, Tom of Acorn Books. These titles (and 9564 more!) can be browsed 24 hours a day at our catalog page, available at (Jackson Street) Books On 7th andfine Independent bookstores everywhere. Visit us on Facebook Jackson Street Books.

Department of Book Reports: Poetry!

2011-04-02T11:49:00.001-07:00

It's time for Poetry Month again! As they have in the past, Knopf publishing will send you a poem a day when you sign up for their email list. Check out the other topics in the right hand side bar while you're there.

I also like to mention a couple of my favorite booksellers, John & Christine, over at Open Books A Poetry Emporium. If you have a chance, spend a couple hours browsing their shelves in Seattle. It's delightful to be surrounded by so much poetry!

Another wonderful resource is The National Poetry Foundation, with links to fill up many a rainy afternoon. I'll leave you with this final bit of whimsy, a gown made entirely of Little Golden Books (via boingboing)

Poetry books are available at (Jackson Street) Books On 7th and fine independent bookstores everywhere. Visit us on Facebook Jackson Street Books.

Department of Book Reports: West of Here

2011-03-26T09:04:00.000-07:00

Jonathan Evison's West of Here (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill $24.95) is a masterwork by a fine young novelist. The novel is, by turns, an epic, a saga, a book full of characters who live and dream big things. And it is, as we booksellers like to call it, a page-turner. Interruptions during reading aren't happy ones.

The story revolves around the town of Point Bonita (a fictionalized Port Angeles), located atop the north end of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. Evison weaves two time periods together; the Point Bonita of the early 1890's, just before the territory becomes a state, with the hopes to become the jewel of the place as Seattle, PB's rival, has just burned to the ground; and the more contemporary period of 2006, when it has become a town in which Wal-Mart dominates the economy of a city down on its luck. The earlier version of the town has dreamers. Ethan Thornburgh sees the possibilities of damming the Elwah River, providing electricity; Ex-Indian fighter and explorer, James Mather, wants to explore the deep interior of the peninsula, that last wilderness left unexplored in the continental U.S.; Eva Lambert wants to explore the world of the possible for a woman and joins the Utopian community located nearby. But the people of modern Port Bonita also dream, even as the town slowly dies and the Dam is due for destruction. Some search for Sasquatch, others dream of being left alone.

Port Bonita, of course, is a character, probably the main protagonist here. But the characters, and there are many in this 483 page epic, all of whom Evison richly imagines, from the only African-American living within miles of the place who is the parole officer to the Indians who inhabit the fringes of both the town yesterday and today,as well as the prostitues who can think bigger thoughts beyond life in a whorehouse. We learn their hopes and disappointments, all limited by their geography and their dreams, but for whom the place is one of adventure of some scale, whether large or small.

The town of the late 19th century reminded me of another book I reported on a few years back, Heyday, as well as the HBO series Deadwood, albeit without the gunfights. Heyday, though set fifty years earlier, describes a frontier where anything is possible, where perhaps Utopian visions can be made true, or personal fortunes can be made, whether in 1849 California or the South Dakota mud-filled streets of Deadwood where Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane walk. That same spirit inhabits the characters of West of Here as well, having finally moved to one of the last places where one can achieve these things. Dream big, have hope, let nothing stop you.

I really cant recommend this book enough. It will be a treat for your hopes, your dreams and your imagination as well. Incidentally, it would make fine reading for Book Clubs. West of Here is available at (Jackson Street) Books On 7th and other fine independent bookstores. In the meantime, enjoy this interview of Evison by everyone's favorite librarian, Nancy Pearl.

Seattle Channel Video can be played in Flash Player 9 and up

The publishing newsletter Shelf Awareness has a Dedicated Issue for West of Here, here. If you'd like to help protect this amazing corner of Washington, please consider signing the Wild Olympics petition.

Department of Book Reports: Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer

2011-03-19T13:04:00.000-07:00

Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer by Wesley Stace ($15.00, Picador) We know from page 1 that Charles Jessold returned home to find his wife and a married man in a compromising situation, poisoned them with arsenic and then shot himself on the night of June 23, 1923. Our narrator, gentleman music critic, Lelsie Shepherd tells and re-tells the stories of their early meeting and the years after as he encourages and guides the musical prodigy to compose the greatest English opera, ever. Shepherd is as unreliable as the best of narrators, and reveals more with each telling. Their first weekends in the countryside gathering traditional folk music which was to be the soul of this opera lead to evenings in pubs debating the finer points of music. Shepherd sees the new-fangled atonality as the greatest threat to English music and hates the Germans for their apparent dominance of the opera world. Jessold travels to Germany to study at Bayreuth and is taken up as WWI begins and spends 4 years in an internment camp. He returns to London an alcoholic, and becomes more erratic at his performances. Finally, the opera Little Musgrave is to be staged, but news of the murders come the night before the premiere. It is left to Shepherd to give police statements and hold forth the reputation of his friend against the tabloids and the scurrilous true crime biography a rival has written.
Since I had to correct a typo (thanks, jcricket!) I'll drop in this video I just found.

Stace captures the fine dialog and dry wit of the writing in that time period and gives a musical history lesson along the way. The acknowledgements at the end give you more title selections and sources to pursue. Wesley Stace is a perfect person to write this book as he is also the folksinger John Wesley Harding. I heard about this book a couple weeks ago on our local NPR show Weekday: Music and Murder Most Foul. when Stace/Harding stopped by to discuss the novel and his music.

Stace's books are available at our online store, or in historic downtown Hoquiam.
Visit us on Facebook Jackson Street Books. Order books at Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Department of Book Reports: Mexico

2011-03-05T08:06:00.000-08:00

Some time ago, both SeattleTammy and I reported on a fine history book we both loved, Gods, Gauchupines and Gringos: A People's History of Mexico (paperback $24.95). The publisher, Editorial Mazatlan, has been busy since, producing two new books that are equally enticing.

Magic Made in Mexico: Live Your Dream....in Mexico (Editorial Mazatlan $17.95) is written by Canadian native Joanna van der Gracht de Rosado. The first section is a memoir that tells the story of how, as a young woman, she came to Mexico, fell in love and married a Mexican national, and how she adjusted to a new manner of life in Merida, a town located in the Yucatan. She follows that with an alphabetical series of chapters on tips for living in Mexico for the non-native (A is for Attitude, H is for Heat, S is for Settling In and so on), each of which gives good advice along with fun and funny anecdotal stories of her own. She closes with a nice, and very brief history of Mexico, the Yucatan and her hometown. She includes a good recommended reading list..I know it is good because she listed two of my favorite author's books, Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory and The Honorary Consul.

The other book of note and new from Editorial Mazatlan is Ray Acosta's Revolutionary Days: A Chronology of the Mexican Revolution (hardcover $29.95). Obviously this book is of great use to any student of Mexican history. But it also reads well as a narrative for the interested reader of the events leading up to, and nearly a day by day account of the Revolution itself as it occurred from 1910 onwards. As one would expect of a scholarly work, there is a good bibliography, and an alphabetical list of names of those central to the period. And there is a lot of them.

All three books are available at our online store, or in historic downtown Hoquiam.
Visit us on Facebook Jackson Street Books. Order books at Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Department of Book Reports: Fearless Fair Isle Knitting

2011-02-26T10:18:00.000-08:00

Fearless Fair Isle Knitting: 30 Gorgeous Original Sweaters, Socks, Mittens, and More by Kathleen Taylor (Taunton Press $24.95) I realize this book report will only appeal to a limited audience, but knitters will rejoice in the beautiful volume. The pictures of these gorgeous sweaters and hats will have some of us just itching to get out the 4 pointy sticks. The 30 projects are explained in an easy to follow manner, giving an intermediate knitter the confidence to take on the more challenging work.

Fair Isle knitting is named after a small island off the north coast of Scotland. Originally a fishing and sheep rearing community, its location brought traders from Scandinavia. These brightly patterned sweaters were sought after by tourists and provided family income after the decline of the hand knit lace popularity (new fangled knitting machines were able to produce more and finer hosiery than a human knitter). The people of Fair Isle used their unique sheep wool to develop the characteristic designs that while looking quite complicated, are actually accomplished by simply using two strands of yarn per row.

My first attempts were akward and clumsy, but it was truly an A-ha! moment when it finally fell into place and I was able to hold a yarn in each hand and knit at the same time. My delight in watching the design emerge caused me to knit so long that afternoon, my hands hurt the next day! Be sure to take breaks and do stretching exercises as you begin.

Fair Isle sweaters are knitted in the round, and then cut for placement of the sleeves and neckline. This can be terrifying after all the hours of knitting you've done, but with Kathi guiding you through the steps you won't drop a single stitch.
This is Kathleen's 5th knitting book, and like the earlier ones, give you the confidence and inspiration to felt, dye, turn a heel or something else you night never have thought you could do. I first met Kathi back when she was a mystery author with a delightful small town series set in her adopted home of South Dakota. The landscapes and colors of South Dakota are also found in her knitting patterns and colors. Kathi has written many patterns for the Knitpicks yarn company, and I was pleased to be able to be one of her "test knitters" for a couple projects. You can get a feel for this on her blog, Kathleen's Dakota Dreams, where you'll find Friday Freebie patterns, works in progress, and more gossip than you'd ever admit to knowing about American Idol. Click here for Kathi being interviewed for the morning Souix Falls news show earlier this month.

Kathleen's knitting books are available at our online store, or in historic downtown Hoquiam.
Visit us on Facebook Jackson Street Books. Order books at Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Department of Book Reports: Summer for the Gods

2011-02-19T08:18:00.000-08:00

About a year ago, I did a book report on the Lawrence/Lee play, Inherit the Wind, a drama loosely based on the Scopes trial of 1925 that featured the battle between William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow, an opening salvo on what we now call the Culture Wars. So recently, and belatedly, I picked up a copy of the history of that time, Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate over Science and Religion by Edward J. Larson (Basic Books $16.95).

The book itself is an amazing social history, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize in History in 1998. Of course, Larson discusses the backgrounds of the participants in the trial. Bryan, "The Great Commoner", is all too easily dismissed these days as a fundamentalist crank, but he of course headed the Democratic Party ticket for President in 1896, 1900 and 1908, and for all the bluster of his orations in Dayton, Tennessee in 1925, he was a great force for progressive political ideas throughout the early part of the 1900's, opposing the banks, supporting working peoples causes and vehemently anti-imperialist. He served as Woodrow Wilson's Secretary of State, until 1915. In fact, Clarence Darrow, liberal lawyer, supported the candidacies of Bryan during those times. And there was John Scopes, erstwhile school teacher, mild-mannered, socialist, who volunteered to test the state law banning the teaching of evolution in public schools.

The case itself was set up to be that: a test case. Many towns in Tennessee wanted to "host" such a trial. The ACLU wanted to test the law and advertised for a teacher who would break the law. In the town of Dayton, a group met at the local drugstore with both sides desiring a hearing on the matter. Scopes, who actually only taught science in the High School occasionally, affably agreed to do so.

Summer for the Gods is much more than a summation of the ensuing trial. Larson discusses the background of both politics, those of the country as well as the state's internal issues. He reports on the science of the time, with illuminating background on the state of evolutionary biology in the 1920's. He also gives a history of textbook publishing, the ACLU as well the on-going academic struggle for Academic Freedom. And with the current attacks in our fair land on Labor Unions, Planned Parenthood and on women in general, this book resonates loudly. Originally published by the Harvard University Press, it is well written, well documented and important. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Visit us on Facebook Jackson Street Books. Order books at Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Department of Book Reports: A Kidnapping in Milan

2011-02-12T19:13:00.000-08:00

A Kidnapping in Milan, The C.I.A. on Trial (Norton $26.95) While this book reads like a thriller novel, Steve Hendricks shows how ineptness and perhaps plain laziness on the CIA's part made it relatively easy for the Italian authorities to prosecute and convict 23 agents in the extraordinary rendition of Abu Omar in 2003. Armando Spataro, an Amerophile who thought the US Constitution a most elegant document, led the prosecution. His dedication to justice is well served in this case.
Abu Omar was under Italian surveillance at the time of his abduction on his way to the Mosque on Viale Jenner, and the CIA operation surely damaged the case they were constructing against terrorists in Italy. Hendricks goes into great detail about the treatment of Omar, and along the way gives history lessons on the CIA (originally conceived in Italy to make sure that Democratic elections after WWII did indeed elect the most right wing candidates), the covert Rendition programs (begun in 1883, when Pinkertons captured a larcenist in Peru), and torture (both detailed accounts of Omar's treatment and historic practices) and the ways which both Bush and now sadly Obama continue the program.

The carelessness on the part of the CIA made it easy for Hendricks and his researcher to find many of the agents now returned to their American lives. Cell phones were registered to addresses near Quantico headquarters. Some were even re-cycled phones from operations earlier in the year. Agents stayed in posh hotels and had the Mileage points awarded to their personal credit cards. While there are instances of agents sharing a room, it looks doubtful that this was done with the *ahem* goal of saving the American taxpayer money.

Omar was held and tortured in prisons in Egypt. I kept thinking back to these parts of the book while watching events unfold these past 2 weeks in Egypt. The newly appointed Vice President Suleiman was the US' main connection to the torture prisons and should give us all reason to loudly object to our governments facile acceptance of him. I applaud the peaceful Lotus Revolution and dearly hope the people of Egypt can keep the American influences from interfering.

Steve writes eloquently at his website on his reasons for writing this book:

“The barbarisms of America’s ‘War on Terror’ appalled me, as did reporters who went along with the barbarisms,” Steve says. “I was particularly taken aback by the Bush (and now Obama) claims that torture-by-proxy makes us stronger. I wrote A Kidnapping in Milan because few reporters have shown what torture really looked like, because the Italian magistrate who was prosecuting the CIA kidnappers was a charismatic figure, and because I wanted to see if he would succeed in his struggle against American lawlessness. Also, before the CIA kidnapped Abu Omar, the Italians seemed to have had him under thorough and fruitful surveillance, and the snatch appeared to have badly damaged Italy’s work against terrorists. This case, in other words, looked like a good example of how the ‘War on Terror’ made the West less safe. I was also intrigued because the victim was probably a terrorist, not an utter innocent, which added a shade of gray to a story that might otherwise have been more black and white. I wanted to see if I could make a convincing case that torture was wrong no matter who its victim was.”

I wish I could make that last line even bolder.

Some of you may remember when we gave the General a copy of Steve's first book, Unquiet Grave for xmas. If you don't, I urge you to go back and read both the General & Steve's guest post.

Visit us on Facebook Jackson Street Books. Order books at Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Department of Book Reports

2011-02-05T13:37:00.000-08:00

We're both feeling a bit under the weather this week, so I'l show you a video of a book I'm really looking forward to. Talk amongst yourselves & tell us what you're reading in comments.

Sean Beaudoin's You Killed Wesey Payne

Visit us on Facebook Jackson Street Books. Order books at Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Department of Book Reports: The Galton Case by Ross MacDonald

2011-01-28T22:53:00.000-08:00

I first discovered Ross MacDonald in, of all places, Paris. It was my first visit, and I needed to pay my homagne to the great literary bookstore, Shakespeare and Company, founded by the legendary Sylvia Beach, the first publisher of Joyce's Ulysses. What I should have done is purchase a copy of some Sartre tome and repaired to the nearest cafe, where I could somehow establish my American intellectual cred. Instead I purchased some paperback copies written by Ross MacDonald, whereupon passing French intellectuals could pass by me, seated at the cafe and snicker. I knew, of course, of MacDonald, having read Hammett and Chandler by this time, and had heard that MacDonald's writing rivaled those big boys.

I don't remember exactly which one I read first, or in what order I read them, but I devoured MacDonald's Lew Archer series. The book that struck me as the best (and apparently was MacDonald's favorite as well), was the Galton Case. It was the eighth of the Archer novels of the eighteen MacDonald ended up writing. The plot is fairly intricate (MacDonald was a master of plotting, much better than either Hammett or Chandler). It involves Archer (named for Sam Spade's murdered partner in The Maltese Falcon) being hired by a lawyer, Gordon Sable, to track down a missing person, the son of Maria Galton, who disappeared some twenty years previously. Mrs. Galton is dying, and wants to be reconciled with her prodigal. During the course of Archer's hunt, he also becomes involved in the problems of the attorney Sable and his wife, as well as their "houseboy" Culligan, who is no Jeeves, and not nearly as nice as Gielgud's butler to Arthur... The novel deals with, as so many of MacDonald's books do, with fractured families, alienated adolescents, and the times in which Archer lives and investigates. One of the more remarkable scenes in the book is the beating Archer takes from some gangsters that lays him in the hospital for sometime. It is vividly described by MacDonald. As our his characters, which include the town of Santa Teresa, where most of the Archer novels take place and is based on MacDonalds hometown of Santa Barbara. And there is a parody of the then au currant Beat poets in the character of Chad Bolling.

Ross MacDonald was the pseudonym of Kenneth Millar. He decided to use a nom de plume as his wife, the mystery writer Margaret Millar, had already established her career in the genre and he didn't want to trade on the name. MacDonald himself had suffered through painful years as a teen, and many of the situations Archer encounters are semi-autobiographical. By all accounts, he was a fine gentlemen, an early proponent of social causes, especially the then burgeoning Ecology movement. He was the kind of man who could have literary friends like Eudora Welty, with whom he corresponded for many years; and also be the kind of man Warren Zevon could turn to when Zevon's life needed some redirection. MacDonald succumbed to Alzheimer's Disease in 1983.

Some of you may know that two films were made from the Archer novels. Both starred Paul Newman. The first was called "Harper". Newman, at the time, was having a lot of success with movies that started with the letter H, like The Hustler and Hud, and so the title character was renamed from Archer to Harper. The eponymous movie was based on the first Archer novel, The Moving Target and was released in 1967 with a screenplay by William Goldman, who'd later do Newman's Butch Cassady and the Sundance Kid. The other was "The Drowning Pool", with Newman once again playing Harper, and it was produced in 1975.

Read some Ross MacDonald. It'll do you some good. Many of his titles are available atJackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores We have used copies but new editions have been published by Vintage Crime.

Department of Book Reports: Lanterns & Lances, Credos & Curios

2011-01-21T23:05:00.000-08:00

I was between books this week, so I picked up a couple James Thurber collections. I figured I could do an easy Book Report, but I was stumped beyond "*grunt* Yeah, man... Thurber is a great man of American letters." What could I possibly say? I'd venture Twain lived before bread slicing machines, so I'll tell you Thurber is the best thing since they started slicing bread. I mean, I really liked that old show "My World & Welcome To It", but it really was Keith Olbermann that made me a fan.

I even had a quote I especially liked:

"The brain of our species is, as we know, made up largely of potassium, phosphorus, propaganda, and politics, with the result that how not to understand what should be clearer is becoming easier and easier for all of us."

And then the news hit tonight as I was writing this, Keith is shit canned??

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The intertubes are a-buzz and a-tweet. I suspect we'll have to wait a while to find out what happened tonight. In the meantime, have strength, friends. If you want to read some Thurber, we have a few copies.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Good Night and Good Luck, indeed.

Department of Book Reports: Elmore Leonard, An Appreciation

2011-01-14T23:18:00.000-08:00

SeattleTammy and I have both been reading Cuba Libre, a 2002 novel by Elmore Leonard which served to remind me what a treasure we have in this great writer. Leonard, who is still going strong at age 85, received his early fame in the Western genre and in Cuba Libre he combines features of the western and the caper novel, the genre for which he has achieved the most recognition. In 1898 Ben Tyler, who has just been released from prison, serving time for bank robbery, joins his friend Charlie Burke in running horses and guns to Cuba. The Battleship Maine has been freshly blown up in Havana harbor, and Spain and America stand at the brink of war. Tyler gets mixed up in the politics of the Cuban insurrection and Spain still trying to keep Cuba in its imperial yoke. Tyler, who has been a cowboy, ends up shooting a rather pompous Spanish officer and is carted off to the stockade to face execution and where he meets Virgil Webster, a survivor of the Maine's demise who has been kidnapped by the Spanish. But Tyler has other plans that don't include getting shot and there is someone who owes him a big debt.

Many of Leonard's books have been filmed, and filmed well. His earlier western, Hombre, starred Paul Newman in a 1967 movie and his short story 3:10 to Yuma has been filmed twice, once just recently. Most of you are probably aware of the caper novels that have been filmed. Mr. Majestyk featured Charles Bronson, Stick had Burt Reynolds, Get Shorty, both John Travolta and Danny DeVito. Most memorably, Rum Punch was directed by Quentin Tarantino as Jackie Brown, and had a wonderful performance by Pam Grier. And it is no wonder why the films are so memorable. Leonard's sense of timing, his adept and humorous dialogue, and his vivid imagery are hard to equal. For instance, take this piece of dialogue from Get Shorty:

Ray "Bones" Barboni: Let me explain something to you. Momo is dead. Which means that everything he had now belongs to Jimmy Cap, including you. Which also means, that when I speak, I speak for Jimmy. E.g., from now on, you start showing me the proper fucking respect.
Chili Palmer: "E.g." means "for example". What I think you want to say is "I.e.".
Ray "Bones" Barboni: Bullshit! That's short for "ergo".
Chili Palmer: Ask your man.
Bodyguard: To the best of my knowledge, "e.g." means "for example".
Ray "Bones" Barboni: E.g., i.e., fuck you! The point is this: is that, When I say "jump", you say "OK", okay?

(Bones was played by Dennis Farina, and Chili, by Travolta. h/t IMDB. Travolta insisted that the screenplay using Leonard's material be used before signing onto the film, instead of a watered down version the studio wanted to use). and

Probably my favorite of Leonard's novels is Swag (aka Ryan's Rules) which featured two armed robbers, one of whom was Frank Ryan, used car salesman, who partnered with an assoicate "Stick" Stickley Jr., a car thief. They successfully rob liquor stores and bars around the Detroit area using these rules:

Always be polite on the job and say please and thank you
Never say more than necessary
Never call your partner by name-unless you use a made-up name
Never look suspicious or like a bum and dress well
Never use your own car
Never count the take in the car
Never flash money in a bar or with women
Never go back to an old bar or hangout once you have moved up
Never tell anyone your business and never tell a junkie even your name
Never associate with people known to be in criminal circles.

There is one terrific scene where the two men are having a drink at local tavern when another armed gunman comes in to rob the place. The two men offer a long critique of the robbers style and technique that is absolutely hilarious.

Elmore Leonard has his own rules for writing, that he published a few years back. Mostly the rules involve trying to make the writer invisible. Leave out the parts that a reader will probably skip anyway. Never use any other verb than "said" when moving the story along and never use an adverb to modify "said", he wrote darkly. Above all, Leonard admonishes himself to the advice that if it looks like writing to him, he re-writes it. Sage advice. If you haven't read him before, you are in for a treat.

We have several volumes available at Jackson Street Books and of course they are available at other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Department of Book Reports: Provenance

2011-01-08T17:42:00.000-08:00

Provenance, How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art, by Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo (Penguin $16.00 & $9.00 used HC) This is a fascinating look into the world of modern art and the archives that enable art galleries and museums to authenticate paintings. It really gives you a great history lesson while being a very readable art thriller.

John Myatt was a struggling single father artist who had advertised his "authentic fakes" in want ads, where he was noticed by John Drewe. Drewe is the ultimate chameleon scammer, able to spin out a story that convinced many of the art conservatories to allow him access to their records, the provenance that verifies a painting from the artist and a paintings subsequent owners. These libraries were closely guarded to prevent records from being taken, but there were no protections from records being inserted into them to prove the origins of the some 200 paintings Myatt eventually produced for Drewe.

Drewe became a skilled forger in his own right, faking sales receipts and catalogs. While some archivists noticed some anomalies, they were unable to bring a definitive case to the police. It was Drewe's spurned ex-wife who brought the police evidence that could bring the scam to light.

Ultimately, Drewe served 4 years of a 6 year sentence and Myatt less than a year. Drewe maintains his innocence to this day, in ever-increasing elaborate tales of conspiracies. Myatt was sentenced to far less time for his mostly un-witting contributions. Myatt vowed to never paint again, but resumed his Authentic Fakes art business at the prompting of one of the Scotland Yard detectives, producing paintings that are clearly marked as "fakes" and even had a BBC series explaining art forgeries.

Illustrations would have really helped this book, but Laney Salisbury has several of the Myatt forgeries at her website.

Provenance is available at Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Department of Book Reports: Moonlight Mile

2011-01-01T13:40:00.000-08:00

Moonlight Mile, by Dennis Lehane (Morrow, $26.99) The last installment of Lehane's Patrick & Angie series was Prayers For Rain, in 1999. Moonlight Mile finds them married in their 40s with a young daughter. The current economic situation has not been kind to them, Patrick is trying to contract with a security company to keep the bills paid. When the aunt of a girl he rescued when she was 4 comes to ask him to help find the once-again missing 16 year old, he doesn't want to take on an unpaid job. And while returning Amanda to her neglectful abusive mother was the correct thing to do 12 years ago, it has never felt like the right thing to do.

Finding Amanda this time will involve Russian mafia, meth dealers, black market baby adoptions and a stolen icon, The Belarus Cross.

This sixth installment in the series is probably the last, and is a fine epilogue to the books. Lehane has never been one to shy away from examining social justice issues and he uses it well here. I do recommend you read Gone Baby Gone before this, but even if you haven't you'll get enough background to enjoy this great novel.

We want to wish all our blogosphere friends the very Happiest New Year! I thought this picture might be appropriate to end this book report with:
Moonlight Mile is available at Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Department of Book Reports: Happy Holidays!

2010-12-24T23:58:00.000-08:00

We've posted this here the past two years, and, of course, it holds up this year...and will again next year. Want and ignorance remain with us. There are so many people out of work, or just trying to make ends meet that their holiday isn't gonna be all that great. An Austerity Christmas for many, if any at all. And ignorance? Just look at the news.

The following is, of course, from the climax of Stave Three, as Dickens called it, when Scrooge is abandoned by the Spirit of Christmas Present. Among my English major friends, Charles Dickens is regarded as a rank sentimentalist, and, worse, a writer who achieved popularity with the reading public of his time. At the same time, I argue that he was also one of the most acute social critics of the 19th Century, and a critic that helped transform that world for the better.

The scene below contains one of the most powerful images in English Literature. And it still holds true today.

Happy Holidays from SeattleDan and Seattle Tammy!From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment. "Oh, Man, look here! Look, look, down here!" exclaimed the Ghost. They were a boy and a girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread. Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude. "Spirit, are they yours?" Scrooge could say no more. "They are Man's," said the Spirit, looking down upon them. "And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!" cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. "Slander those who tell it ye. Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And abide the end."
"Have they no refuge or resource?" cried Scrooge.
"Are there no prisons?" said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. "Are there no workhouses?"
The bell struck twelve.

Les Standiford has a timely book out just now, The Man Who Invented Christmas: How Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol Rescued His Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirits (Crown Publishing, $19.95) NPR has an excellent excerpt in their Indie Bookseller's Round-up.

As always, lovely books can be found at your favorite independent bookstore. Book orders can be placed 24 hours a day at Jackson Street Books.

Department of Book Reports: End of the Year, Finally

2010-12-18T17:10:00.000-08:00

It's been a crazy year for the ol' Book Reporters and with the Holiday rush upon us, we thought we'd point out a few of the outstanding books we've read.
SeattleDan loved the baseball book, The Bullpen Gospels, relief pitcher Dirk Hayhurst's account of his struggles in both pitching professionally in the minor leagues and dealing with a highly dysfunctional family. Told with great humor and perception, Hayhurst's book is one of the best baseball books written. SD also treasured Guernica, the story of a Basque family before, during and after the Spanish Civil War. The work is a fine saga, mixed with the pride, comedy and tragedy of a strong people amidst some of the most gruesome aspects of the past century. Jeffrey Kaye's Moving Millions: How Capitalism Fuels Global Immigration is a fine study of how coyote capitalism spurs worldwide immigration. The book is rich in both anecdote and interviews; for those wanting an overview of immigration today, this is the book. Finally Adrian Goldsworthy's How Rome Fell analyzes deeply both the root causes of Rome's collapse as well as the notion of Empire.

SeattleTammy's favorites included Boneshaker, Cherie Priest's delightful Steampunk novel set in turn of the century Seattle, which leaves no Swash un-Buckled. Boneshaker has won just about every major award out there since you read about it here. Will Grayson, Will Grayson is a touching gay YA novel, which would appeal to straight or gay kids, especially those in theater. Our Second Life friend, Lelani Carver introduced us to Keith Thomson's Once A Spy and helped arrange a Second Life Virtual Author Appearance in March. We enjoyed several author readings in SL, including Peter May's Virtually Dead which actually takes place in SL!

SeattleTammy was recently interviewed by Erin Underwood about the Virtual Bookstore at her blog Underwords. Sunday, Dec 19th (6 to 9 pm PST), we'll have a Holiday Open House at Lacamas Reading Hall. Come on over to see which of our favorite authors drop by.

We wish you all the very best of the season and into the upcoming New Year.

Department of Book Reports: Odds & Ends

2010-12-10T23:09:00.000-08:00

One of the pleasures of re-opening a brick and mortar store is that customers bring us some of their books to trade-in. The customers, of course, get some credit and can add to their own libraries inexpensively, and we, the booksellers, get to replenish our inventory and get reminded of some good books and discover books that have flown under our radar since our storefront hiatus.

Among the books we have recently received includes David James Duncan's fine family saga, The Brothers K. Duncan, the author of the acclaimed The River Why, tells the story of these brothers, brought up on a farm, by a father who had hoped to have a baseball career, but was thwarted in his youth. Set during the fifties and sixties, the book has many fine moments and when I read it a few years ago, I couldn't put it down.

Stephanie Kallos is the author of the perennial book club favorite, Broken for You, and her new novel, published in 2009, Sing Them Home, absolutely slipped by us. Another family saga, set in Nebraska, she tell the story of the Jones siblings whose young lives are irrevocably changed by the strange disappearance of their mother during a tornado in 1978. They are brought back together by the sudden passing of their distant father decades later, leading to self-discovery and insight.

SeattleTammy is enjoying Lincoln Child's Deep Storm, which was published a couple of years ago. Child is probably best known for his collaborations with Douglas Preston, and are well-written thrillers. Deep Storm is about a scientist investigating the mental illnesses suffered by a crew that seems to have discovered links to the ancient world of Atlantis.

Douglas Brinkley's The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, is the highly regarded inquiry into what happened on August 29th, 2005. At great length, Brinkley delves into the devastation and the human cost of the tragedy. He conducted many, many interviews with the survivors, providing a history written at the human level.

Finally, we have seen a copy of Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things come into the store. Originally published in 1997 and winner of the Booker Prize. the book is yet another family portrait, focusing on the lives of two fraternal twins, raised in Kerala, India. The events of the novel take place between 1969 and 1993, and describe and limn the lives of these two as well as the lives they touch. Roy, herself, has become a great human rights activist. To date this is her only novel.

So, what are you reading? And what do you hope Santa will bring you to read this year?
And DemoCommie, we are still awaiting the advance copy of your cookbook.

If you're in the neighborhood today, stop by for a gingersnap.

These books are available at Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Department of Book Reports: Four Color Fear

2010-12-04T13:38:00.000-08:00

I'm delighted to have Four Color Fear, by John Benson (Fantagraphics, $29.95) on our new release table now. This is a delightful collection of Entertaining Comics most gruesome and twisted tales. Fantagraphics has a flip-thru preview that gives a feeling for the content on youtube. 42 complete comic books are reprinted in all their lurid colors.

Those wonderful, terrible horror comics of the 1950s are still so embedded in our popular culture that it’s hard to realize that those who actually remember reading them when they came out are now in their late sixties or early seventies. That these old comics still seem contemporary is largely due to the Entertaining Comics (EC) titles Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror and Haunt of Fear, which have been made into several feature films and a popular HBO series, and have been in print continuously for over forty years in a variety of formats (they’ve even been adapted in text form for younger readers). Horror masters Stephen King and George Romero have readily acknowledged an indebtedness to EC comics, which alone would be enough to prove their relevance to current entertainment tastes, but many others have also been influenced, directly or indirectly.

Undeniably, EC created a whole new style of horror. Rather than relying on traditional supernatural elements, EC typically focused on events that could actually happen, such as someone being boiled in oil or hacked to pieces. Realistic situations would build to “trick” endings that might be better described as ingenious rather than truly imaginative. When there was a fantastic element, it was often in the form of traditional vampires and werewolves entering a modern real-world setting. A vital EC element was its three “GhouLunatics,” the hosts whose sardonic and often humorous patter was integral to the horrific proceedings, but EC’s most important component was publisher Bill Gaines, who co-plotted most of the stories, loved the material he published, and encouraged his artists to do their best. Gaines brought a rare consistency to EC, though that consistency came at the expense of an increasingly narrow range as the series progressed.
.......
Rather than being grouped by artist, publisher, subject matter or chronologically, these stories have been arranged “aesthetically” to provide maximum variety and change of pace when the book is read straight through. So, relax, curl up in a cozy chair, set aside a block of time, and imagine yourself as a kid in the 1950s, reading these stories slowly to savor every chilling moment.

From the introduction by the author.

Four Color Fear is available at Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Department of Book Reports: Holiday Books

2010-11-27T10:19:00.000-08:00

Today is Small Business Saturday. American Express will give a $25 credit to your account for shopping small box this weekend. The stores you shop at don't even need to accept AmEx, which is a good thing since most small businesses can't afford to honor their cards. The 3/50 org has more good reasons for you to shop local.

Of course, I recommend you shop at a bookstore. You can find your local bookstore at indybound, or for those of you in the Northwest, we now have Northwest Booklover's thanks to the PNBA for this site. PNBA also brings us the Holiday Catalog (simple pdf), and here are a few of my favorites:
Something Fishy This Way Comes by Ray Troll (Sasquatch Boooks, $19.95) This best of Ray Troll's art will be sure to get chuckles from fishermen or lovers of bad puns.
Hiking Washington's History by Judy Bentley (University of Washington Press, $18.95) will give you more background than you'll get from the historical marker at trailshead or highway pull-outs. UW Press has sample chapters to peruse.
One of my favorite novels this year is now in paperback, The Financial Lives of the Poets by Jess Walter (HarperCollins, $14.99)

A Secret Gift: How One Man's Kindness--and a Trove of Letters--Revealed the Hidden History of the Great Depression by Ted Gup (Penguin Press, $25.95) This one really tugs at the heart, Ted Gup found a cache of letters in his grandfather's possessions that told the story of an anonymous donor who offered $5 to 150 people during the height of the depression. Check out this dedicated issue of Shelf Awareness, for pictures and an author interview.

And finally we come to the time of November you've all been looking forward to: this year's shortlist of titles nominated to The Bad Sex Award are covered in the Guardian. The winner will be announced November 29th at the In and Out Lounge in London.

These books are available at Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores. We're on FaceBook now.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Department of Book Reports: Guernica

2010-11-19T22:48:00.000-08:00

In Guernica (Bloomsbury $15.00), Dave Boling has written a fine, sobering. and engrossing account of the lives of those people who live in or near one of the most revered places of the Basque people. The story is centered on the lives of the Ansotegui brothers, who are orphaned at an early age. Justo grows up to become the "strongest" man in Guernica, well-respected among the townsfolk; Josepe takes up fishing in the Bay of Biscay; and baby Xabier becomes Father Xabier.

In 1935 one Miguel Navarro, avoiding arrest after an encounter with the Guardia Civil, comes to Guernica, where he meets, courts and marries Justo's daughter, his only child, Miren, famed for her dancing. Together they begin a family. In the meantime, of course, the Spanish Civil War begins. The Basques, given some autonomy, and with an aversion to the Fascists, side with the Spanish Government. The characters try to lead normal lives, but the war moves closer. Food becomes scarce. And the Fascists move closer and closer, aiming to take the port of Bilbao. Guernica itself is of no military importance. But it does provide the Fascist's ally, the German Luftwaffe to indulge in what Winston Churchill called "..an experimental horror". On April 26th, 1937, Wolfram von Richtohofen's Condor Legion made its bombing raid over Guernica, devastating the town and immortalized in the famous mural of Pablo Picasso. The lives of Guernica's survivors are forever changed. And there seems to be little hope left.

Boling gives a splendid picture of the Basque people. Their lives may seem simple at a glance, but they live lives of great passion and with verve and nuance. The minor characters are well-imagined and provide a fine background to the story. The reader feels he knows this town and these people, and their tragedies give us the right amount of pity and terror. Guernica is one of the better novels I have read in a long while, and it is well worth your while to read it, especially if you like family sagas in historical settings.
Here's a video from one of those fine independent bookstores we always mention, Liberty Bay Books in Poulsbo. Catch their blog for pairings of books and appropriate beers, and follow them on twitter @LIBERTYBAYBOOKS.

Guernica is available at Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

On a side note, I wanted to point out the long-time Jesus' General commenter, Dave von Ebers, has begun a new blog, The Corner Tavern, which you can find here: davescornertavern.blogspot.com. There is already a lot of good stuff on it. Enjoy!

Searching for Mark Twain's Illustrators

2010-11-17T16:54:00.000-08:00

Alice asked if there was any notation of the artists in the Harper & Brothers editions of Mark Twain that I featured on FaceBook. The books, which are probably the equivalent to our modern mass-market editions have little documentation. However, researching the subject has been no end of amusement for me.
Barbara Schmidt notes the artists from the various volumes in her A History of and Guide to Uniform Editions of Mark Twain's Works. Most of the documentation here is for the earlier deluxe editions in red, Part One covers 1891-1920, Part Two has 1899-1920, while we have copies with cream boards with a small cameo of Twain embossed onto the front cover, which will be documented in Part Three, books after 1920.

In Life on the Mississippi, Harper & Brothers 1917, I discovered the photographer Napoleon Sarony, who photographed an estimated 20,000 celebrities of the day and perhaps 300,000 members of the general public, but it best known for his landmark 1883 lawsuit for photographers to claim original copyright of their photographs. The case was over a disputed photograph of Oscar Wilde, in which Burows-Giles Lithographic argued that Sarony had not invented Oscar Wilde and they should be able to use it in a department store ad. The courts agreed with Sarony's lawyers that the photographer was the author and inventor of the photograph.
In 1884, Sarony participated in a April Fool's prank on Twain inwhich 150 of Twain's friend wrote him requesting his autograph but neglecting to include a SASE for return. Sarony addressed his note to "My dear Clements".

Napoleon Sarony wore a Fez and "picturesque" clothing which must have been noticed even in New York city.
What is perhaps Sarony's best known photograph of Twain was most disliked by Twain. Writing in his own 1902 copy of a honorarium book presented by Harper & Brothers at his 67th birthday party,

of course they would frontispiece it with this damned old libel, which began as a libel when Sarony made it, in my fortieth year

The picture most likely was taken when Twain was 60. In 1905, he was still complaining about the photograph:

November 14, 1905.
Dear Mr. Row,

That alleged portrait has a private history. Sarony was as much of an enthusiast about wild animals as he was about photography; and when Du Chaillu brought the first Gorilla to this country in 1819 he came to me in a fever of excitement and asked me if my father was of record and authentic. I said he was; then Sarony, without any abatement of his excitement asked if my grandfather also was of record and authentic. I said he was. Then Sarony, with still rising excitement and with joy added to it, said he had found my great grandfather in the person of the gorilla and had recognized him at once by his resemblance to me. I was deeply hurt but did not reveal this, because I knew Sarony meant no offense for the gorilla had not done him any harm, and he was not a man who would say an unkind thing about a gorilla wantonly. I went with him to inspect the ancestor, and examined him from several points of view, without being able to detect anything more than a passing resemblance. "Wait," said Sarony with strong confidence, "let me show you." He borrowed my overcoat and put it on the gorilla. The result was surprising. I saw that the gorilla while not looking distinctly like me was exactly what my great grandfather would have looked like if I had had one. Sarony photographed the creature in that overcoat, and spread the picture about the world. It has remained spread about the world ever since. It turns up every week in some newspaper somewhere or other. It is not my favorite, but to my exasperation it is everybody else's. Do you think you could get it suppressed for me? I will pay the limit.

Sincerely yours, S. L. Clemens.

I'll continue my research tomorrow. I doubt I'll find the artists from these books, but I am sure I'll find something utterly fascinating.

Department of Book Reports: Al Capone & Hellie Jondoe

2010-11-13T09:53:00.000-08:00

I have some wonderful YA novels to talk about today. If you have a pre-teen or teen interested in history, these volumes feature great characters and fascinating stories.

Al Capone Shines My Shoes by Gennifer Choldenko ($17.99, Dial Books) Moose and his family live on Alcatraz Island, where his father is a guard. There are other families on the island, almost enough for pick-up baseball games, if the girls agree to play. The kids are not supposed to talk with the inmates, but it's too tempting to them to not try to sneak a peek of Al Capone or one of the other famous gangsters who are locked up and assigned tasks to keep the island running. When Moose's autistic sister get dropped from a special school in San Francisco, he sends a note in the pocket of his dirty shirt, asking Capone's help. When a return note comes back saying "Done." he realizes this favor could get his dad fired from the job they very much rely on. Then, a note arrives asking for a favor from Moose and he must figure out how to get yellow roses for Capone's girlfriend, May without the Warden finding out that Moose has been in touch with the convict. Set in a time when autism wasn't well known or spoken of, many people on the island urge the family to send the sister to an institution rather than keep her in the family. Moose has to negotiate the usual rivalries between his friends and the precarious hold his father has on his job.

Al Capone Shines My Shoes is the sequel to the Newberry Honor book Al Capone Does My Shirts ($6.99, Puffin Books), which is in paperback now. These books give a great history lesson in the lives of the people who called Alcatraz home.

Hellie Jondoe by Randall Platt ($16.95, Texas Tech University Press) Hellie (Helena Smith) is an orphan "street Arab" in New York City where she and her brother Harry pick pockets and find food in garbage cans to survive. Harry has signed Hellie to the Orphan Train, taking children to the West to find families. Hellie does not want to leave Harry, but it's getting more difficult to hide her female status from the gang they've pitched in with. When a gunfight leaves Harry apparently dead from a bullet wound, Hellie reluctantly embarks on the train. It's on this train trip she meets A.B.E. Collier, a woman (!) photographer, herself a former Orphan Train child who is documenting the journey to sell to Mr. Hearst. Hellie, half-blind Lizzie, and an infant with a club foot are finally adopted by the domineering Mrs. Gorence, to work on the Hidden Hills Ranch in far away Oregon. Assigned to live in the wash house, and not the home, they come to realize their true fate, they had been sold to the Orphan Train and indentured for 3 years. Harry has actually left the hospital with a new trade, selling the Morphine he was introduced to and now has enough money to try and rescue Hellie. His encounter with A.B.E. Collier exposes him to the Spanish Flu that is sweeping the country and he unwittingly carries it to Pendleton and the Hidden Hills. Nursing her brother, herself and the farm cook back to health, Hellie learns some truths about her birth family and her newly formed family.
Platt has used period slang to great effect here and provides a Glossary at the end.

These books are available at Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Department of Book Reports: Pitchforks and Torches

2010-11-05T23:10:00.000-07:00

In a week where we saw justice, light, right and might prevail in our land, it was only fitting that MSNBC suspended the ultra-liberal, Keith Olbermann from his show, Countdown, on Friday. Of course, the islamoliberalsphere is protesting by calling the MSNBC offices, and setting up Facebook pages in protest. What more could we expect. They want you to call MSNBC at (212) 664-4444 and urge them to bring Keith Olbermann back!

SEND faxes to MSNBC urging Keith's return here at: Fax: (212) 664-4426

You can e-mail Phil Griffin who suspended Keith at: phil.griffin@nbcuni.com.

It turns out, that the nattily-dressed one has just published a book, Pitchforks and Torches. Conveniently, the book is a Liberal's wet dream, full of invective and reason. As Seattle Tammy and I would never want to be accused of censoring, we are stocking that book, as well as others by this Olbermann fella.

If we have inadvertently made you look at these protests and caused you to join the brouhaha, we are deeply sorry. But the books are available at Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Department of Book Reports: Boarding Instructions

2010-10-30T10:53:00.000-07:00

Boarding Instructions by Ray Vukcevich (Fairwood Press, $16.99) Today I get to tell you about a new book from a favorite author, Second Life's own Ookami Moonbeam. You may remember him from last December's report & SL Salon with the Interfictions 2 authors. Ookami, is in real life, Ray Vukcevich, a writer from Eugene, Oregon. His fiction isn't easily characterized into any one or two genres, and the definition of Interfiction suits nicely:
What is interstitial art? It is art made in the interstices between genres and categories. It is art that flourishes in the borderlands between different disciplines, mediums, and cultures. It is art that crosses borders, made by artists who refuse to be constrained by category labels.

This is a short story collection, so I can't really give you a plot outline here. For those of you who don't read short stories and prefer full length novels, have no fear, these short pieces will satisfy. I don't dream often, or at least I don't remember dreams in the waking hours, but the last two wisps of dreams I woke up with in the morning had elements and plot bits from Ray's fiction.

I can show you where to read a couple samples, Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Boy, or this delightful piece about weather in Miles and Miles of Broccoli. You can find other links on his website or sff.net.

I do recommend this book to ensure you never look at grocery lists or airline flights the same again. I'd also like to thank Fairwood Press for sending me an advance copy of a favorite author.

Boarding Instructions is debuting this weekend at this weekends World Fantasy Con, and we'll be able to ship out next week. Boarding Instructions and Interfictions 2 are books are available at Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Department of Book Reports: The Fall Classic

2010-10-22T22:32:00.000-07:00

Stepping outside on a crisp autumn day, the sun shines, and you know that the World Series is right around the corner. And there is nothing sweeter to a baseball fan. (For those of you who hate baseball, your long national nightmare will soon be over.) And despite the sour season that this humble book reporter's team, the lowly Seattle Mariners had, (and the equally sour one that friend Dave von E had with his beloved Chicago Cubs) it is a time of year that excites the mind and passion.

And with a hat tip to an old friend and bookseller, Marilyn, who recently blogged about great baseball books, I wanted to point out a few of my favorites. And where else to start but with Jim Bouton's classic account of his season with the Seattle Pilots (a team that played only one season before moving to Milwaukee) Ball Four. At the time his story was controversial. The book named names; it was not a fiction. That was Mickey Mantle with his fellow Yankee teammates atop the Shoreham Hotel, attempting to glimpse through the windows of young, nubile guests! Or his manager, Joe Schultz exclaiming, "Shitfuck! Pound that Budweiser and we'll get 'em tomorrow"! Still the best parts of the book are Bouton's own descriptions of attempting to comeback, throwing a knuckleball to get out Major League batters with a modicum of success, and his relationship with his fellow Pilots, as well as trying to juggle his profession and raising a young family. And recently, I talked about Dirk Hayhurst's chronicle of his minor league career in this book report of The Bullpen Gospels.

Roger Kahn's The Boys of Summer is also classic. In it, he describes his time covering the Brooklyn Dodgers team in the early '50's, followed by interviews with the players as they were in the early '70's. The Dodgers front office at the time hated the book, for reasons best known to themselves. Probably the best of the interview style books, though, is Lawrence Ritter's The Glory of Their Times. Ritter searched the country looking for ballplayers who had played in the early part of the 20th Century, and the interviews he had, which included Sam Crawford, Chief Myers (the Native American catcher and Dartmouth grad who caught Christy Mathewson), Lefty O'Doul among many others, and all of them fascinating. Not just about baseball, but about what life was like in America at that time. Another great inteview book, and broken down by season, is Danny Peary's They Played the Game, which features the baseball careers of 64 different players who played from 1946 to 1964. They played some tough baseball in the post-war era.

Books I haven't had a chance to read yet, but am looking forward to include Jane Leavy's The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood. If her previous book, Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy (a biography framed around the perfect game Koufax threw against the Giants in 1965), is any indication, this book should be great. I've also heard wonderful things about Doug Glanville's The Game Where I Stand: A Ballplayers Inside View. Glanville was a good Major League outfielder and I've been told that his writing style is both elegant and poetic.

And I would be remiss if I didn't mention the finest of magazine reporter's, Roger Angell who's articles for the New Yorker were collected in The Summer Game and Five Seasons. In the latter book, in his discussion of one of the greatest World Series ever played, between the Cincinnati Reds and the Boston Red Sox, he leaves us with the following quote about why some of us take this game seriously:

It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitive as a professional sports team, and the amused superiority and icy scorn that the non-fan directs at the sports nut (I know this look -- I know it by heart) is understandable and almost unanswerable. Almost. What is left out of this calculation, it seems to me, is the business of caring -- caring deeply and passionately, really caring -- which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives. And so it seems possible that we have come to a time when it no longer matters so much what the caring is about, how frail or foolish is the object of that concern, as long as the feeling itself can be saved. Naivete -- the infantile and ignoble joy that sends a grown man or woman to dancing and shouting with joy in the middle of the night over the haphazardous flight of a distant ball -- seems a small price to pay for such a gift.

These baseball titles and many more are available from Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Pictures from Today

2010-10-20T18:44:00.000-07:00

I biked over to open the shop this morning. We're having a glorious week of Fall weather.
I brought in a new stack of used stock. Since I didn't have any visitors until late in the day, I allowed myself to get pulled into Modoc. What a lovely story! I had read about Modoc in Stewart O'Nan's Circus Fire. I knew she had lead people out of the burning big top, and returned to the flames to save one of her keepers. I didn't know the back story of her life, raised by Gunther, the son of a German elephant trainer, who was born on the same day as Modoc, they are cruelly separated a couple times throughout their lives, but reunited at a Hollywood animal reserve later in life. So many adventures are crammed between that. Shipwrecked far at sea, Modoc saves many of the sailors by keeping them afloat. She & Gunther make it to shore and live in India, at the palatial preserve of Malmout, a worshipped albino elephant. A war between tribal Afghan warlords. Their journey to America, and the many cruel betrayals there make their reunion even more of a tearjerker than those animal/human youtubes we all love.

Department of Book Reports: Exley

2010-10-16T11:34:00.000-07:00

I've been in a Brock Clarke reading binge lately, and I really recommend this author for his sly, lit-obsessive novels. If you like your dark comedy with lovable characters, this is your writer. An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England was chockablock with famous writers and odd factoids as we follow Sam Pulisfer in his quest to find out who is trying to burn down the writers' homes. Sure, he once burned down Emily Dickenson's house, but that was a teen-aged accident and he's sorry. Really, really sorry. Some one else begins burning writer's homes after he has re-built his life, is it the son of the couple burned alive while "in the saddle", or the Bond Traders he met in prison? He knows he isn't setting these fires, but he must figure out who is and convince the fire detective of his innocence. His search takes him through Book Clubs, Harry Potter appreciation classes for parents, and Oprah lit-land . Clarke has a way of looking at ordinary situations and putting in a dry, quirky slant that will have you snickering at each wry twist.

In his latest, Exley, he uses his love for the late novelist Frederick Exley to build his novel. Miller Le Ray overhead his father tell his mother "Maybe I should go to Iraq, too" eight months ago, and knows in his heart that is why he's only written one letter home in all that time. His mother is equally convinced that the Army would never have accepted her husband, and has taken Miller to a therapist, Dr Pahnee (who pompously corrects everyone, assuring them he is a mental health professional). Miller and the Dr. are our unreliable narrators here. Miller's dad has just arrived at the VA hospital and Miller is convinced he must find his fathers favorite author to help bring him out of the coma he's been in for two weeks.
Miller's dad has only read one book in the past 15 years. A Fan's Notes, a fictional memoir, Exley's cult novel from 1968. He's read it over and over, and has eight copies stashed in the window seat beside his desk. You don't have to have read a Fan's Notes to enjoy this book, but I'm sure you'll want to after you finish.

Millers quest takes him through the Watertown, NY he currently lives in, and through the Watertown in a Fans Notes. His obsession begins to consume his every thought, and he begins speaking as Exley did, referring to people by initials, and using ___s in his speech. Conveniently ignoring the fact that Exley died in 1992, he searches the dives and haunts from the book. Dr. Pahnee has fallen hopelessly in love with M.'s mother which clouds his judgement. Which reality is true here? Clarke keeps things spinning around until the end, and brings about a very tender place to leave his characters.

These books are available at Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Department of Book Reports

2010-10-09T12:18:00.000-07:00

It's a rainy Saturday in Hoquiam, and what better way to spend the afternoon than in a warm bookstore?
The big news on this block are the new bricks installed in front of the 7th Street Theatre and the bookstore. This fundraiser has financed the neon candlestick style sign that will be done sometime next year.

Here's a walk through the new shop for our internet friends:

Nobel prize winner, Mario Vargas Llosa.

The fiction shelves.

Non-fiction & History.

350 display for Bill McKibben, and a chance to remind you to find an event near you for international 10-10-10 Day.

Of course we have Pirates!

Arts and entertainment.

Northwest and Local interest.

Science!

Our new address is 315 7th Street, so our name is changing a bit, to (Jackson Street) Books on 7th. The new phone number is 360-533-3157. Drop by and see us if you're in Hoquiam, or you can order any of the featured books at Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

pictures

2010-09-29T23:18:00.000-07:00

Trying to haul over books! We keep thinking a box of books is a lot.. but then you see the skimpy shelf. There's a lot more room here than I thought.
Tower Books shelves get a new coat of paint. Hopefully they'll dry & can be stocked tomorrow.

Department of Book Reports

2010-09-25T10:05:00.000-07:00

We're going to take a small break today, so please use the comments to recommend your recent literary finds. I'm finally getting around to reading Brock Clarke (Arsonist's Guide to New England Writer's Homes) in anticipation of his upcoming novel Exley. I loved Exley's novels and it's a delight to find this quirky obsessive novelist will be tackling this one.

It's been a busy week, We've gotten some shelves moved to the bookstore and discovered we'll need a truck to move the ones that couldn't fit into the van. Next week promises to be even busier as we count down to a rapidly approaching Saturday. Keep your finger crossed, as I may have big news soon about a special musical guest at the opening party.

(image from The Daily World)

Finally, here's a newspaper article you might get a kick out of. Subscription is required to view the pictures (of yours truly) and read the whole text, but it's free for the time being.

More pictures are on Facebook, please be sure to "Like" us while you're there.

You can always browse our books at Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Paint Day!

2010-09-20T23:10:00.000-07:00

Aerik wore orange so he would blend in with his surroundings. Nice camoflauge don't ya think?
The nasty psychedelic Dreamsicle has been turned into a nice terra cotta.

Book packing begins tomorrow. You just know, the one book we put in the bottom of the box will be ordered and we'll have to search through all of them to find it.

Department of Book Reports: American Taliban

2010-09-18T09:48:00.000-07:00

American Taliban, How War, Sex, Sin, and Power Bind Jihadists and the Radical Right, by Markos Moulitsas (Polipoint Press $14.99)

I had planned on talking about American Taliban today, in order to let you know about Markos Moulitsas' upcoming appearance on Virtually Speaking Monday evening. Markos has agreed to sign some bookplates for us and you can get your very own signed book from us.
Jay Ackroyd will be discussing the book with Markos at the Virtually Speaking Studios in Second Life and it will be broadcast live on BlogTalk Radio. You can attend virtually or tune in to BTR and ask questions in the chat area. The Cafe Wellstone folks are happy to help you get Second Life figured out, how to download the best viewer, help you get the sound going, or even take you shopping for good hair. You can send me an email (info at jacksonst-books.com), or just send an Instant Message to BookemJackson Streeter or Michele Mrigesh inworld and we'll find someone to help you.

I don't need to actually report on this book, because our dear General wrote the bestest review of all time:
The problem is syllables, September 7, 2010

... How dare the author compare the American right to the Taliban. Sure, we both hate sex, reproductive choice, secularism, government regulation, homosexualism, and masturbation. We both want to establish godly governments that enforce scriptural law. And, we both justify our wars on the basis of religion. But the similarities end there...

If you missed it, go back and read it. And be sure to vote for it!

Markos at Netroots Nation in Second Life August 2010

Please check out the new look and news over at our blogspot. You can also "like" (Jackson Street) Books on 7th on FaceBook.

Copies of American Taliban with a signed bookplate and Markos' early books are available at Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Hello Hoquiam!

2010-09-17T16:27:00.000-07:00

If you found your way here from a little sign in a window on 7th Street, Welcome! We'll continue to use this blog from our online store, with a slightly altered title. Over the next two weeks, you'll see us busily moving boxes & shelves until opening day on (hopefully) Oct 1. We'll call October 2 the grand opening and mark the date with a bit of a party. We hope to see you then!

We have the keys now and got to look around and decide where things will go. It actually feels bigger once you're inside. It has that boomy, echo-y sound as you talk. It'll be nice to have the books inside to help diffuse that.

I had the big ABA poster from when we were in Seattle, so I taped it into the window. That should make a nice announcement to the folks attending Mama Mia! tonight.

Books on 7th

2010-09-15T17:21:00.000-07:00

We've signed a lease, and tomorrow we meet with the landlord to note any damage to the space and get the keys. Then, the fun can begin.. moving shelving and books and stand-ees and bookends and posters and books and the big table and the desk and books and.. and..

I keep thinking of more things I'll be needing over there. Of course, we already have all of it, it's just a matter of getting it into a box and moving it 4 blocks. I have been hoping we'll have dry weather and can move most everything by foot, on a handtruck. It'll be nice bragging rights to say this was an entirely Green move.

Stay tuned, I'll have more pictures tomorrow!

Department of Book Reports: The Long Goodbye

2010-09-11T00:00:00.000-07:00

Revisiting The Long Goodbye, Raymond Chandler's penultimate Philip Marlowe novel (pay no attention to the last Marlowe novel, Playback, which isn't very good), is to be reminded of how great an American novelist Chandler was. He transcended genre in perhaps no other way, with perhaps he exceptions of Ray Bradbury and Philip K. Dick. I think The Long Goodbye is his greatest achievement, though there are Chandler enthusiasts who prefer The Big Sleep or Little Sister.

The plot is straight forward enough. PI Philip Marlowe has been aroused late at night by his friend, Terry Lennox, who asks Marlowe to drive him to Tiajuana, as he is in trouble. Marlowe has met and developed a friendship with Lennox over the course of several months, during which he has learned that Terry is alcoholic, war-scarred and prematurely white-haired, and married to a rich young woman. Or recently re-married to her. Marlowe take Lennox to Mexico, and upon his return, is taken into custody by the LAPD for criminal assistance. Marlowe refuses to divulge anything to the police and is only released after Lennox's confession to his wife's murder and subsequent suicide emerge. Marlowe resumes his life and is asked by a New York publisher to help one of their best-selling novelists escape from a self-inflicted and alcoholic-induced writers block. The writer is Roger Wade, and he, too, is married to a beautiful woman, Eileen. The two cases do not seem related at first, but, as these things go, they are.

But more than a plot with twists and turns (I think of the famous story of William Faulkner trying to write the screenplay to The Big Sleep and calling Chandler in the middle of the night to find out who has killed a certain character, and Chandler not knowing; but they were boozehounds, so who knows?), Chandler was as good a prose stylist as there was in 20th Century America. To wit:

From now on I wouldn't tell you the time by the clock on your wall.

Next morning I got up late on account of the big fee I had earned the night before. I drank an extra cup of coffee, smoked an extra cigarette, ate an extra slice of Canadian bacon, and for the three hundredeth time I swore I would never again use an electric razor. That made the day normal.

I was as hollow and empty as the spaces between the stars.

Chandler is also critical of the Hollywood milieu, and the rich as well. There's no sneaking admiration as a F. Scott Fitzgerald might have fawned (the rich being different than you and me, but they have great, lavish parties). They are no different than the mobsters who dog Marlowe and warn him off the Lennox case. In fact, both the rich and the gangsters are quick to remind Marliowe of how much clout they can and do exercise. But more than this, The Long Goodbye is a mediation on friendship: how far does it extend, what can we be reasonably expected to do, and what can we do when that friendship is abused and betrayed. The Long Goodbye belongs on the same bookshelf as anything by Hemingway, Steinbeck or Faulkner. If you haven't read Chandler, do so.

Which brings me to the film adaptation of the book, released in 1973, and directed by Robert Altman from a screenplay by the science fiction writer Leigh Brackett, who also worked on the films of The Big Sleep and The Empire Strikes Back. Ask any Chandler enthusiast how they liked the movie and almost to a person, it is loathed. I'm not sure why. The movie deviates from the story in places, especially in the ending, but the main themes remain. And it is as well done as anything Altman ever directed. The social satire remains. Only it is a Philip Marlowe who has been transported to a 1970's LA, and lives in an apartment next to a commune of brownie-eating young women who do their Yoga exercises on the porch only partially clothed. Marlowe still drives a '48 Lincoln, but he tries to adapt. "It's all right by me", he keeps telling everyone he encounters. Only it isn't ok and his dislocation is such that, while he does try to help his friend, it seems the only one he can love is his cat. Who abandons him. Beautiful movie, with a great performance by Elliot Gould, Sterling Hayden as the author, Henry Gibson as a quack head-shrinker and ex-baseball pitcher, Jim Bouton as Terry Lennox. And, oh, it has one of the most shocking scenes in cinema history, featuring director Mark Rydell as a gangster dogging Marlowe.

The Long Goodbye is still in print from Vintage Books ($14.95) and available from Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Department of Book Reports: Medium Raw

2010-09-04T07:14:00.000-07:00

Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain (Harper, $26.99) Ten years after Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain is back with another brutal culinary tell-all. The sub-title A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook sums it up well. Many of the chefs he talks about fare well, he admires those who work hard and are honest with their audience. Teevee personalities and celebrity chefs are dished and dissected.

In the chapter Go Ask Alice, Tony serves up the back story to Alice Water's now famous crusade to "revolutionize" the White House kitchen and garden and why her hypocrisy was so offensive. He takes her to task for not having voted in 40-some years, but having the nerve to dictate a kitchen & staff she had not bothered to consider. He asks if her ideal world were to be realized, who would be willing to get up at 5am to gather those delicate local vegetables that all might eat organic, regional food in season?
But even by the end of this rant, he concludes that the world is a better place for her bringing attention to the way our food is produced and consumed.

Perhaps the most scathing chapter is Alan Richman is a Douchebag, where he writes of their long standing feud, and how Richman came to write an ugly review of the restaurant Bourdain used to work at 10 years earlier. But that is not what makes Richman a douchebag in his eyes. It is the snarky review of the New Orleans food scene soon after Katrina which draws his hatred. The article isn't available online, but the responses to it sure are.

Bourdain is equally unflinching in self-examination. He realizes how lucky he has been, and that the path through his early addictions surely brought him to this place. He is giddily happy with life now, and the reason for that is his two year old daughter. Parenthood will change all perspectives. He revels in being un-cool while utterly, devotingly doting on this miracle in his life. I recommend his "Black Ops" chapter Lower Education to any parent wishing to counteract the insidious propaganda of McDonald's on young minds.

Anthony Bourdain also has a challenge for all you would be foodies. Answer this question on his website and you might just get picked by him to be published in the paperback edition of Medium Raw:
Medium Raw is available from Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Department of Book Reports: The Backlash

2010-08-28T12:08:00.000-07:00

With Glenn Beck and his minions marauding around D.C. this weekend, I wanted to point out a new book by Will Bunch entitled The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama (Harper $26.00). The book will be released on Tuesday, August 31st, so I haven't had a chance to read it yet. However, I know and loved Bunch's previous book, Tear Down This Myth: The Right-Wing Distortion of the Reagan Legacy ( Free Press $16.00).

Bunch shows us in The Backlash that the these Right-Wingers : Think Obama Isn't an American Citizen. They think Obama wants to put Americans into Concentration Camps. They think Obama is the Anit-Christ.

I am very anxious to read this book. It will be available, of course, at Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Five years ago, Hurricanes Katrina and Ike highlighted the importance of protecting the environment in order to protect communities. Louisiana’s natural lines of defense – barrier islands, swamps, and wetlands – disappear at the rate of one football field every 45 minutes, leaving communities more vulnerable to future storms. Now, BP’s crude is clearly making matters worse. Gulf Restoration Network is working with event organizers throughout the country to build a nationwide call for a commitment to restoring and protecting the Gulf.

We'll be screening the movie at Lacamas Hall in Second Life, Monday 5pm (PDT or SLT) one of nearly 200 similar events throughout the country, locals will come together in support of the Gulf of Mexico’s people, places, and wildlife to commemorate the 5th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Catastrophic wetlands loss leaves New Orleans and other coastal communities more vulnerable to hurricanes like Katrina, and now BP’s oil disaster continues to impact an already imperiled ecosystem.

Defend the Gulf Movie Screening and Discussion, featuring a compilation of short films designed to educate and inspire that includes the world premier of “Terrebonne,” a family drama set in Louisiana's swamps, a hilarious mockumentary by the creator of Mr. Bill, the compelling and award-winning home by Matt Faust, GRN's Gulf Tides series covering the BP oil disaster, and more.
For more info: www.healthygulf.org

Department of Book Reports: An Ocean Between Us

2010-08-21T00:37:00.000-07:00

An Ocean Between Us, by Evelyn Iritani (Morrow, 1994)
We all know that saying about History repeating itself, and this book from 1994 shows several examples. Evelyn Iritani uses 4 stories to explain Washington states' fascination with all things Japan, and it has really had some resonance for me. She starts out with a story from 1834, when three sailors are ship wrecked off Neah Bay. I had never heard this story before! They were on a cargo ship, the Hojun-maru, limited to Japanese waters when a storm damaged their ship and carried them across the Pacific on the Kuroshio current. Taken as slaves by the Makah tribe, they were rescued by Dr. John McLoughlin, only to have his dreams of bartering them to open trade with Japan denied by the Tokugawa shogunate. They are given 30 coins and left to finally find lives outside Japan.

Next, looking at the early Yellow scares, leads us into the WWII internment of West Coast Japanese. It is here the Fear of the Other is closely echoed in today's treatment of the Mexicans in Arizona and elsewhere. Little was known of the actual attempted attacks by the Japan Army, their successful balloon campaign that killed a woman and 3 children in Blye,OR. Across the ocean, the Ohkuno Island Toxic Gas Factory employed school girls to build elaborate paper mache balloons that could drift across the Pacific with bombs as their payload. Following up with these students, Iritani tells us of the 50 year later reunions of these school girls and the families in Oregon.

In 1990, a Chinese tanker collides with a Japanese fishing boat, the Tenyo-maru and seventy thousand gallons of crude oil are spilled off the Olympic Peninsula. The local folks volunteer to rake up tar balls on the beach and send oiled birds to Seattle for re-hab. The fines in this case were leveled against the Chinese government, not the polluting fishing company company, leading the Makah to distrust the Japanese.

In the final story, we look at the take over of Port Angeles paper mill by the Daishowa company, and the conflicts that occur in a small town during the craze of Japanese Management circles and a time when it seemed their powerful economy was allowing them to buy any old American thing they wanted. The contrasting stories of union activist Dave Hoglund who tries to balance the new company's work styles and Yutaka Mochizuki, who tries to balance bringing his family to this strange new land. In this case, the new management was able to put money into long neglected facilities, that ultimately benefitted the workers and the town. Ironically, the mill was powered by cheap electricity from the salmon-decimating dam on the Elwha, now scheduled to be removed.

Throughout this book, I kept seeing much of the hysteria that is too prevalent now. I hope we will move past today's angst, and our better sides will prevail. In today's Washington state, kids adore Japan and all its trappings. I saw kids in Seattle studying Japanese and dutifully practicing their kanji . Our own son went to Tokyo with 2 other students for a field trip. I always found Chinatown & Japantown to be the most vibrant shopping districts, with the best Fruit & Veg stands, anywhere. Far from being a feared, reviled part of the populace, Japan has conquered the kids hearts and minds. And that is a good thing.

UPDATE: I was afraid I may have engaged in a bit of hyperbole in writing this book report. And then I saw this.

Here's something you all may be able to help us with. I'd like to rent this storefront, and have a tiny little bookstore. Thing is, I need some opening moneys. Rent is cheap, and I do think it can be recouped. But what's most exciting is a chance to have a bookstore in our local community. Much as I love the internets, there is nothing that replaces putting a book into someone's hands. I'd really like it if you bought a bunch of books, but if you're able to, and so inclined, a donation to our paypal will get you our undying loyalty.
I'm trying to figure out a bookstore membership format, that will get you a discount on orders. I'm fully aware that bookselling is a dinosaur in our current society and job force. I'm just crazy enough to love and want to continue doing it.

Please order your books from Jackson Street Books.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.

Department of Book Reports: A History of Western Philosophy

2010-08-14T07:30:00.000-07:00

A History of Western Philosophy
Bertrand Russell, 1945, Simon & Schuster, NY, New York
A book report by jcricket

A good many years ago, an essay entitled "Why I Am Not a Christian" immediately got my attention. That was my introduction to the expressed thoughts of Bertrand Russell.

The same mind has produced many great works, including our selection for today, A History of Western Philosophy. Russell, a twentieth century philosopher, logician and social critic, gives us one of the best one-volume tomes ever produced of our reverence for the human mind. It's one of the best perhaps, because Russell, of all people, understood that blathering on and on in multiple volumes about how much he knows would bore a thinking person to tears. Or, at least into closing the book in exasperation and then using it as a conspicuous prop to impress visitors.

Instead Russell, as he does in all his work, uses that famous British sense of understatement and his dry wit to give us human insight to the Western Philosophical Greats and the institutions whose foundations were built by them. That he knows when to shut up and move on makes this an unusually entertaining history of ancient, catholic, and modern philosophy.

At the time of publication the book was panned by many of his contemporaries as being biased towards philosophers with whom he had an affinity, as being vulgar, and of being not historical enough. Russell himself said "I did my best but am not sure at all if I succeeded. I was sometimes accused by reviewers of not writing a true history, but a biased account of the events that I arbitrarily chose to write about. But to my mind, a man without bias cannot write interesting history - if indeed, such a man exists."

And in the capable hands of Bertrand Russell, an interesting history it is:

Of Plato and Aristotle,
"Aristotle's metaphysics, roughly speaking, may be described as Plato diluted by common sense. He is difficult because Plato and common sense do not mix easily."

and of Gregory VII,
"After he became Pope, he believed himself to be the mouthpiece of St. Peter. This gave him a degree of self confidence which, on a mundane calculation, was not justified."

While it definitely qualifies as a scholarly work, A History of Western Philosophy cannot be accused of being "dry" reading. As a matter of fact, Russell's style is THE centerpiece of any of his works. If you can't lay your hands on a copy of AHoWP, then really anything written by Bertrand Russell would bring the same smile to your lips at the turn of a phrase or the candid humanity with which he interprets of the lives of history's Larger-Than-Life characters.

And of course, it is always recommended that you peruse your favorite Indie bookstore for your literary passions (in this case, the works of Bertrand Russell).

Order books from Jackson Street Books and other fine Independent bookstores.As always, books ordered here will have a freebie publishers Advance Reading Copy included as a thank you to our blogosphere friends.