You Can Judge This One by The Cover

The paperback edition of the magical short story collection The View From the Seventh Layer by Kevin Brockmeier, flapped about in January of last year, landed yesterday.

The new cover is exquisite - its dark, beautiful, imaginative visage perfectly reflects the content inside. The painting that graces it, "Library", is part of a 'city without humans' series of paintings titled "The City" by Lori Nix. I highly recommend checking her out. She has an eye for disaster, nature and tableaux that is to be rivaled by few.

Also, the Fall 2008 issue of The Cream City Review (Volume 32, Issue 2) features a lengthy interview with Brockmeier, covering everything from writing to philosophy to fancy dijon mustard commercial reenactments.

2008 Pages (list version)

In honor of end of year lists, here are a few 2008 lists about books.

Five Books I...

...Read & Loved (Newly Published in 2008)

1. The Tsar's Dwarf by Peter H. Fogtdal
2. The View From the Seventh Layer by Kevin Brockmeier
3. Serena by Ron Rash
4. City of Thieves by David Benioff
5. Outlander by Gil Adamson

...Read & Loved (published prior to 2008)

1. Selected Poems (1945-2005) by Robert Creeley
2. Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford
3. Poachers by Tom Franklin
4. No Shortcuts to the Top by Ed Viesturs
5. Herland by Charlotte Perkins-Gilman

...Intended To Read, Really Wanted To, But Didn't

1. 2666 by Roberto Bolano
2. Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
3. Burning Down the House by Charles Baxter
4. Other Colors by Orhan Pamuk
5. Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

...Think Look Good That Other People Read

1. Machine by Peter Adolphsen
2. As a Friend by Forrest Gander
3. Farther Along by Donald Harrington
4. The Invention of Morel by Alfredo Bioy Casare
5. A Better Angel by Chris Adrian

Scratchy Recordings

I have a confession to make. I love music that is scratchy and recorded on a single audio channel. I grumble whenever a new Nina Simone recording is "remastered" to sound clean and crisp. Much of the allure of old music is to hear it as it was heard when it first came alive. Not that I don't appreciate the clarity in hearing Nina's bold, husky tones and knowing all that scratchiness is in her voice, not the speakers, but some music just sounds better with audio scratches. It's true.

So when co-worker and avid Oxford American reader/subscriber Carl Hoffman* showed me the heavy tome that is The Oxford American Book of Great Music Writing, all I had to do was scan the table of contents to know this was all I wanted for Christmas.

Contributors include Tom Piazza, William Gay, Kevin Brockmemier, Michael Perry, Roy Blount Jr., Beth Ann Fennelly, R. Crumb, Rosanne Cash, Steve Martin, a poem by Billy Collins and a short story by Ron Rash.

It gets better! How about diverse artists and themes such as Iris DeMent, R&B, The Allman Brothers, Lynrd Skynrd, family, Doc Watson, rockabilly, Eartha Kitt, Blind Tom Wiggins, southern heavy metal, Bessie Smith, Leadbelly and the Banjo.

On second thought, if $34.95 is more like the kind of cash money you need for groceries or to get mom some trinkets for Hanukkah, there is another option. And this one includes two CDs with 55 tracks!!

For $9.99, you can pick up Oxford American's annual music issue. It's a special treat.

There is a six-page piece by Kevin Brockmeier about little known folk music duo Elton & Betty White. Betty was 31 years Elton's senior, but that didn't stop this interracial couple from wandering around Little Rock and then Venice Beach in bathing suits and sequins playing keyboard and ukulele while singing songs about sex and love, but primarily about sex. While you may snicker at songs titled "I'm in Love With Your Behind" or "Climaxation is a Sweet Sensation" or "Menopause Mama", the piece is full of biographical information, sentimental childhood discovery, but mostly it's a lot of heart and sweetness and light.

In "I Hate to See You Go" we hear the standard issue blues sound of Little Walter as he moans about his woman leaving him, how badly he wants her back while humming into his little mouth harp (aka harmonica). But something about the sounds he makes and the simple drum line underneath it all has your heart aching with Little Walter and longing to hear more. The writing that corresponds with this song is nearly as brief and mostly talks about what a musical genius Walter was and it seems that with all his hits, he still got lost behind names like Muddy Waters. Everyone knows Muddy Waters, but who is Little Walter? Interestingly enough, the new movie Cadillac Records features a fictionalized Little Walter and he may just get his name on the charts one more time.

Not everyone is from the era of "scratchy recordings"** as indicated in the essay by Downer Schwartz bookseller favorite Jack Pendarvis. Pendarvis stalks Neko Case and his telling of this brief foray into tour bus life with a messy-haired, t-shirt wearing Neko who complains about her e-mails being uninteresting, is spirited and delightful. There is also a brief piece on the depth and beauty of Neko's solo music as well, for those of you who want serious music writing as opposed to a travelogue that will make you giggle with glee.

If you need a sneak preview (whatever you do, DO NOT open the plastic covered magazine at a store to peek at the insides of the magazine unless you really plan on buying it), check out OA editor Marc Smirnoff's liner notes for both of the two CDs included with the issue. Read some of these snippets and you will run right out and pick this bad boy up, take it home, pour it a nice single malt scotch and cozy up with it in front of the fireplace.

While most of the music is "old", the writings and perspectives are still fresh and bright. This is music that will have you closing your eyes, tapping your toes, uttering a few intermittent "mmm mmms" and dreaming of warm breezes and tall glasses of sweet tea.

*A big thank you to Carl Hoffman for his passion and excitement, without which I wouldn't have the aduitory and reading pleasure I am currently experiencing with the OA Southern Music Issue. I owe you one!

**"The Oxford American covers old music...mainly...though not exclusively. I would feel badly, I hope, if our looking back contributed to people ignoring great contemporary music. <...> My point is, simply, that there's room for a publication or CD that focuses on scratchy recordings. It's called variety."
-from Editor's Box: Baby I Love You by Marc Smirnoff, OA #63

City of Thieves

by Sarah Marine 2007 was the second year in a row that I ended with reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Having spent the bulk of the 365 days engrossed in all works by Dean Young, Rebecca Solnit and a variety of other poetic and non-fictional tomes, I found it quite difficult to transition into a proper novel, and I'm sure you all know what it's like grasping for palpable literature in the wake of McCarthy. Swiping City of Thieves from Stacie's events shelf was easy enough- no alarms or barking dogs- and upon taking it home, devoured it. I literally sat on the couch and refused to eat or respond to Dr. Godsave until completing the frantic read. It wasn't until then that I realized what I had been missing with the novel. City of Thieves was fantastic in resisting the writers-workshop-bred urge to thinly experiment with form and narrative. The book was fun and exciting and I couldn't put it down. Now, I am aware that if someone was recommending a book to me and used the words "fun", "exciting", "couldn't put it down", I would avoid the thing at all costs. City of Thieves, however, was all of those things, minus a love story, set in the center of a starving city and just plain SMART. David Benioff has clearly benefitted from his screenwriting experience, incorporating a cinematic feel to the action, which is again and again refreshed by the imagination and comfortable circumference of the story. The only comparison I can think to draw is to Jeanette Winterson's The Passion. I really enjoyed this book, and am willing to admit that I have read it twice. --------------------------------------- More on City of Thieves by Jay Johnson David Benioff, author of The 25th Hour, which was made into a movie by Spike Lee, visited our Downer Ave. bookshop on Wednesday, May 21 in support of City of Thieves.  Our good friend (and customer) Tim was there to record it.  Check out the audio on his blog.   City of Thieves is an impossible to put down story partly based on David's grandfather's real experiences during World War II, but bleak as the story can be it's also funny at times, moving, and honest. Our booksellers have really enjoyed reading City of Thieves, and this is what some of them are saying: "A riveting rush of a journey of finding compassion, humanity and intimacy in the bleak, cold winter days of a dark time in history."- Stacie Williams, Downer Ave. "Be careful. Once you read the preface to this novel plan on spending the rest of the evening with this book. A Russian immigrant, Lev Beniov, finally tells his American grandson, a writer, his incredible story of a week in January 1942 just prior to the siege of Leningrad (Piter). Only Seventeen-years-old, Lev and a new friend avoid immediate execution when they agree to perform a preposterous task, which leads to traveling behind German lines. City of Thieves delivers a difficult and chilling look at the hardships of war, yet friendship, love and even humor are intertwined. The suspense is unrelenting."-Shawn Quinn, Accounting  "During the siege of Leningrad, 17-year-old Lev Beniov is arrested for looting the corpse of a German soldier.  Rather than being executed, he and an Army deserter are spared by a colonel who sends them on a ridiculous mission: to find and bring back a dozen eggs for his daughter's wedding cake.  A terrific coming of age story, a harrowing tale of war and survival, a funny and endearing story of an unlikely friendship; City of Thieves is all of this and more.  What a wonderful book!"-Dave Mallmann, Brookfield

Drowning in Robert Creeley

Robert Creeley: Selected Poems, 1945-2005
edited by Benjamin Friedlander
$21.95, University of California Press

I continue to describe my discovery of the poet Robert Creeley as "drowning". I feel entirely sucked under the weight of his words, despite their simplicity and sameness. A number of his poems stand out for me for reasons having more to do with initial gut reactions than to anything I may or may not know about poetry.

He writes...

of the transience of subtle experiences in Things to Do in Tokyo

Begin at the beginning,
find the end.
Remember everything

forget it. Go on,
and on. Find ecstasy,
forget it.

of longing in A Form of Women

I could not touch you.
I wanted very much to
touch you
but could not.

of enduring love in The Act of Love

How dear
you are

to me, how love-
ly all your body is, how

all these
senses do
commingle, so

that in your very
arms I still
can think of you.

And of old age, and impending death in Old Song

I'm feeling ok still in some small way.
I've come too far to just go away.
I wish I could stay here some way.

So that what now comes wouldn't only be more
of what's to be lost. What's left would still leave more
to come if one didn't rush to get there.

Then we have the poem which should be every writer's prayer: End

End of page,
end of this

company -- wee
notebook kept

my mind in hand,
let the world stay

open to me
day after day,

words to say,
things to be.

The number of shining, beautiful poems in this insightful collection is to great to share them all with you here. This is only a taste. Pick it up. Read straight through to experience Creeley's changing perspectives on life, love, loss and eventual aging and death. It is a timeline of a soul that will not leave yours unaffected.

Brockmeier's Multi-Layered Views

You know the moments where the world seems perfect and beautiful precisely because of all it's diversity and faults? When you are plugged into an iPod listening to music while waiting at the airport and everyone appears to move to the music in an odd synchronization? Or when you look out upon a snowy world in all its silent splendor and for a brief second, everything is a glimpse of heaven? Or a split second of utter and complete zen-like happiness descends upon you at the most routine time (showering, eating breakfast, shaving, walking the dog, watching a child at play)?

It is that precise moment when the world is illuminated in a way that you are left breathless; for your heart flutters a few times and it's as if the world is such pure perfection that with one breath you will break its delicate magic spell.

That moment is what it is like to read Kevin Brockmeier's short stories. And his latest collection (The View From the Seventh Layer, arriving March 4, 2008 to an indie bookstore near you) is a shining beacon atop a whitewashed lighthouse of whimsical, haunting, original, perfect, fantastical prose. The stories are hypnotic, mesmerizing whiffs of fantasy blended with the brutal realities of human existence. From a thousand parakeets that mimic the daily sounds of a mute's life to a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure story of mundane proportions. From photos that observe a houseguest's every move and word to a man who buys a thrift store overcoat only to discover the former owner was God and that its pockets spill over with earnest, and frightening, prayers.

Brockmeier's gifts are in his precision writing: Each word carefully placed "just so", and in his effortless way of seeing beauty in the simplest things, the unlikeliest of people. To see the world through his literary windows is to learn to love unconditionally and not take for granted the billions of little things that mosaic our lives.

I know I only taunt readers with this review as you must wait nearly 2 months for this collection to arrive on shelves. But, Dear Reader!, it will be well worth the wait, I promise you! For your reward will be his presence at our Downer Avenue store on March 27th at 7pm. To tide yourself over I suggest reading his last novel (also something very, very special): The Brief History of the Dead. It will be only a taste of the magic that is to come.

Pillars of Oprah's Earth

So, earlier this week Oprah's latest book club selection hit bookstores and the homes of ABC viewers via the large e-tailer-which-shall-not-be-named. Her selection? The multi-million copy selling The Pillars of the Earth by hugely popular writer Ken Follett.

In the New York Times Book Review for this same week, there was this boastful anecdote from Follett regarding a conversation he had with one of his friends, novelist and playwright Hanif Kureishi:

"We were talking about what the readers like," Follett says. "He said, 'I never think about the readers.' I told him, 'That's why you are a great writer, and that's why I am a rich writer.' "

Speaking of a rich Ken Follett, within a year of the original publication of Pillars, Follett signed with Dell Publishing for a $12.3 million two-book deal. All of his books have been bestsellers and several have been made into movies, and just announced in Publishers Weekly is a new $50 million deal for an epic trilogy by Mr. Follett.

Ken Follett is not undeserved of his reputation nor is it a bad thing for his book to be introduced to a cadre of new readers. My beef is not with Ken Follett or his skill in writing suspenseful tomes of historical fictition.

My beef here is with Oprah Winfrey and her book club. Clearly, based solely on the numbers of books he sells, the money he makes, or his own admission of writing for money, Ken Follett does not need any help in gaining readers. I also do not have a problem with writers hitting the gold coin jackpot, I just wish more of them could be making those big bucks.

Why not use the famed Oprah power of thrusting new books into readers hands that are by writers who have yet to find their fame anywhere beyond small literary circles of fandom? She has done so a handful of times and I do wish she would do it every time. Imagine what could be done for reading and emerging writers if Oprah championed these floating gems and diamonds in the rough.

Independent booksellers across the nation have catapulted books to bestseller-dom simply by the fine old art of handselling. Recent examples: Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Ms. Winfrey can even be thanked for featuring Ms. Gilbert on her show and assisting indie booksellers in thrusting this writer into newfound and well-deserved fame. Seeing what booksellers and Oprah can do for readers and writers, why not expand that power to the book club itself? We can even offer Ms. Winfrey a list of suggestions - should she need them.

reference sites:
Ken Follett is Latest Oprah Winfrey Pick, AP
Follett Cashes In On 'Century', PW
Homepage for Ken Follett