Meet author Crystal Marcos

Kitsap Peninsula author, Crystal Marcos will read and sign her two children's books, BELLYACHE and HEADACHE
at Books On 7th

Saturday, July 14, 3 to 5 pm.


BELLYACHE: A Delicious Tale nominated for the 2010 CYBILS Awards, appeared in South Sound Magazine, and appeared in the first ever Publisher's Weekly PW Select. In the vein of Roald Dahl’s best-loved adventures, Marcos offers a mystical, character driven escapade that intertwines strands of reality with a larger-than-life fantasy world. When Peter Fischer sets out to help his grandfather at Papa’s Sweet Shop, he will quickly learn that sneaking sweets and covering up his sugar-dusted tracks will have major consequences. The magical adventure continues in the spine-tingling fantasy-adventure, HEADACHE: The Hair-Raising Sequel to BELLYACHE! Crystal Marcos delivers another whimsically entertaining escapade for ages seven and up. Readers will delight in more sit-on-the-edge-of-your-seat, non-stop action adventures of Peter and his best friend, Lina.

Books On 7th is located at 315 7th Street, in the 7th Street Theatre building in Hoquiam. 360-533-3157 bookson7th@gmail.com

Calling in sick

I had planned on telling you about Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter, but I've been felled by the nasty cold Dan had all last week. I'll write more on this wonderful book which NPR called "a literary miracle"



 Be well. What are you reading this week?

ALPHA

Alpha by Greg Rucka (Mulholland Books, $24.99) Alpha is the first of a projected trilogy by the incredibly talented Greg Rucka. Here we meet Jad Bell, retired Delta Force operator, Master Sergeant now returned from the Middle East and divorced, has taken a high level security job at the world's largest theme park, WilsonVille. A Russian sleeper agent has taken a job at the park and his team has released a deadly botulinum toxin into the park and threaten their hostages with a dirty bomb. Of course, in a world crafted by Greg, there will be more, much more.


This past week Greg wrote about his research and sets the record straight about 10 amusement park disasters at HuffPo.


Rucka's novels are always dense and tightly packed with action. If you like a fast paced thriller these are just the books for you. If you prefer strong characters and believable plot lines, you won't be disappointed.

One thing I heard at each and every autographing was

Q: How do you write such strong/well-realized/positively portrayed women? 

A: I don’t. I write characters. Some of those characters are women.

~as he explains to io9.

 I first found Greg's books when I worked at the Mystery Shop, someone had traded in the first 2 books and I needed something to read at lunch. I started Keeper and at the end of my lunch came out and grabbed the copy of Finder, and said these are mine, I want them both! I was immediately hooked.

Keeper is set in Portland OR, at a Women's Health Clinic which has been bombed. After having read some other authors use the issue of abortion as an exploitation to justify violence and male privilege, I was stunned at the depth and perception of a male writer speaking to women's issues with such compassion. Here at last was a guy who got it, the threats, the soul searching decisions and most importantly, the choice.

 The Atticus & Brigit series are highly recommended as are all of Greg's work. I'd really compare his work to Dennis Lehane for gripping storylines and fully realized characters.

When I first brought home these novels, my son saw the author and said "oh, yeah, Rucka. I like his comics." Huh?? Turns out, he's a pretty big deal in the Comic Universe too.

 Alpha is available at (Jackson Street) Books On 7th and fine independent bookstores everywhere.

Butterfly in the Typewriter

Butterfly in the Typewriter The Tragic Life of John Kennedy Toole and the Remarkable Story of A Confederacy of Dunces by Cory MacLauchlin ($26.00, Da Capo) Yesterday I was catching up on the latest publishing news when I saw an article about the possibility of a movie finally being produced from the book, A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole. I have to admit, I only read COD this past winter, and became an instant fan. The report referenced from Shelf Awareness, mentions James Bobin (Flight of the Conchords, The Muppets), producer Scott Rudin and Paramount Pictures, and that Zach Galifianakis will have the role of Ignatius Reilly. What caught my eye, however was this comment:

"Well--considering the history I think they are aware of the pitfalls in this project and how passionate COD fans are. If you are interested in the true story behind the novel, the real-life characters behind Ignatius Reilly, Myrna Minkoff, Irene Reilly, etc--my book just came out....Butterfly in the Typewriter: The Tragic Life of John Kennedy Toole and the Remarkable Story of A Confederacy of Dunces (Da Capo Press)."

Of course, it didn't take long for the self-appointed spam police to show up, but I had the author's name and soon had the title included in my wholesaler order for the weekend. I haven't had time to explore it yet, but the parts I've sampled are a delight.

I don't know much about the back story here, but I think it'll be a real treat to get to know Thelma Toole. MacLauchlin's research and devotion to his subject shine through.
He was the biographer of this documentary John Kennedy Toole: the omega point

The moral of this story is sometimes reading comments has it's rewards, and the spam is tasty!

Butterfly in the Typewriter and A Confederacy of Dunces are available at Jackson Street Books and fine independent Bookstores everywhere.

The Gaze of the Gazelle

The Gaze of the Gazelle: The Story of a Generation By Arash Hejazi (Seagull Books, $21.95)

امروز، سی خرداد، ساعت 7 بعد از ظهر این دختر جوان توسط لباس شخصی ها کشته شد 

 Basij shots to death a young woman in Tehran's Saturday June 20th protests

At 19:05 June 20thPlace: Karekar Ave., at the corner crossing Khosravi St. and Salehi st.
A young woman who was standing aside with her father watching the protests was shot by a basij member hiding on the rooftop of a civilian house. He had clear shot at the girl and could not miss her. However, he aimed straight her heart. I am a doctor, so I rushed to try to save her. But the impact of the gunshot was so fierce that the bullet had blasted inside the victim's chest, and she died in less than 2 minutes.The protests were going on about 1 kilometers away in the main street and some of the protesting crowd were running from tear gass used among them, towards Salehi St.The film is shot by my friend who was standing beside me.

.

I saw this message on Twitter. I don't know if it was Saturday for us, or Sunday, but I was riveted. I found and followed people on the ground in Iran. People who have disappeared, and I've not seen them again. I had been reading about the protests, so far away as to be unreal, over there.

And then, I saw the video and I was complicit in this, this insurgence? this revolution? I couldn't know what it was, but this young woman had just died for it and I really should know why. I read as widely as I could on the internet, and we were able to have international discussions in Second Life, but this book is what has opened up the history leading up to Neda's death to me.

Arash Hejazi was the doctor who rushed to Neda's side and tried to stop her life from seeping away onto the street. Here he gives us his family story, interlaced with Iran's history. Originally studying to become a doctor, Hejazi self-published his own novel and then went on to found a publishing company that would ask Paulo Coelho for reprint rights in Iran, which was unheard of for a country under sanctions and embargoes. Coelho accepted and toured Iran, leading to more scrutiny of Hejazi and his bookselling. Their friendship is both a blessing and a danger.

The bravery of the author is the moment he hits send. His co-worker has filmed Neda's death and last breath. His face is clearly seen. They have no battery left on the cell phone to blur his face. They can only send to a couple friends as the internet connections jam and stall.

He types "Please let the world know." and hits send.

This is the book I've been wanting to read since I saw that light slip away from Neda's eyes.

The Gaze of the Gazelle is available at Jackson Street Books and fine independent bookstores everywhere.

I do want to take a moment & talk about the publisher, Seagull Books. I don't know when I have held such fine volumes.

The signatures are stitched(!) stitched! and gathered into fine editions. Our beloved Sales Rep also sent us their catalog. I didn't know that's what it was, and I put off taking it out of it's hermetically sealed baggie. This Silk cloth covered hard cover had pristine Gold Leaf all around. The book is an exuberance from the art department and booksellers, authors and lovers of fine printed matter. I delighted in finding local bookseller's essays included.

When so many others chose to put their flimsy glossy catalogs online, here is a publisher that proudly prints vital books, about astounding topics, on paper. And makes it look better than it ever did. I look forward to more from them.

Inside the Secret World of Librarians: Truth Like The Sun

Last week, Dan and I were invited to sell books at the annual day-long conference for the Friends of Timberland Library, and the Board of directors.

Jim Lynch was to be their keynote speaker, and we were delighted to get to hear him again.

We've been fans since his first book, The Highest Tide, a YA novel that won the NW Bookseller's Award. A quirky coming of age story, set here along Mud Bay of Puget Sound, it magically captures the flora and fauna of the Sound.

Border Songs won both the Bookseller's Award and the Washington State Book Award. I told you about Border Songs back in a January book report.

Here's the bookseller's perspective.

After reading a few selections and taking about the writing of Truth Like The Sun, Jim stayed and signed copies for the librarians. They were avid fans, and scooped up multiple copies at times with inscriptions for their intended gifts. All of Jim's titles are like that: once you read them you want to press them upon everyone you know.

Truth Like The Sun, by Jim Lynch (Knopf $25.95) The book opens on the night before the opening of Seattle's World's Fair, in April of 1962. The young civic genius, Roger Morgan who had sketched this iconic design on a cocktail napkin is toasting the crowd:

“Can I get a moment of silence here?” As the room settles, he takes everything in—the strange gleaming faces and lopsided chandeliers, the counterclockwise drift of the lights below, the bright-lipped brunette seemingly modeling ringless fingers for him. He waits a few more beats. “We are simultaneously at the end of something challenging and magnificent and at the beginning of something challenging and magnificent. So let’s commit this moment to memory, okay? Look around. Remember what our city looked like on this night from up here. Remember how young we all were.” He leans back to milk the laughter. “Remember this moment,” he insists, “before the eyes of the world take a good long look at us.”

(read the rest of the chapter here.)

Alternating chapters show the young Morgan and his 70 year old self in 2001, now running for mayor. His glad-handing style is effortless, and he manages to charm everyone in the early primaries. Helen Gulanos is a tough reporter, newly hired by the ailing Post Intelligencer, who is determined to make her name by digging up the dirt on this candidate.

The Seattle caught on these pages is pitch perfect. The boom of the early 60s contrasts with the bust of the 2000s dot-coms. I was very much reminded of Fred Moody's Seattle & the Demons of Ambition, so it made me smile to see that quote at the start of the book. This is a great read you'll enjoy spending time in. 

As to the title? You'll just have to wait to page 148 for that. I'll just say "Elvis". It becomes a fitting metaphor for what each of these characters would rather not have exposed.

Jim Lynch's books are available at Jackson Street Books (signed!) and fine booksellers everywhere.


One final picture, the signing was held at Ocasta High School in Westport, and while I'm sure their mascot is simply bundled up to protect from winter damage, I had the get a picture of the Masked Wildcat.

Like Any Normal Day

Like Any Normal Day by Mark Kram, Jr. (St. Martin's $25.95) While this is Mark Kram's first book, he has been an award-winning author at the Philadelphia Daily News and has been included in The Best American Sports Writing Anthology 6 times. Here he brings us the story of a family whose lives are completely changed in 1973, when their son and brother was paralyzed in a football scrimmage. 

Buddy Miley was the star quarterback for William Tennent high school when he was tackled and left a paraplegic. Buddy's younger brother becomes even more devoted to him, and his mother tirelessly takes care of him. Jimmy cheers him up, assists him on getting around and even taking him to Lourdes, in hopes of a cure. Later, Jimmy will take Buddy on quite another trip. Jimmy postpones following his own promising baseball career to stay with his brother, turning down two major league drafts and finally dropping out of his third chance after 6 months. 

 From the very beginning the much loved football star is helped by their community, with high school bake sales and local construction companies donating the materials and labor to add an accessible addition to the family home. 

 The is an amazing story of family love, written with a great honesty and tenderness. The reader is told at the beginning of Buddy and Jimmy's final trip together, to visit Dr. Kevorkian when Buddy decides to end his life. It is a story that will make you examine your own feeling about assisted suicide, but you won't regret reading the story of the Miley family. 

 Mark was given great access to the family to tell this story, he had written about Buddy in 1993, having read a letter Buddy's mom had written to Sports Illustrated. He stayed in touch with them over the years. Kram even interviewed Dr. Kevorkian just before his death. Here's a recent radio interview with Kram and Jimmy Miley. 

I would like to thank Anne Johnson, my friend from The Gods Are Bored, for pointing out her dear hubby's publication. Congratulations, Mark! and Thank You for telling this story. 

 Like Any Normal Day is available at Jackson Street Books, and fine booksellers everywhere.

Department of Book Reports:Lee Child

Well, we have been on a hiatus, but now we are back and ready to report on books and more books. Hope you didn't miss us too much.



For some time, I have been urged, especially by SeattleTammy, to pick up one of Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels. At long last, I have and I regret that I have not done so sooner. Lee Child writes one helluva good book.

The book I picked up to start is The Hard Way. Jack Reacher had been a US army military policeman, but now is a drifter, a bit of a loner. On a hot New York city summer evening, while working on a coffee at an outdoor cafe, he witnesses a man open a car door and drive away. Unknown to him at the time, inside the car is a one million dollar ransom. The next night, at the same cafe, Reacher becomes involved in trying to solve a kidnapping plot. Edward Lane, a man who operates a Blackwater type mercenary outfit, has had his wife and step-daughter taken from him and he will stop at nothing to get them back. And it seems that Reacher is the man to do it. Along the way, Reacher finds out more and more about Lane but finds he cannot back out. The novel reaches the climax in a small northern English town; Lee Child himself is from England, but he knows America and Americans.

The Hard Way is quite the thriller. Child tells the story well, with sharply drawn characters, and a keen sense of place. Post 9/11 New York also becomes a character, and the descriptions of place are vivid. This particular novel is told from the third person, although I am told some of the Reacher novels use a first person narrative as well. I am set to devour the series, of which there are now 18.

His novel One Shot, another Jack Reacher, has been filmed and is due for release in December. The casting has been controversial inasmuch as couch-hopping Tom Cruise has been cast as Reacher. It is controversial not so much because of Cruise's off screen personae, but because he really doesn't look much like the way Child has described him. In the books, Reacher is described as a tall, large man, neither of which fits Cruise much at all. But that's Hollywood for you. I hope the film does the book some justice. The Hard Way is certainly cinematic in its reading. In any event, check Lee Child out if you haven't already. My guess is you probably have, and I am the last person to have discovered the Jack Reacher novels.


Finally, last year we told you about Jonathan Evison's wonderful novel, West of Here. We are glad to report the book has won the Pacific Northwest Bookseller's Award. It is now available in paperback from Jackson Street Books and other fine independent booksellers. Give yourself a treat and read it.

Department of Book Reports: Travel the Whole Earth with Charley

I've always meant to get around to reading Travels with Charley, and this week I jealously clutched a copy before putting it on the shelf. What a delightful road trip!

Mr. Steinbeck & the ever faithful French poodle Charley embark our country's highways in September, 1960 to see the "real America" once more. Between getting lost on the highways, our road warriors eat in diners with identical cellophane wrapped food and occasionally chat with the locals.

 "The best way to attract attention, help, and conversation is to be lost. A man who seeing his mother starving to death on a path kicks her in the stomach to clear the way, will cheerfully devote several hours of his time to giving wrong directions to a total stranger who claims to be lost."

 The nightly campsites and reminiscence of the locales give this book it's soul. It is a love story to a countryside that no longer exists, but it's so lovely to linger there a while. There are also quite a lot of politics. This was the time of the JFK election and Mr Kruschev banging his shoe.

We've gotten in a nice copy of a book I haven't seen in decades- The Whole Earth Catalog! For the younger folks in the audience, this is what we looked at before there were internet tubes. Don't believe me?

"When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960′s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions." ~Steve Jobs 2005

It's delightful to open this to any page. This copy is "The Last" edition printed in 1972, and since it was stored in an attic for many years, it is surprisingly bright newsprint paper not toned by sunlight. The fragile cover does show some wear, but the pages are still bound in a tight, clean text block.

Department of Book Reports: Chickens

It's getting to be Gardening season again, and I've heard folks talking about adding Chickens. I have stocked up on a few titles (sorry! Barnyard in Your Backyard sold before this post!) Not only will chickens add to your Nitrate content, also, you would have eggs! Chickens in Your Backyard is a very good beginner guide, and Raising Poultry is much more in-depth and technical. My favorite title is Hen and the Art of Chicken Maintenance, which will charm anyone considering keeping yard birds.

Chickens in Your Backyard has it's own "Stuff Found In Books" entry on the bookstores FB page, and Raising Poultry has some old news clippings tucked in.

Awesome Local Author News: Jeff Billingame has won the NAACP Image Award for his biography of Jesse Owens, I Love to Run (Enslow, $23.95) The book is published by an academic/library press, and I can't find a way to offer it for sale. You'd be best to buy direct from the publisher and not the Evil Empire who wants $28-30 some dollars for it. That's how they roll. It's unfortunate that I cannot carry a local author's book in my store. These situations are like text book sales. Perhaps I might could find you a copy at a greater price than you can get it from the source, but I'd rather you click and help keep that publisher going.

What's on your nightstand this week?

Stuff Found in Books

A.K.A. Bookmarks. I've been posting these over on Facebook , and Ike just said "this would make a great blog!" okay, I have a blog... I'll put them here too. Enjoy! And, I would love submissions!

This receipt has launched a whole Tower Books group. Holler if you want to be included.

"Genetic Criticism -Authors bring out reality in order to face it and deal w/it."

Department of Book Reports: Everybody Loves Our Towns

I thought I'd talk about a couple books set in towns I love, but you don't need to be a fan to fall in love with these volumes. First up, Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge by Mark Yarm (Crown, $25)  Mark Yarm is a former editor at Blender and spent 2 years researching and conducting 250 interviews to give a remarkable history of a pre-Starbucks, pre-Microsoft Seattle, a time and music that ended too soon. Chuck Palahniuk's Cult blog has an interview with Yarm about the bands and of course, Courtney Love.  

This book has some great never-before published photos, like Soundgarden in 1994 and Candlebox impersonating you know who in 1995.

Wildwood by Colin Meloy and illustrated by Carson Ellis (HarperCollins, $17.99) Wildwood is a real place, an Impassable Wilderness in Portland, OR. Colin Meloy, the lead singer for the Decemberists and his wife Carson Ellis have crafted a modern fairytale in a city wilderness. A wilderness no one has ever returned from. But when Prue McKeel's little brother is kidnapped by crows she and her friend Curtis must journey into this land of magic and danger to rescue him.    

Department of Book Reports: Border Songs

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

More here.

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

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

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.