Monthly Archives: August 2007

Hot-lanta Here I Come

I’m off tomorrow to visit my parents in Atlanta for the holiday weekend. It promises to be both sweaty and relaxing. Not sure what books I’m brining with me yet. I’ve got a lot of good looking galleys sitting next to me. And of course, I’m already getting lots of stuff for the Winter—I haven’t even finished reading the Fall stuff yet. Maybe I’ll bring Denis Johnson’s new book Tree of Smoke. It’s got a rave front page review in this Sunday’s New York Times Book Review. Or I could bring Benjamin Percy’s short story collection Refresh, Refresh and The Translation of Dr. Apelles: A Love Story by David Treuer. Both look like excellent books from Graywolf. The possibilities seem endless.

Also, I wanted to mention how much I loved Diane Ackerman’s new book The Zookeeper’s Wife. You’re probably thinking, great, another World War II biography. People behaving heroically and all that. This is much better than that. It’s the story of Jan Zabinski, the director of the Warsaw zoo, and his wife Antonina, who used the zoo as a refuge for Jews during the occupation. It reads like a novel and paints a harrowing portrait of what Warsaw must have been like during the war. I really enjoyed it and am looking foward to the her reading at my store on September 19th.

I should mention that we’ve announced our September events. It’s a stellar season. I’m most excited about Junot Diaz on September 12th and David Leavitt on September 24th. I know Mark really likes his new book Indian Summer. Perhaps I’ll bring that with me on the plane. October will bring even more great authors here to Cambridge, including Orhan Pamuk, Jim Shepard, Paul Krugman, and Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. It’s an amazing Fall for books.

Away by Amy Bloom

I had some time yesterday, as I had to go down to the RMV to register the new bike I got last week. As always, the visit to the Registry of Motor Vehicles gave me over an hour of reading time while I sat waiting for my number to be called. Luckily I had the foresight to bring a copy of Amy Bloom’s new novel Away with me. Janet Maslin raved about this book last week, calling it “gloriously transporting” and “alive with incident and unforgettable characters”—all within the first two sentences mind you—among other things.

This is the story of Lillian Leyb, a 22 year old Russian immigrant, who finds herself on the streets of New York after her parents, husband and daughter are killed in one of Russia’s pogroms in the mid 1920s. Lillian takes charge and though she barely speaks English, she forges to the head of the line of seamstresses applying for jobs at the Goldfadn Yiddish Theatre. She becomes mistress to head actor Meyer Burnstein and also to his father Reuben, owner of the theater. When a long lost cousin arrives, bearing news that her daughter Sophie is still alive in Russia, only her friend tailor/actor/playwright Yaakov Shimmelman helps her begin the journey.

This is not another sad tale of immigrant experience in America. Most of the novel follows Lillian on her return journey to Russia. It’s sort of a reverse pilgrimage. Along the way, she meets all sorts of interesting characters who help her on her journey. Bloom also lets you know what happens to each character after Lillian leaves them, which is a nice touch. I found the novel completely engrossing—I forgot I was sitting at the RMV after all. It’s a remarkable book, not only because the book’s pace moves quickly enough to be called a page turner but also because Bloom employs gorgeous language throughout.

Katha Pollitt Tells it Like it Is

I don’t talk directly about politics often. It’s not often that I read something that makes me want to mention it. I read this Katha Pollit article from The Nation and couldn’t help but yell ‘Sing it sister!’ in my mind (so as not to disturb my boss who sits a few feet away). My favorite part:

“Many of those who correctly anticipated catastrophe did so not by exercising judgment but by indulging in ideology,” Ignatieff writes. “They opposed the invasion because they believed the President was only after the oil or because they believed America is always and in every situation wrong.”

Excuse me while I set myself on fire. I remember the run-up to the invasion very well, and “It’s all about oil” and “America is always wrong” were hardly the major arguments on the table. Since Ignatieff must know this–surely he listened to Mark Danner and Robert Scheer when he teamed with Hitchens to debate them at UCLA–his calumny is not only self-serving, it’s disingenuous.

Bloggers on the Radio

Max of the Millions was on the Weekend Edition this past Sunday recommending some excellent books:

I’ve read three of the five recommended. I’ve never read any Doctorow and have been wanting to read the Mutis for a while. I even sat and read the first 40 pages at City Lights back in May, but for some reason put it back on the shelf. I can’t remember why I put it back. Seems so stupid to me now.

Jamestown Week

We’re kicking off Jamestown week at the LBC. I’m pretty excited, since I’m the one who nominated this book (this means my reading taste rules). I posted about reading this book back in March. I had said that it was one of the best books I’ve read this year—and it still is, months later. I’ve read a lot of books since then (look here), but not many books have Sharpe’s inventiveness and skill.

I’ve been trying to pinpoint what about this book I liked so much. I find it really hard to describe coherently what I enjoy when I read. It’s almost as if I lack the right language. There are many things to appreciate about this book—the language, the pathos, the various characters—but I suppose it all came down to it’s believability. Yes, everything felt real to me when I read this book. I know it’s a fantastical novel, but I could imagine it.
Antoher thing I respect about Sharpe is that he stuck with Soft Skull for Jamestown. Many authors, after some success with smaller publishers, jump ship to the larger houses. I understand their reasoning, but I appreciate loyaltly to a small, but great press. So Sharpe rates high in my book.

This week we’ll be hearing from various folks, including Richard Nash of Soft Skull and Matthew Sharpe himself. I hope people check in daily and are encouraged enough to go read this book.