brookline blogsmith

Classic Combinations

2012-01-27T12:35:00.000-05:00

Peanut butter and jelly. Chocolate and peanut butter. Peanut butter and crackers. There are combinations of things so genius, so beautiful, that they withstand the test of time. And then there are combinations that are new--unseen to this earth--so brilliant that one wonders why it wasn't thought of sooner. Gobs of these genius combinations floating around the UBC are waiting to be discovered by you, our humble browser. Observe:

Pandas and Antlers
from a Parisian guidebook on our DOLLAR CART, people.

Corn cobs and Edvard Munch
I'm pretty sure this was on the original canvas, it just got cut out because of some vast Norwegian government conspiracy.

Dali and tarot
So obvious. So cool. A whole book of images; surrealism meets esoterica.

(It's my birthday, ya'll)

2012-01-27T01:10:00.000-05:00

Dear 24.

We know you don't like being told what to do, because you are headstrong and independent and have been since the very first day you exited the womb, all blue and covered in viscera. The establishment, however, feels that, since we are somewhat of a package deal, perhaps you could do with a re-assessment of your priorities on this, the anniversary of your 24th revolution around your brightest, hottest star. 23 was not bad, we're not saying it was bad, we're just saying that there might be room for improvement. Might be being the operative words here; are you listening? Okay.

24, we will require that you continue to follow your absolute own determination in matters of looks, style, personality, humor, eloquence, and gender assignment. As if anybody besides the covenant of academia could ever make you do or be anything that you were not planning on inhabiting already; as scholar and gentleman Mr. T once said, "I pity the fool". However, we urge you, 24, to continue to try to deeper understand the frailty and sensitivity of human life. Please complete your assignment of making room for the different aspects of being that keep violently occurring, as if out of nowhere, all around you. These specimens are of utmost importance, and it is the truly exotic ones that will, most likely, supply you with the most vital information.

Please, remember patience, while balancing the furtive notion that at all times, and all around you, clocks are forever ticking. Keep a certain stillness in your heart, or at least try, even when you are being the most ridiculous clown you seem hell-bent on being despite our every desperate effort. 24, please be more careful with your stubborn heart, but not too careful. Try to lead by example, let hope spring eternal, and believe that some, if not most, if not all people are generally, fundamentally, or at least partially good and wish to visit good, in turn, upon the earth. Cling to that notion of goodness as if it were the inflatable safety raft of your loss at sea.

Please maintain calm. We will reconvene in approximately 365 days, upon which we will evaluate your performance and will instate 25 as your successor. Please take care of the husk and its many physical needs accordingly, and remember, it never rains but it pours, throw excess salt over your right shoulder, 42, and the first rule of Italian race car driving: what's behind you is not important.

Hear Ye Hear Ye

2012-01-25T21:55:00.000-05:00

In case you haven't heard, this past Monday revealed the ALA 2012 Youth Media Awards -- you may know this better as the Newbery, Caldecott, Printz, and other prestgious awards that are given each year. We all have our mixed feelings of this year's picks, but we encourage you to form your own:

John Newbery Medal for the most outstanding contribution to children's literature:
-Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos
-Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai (honor)
-Breaking Stalin’s Nose by Eugene Yelchin (honor)

Randolph Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished American picture book for children:
-A Ball for Daisy illustrated and written by Chris Raschka
-Blackout illustrated and written by John Rocco (honor)
-Grandpa Green illustrated and written by Lane Smith (honor)
-Me … Jane illustrated and written by Patrick McDonnell (honor)

Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in literature written for young adults:
-Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley
-Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler (honor)

-The Returning by Christine Hinwood (honor)
-Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey (honor)
-The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater (honor)

Coretta Scott King (Author) Book Award recognizing an African American author and illustrator of outstanding books for children and young adults:
-Kadir Nelson (author and illustrator of Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans)
-Eloise Greenfield (author of The Great Migration: Journey to the North) (honor)
-Patricia C. McKissack (author of Never Forgotten) (honor)

Coretta Scott King (Illustrator) Book Award:
Shane W. Evans (illustrator and author of Underground: Finding the Light to Freedom)
Kadir Nelson (illustrator and author of Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans)

Coretta Scott King – Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement:
Ashley Bryan is the winner of the Coretta Scott King – Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime achievement. The award, which pays tribute to the quality and magnitude of beloved children’s author Virginia Hamilton.

Schneider Family Book Award for books that embody an artistic expression of the disability experience:
-Close to Famous by Joan Bauer
-Wonderstruck: A Novel in Words and Pictures by Brian Selznick
-The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen

Alex Awards for the 10 best adult books that appeal to teen audiences:
-Big Girl Small by Rachel DeWoskin,
-In Zanesville by Jo Ann Beard
-The Lover’s Dictionary by David Levithan
-The New Kids: Big Dreams and Brave Journeys at a High School for Immigrant Teens by Brooke Hauser
-The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
-Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
-Robopocalypse: A Novel by Daniel H. Wilson
-Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
-The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt: A Novel in Pictures by Caroline Preston
-The Talk-Funny Girl by Roland Merullo

Andrew Carnegie Medal for excellence in children's video:
- Children Make Terrible Pets (Weston Woods Studios, Inc. The video is based on the book written by Peter Brown)

Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults:
Susan Cooper is the 2012 Edwards Award winner. (The Dark is Rising Sequence)

Mildred L. Batchelder Award for an outstanding children's book translated from a foreign language and subsequently published in the United States:
-Soldier Bear (Dutch) by Bibi Dumon Tak
-The Lily Pond (Swedish) by Annika Thor (honor)

Odyssey Award for best audiobook produced for children and/or young adults, available in English in the United States:
-Rotters by Daniel Kraus and narrated by Kirby Heyborne.
-Ghetto Cowboy by G. Neri and narrated by JD Jackson (honor)
-Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt and narrated by Lincoln Hoppe (honor)
-The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater and narrated by Steve Westand Fiona Hardingham (honor)
-Young Fredle by Cynthia Voigt and narrated by Wendy Carter.

Pura Belpré (Illustrator) Award honoring a Latino writer and illustrator whose children's books best portray, affirm and celebrate the Latino cultural experience:
-Diego Rivera: His World and Ours illustrated by Duncan Tonatiuh
-The Cazuela that the Farm Maiden Stirred illustrated by Rafael López (honor)
-Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match illustrated by Sara Palacios (honor)

Pura Belpré (Author) Award:
-Under the Mesquite written by Guadalupe Garcia McCall
-Hurricane Dancers: The First Caribbean Pirate Shipwreck written by Margarita Engle (honor)
-Maximilian and the Mystery of the Guardian Angel: A Bilingual Lucha Libre Thriller written by Xavier Garza (honor)

Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Award for most distinguished informational book for children:
-Balloons over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy’s Parade by Melissa Sweet
-Black & White: The Confrontation between Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth and Eugene ‘Bull’ Connor written by Larry Dane Brimnerand (honor)
-Drawing from Memory by Allen (honor)
-The Elephant Scientist by Caitlin O’Connell and Donna M. Jackson (honor)
-Witches!: The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem by Rosalyn Schanzerand (honor)

Stonewall Book Award -Mike Morgan & Larry Romans Children’s & Young Adult Literature Award given annually to English-language children’s and young adult books of exceptional merit relating to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender experience:
-Putting Makeup on the Fat Boy by Bil Wright
-a + e 4ever by Ilike Merey (honor)
-Money Boy by Paul Yee (honor)
-Pink by Lili Wilkinson (honor)
-With or Without You by Brian Farrey (honor)

Theodor Seuss Geisel Award for the most distinguished beginning reader book:
-Tales for Very Picky Eaters by Josh Schneider
-I Broke My Trunk by Mo Willems (honor)
-I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen (honor)
-See Me Run by Paul Meisel (honor)

William C. Morris Award for a debut book published by a first-time author writing for teens:
-Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley
-Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson (finalist)
-Paper Covers Rock by Jenny Hubbard (finalist)
-Under the Mesquite by Guadalupe Garcia McCall (finalist)
-Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys (finalist)

YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults honors the best nonfiction book published for young adults, ages 12 – 18, each year:
-The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism & Treachery by Steve Sheinkin
-Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom and Science by Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos (finalist)
-Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition by Karen Blumenthal, (finalist)
-Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (With a Few Flat Tires Along the Way)by Sue Macy (finalist)
-Music Was It: Young Leonard Bernstein by Susan Goldman Rubin (finalist)

Come on in or shop online at http://www.brooklinebooksmith-shop.com/.

For more information on the ALA youth media awards and notables, please visit the ALA Web site at www.ala.org.

Destination: East Anglia

2012-01-24T13:46:00.000-05:00

If you have ever asked Lisa here at Booksmith for a book recommendation, you were probably regaled with an elaborately structured oral term paper on the book in question, and, very likely, you walked out of the store with said book tucked underarm. The art of the book review is a difficult skill to master, as any reader of the NYRB can tell you, and to give one verbally, on demand, is a talent few readers possess. So when Lisa told me about her latest read, Edmund deWaal's The Hare with the Amber Eyes, I listened with rapt attention, to learn not only about the book, but about the art of talking about books. An art cultivated in bookstore aisles.

De Waal's narrative follows the history of his family's inheritance--a collection of netsuke, Japanese wood and ivory carvings--through the Parisian and Viennese art worlds until the family's wealth was dispersed during WWII. To get a full review of the book, come on in and ask for Lisa. When she told me about the book, she compared it to Sebald. I stopped her. "Wait...who?!"

I had just begun reading W.G. Sebald's Rings of Saturn the night before. Delighted with the coincidence, we began to discuss the author. I just mentioned Sebald to a customer, Lisa told me, who had not only read him, but coincidentally, had recently published an article about him. This customer's father, I learned when I read his article for myself, had once left England for a walking tour in Germany. In Rings of Saturn, Sebald, a German, takes the reader on a walking tour of England.

Such coincidences are not uncommon in a bookstore, and, in fact, abound in the works of Sebald. To Sebald, everything is connected, so that to say he takes the reader on a walking tour of East Anglia is a gross understatement. Sebald's work is travel narrative at its fullest, a deeply-layered, multi-faceted exploration of what it is to travel, not only to new spaces, but across time. Sebald describes each place he encounters not only for what it is, but for what it has become through a culmination of its history, science, culture, and environment. He examines the wars, the explorations, the inventions, the everyday lives, and uncommon deaths that occured in these landscapes over centuries. The result is a meditative masterpiece of modern literature--a hidden inheritance for any reader to discover--that will have you running to your nearest bookstore to find someone to share such a journey with. We can't wait to hear about it.

Herakut, why you need to know that name

2012-01-23T15:00:00.012-05:00

Take this home. I promise it will explode all over your living room.

For four remarkably productive years, the graffiti loving and street art affiliated "storytellers," Hera and Akut, have combined their artistic skills and individual specialties in order to create one odd but always exquisitely beautiful, instantly recognizable style: Herakut. It's an extremely contradictory mix of ingredients - Akut's autodidactic but top-level photorealism and Hera's classically educated though Don't-Give-A-Shit-roughness - that results in a surprisingly well-balanced fusion of respect for each other's qualities and the shared urge to capture life's anecdotes with brush and spray can. For the second time this book explores the interpersonal and creative processes behind the duo's murals and canvas paintings, which have attracted the attention of the international art scene.

The images are stunning, a little girl pealing out of a body suit of an older obese woman, "play ageing"

Mothers and children wearing animal skulls, or live heads, representing some performitive aspect of species, and perhaps gender identities

Guns, alcohol, children, flowers all enormous building sized murals offer both hilarity and haunt.

Fierce and surprising contrasts of violence and innocence make these artists unequalled.

This is an incredible book for your table, for some inspiration, and for a challenge.

Then buy their first book

Sign of the Times

2012-01-20T12:30:00.000-05:00

Many moons ago, before I even worked at the Booksmith, I came here regularly to unload my books in the UBC. I'm from a smallish town in the Northwest, so when I came into the store with a book SIGNED by the author, I thought Carl, the buyer at the time (and now my colleague!) would be so IMPRESSED, so EXCITED, that he would buy the book and put it in a special glass case for all to marvel upon. My fantasy was short lived as I pointed out the book was signed to him and he simply shrugged.

How could he not care that the author who wrote this book ALSO SIGNED HIS NAME IN IT?! Now that I've been around for a bit, I've come to understand that it was because 1) there are a lot of authors in the area, and a lot of signings, so signed books ain't so rare and 2) not all authors are created equal (story of my LIFE), and the only authors whose signatures are worth $$$ are sadly but-a-handful.

cartoon by Andrew Weldon

I'd say that the mission of the Used Book Cellar is to contain books you want to read, or will want to once you see them because they are weird and/or unique, and at a good price. We're a general-interest kind of shop, no super-academic books, no ultra-rare and expensive things. We're more about reading and less about making a museum to the book object. So we pass on a lot of antiquarian, rare books that may be worth a lot because we're more interested in carrying books for readers. If you have a signed book, we might take it because we think it will sell, but unfortunately only in extremely rare cases will an autograph affect the book's value. We get more offers from people who want to sell us signed books than we get requests for people who want to buy signed books. It's basically just a supply-and-demand thing. Nothing personal!

In Which We Join Our Heroine On The Cusp Of Something Super Duper Serious, Namely, Viral Videos.

2012-01-20T10:14:00.002-05:00

There's this thing that just started happening on the internet, and it began with the "Stuff* Girls Say" video. It feels stupid to say it "went viral" (because I never liked that saying, this isn't small pox okay) but it kinda went viral.

The videos, for by now, there are 3, consist of Graydon Sheppard, (Toronto-based writer and filmmaker) in drag playing a fairly simple minded "anygirl" reciting quick one liners of dialogue off of Sheppard's twitter, (Stuff* Girls Say) co-created by his friend, Kyle Humphrey. Since the video is essentially calling out an entire gender, obviously some people are going to have reservations or even be insulted by the insinuation that these are typical "girl" things to say. I, myself, wondered, while viewing, 'why aren't I more insulted by this?'

The truth is that, this is stuff* I say.

I thought maybe having a man portray the female character in the video might make some people uncomfortable, and indeed, the entire twitter is written and maintained by two dudes, which, I admit, does give me pause. However, the things girls say do not portray women in a bad or stupid light, and I think that's what makes it humorous. The stuff* girls say is so mundane and yet so female specific; as I started to write this blog post last night, I was reading some of the tweets out loud to a co-worker, and she kept wanting to respond as if I was casually talking to her. Things like, 'I'm so excited for tomorrow!' or 'first of all, ew' are so undeniably part of my vernacular, and I am an (over???)educated, employed 20 something woman. What I'm getting at is, I'm smart, ya'll. This video still applies to me.

The most interesting thing about these videos is the thousands of others they have spawned. Every culture, sexuality and gender presentation have their own "Stuff* They Say" videos, and even a broad search on youtube brings up numerous different varieties. This phenomenon is fascinating to me, and I'll be interested to see what becomes of it, and what other people think about it. Is it more insulting than perhaps I think it is? Or is it lightly poking fun at itself, because it's so clearly impossible to delineate what an entire gender "says", and yet, these are all girl things to say? I'm interested in what you guys think.

*not the original word, but another, similar, four letter word starting with S.

Stuff* Girls Say, episode 1

Stuff* Girls Say, episode 2

Stuff* Girls Say twitter

the ideal pet

2012-01-18T19:41:00.000-05:00

Penguins are quite the coveted pet, at least in children's literature. And, if there was such a thing as a domesticated penguin, who wouldn't want one of these fashionable, fun creatures? Lower the room temp and make a bed in the freezer, and that's all there is to it, right? Just ask the experience of Joe and Osbert in My Penguin Osbert. Or, compare notes with the French family who is sent a new penguin every day for a year in 365 Penguins; or, the father (or better yet, ask his family) who acquires 12 penguins in the classic Mr. Popper's Penguins. Okay, maybe taking care of a penguin is a little more of an adjustment -- unless you are Elliot, the son of a science nerd.

In One Cool Friend, Elliot asks his father if he could buy a penguin at the aquarium. The answer is "yes." But, the question is, does his father realize he means a real penguin? Elliot certainly forms a quick friendship with Magellan and is knowledgeable on caring for him. They are quite the snazzy dressers, too. This is a great, funny picturebook to add to your winter library. (ages 2-7)

Destination: Florence

2012-01-17T13:36:00.000-05:00

I don't usually get nostalgic when shelving books. Occasionally, when a customer brings Laura Ingalls Wilder, Anne of Green Gables, and even, sometimes, Ferdinand the Bull by my register, I'll feel a slight pang. But last week, as I slid our new laminated Streetwise maps into the travel section, and happened across the gray, bumble gum pink, and seafoam streets of Florence, I was suddenly flung back into a time and place far away from Booksmith's aisles.

My father had purchased a Streetwise laminated map of Florence for me when I was a senior in high school. As a graduation present, he brought me along on a business trip to Italy. It was my first experience of solo travel; while my father was in meetings, I was set lose on the cobblestone streets, free to explore at my leisure.

As I looked at the map in Booksmith's aisle, I remembered how I had studied those streets, buildings, and parks with the intensity I used to apply to my textbooks. The result was magic. When I stepped onto the streets of Florence, the two-dimensional shapes I knew so well transformed themselves into the tangible, sensuous reality of a place.

Now, that magic worked in reverse. Instead of the images leading my imagination into a place I had never seen, each place name on the Streetwise map transported me back to Florence. As I opened the accordion folds of the map, I could almost hear the music of some Italian street grinder floating through the streets. Streetwise maps are not pop-ups, but that is the impression I got as the city's cathedrals, gardens, and museums bloomed into memory.

Illustrations from Andrea Ponsi's gorgeous Florence: A Map of Perceptions. Check it out in Destination Literature!

I traced my finger along the Arno River, stopping at Ponte Vecchio, the only bridge to survive the bombing in the war, my father had told me. The bridge led toward Palazzo Vecchio, past the Uffizi Gallery, which I recognized on sight because of how its unique concave shape was depicted by Streetwise. Above the town loomed the Duomo and next to it Giotto's bell tower, all of which appeared before my wandering feet with an accuracy that left me breathless.

I traveled back across the bridge in order to discover a large patch of green on my map, Boboli Gardens, where I ended up wandering for hours, awed by the pristine beauty of the park. I also stumbled on Piazzale Michangelo on that side of the river, affording a stunning view back at the buildings I had just discovered, simply because the name on the map intrigued me.

In one plaza, I paused too long at a fountain, and my blond hair caught the attention of a young Italian man, who asked me to dinner. I told him I had a date with my father. But before we met up that night, I followed my map to the white facade of Saint Croce, where Stendhal records a fainting fit the cause of which was thought to be simply the beauty of the city. The Stendhal syndrome, as it has since been called, seems to occur most often in the city of Florence, as visitors overwhelmed with the beauty of the streets and galleries, succumb to their emotions with spells of weakness and fainting. As I finally closed the map, and placed it back on Booksmith's shelf, I felt a little dizzy myself.

P.S. If anyone sees a bookseller struggling to refold a map in the travel aisle, please stop and help her. One of the reasons I'm a fan of Streetwise maps is their easy, fluid accordian folds. But we're selling more than just Streetwise maps. Check out a whole new array of Italian touring maps in Travel, covering every bit of Italy imaginable. If you've already been to Florence, the rest of the country awaits!

"Keep Our Secrets" by Jordan Crane

2012-01-14T13:32:00.000-05:00

This is an emergency blogpost by Zoe and Katrina! Do not attempt to adjust your television! Last night we were closing and discovered this book on the gift books table:

At first, I this was a slightly bizarre but interesting board book, but upon further inspection, I discovered that the point of the book is to heat up the black areas of the book with your hands or, more effectively, a hair dryer.

Even the cover is magical.

I was blown away. This book is amazing. Straight up wizardry. Come in, check it out! This has been an Emergency Blogpost by Zoe and Katrina! You may new resume regularly scheduled programming!

Those Wacky Authors!

2012-01-14T13:19:00.000-05:00

It's no secret that authors don't make a whole lotta dubloons sitting in their rooms banging out the keys and keeping us entertained. So lots of authors have day jobs; Chuck Palahniuk was a car mechanic while writing his first book. The guy who cracks open your 'Gansett down the street has probably written 13 poetry manuscripts. Several Booksmithies have aspirations to write the Great American Novel, and our very own Ric is even already published, and we sell his volume of poetry upstairs! But sometimes, writers write to pay the bills so they can WRITE. Before Julian Barnes made it big he wrote mystery novels under the name Dan Kavanagh, because they paid better than the literary stuff that he really loved to write.

Conversely, mystery novelists Jo Nesbo and Henning Mankell have both written kids books, a pretty big turn from their dark and bloody Scandinavian mysteries. I think Nesbo and Mankell don't necessarily write kids' books to pay the bills, but it is a pretty incongruous image to think of these writers writing such quiet books as Shadows in Twilight about a 12 year old, or ... noisier, sillier books like Doctor Proctor's Fart Powder. The latter two books we both have in the UBC, and as they crossed the desk, it got me thinking about the double-lives of authors. And not just their double-lives, but the way they present themselves. We get lots of books vintage and contemporary that feature some pretty wacky author photos. Here are some recent favorites:

Author of the Bloom County comics Berke Breathed

Thomas McGuane

Christopher Moore

Do you have any favorite author double-life stories? Or author photos? Share in the comments!
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Destination: Booksmith

2012-01-10T13:38:00.001-05:00

As many have already noted, we were gratefully overwhelmed by the holiday crowds that came surging through Booksmith's aisles this season. I've heard many speculations about the cause of such overwhelming support from our community. Some say the e-book is not as popular as the media would suggest. Others say it is, and that is is because there are so few bookstores left that those of us still standing saw the crowds. Zoe thinks it's because Brookline harbors a secret crush on Booksmith. Based on the constant conversations I had and heard going on around me as I navigated the aisles this season, it sounded to me simply that people love books, and that perhaps we should not have been so surprised that they showed up to get them, for loved ones on their gift list, or for a quiet winter read.

"A written word is the choicest of relics..." Henry David Thoreau observes in Walden. "Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations. Books, the oldest and best, stand naturally and rightfully on the shelves of every cottage. They have no cause of their own to plead, but while they enlighten and sustain the reader his common sense will not refuse them."

Gratuitous Cat Pictures!

2012-01-06T12:30:00.000-05:00

So sales have been good in the UBC lately (thanks times infinity!) so my original idea for this post--awesome author photos found on the back of books--has to be postponed because all of my favorites have found homes. BUT. Do not despair, because what I have for you is a hybrid of awesome writers (found frequently in the UBC) and CATS.

Observe, culled from the marvelous blog Writers and Kitties:

Camus! (We just got in L'etranger in! En francais!)

Julio Cortazar (you HAVEN'T read Hopscotch yet? Or Blow-Up? There's a short story in it about a guy who can throw up bunnies! We got 'em both in the UBC)

Tove Jansson! Of Moomin fame!

And staff favorite Yukio Mishima! Even samurai can love kitties!

To be closely followed by its sequel, "donkeys never lie about altruism"

2012-01-06T00:31:00.002-05:00

This is one of those books that I feel like I shouldn't want to read, but I do.

Friends, the holidays, they are over. At long last we can all put our feet up, heave a great sigh, and continue eating everything in the world at the same disgusting breakneck speed we have been the whole month of December, until our jeans don't fit and we're all like, "hey what happened?? Must of shrunk in the wash!"

Yeah they didn't, no, they didn't shrink in the wash. You ate a whole cheesecake to yourself yesterday, and then worked off the calories by taking a nap. And when I say you, I mean me. You know what though, that's okay. December is a tough month, especially if you happen to be in the retail world. At one point during the holidays, I was with Jamie in the break room and she bequeathed this knowledge unto me: "I am just going to keep eating, because if I stop eating, I will fall asleep and then I will never wake up. The only option is to keep eating. Keep eating or die."

It's not like I'm a stranger to stress eating, so I give myself leave to slight expansion during the winter months. Besides, I need that body fat, right? These vital organs ain't gonna insulate themselves, and I live in Allston, where the buildings are not handicap friendly and are heating by chance and whimsy alone. Maybe you freeze, maybe it's a sauna, you never know. You pray to the great Building Manager in the sky and go to bed in eight layers of pajamas and a stocking cap and you hold on for dear life.

Lets get serious here, January sucks. So does February, and March. April truly is the cruelest month, also known as the rainy season. Winter is the worst, you guys, there's no way around it. Nobody wants to have to blow-dry their wet hair every day because it will freeze on their walk to work if they don't, nobody asks for that. It just is. If you're from Massachusetts or somewhere that has an equal or greater winter experience, then you're used to it. If you're not, I'm so sorry, it's debatable as to whether you'll survive.

However. January 22nd is our store party. 30 Rock returns to NBC this month, and on January 27th, 1988, a sweet little baby angel was born unto this world, the likes of which had never been seen before. Cherubs gathered her in their swaddling blankets and bore her forth unto her mothers breast, where they surrounded her with the dulcet tones of their chorus. Lo, that baby was...............me. Yeah that's right, this month I turn 24 years old, so don't panic. There is still something to celebrate. Keep your chins up, Brookline, everything is going to be just fine.

It's not regifting, it's personal

2012-01-04T13:16:00.000-05:00

Inspiration comes from familiar, unique places and experiences. One of mine is my favorite movies, You've Got Mail -- if you know me you need no explanation on why this is. So, I was reading over an original script and -- oh, my -- so much has changed between the script and the final cut. Most of the cut scenes I am very glad they altered or removed, as they take away from the integrity of the movie. But there's one line I wish they had kept in: "My mother would never have wanted us to have a website. 'Every book you sell is a gift from your heart.' She always said that."

At first I completely agreed with this, every book you sell is from the heart. But as I mulled it over, I believe it is more appropriate to say "every book you give is a gift from your heart." Though I recommend books I love and feel strongly about, they aren't always from my heart. They can't be. For instance, when a customer asks what book to give for a Wimpy Kid and Percy Jackson fan (two series I respect but aren't a fan of), I'm going to recommend Mystic Phyles. I'm not partial to this book, but I recommend it because it is what they are looking for -- it is what their literary attention is craving. My goal, as a bookseller, is to give (a) a great piece of literature, (b) provide the customer with a book they will love and is appropriate for them.

I am not the one ultimately giving the book to this child I have never met. I am simply providing an important direction. Therefore, I think it is the gift from the giver that should be given from the heart. It's painful when when a customer chooses a random book with little to no thought as to whether the recipient will love or learn from it.

Almost always, even if I am hand selling the most inspirational book I've read all year, there's a choice that trumps it. I encourage customers to give a gift that they have a connection with. So, if someone is looking for a gift for a young girl and they loved a particular book, like, The Secret Garden, and it changed their life, I will encourage them to go with The Secret Garden. Not only will their enthusiasm rub off on the givee, but there will be a connection made from the givee to the giver. Too often, gifts are just random objects, when they really should be pieces of ourselves. Gifts should be personal.

Why We Read

2011-12-30T11:31:00.000-05:00

Brookline customers are a pretty smart bunch. Here are some figures:

This is pulled from Sperling's Best Places. We spend a lot on students. We have a lot of degrees; not just high school, but undergrad AND graduate degrees. With the proximity of BC and BU we have a lot of current students and professors in our midst. So as a result, there are a couple of sections in our store that get hit pretty frequently. Philosophy, for example. We don't get too many books in, but when we do they SELL. And how. So after the holiday rush, our philosophy shelves were looking pretty lean. It happens. Our stock is reliant on what people bring to us, and stuff moves and changes fast. So sometimes, our shelves get thin until magic book fairies (i.e., you) bring us more. But we make sure to only get the good stuff in, so what we do have is CHOICE.

But what to do when the books get all floppy and the shelves get empty? I dunno about those Amazon guys, but I get creative. And I put to use my undergraduate philosophy degree. I cleared off a shelf for a display and thought: what are important books in this section? Who doesn't own a copy of Kant's Groundwork that needs one? The best part of actually reading a book (for me, anyway) are those lines that stick with you forever, or finally make sense of the 120 preceding pages. The quotes we put on our Facebook profiles, in our friend's yearbooks, e-mail signatures, tattooed on arms, the lines that are mini-epiphanies that rock our worlds. In short, it's the words inside books that make us read. Sometimes there are books on a shelf that you haven't read, maybe because you're pressed for time, or you're reading Room With a View for the eightieth time, or maybe it's because book designers don't know what to do with philosophy books and the philosophers sure as heck don't know how to title their books, so they look boring but really they are GENIUS and they will change your life forever if only you knew that those brilliant quotes lived inside their pages.

So in order to jazz up a decent looking philosophy display, I wrote down some salient quotes from the books. Quotes that embody the meaning and importance of the book, or in some cases just haunted me forever. So now, hopefully, casual browsers will know why to pick up a 200 page non-fiction book on how we fall in love written in the 17th centry. Or maybe they'll just struggle at reading my awful handwritten scrawl. Either way!

Aristotle's Poetics

Kant's Groundwork

Sartre's Essays in Existentialism

Stendhal, On Love

Anyway, like I said, we're thin on philosophy. And poetry. And local stuff. Do you have some such books that are rad, have no underlining or highlighting and are just collecting dust on your ever-so-smart shelves? Let me give you money for them! Wednesdays through Saturdays, 10 AM to 4 PM. Thanks for reading!

O MOUSE!

2011-12-29T19:14:00.000-05:00

I was restocking graphica today when I passed by the Intermediate section and saw this book:

Now, this isn't the original illustration that I'm used to, but that is a mug I would know anywhere. This is the cover (and cross section) of a copy of "Alice in Wonderland", (the information of which I have forgotten to write down, so I will be editing this tomorrow, whoops) and I was very intrigued by the fact that there is no text on the front, yet I instantly knew who this character was. The wayward locks, the fluffy dress, the fact that the character appears to be in a moment of free-falling; this is Alice, no doubt about it. My grandmother read "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through e Looking-glass" when I was a little girl, and ever since then, Alice has been a heroine that has really stayed with me, cropping up in my mind in times of necessity. I was obsessed with the Disney movie when it came out, as well, even dreaming about Alice's adventures and crying out to her in my sleep.

The conclusion I've drawn is, Alice is the type of broad you want on your team.

First of all, she's bored with pageantry. Her school marm/tutor/mistress/nanny, whatever kind of live-in education girls had back in 1865, is forever trying to get her to calm down, settle down, do her lessons, but Alice's imagination is too fantastical and she has trouble sitting still. Today, Alice would have been so plied with adderall and a cocktail of other downers that she'd be unable to wipe the drool from her face, let alone scamper away to a mysterious fantasy world. Thank goodness they did things differently in 1865: Alice is a smart girl, but she's street smart. Upon falling through what she imagines to be the center of the earth, Alice doesn't panic.

Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end! `I wonder how many miles I've fallen by this time?' she said aloud. `I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me see: that would be four thousand miles down , I think--' (for, you see, Alice had learnt several things of this sort in her lessons in the schoolroom, and though this was not a very good opportunity for showing off her knowledge, as there was no one to listen to her, still it was good practice to say it over) `--yes, that's about the right distance--but then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I've got to?' (Alice had no idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but thought they were nice grand words to say .)

Presently she began again. `I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth! How funny it'll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downward! The Antipathies, I think--' (she was rather glad there was no one listening, this time, as it didn't sound at all the right word) `--but I shall have to ask them what the name of the country is, you know. Please, Ma' am, is this New Zealand or Australia?' (and she tried to curtsey as she spoke-- fancy curtseying as you're falling through the air! Do you think you could manage it?) `And what an ignorant little girl she'll think me for asking! No, it'll never do to ask: perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere.' (chapter 1)

I mean, no, no I don't think I could manage curtseying while free falling through the air, but that is mostly because I'd be crying and hiccupping and apologizing to my mom for all the horrible things I've done. Instead of doing that, Alice is thinking seriously about what she's going to do when she lands. She's basically planning on assimilating with the locals, hoping that they will leave her alone and that she'll be able to figure things out on her own. I would never ask somebody if this was Austrailia or New Zealand; I would totally just hope that I get lucky and stumble across a road sign. Alice doesn't want anyone's help; she is not depending on the kindness of strangers. In addition to that, I appreciate that Alice doesn't know everything but is smart enough to give things a try. If people know how many words I don't actually know the definition of but just use wherever I think they sound correct, UMB would take away my burgeoning English degree. Alice guesses, and that makes her brave.

Which brings me to the second reason, Alice is tough.

However, she soon made out that she was in the pool of tears which she had wept when she was nine feet high.“I wish I hadn’t cried so much!” said Alice, as she swam about, trying to find her way out. “I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears! That will be a queer thing, to be sure! However, everything is queer to-day.” (chapter 2)

Not a woman among us can say that she hasn't bawled her eyes out over some kind of misfortune, gotten it all out of her system, then taken a step back, reassessed the situation, and promptly wished she had not cried so much. I make no attempt to claim such a thing. I have wasted whole afternoons pining over idiots who (mistakenly) didn't think I was good enough to make out with, only to realize the next week how deeply and fundamentally wrong they were. Those are hours I'll never get back, where I was metaphorically drowned in my own tears, which I much prefer to the literal interpretation, but still. Alice is such a level headed girl, which is one of the many things I love about her. She approaches these things from a place of analytical sense, and I admire that greatly. No bemoaning idiots for her, no sir.

`Have you guessed the riddle yet?' the Hatter said, turning to Alice again.
`No, I give it up,' Alice replied: `what's the answer?'
`I haven't the slightest idea,' said the Hatter.
`Nor I,' said the March Hare.
Alice sighed wearily. `I think you might do something better with the time,' she said, `than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.'

Alice doesn't suffer fools and she speaks her mind, two of the greatest qualities a lady can have in any time, in any place. Alice taught me that diplomacy will only take you so far. If you're at the mad tea party, do as the Romans do. Or whatever. You guys know what I mean.

America, you can keep your Miley Cirus' and your Hilary Duffs' and your Demi Lovatos' (is that a thing? That's a thing, right?), because the female role model that had an effect on my young mind was rambunctious, outspoken, bright, and independent, and I can only recommend you get the Alice in Wonderland books for any young lady in your life.

All the versions of Alice in Wonderland (/looking glass) I have shown in this post are available in our store, by the way. I mean I'm just saying.

A Booksmith Holiday Poem

2011-12-24T15:23:00.000-05:00

by Julia; Card and Gift Room rockstar!

'Twas the day before Christmas
      and all through the store,
Through all of the aisles
      the customers pour.

All those young and old
      who waited too long,
Come to buy all their gifts
      Before they are gone.

We Booksmithees scurry
      From here and to there.
Weaving through customers
      All so unaware

Moms, dads, siblings, friends,
      Gather all of their gifts:
No Buttons! iPlunges!
      Whatever they can lift.

The register lines
      seems to go on for miles.
But we carry on,
      Giving everyone smiles.

As customers wait
      For their gifts to be wrapped,
At the gift-wrapping station
      UBC workers are trapped

As we sell, search and restock
      How our bodies strain,
But massages and free food
      Help ward off the pain.

So to all procrastinators
      --I mean customers--here,
We greet you all
      Full of holiday cheer.

For despite the chaos,
      we truly delight
In helping you pick out
      the gift that's just right.

Be it book, toy or jewelry,
      Even Handerpants, too,
We hope what you find here
      Brings fun and joy to you.

So until 8 o'clock
      When we turn out our lights,
And settle at home
      for a calm winter's night,

Booksmith's doors are wide open.
      And we welcome you in,
To do last-minute shopping
      'Ere Christmas begins.

So to you Merry Christmas
      And a Hanukkah so fine,
From us at Booksmith to you-
      Now, may I help the next in line?

Dead Ends

2011-12-23T14:00:00.000-05:00

I know he was a controversial guy and everything, but I really got a kick out of reading Christopher Hitchens and I'm sad he's gone. One thing I found really fascinating in reading all the articles and obits printed immediately after his passing was the sheer volume and pace at which he wrote. One obituarian (let's pretend that's a word) said that after she found out he was terminally ill last year, she was so bummed about it for a few days afterward that she didn't really get much work done. Meanwhile, Hitchens himself cranked out something like 8 essays in that time. Apparently he wrote them on the fly, as if he were typing out a lecture he was giving, and rarely edited thereafter. I digress, mostly, from used books (though we occasionally have Hitchens down here) but thinking about a divisive figure like Hitchens dying made me wonder what kind of monument would fit a guy like him. Maybe it would be a nice prefab/modernist writin' shack, or a concave black marble void. Either way it should be, funny, classy, maybe a bit annoying, but definitely a testament to wisdom and work-ethic.

Graves of celebrities can often be tourist destinations, and just last week we aquired a funky book with a cover illustrated by Edward Gorey (an eccentric artist whose monument left to the world was a house-museum left to his cats) entitled Dead Ends: An Irreverent Guide to the Graves of the Famous, which has an alphabetical catalogue of the graves of famous and infamous people. It's definitely irreverent, but morbidly fascinating. And if you're like me, a little weird and still interested in what I'm writing about ... you should check out the most recent issue of The Horn Book, a magazine that writes features about and reviews children's books. Local kid's author Jack Gantos wrote an article (beautifully illustrated by local illustrator José-Luis Olivares) about what he hopes his own mausoleum would look like, and how he imagines a cemetery paying homage to the canon of children's books. Check out a sample of the illustrations here. Maybe this is a lot of what literature is about; how will we be remembered? What mark will we leave? When our lives fade away, all we have to leave behind are our stories and maybe that's what drives people to write them down. Or maybe it's the fat paychecks.

"I Even Dream About Booksmith" - Says Jodie

2011-12-21T19:55:00.001-05:00

You guys!

We had no idea you felt this way!
I mean, we kind of did, we had an inkling, you stop in for your books and your sundries every now and then and we get that little glimmer of something in your eye, something that we both know is there, that we don't need to cheapen with unecessary words and phrases. We figured, maybe its for the best, you know? Maybe it's better if this, thing, whatever it is, remains a smile and a flicker. It's nice to feel pretty every now and again, you know?

But these past few days, our relationship has intensified tenfold.

We have added our usual fourth register up front, and have often used it, even during the daylight hours. Business has blossomed; booksellers are sent running around the store, grabbing books and gifts and restocking as if their very lives depended on it. The special orders have grown so numerous that an extra cart hard to be added last night to hold all the titles awaiting their new homes. I don't even know how many times I've restocked plastic bags, and it's still not enough, it's never enough.

Weirdly, despite my usual abhorrence towards labor of any variety, (Dana usually has to hide small candies in my overstock to get me to put anything on the shelves at all) I don't mind the extra work. Okay, the extra register hours are a lot, and every half hour when I look at my suddenly barren and gap-toothed sections my back hurts as I reach for a clipboard to begin a restock. But I must say, I have really been impressed with every one's attitudes this season. Customers and booksellers alike have been, for the most part, what I can only describe as frightfully upbeat. Maybe it's the holiday cheer, maybe its because everybody is cruising around on adrenaline and caffeine and will soon bottom out of their shopping high and probably need a nap and a snack, maybe we're finally pumping in that melatonin gas that I keep writing about in the suggestion box (I mean, that my close friend, Chloe Bookbuyer, keeps...writing about...) but whatever the change or whatever the reason, this Grinch's small heart has grown three times this season.

The best part is when this happens: when a really big line forms at the register, stretching all the way back to planners, all four registers are firing and we are all going as fast as we can to help you check out and be on your way, and a customer will come up to one of us with their purchases and say "You guys are just flying through this line, I can't believe how short that wait was. You're doing an excellent job."

That's happened to me like five or six times now, and I can't even tell you how wonderful it is to hear that. I pride myself on being a fast and efficient check out girl, and having you compliment me on the very thing I strive so desperately to attain is EMBARRASSINGLY satisfying. Maybe even more satisfying than when someone compliments me on anything else, appearance, writing, my totally effortless air of joie de vivre. All of that pails in comparison to the fact that you're impressed I just got you through a 20 person line in under 15 minutes. Excuse me while I go jot this down as a thing to talk about with my therapist later.

The store has taken on a life of its own. Staff is working as a team and a unit like I've only seen during Wolf week on the discovery channel. Every night when we close or I leave I'm certain that we've run out of everything, there's no way we could still have anything left to put on the shelves after all the stuff I just rang up. Customers are predominantly jovial. I have given so many high fives this past week.

Happy Hannukah and Xmas, thank you baby Jesus for being born, sorry about everything pagans, and thank you to my parents for being Santa all the rest of the year. Champagne?

(Image by Bryan Couchman)

Best Christmas Novel Ever

2011-12-21T18:04:00.000-05:00

Are you searching the state for the coveted Invention of Hugo Cabret? Unlike other bookstores, we still have it in stock! Give us a call (617-566-6667) or stop on by. Hurry; once they are gone, they're gone.

And now, let me introduce you to the best Christmas book ever. It's not a picturebook, like many Christmas books are; rather, it is a novel -- great for ages 6 and up.

"The first pageant rehearsal was usually about as much fun as a three-hour ride on the school bus, and just as noisy and crowded. This rehearsal, though, was different. Everybody shut up and settled down right away, for fear of missing something awful that the Herdmans might do."

Recognize this excerpt yet? It is Barbara Robinson's The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. A holdiay classic since 1972.

The Herdmans are the bullies of all bullies! So, what are they doing at the first Christmas pageant practice at the local church? (A Christmas pagaent that is always the same play year after year -- same angels, same shepherds, same everything.) And, what will the Herdmans do first? Beat everyone up before the performance, burn the church down, or steal from the offering plate again? Even though this book focuses on the nativity scene (you know, Mary, Joseph, and the newly born Jesus in Bethlehem), it is in no way overly-religious. I'll just say that it was first read to me out loud in second grade at a very public elementary school. So whether you even think about any "religious" aspects of this holiday or not, this book will help you see the nativity scene in a whole new way.

Not convinced yet? Read children's literature scholar Anita Silvey's entry in her Children's Book Almanac. Or, you be the judge and read it for yourself. (Or, if you can get a hold of the out-of-print audio, it is a great recording as well.)
Happy Holidays!

Destination: The Darkest Night of the Year

2011-12-20T18:59:00.000-05:00

I have spent the last two Christmases away from family. While I am grateful to be flying home this year, I'm also glad to have experienced a solitary holiday, as so many do every year. Last year I had dinner with a few other "orphans" away from home, but the year before that, it was just me. Just me and a few books.

Because not everyone gets to be with who they'd like to be with over the holidays, I want to recommend a few good winter reads to take you through those dark, cold nights. After all, December 22, the darkest night of the year, is only a few nights away. Winter solstice festivals traditionally fought off the night with bonfires and festivities, and many of us today still light fires, light candles, light up houses and trees to show our holiday cheer. It's the perfect time of year to curl up next to that fire with a good book. For me, the most satisfying reads are those that reflect my surroundings, echo my thoughts, stories that identify what has been a vague and uncomfortable state of being and help me explore and express it—bring it to light.

That's why I'm going to mention a few books you aren't likely to find wrapped up in bright colored paper this year. I've been reading from the Germany shelf in Destination Literature, books that are not exactly filled with holiday cheer. What they do contain is a darkness so deep you'll think the winter night came right out of the page. This isn't a gratuitous or brutal darkness, but rather, a beautiful one. A darkness which, if you look deep and long enough, makes the lights that are around you, and that maybe had grown dim, or that maybe you had stopped seeing altogether, shine just a little brighter.

For anyone anticipating a Blue Christmas, pining for loved ones far away, the new translation of Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther by Stanley Corngold is the perfect tale in which to wallow. Werther's passion poignantly expresses the deepest woes of unrequited love.

Jenny Erpenbeck's The Visitation is set on one property outside of Berlin. The story is told through the perspectives of various residents who inhabit the property across the decades, painting a fragmented, dark, but rich portrait of German history.

The capricious young narrator of Irmgard Keun's Artificial Silk Girl will keep you company on a lonely night as she attempts to climb the social ladders of the Weimer Republic through a series of love affairs. In Keun's After Dark the ideals of two young girls come in direct conflict with the reality of a less-than-innocent age, when one night, out a romantic escapade, the girls are stopped by Hitler's motorcade.

I am currently in the middle of the subtle darkness that is Christa Wolf's The Quest for Christa T. Christa T. is a mysterious young woman whose quest for individuality in the midst of the growing uniformity of East Germany is narrated by a friend trying to pick up the pieces after Christa T.'s death. The first image we are given of her character is as a young school girl. Christa T. is in the street, blowing trumpet noises triumphantly through a tube of rolled up newspaper. That "hooohaahooo" continues to sound throughout the encroaching darkness of the rest of the narrative, a sound that harmonizes nicely in the darkest night with the hark of herald angels, the Yuletide carols being sung by a fire, the silver, the jingling bells.

Pretty Pictures

2011-12-16T12:00:00.000-05:00

Not to toot my own horn or nothin' but this week I put up a display of Signet Classic mass markets with cool vintage illustrations on the front, and it looks pretty sweet. Observe:

These covers are so k-rad. Really overlooked, IMHO.

One of my favorite things to come across in the UBC are vintage illustrations. I basically like them as much as fancy paintings or really good writing.

Observe this 1963 children's Spanish wordbook:

Don't you just wanna pet them fuzzy bunnies?

Or check out today's find, a 1961 cookbook:

HAM!

Come on down and find something funky to give as a gift this holiday. Add to someone's weird collection, or find a seed for a new one. Or grab a copy of a really straight-laced history of math. We have something for everyone!

Really Super Serious Business.

2011-12-15T19:56:00.003-05:00

There's a line in the 90's comedy series "Strangers with Candy" that Stephen Colbert delivers to Paul Dinello after heartlessly breaking up with him: "I wasn't pushing you away! I was just pulling me towards myself." With the holidays comes the mass return of your old ghosts to the homestead, possibly along with you. I happen to live in my home town, in the same 3 mile radius of my grade school that I've always lived, because somebody isn't dedicated to academia enough to have gone to school out of state. But I'm not bitter. Okay I'm mildly bitter. I'm like a cheap - wait, affordable - merlot. And I intend to age as such: badly, acidic, a bouquet of failed dreams.

Wait I'm so sorry, what were we talking about, I forgot not everything is about me there for a moment and it was terrifying but I guess I can soldier on.

Some of these old faces are benevolent, some not so much. I am going to have at least two house guests in January alone, and there will be a few other friends that will only be in town for a few days, adamant that I need to see them. Some of them are mad at me for really old reasons. Some of them think I'm a flake, some of them think I stole their thunder/boyfriend/Gameboy Advance, some of them think I'm the best, some of them I've held, drunk, weeping, in a basement bathroom at a party because...okay yeah I don't remember why. Basement party, you know. That's where all the really depraved business happens.

But, ghosts, even if you're not happy to see me, I'm happy to see you. Well, most of you. You, not so much, guy I sat next to in Chem class junior year. Yeah, I see you, eyeing me from the check out line at CVS. Yeah, I did get hot. I know. Thank you for noticing, I'll see you in hell.

If we can't all come together and shut our g-d mouths at Christmukkah, than when can we? Isn't that what the holidays are all about? Realizing that everyone you know is terrible but loving them for some of the funny things they do that aren't so terrible. January is going to be a great month, and not only because my birthday is going to be in it, but because I get to see all my stupid friends from a thousand years ago that I've screwed over like a thousand times by ignoring them to hang out with whomever I was making out with at the time. Ah, Christmas! Fa la la la la, la la la la! And then the best part is, a few days afterward, I get to start over a whole new leaf at 2012 and make believe that I am capable of keeping new years resolutions, which is just a ridiculous prospect. But nevermind!

Oh, ps. I started the audio book for "The Night Circus", but it's too early to tell what I think about it except that do you think 2012 is going to be the year I get Jim Dale to narrate my whole life? Gosh, I hope so. I'm so tired of doing my own voice. Ugh, can somebody carry me to the register for my shift now please? UGH WHY.

In summation: Jamie loves hugs. Jamie loves you. (from "My Fold Out: I Love You")

N.B. Jamie would have it known that she is "doing a Say Anything thing, okay? Not everyone will get that."
Thank you, Jamie.

Happy Holidays, Brookline. Keep your chin up.

Destination: From Atlantic to Pacific

2011-12-13T19:34:00.000-05:00

Traffic terrific or terrible, many of us will be hitting the highways this holiday season, driving home. In doing so we will be joining not just a holiday tradition, but a literary one. Browsing the U.S. shelf of Destination Literature the other day, I noticed that a good part of our national literature takes place, well, On the Road.

The beats weren't the only writers roaming the country. John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley, although recently under criticism for being only partially based on actual events, still stands as a classic exploration of the question "What are American's like today?" Steinbeck's "today" is the year 1960, and the answers he finds as he explores America with his faithful French standard poodle Charley, are not always what you expect.

In 1978, William Least Heat-Moon traveled what he calls the Blue Highways, the lesser-known back roads that crisscross the states, outlined in blue in the old Rand Mcnally guides. Disillusioned with a failed marriage and teaching career, he finds solace in his explorations of the landscapes and small-town culture of the U.S.

Several decades later, Bill Bryson accomplished a similar journey in his The Lost Continent. Avoiding the typical tourist attractions of U.S. travel, Bryson sets out to explore everyday life in lesser known destinations.

Traveling South? Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald made the trip from Connecticut to Alabama in eight days, riding in what Fitzgerald calls the Rolling Junk. The car breaks down several times along the way, but the young couple keep their spirits high. Zelda woke up one morning, homesick for biscuits and peaches. They packed their bags and hit the road. The Cruise of the Rolling Junk was first published serially in Motor magazine but was just published as a book with a foreword by Paul Theroux. Theroux himself has carried the American penchant for documenting road trips into the twenty-first century, proving that cross-country travel continues to be the seed of great American storytelling.

Even those across the pond are joining the tradition. In his recently released Driving Home, Jonathan Raban discovers that, like many of us, his favorite road is the one that takes him home. And mothers driving with a back seat full this season, might find solidarity in Wendy Swart Grossman's Behind the Wheel, a journal of a mother who moved her family from a spacious house in London into a Winnebago, that took them across North America.

If you're planning to spend more time in transit than around the holiday table this season, you aren't alone. All of these books make great traveling companions, perused at rest stops or read out loud from the passenger seat.

Nifty Gifties

2011-12-09T11:30:00.000-05:00

We got some holidays coming up, folks! People are really into giving new books as gifts, but what about rare, out-of-print vintage cool things? Below I'm highlighting some of the most special things of all you won't find anywhere else in the WORLD but the Used Book Cellar. These are rad things you should totally give to those people on your list that have everything. 'Cuz they won't have these:

For the budding grand sommelier, an epic-huge hardcover book "Wines of the World" with full-color photographs, endpapers and a SLIPCASE. Nothin' says class like a slipcase. The book is huge and well-bound so it lies flat. It has a bit of the history of wine, and talks about some ideas for ones to look out for, but as this was printed in 1967, the bread and butter of this book (or cheese and crackers?) is the exhaustive guide to regions, and what kinds of wine come from where, what they taste like, why they taste the way they do. A really fascinating, beautiful book. $20 smackers.

For the funny-man, kooky-lady, anglophile or philosophy major who needs a laugh over the winter break, if I were you I would SERIOUSLY consider The Brand New Monty Python Bok [sic]. This book is rated NC-17 guys, but really there's something for everyone (over 17) here. In standard Python fashion nothing is sacred, all things are satirized and there are lots of pictures. Crude humor. Making fun of monarchs. Sex advice. Rat recipes. Fairy tales. Etiquette tips. Rene Descarte detective stories. Basically, you and anyone worth knowing deserves this book. All this can be yours for just $15 bucks. This is a HUGE savings off of the (fake) list price of £142.48½

For the history buff grampa who's always saying you wouldn't have a chance in a fight against Winston Churchill (I'm in therapy now, guys, don't worry) I present to you The New Yorker War Album. This book was printed in 1942 and is full of New Yorker cartoons lampooning the 1st and 2nd World Wars. Full of subtle humor and slices-of-life from the years of the Great War, this would make a rare, cool gift. $14

The UBC is mad-rich in fancy art books. Big ones, small ones, expensive ones, inexpensive ones. Rare, awesome, etc. We're all over the board! Art is the way to go to impress the cultured ones in your life, and why break the bank to impress someone? Everyone is impressed by the guy or gal who can get a $75 art book for $13. Which is possible here.

So show us the goods, you might be saying? Here is but a SAMPLING dear readers:

I'm obsessed with Penguin book covers, and look at this thing we got in that I DID NOT EVEN KNOW EXISTED: A whole MONOGRAPH of the full paintings used on Penguin covers. Some beautiful, strange stuff in here. Color and black and white. A cool old saddle-stitched book of paintings by Ben Shahn. In 1949 it went for three shillings and sixpence at modern art museums EXCLUSIVELY. But YOU can have it for $5.

For $20 we have a monograph of Anish Kapoor (the shiny Chicago bean guy) that is both physically a beautiful book (shiny endpapers! handwritten notes sewn into the center of the binding!) as well as a fascinating exploration into a VERY contemporary sculptor's process, inspirations and oeuvre.

And for $8 (this is a crazy deal) we have this really large trim-size (I'm talking 15" x 11") book of 16 color plates of French Primitives, beautiful paintings of French medieval life and interest beautifully reproduced (sometimes with metallic ink!). The pages are loose, making each leaf ready for framing!

Thanks for reading! If you have any books you want to turn into cash or store credit, we're here Wednesdays through Saturdays, 10 AM-4PM.

Notes on the Eve of a Terribly Stressful Biology Final (or) Uh-oh, Adios Sanity

2011-12-08T23:37:00.001-05:00

Oh, good evening, friends. And how does this evening find you? Well, I hope? You look well, I must say; it would appear that Paris does agree with you. My, look at your pallor, ruddy as anything! Most excellent. Well but then I suppose, the city of lights would bring a twinkle to one’s eye, it is in the name after all. How are we on time? Oh wonderful, just enough to have a drink. What quaint, unique little outdoor café shall we frequent today? Oh how about this one, with the green lattice on the windows, look how lovely it is.

Isn't the weather fine here? A bit wet, this time of year, but I don't mind, I quite enjoy the time spent inside. It does give one so much more opportunity to focus on one's leisure, don't you think? Do you draw? I absolutely love it, although my husband can't stand the charcoal. It does make an awful mess, but it's all so satisfying to get dirty once in a while, don't you find? Oh my, but here's the waiter, yes, I believe I'll have a brandy, thank you ever so. Are you hungry? Yes, and bring along some sandwiches, won't you, there's a chap.

My, life has been so much more relaxing since I succeeded from the reality of my Allston-based existence into this Hemingway-fueled fantasy world in which get to walk around wealthy European towns and drink expensive alcohol. Perhaps I'll call in to work later to tell them I couldn't possibly do a thing, not today, not with the weather the way it is, so perfect for a stroll down the pier or a horse-drawn taxi ride around the park. Besides my hands are only just beginning to heal from their arthritic state - all that paper writing and page turning, you understand. Wreaked havoc on my joints, I'll tell you that much! No, no, now I just hang around in my boudoir until a strange Count brings me champagne and forces me to have an expensive dinner with him in return for nothing but the pleasure of my exquisite, youthful company. Or one of my unique-yet-familiar-in-their-wealth friends (or enemies, rather hard to tell) pops round and we get drunk and talk about something terribly masculine like boxing, or women and how complicated they are.

No, of course not all Hemingway stories are like this, but I've just read 'The Sun Also Rises', and in doing so decided that I wanted my life to be one long evening, as well, so I constructed this terribly delightful personal universe in which I am the lady of leisure I've always dreamed of being. A lady who lunches, even! Can you imagine? All of my wide brimmed hats, expensive sunglasses, and bangles? Not that Hemingway would say a word about those, of course not; 4 or 5 sentences about what a taxi cab was passing as it drives into the garage but not a stitch on the splendor of my professionally done fingernails. Never mind. I am excited, I do suspect that as we get deeper and deeper into this collection I shall swiftly retire to the country, perhaps do some game hunting. Oh my I will need a gun, won't I? I imagine there will be some villas, some remote locations. More girls. More guns. I'm so very excited. Oh look! The brandy is here, wonderful, wonderful. A toast, why not? A toast!

To the Cinema

2011-12-07T16:55:00.000-05:00

Few books are better than the movies and only a select others truly measure up to the book. The Invention of Hugo Cabret definitely fits within the category.

When I first heard Hugo was going to be a movie, I was a bit disappointed. If you've seen this book, you know that its charm lies within the design. Part written novel, part wordless picturebook, author and illustrator Brian Selznick shows you what is happening. The book opens as the moon moves across the Paris night sky, and narrows down to the train station where we follow a boy who lives inside of the station walls. Text is added when illustration would not be the most effective story telling or if dialogue is needed. Really, it is one book of its time, rising a great debate of why it won the Caldecott. Hugo is great for readers 8 and up, or any avid reader of children's books.

I won't give away the differences between the book and the movie, but there are very few. The mystery and discovery of cinema remains a prominent theme in the movie. The characters looked and acted the part -- especially Isabelle.

I still advocate to read the book before the movie, but this movie adaptation is well worth it -- especially in 3-d (where the special effects are not overused, but still draw you into the story of young Hugo).

Destination: Close Your Eyes and Point

2011-12-06T18:09:00.020-05:00

Bookstores contain worlds within them, offering readers stories beyond the borders of their experience. The new collection of maps at Booksmith, on display in our events' space downstairs, is, well, "mapping" this natural relationship between a reader and the world.

As I stood in Booksmith's basement, contemplating the impressive 73"x48" National Geographic Executive Wall Map, tracing the contours of countries on the Michelin World Map, admiring the continental color scheme of the World Tyvek Wall Map, I was remembering another map, one that hung in the basement of my childhood home, in what my family called "the ham radio room." Here my dad disappeared for hours on end to pursue his hobby as a ham radio operator, talking to distant countries in a mysterious Morse code that often interrupted our television’s reception, blurring the faces of a sitcom into a rhythm of snowfields and static.

I saw the world for the first time in that room, on the large map that hung on the wall. The multicolored countries, pale pink, mint, and lemon, were pock marked with pin holes, but only two pins remained in my earliest memory, and soon even these were plucked from the map. Their tiny navy blue and red heads indicated, I told my friends proudly whenever they asked to see my father’s mysterious cave, the only two countries in the world my dad had not yet contacted. I recalled this boast recently, when, upon showing a friend my personal library, I replied to a question by saying, with the same satisfaction, that there were only two or three books on the shelves that I had not read.

As I perused the maps in the basement of Booksmith, I wondered about the influence this early knowledge of a wider world had on my sisters and I. Each of us take whatever opportunity we can to see new parts of the world, studying and teaching abroad, or traveling for adventure whenever our budgets allow. A good map can take you to places you never dreamed of going, simply by planting a certain image, an awareness of a whole yet to be seen, a sense that your knowledge of the world is as yet fragmented, incomplete, perhaps even—I thought as I contemplated Booksmith's "Who Said 'North' was 'Up?'" map—upside-down.

"The life of an individual is in many respects like a child's dissected map," wrote Oliver Wendell Holmes, "Many of these pieces seem fragmentary, but...If I could look back on the whole, as we look at the child's map when it is put together, I feel that I should have my whole life intelligently laid out before me."

This passage is situated as an epigraph to Graham Greene's Journey Without Maps, a travelogue of his journey to the uncharted African coast of Liberia. Greene begins his tale at the consulate, getting his passport stamped for the journey into a plagued and violent land. On the wall he finds "the usual blank map...a few towns along the coast, a few villages along the border."

A few pages later he describes his motivation for his journey as inspired by a particular shape he saw on that map."I thought for some reason even then of Africa, not a particular place, but a shape, a strangeness, a wanting to know. The unconscious mind is often sentimental; I have written 'a shape', and the shape, of course, is roughly that of the human heart."

Greene's journey without a map is only one of many books on the shelves of Destination Literature that speak to the importance of cartography to the way we imagine and perceive the world. Ken Jenning's recently released Maphead is a memoir told through its author's obsession with maps. Andrea Ponsi's delicately illustrated Florence: A Map of Perceptions, takes the reader on a visual tour of Florence's architecture. In the art section you can find Katharine Harmon's gorgeous Map as Art. But it isn't difficult to see how maps operate as art, as mediums through which to conceive of the world anew, inspiring us into new spaces. Simply go to the basement wall, close your eyes, and point.

Some quick cheese.

2011-12-05T15:56:00.006-05:00

Try poems.

Dirty little bricks-
so many finger shakers
fertile pace makers.

Turn to the tip
of some forgotten truth-

a sour toothed balm.
Palm again the exhale in the

train's breaks
with line breaks

take another take.
Give someone a scream and a sigh.

unhinge the hamper,
filth up the quaint-

make it shine
a brake-less car on the highway
of your heart.

*

Check out some of our amazing small press chapbooks!!

2011-12-02T11:30:00.000-05:00

In Of Mice and Men, one of the main characters, Lenny, famously has a fondness for "soft things." And whom among us isn't tactile, perhaps not to the intense degree of Lenny himself, but there is something about the feel of tiny, hoppy bunnies--or particularly well-made books--that makes them that much more satisfying to enjoy.

Maybe the most obvious texture that a lot of favorite books have is the deckled edge, the byproduct of an old way of papermaking that leaves the edges of a paper artfully rough (observe photo left). Nowadays, only artisans make paper this way, so when you get a book with these edges it's usually faked by a machine to make the book look real legit. But it does have a certain fancy feel to it, even if it makes it difficult to flip through the pages. Sometimes a book is given a fancy texture in another way. Varnishes, like metallic foil or spot gloss are pressed onto a cover to give the color of the jacket more POP and the result is also a tactile delight. The embossing on some covers, too, gives a subtle look to the jacket but also makes it really pleasant to hold, and also therefore more difficult to put down.

Recent books that employ this technique really well are the Penguin Threads series designed by magically amazing artist Jillian Tamaki. For three recent reprintings of Black Beauty, Emma and The Secret Garden, Tamaki HAND-EMBROIDERED jacket illustrations, and when the books were printed, the texture of the threads was embossed on the cover, making them stunning art objects that are compulsively touchable. Rachel Sumpter is designing the next three covers for Wind in the Willows, Wizard of Oz and Little Women. They are STUNNING.

Of course, sometimes texture and touch are employed in the design of a book in a way that is integral to the text. Firmin by Sam Savage (a recent acquisition in the UBC) is the story of a rat born in a 1960s Boston bookstore (not us!) who devours literature both literally and figuratively. The book is die cut with a huge bite-mark taken out of the right side, all the way through the book. It's a playful way of introducing a central element of the story into the design, and makes it a really fun book to pick up and inspect. It's sort of a grown-up version of classic touch-and-feel books like Pat the Bunny, where images, text and texture combine to help young toddlers in the tactile phase with language acquisition. This phenomenon is timeless, and since the publication of Pat the Bunny in 1940 there have been a plethora of additions to this category of books. A more recent one that I'm particularly fond of is Betsy Snyder's Have You Ever Tickled a Tiger which employs some really creative materials to imitate turtle skin and walrus whiskers in particular.

This completes my little blog-series on senses by-the-book. Thanks for reading! As always, come check us out in the Used Book Cellar! And remember we can even give you money for your already-felt books. Stay in the black this year and exchange your books for store credit, then take care of all your holiday shopping under our roof. We buy Wednesdays through Saturdays from 10 AM to 4PM.

Destination: Morocco

2011-11-29T16:59:00.025-05:00

Today I received a letter from a friend who recently moved to Morocco. A native of Ireland, this friend has lived in more countries over the past few years than I have ever seen. When I turned a page in my address book to scribble down his newest residence, it was the seventh address entered beneath his name.

The move did not surprise me, but the destination? Why Morocco? I asked. He'd found a copy of Partir (translated Leaving Tangier) by Tahar Ben Jelloun while in London, my friend wrote back, and he had booked a ticket soon after he'd finished the novel.

I recognized the name. Last week a customer told me she was traveling to Morocco. We headed to the Destination Literature section, where we found Jelloun's This Blinding Absence of Light, in which prisoners tell each other stories to endure their internment in desert concentration camps. Next to Jelloun was Paul Bowles, whose fiction is full of Americans encountering the culture of North Africa. We also found For Bread Alone a memoir of Moroccan Mohamed Choukri, a friend of Bowles.

In solidarity with my friend's move, I picked up a copy of Leaving Tangier for myself. It's a desperate story of those who long to leave their country and take life-destroying measures to do so. The main character, Azel, sells himself to a rich Spanish lover in order to make the crossing, then writes heartbreaking anguished letters back to a country he loves and hates with an irreconcilable tension.

In reply to my friend's letter I am sending him a small Moroccan guidebook I found from the '60s. While the information is long out of date, the aesthetics of the book pleased me: a tiny 4x6 volume of dark navy with the country's name etched in gold across the cover. But it was the cartography that drew me. Several detailed, full-colored maps of various cities fold out from the thin pages.

In the back of the guidebook, I gingerly unfolded a full sized map the country. I stared at the northernmost tip, at Tangier, and at the strip of water that separates it from Europe. Something in the very topography of that place speaks of borders and boundaries, of the lines that define nations and races and individuals, of voices that speak across channels and oceans, of longing that reaches the viewer from the flat dimensions of a page.

While few of us can claim such versatile itineraries for our lives, books often play the same role as they did for my friend, that is, books function as maps, leading us into worlds we have never seen. It seems appropriate then, that we're bringing in a rich array of maps to supplement our travel section at Booksmith. Look for them downstairs, bordering the walls of our events' space. Books and maps illustrate the world for us in much the same way, connecting us across distances that once seemed impassable.

Report from the Fleeting Realm

2011-11-25T11:00:00.000-05:00

As I was shelving books one day in the UBC a customer walked up to me and exclaimed: "I just LOVE the smell down here!" Admittedly, I've worked down here for a while and am honestly not so sure I can smell the UBC anymore. But it probably changes a lot, anyway. We get lots of new (used) books every week and plenty go out, too. I imagine the cumulative scent of aged paper, a little bit of dust--all the rooms and people that these books have sat with over the years--combines into one intoxicating smell. The smell of escape, pleasure and scholarship. It's not an entirely uncommon remark for a bookseller to receive from a customer: "I just love how books smell." I've even caught peeks of more than a few browsers sneaking a whiff inside an open book, but I'd never tell.

I have the same sort of associations. Sometimes the smell of one book will remind me of another, just like reading a really great description fills my brain with a smell memory. The brain is so wacky that way. One of my favorite books in the world is Perfume by Patrick Süskind. It's pretty gross. The main character Grenouille is born in a fish market next to a cemetery in 18th century Paris on a hot July day. Basically, the smelliest place on the smelliest day ever. After he's born, his skin makes no smell but his own sense of smell is superhuman. He can smell things at a distance, he can smell things concealed beneath wood, he can smell things humans usually can't. He can smell a certain je ne sais quoi on a young woman one night and becomes obsessed with the smell. Capturing her essence dominates his life and he becomes a journeyman perfumer in order to attempt it.

The narrator makes mention that all Grenouille's doings belong to the "fleeting realm of scent," and it's kind of crazy to think about how smell is so ephemeral, but our memories of scents and their immediate impressions are almost inescapable. I had a friend who had anosmia (no sense of smell) and every once in a while he would recall one of the two things he smelled before he lost his sense entirely: blue kool-aid. We were walking together one day and randomly he said, "does this tree smell like blue kool-aid?" I took a whiff to humor him, but alas it just smelled like cedar. "Darn, I can smell it so strongly. I could swear I was smelling it for real."

In Diane Ackerman's A Natural History of the Senses, she spends a bit of time talking about literary entanglements with scent: Proust, Dickens, Lady Murasaki. It's a sense that can be overlooked in writing, but when it's given its full due, it can really be so evocative. I have only to read the world lavender, or vanilla or citrus and immediately my brain is reminding me what those things smell like. When authors throw scents into a book it immediately draws me in. I'm alert, attentive and my mind is exactly where they might want me: disgusted and near-wretching in the fish market or peacefully reclining in a pleasant garden. But sense all this for yourself! Stop by and smell our wares, and check out one of the many books that recall this fleeting realm.

You are Invited to Travel To...

2011-11-23T18:53:00.000-05:00

For many Brookliners, the smell of turkey in the air, whether it be November or December, means a lot of travel. When I was six, I never understood why I couldn't take puzzles with me. Of course I wouldn't loose the pieces...but there was also the issue of the box. It's a standard, puzzles come in boxes. It is also a fact that if you place a box with a lot of small pieces in it, it will result in a very squished and ripped up box. All in all, not good. That is why some of our bestselling kids' puzzles are very intriguing. Why? Well, to begin with they come in a resealable bag. And they measure 8x12, which is a little smaller than the size of most airline and train fold-out-trays. Introducing Travel Pouch Puzzles, that come in a variety of designs -- dragons, ballet, space, USA, world, horses, pirates, ocean, and more!

And if you are still reading, I'll let you in on a secret. Our selection of these Travel Pouch Puzzles will be 15% off Thursday, December 1st only, AFTER our First Annual Staff Recommendations at 7:00 pm, downstairs in our Readers and Writers space. (Staff Recommendations for grown-ups will take place on Wednesday, November 30 at 7:00 pm.) What other new and recent titles and gifts of the year will we be recommending (all at 15% off)? You'll have to come and find out.

You won't want to miss this event! Come join us for an inspiring evening of refreshments, wine, and literary discussion to discover the perfect gift or select your next winter read. Complimentary wrap will also be available.

Destination: Home

2011-11-22T17:07:00.008-05:00

As Thanksgiving approaches, our minds fill with the people we are grateful for, those who make up our everyday, those we keep close despite the distances between us. In an effort to bridge those distances we book our flights, stand in security lines, sit in hours of traffic, or send cards and gifts in our absence. On Thanksgiving, we become pilgrims again, traveling back to the places from which we come, or to the places that are growing dear, to the places that inspire us.

Unlike her previous work--capturing the Rolling Stones or a pregnant Demi Moore, Annie Leibovitz's newest book of photography, Pilgrimage, does not contain any people. Instead Leibovitz travels to the places that inspire her: the places where the pioneers of various fields of literature, photography, and art once lived, worked, composed.

As you flip through the pages, rich with portraits of place, you will not miss the people. There is no absence in this book. Somehow, in capturing these abandoned objects, empty rooms, and open landscapes, Leibovitz has managed to reveal the presence of those no longer there almost as powerfully as if they were staring back at the lens.

My favorite image, the two-page spread of the top of Virginia Woolf's writing desk, tells me more about that writer's process than I could get out of reading a 200 page biography. Introspection adorns the delicate intricacies revealed in a close-up of Emily Dickinson's white dress. A bullet hole that Annie Oakley shot through a heart target appears to be freshly torn.

Leibovitz's project began with family. During a difficult year, she set aside time for her children, taking them on vacation to Niagara Falls. As her two girls stood on a precipice overlooking the falls, Leibovitz wandered up behind them, camera in hand. She saw what mesmerized them and snapped the photo that now adorns the cover of her book. Behind every photograph of place is an image of someone she loves.

Happy travels.

Dig In!

2011-11-18T08:00:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving is coming up next week, and what better way to celebrate the tastiest holiday in America with a blog post composed entirely of me skipping ahead to the sauciest bits in the foodiest books in the UBC? Bon Apétit!

Goblin Market, Christina Rosetti

"I ate and ate my fill,

Yet my mouth waters still;

To-morrow night I will

Buy more," and kissed her.

"Have done with sorrow;

I'll bring you plums to-morrow

Fresh on their mother twigs,

Cherries worth getting;

You cannot think what figs

My teeth have met in,

What melons, icy-cold

Piled on a dish of gold

Too huge for me to hold,

What peaches with a velvet nap,

Pellucid grapes without one seed:

Odorous indeed must be the mead

Whereon they grow, and pure the wave they drink,

With lilies at the brink,

And sugar-sweet their sap."

Farmer Boy, Laura Ingalls Wilder:
"Almanzo ate the sweet, mellow baked beans. He ate the bit of salt pork that melted like cream in his mouth. He ate the mealy boiled potatoes, with brown ham-gravy. He ate the ham. He bit deep into velvety bread spread with sleek butter, and he ate the crisp golden crust. He demolished a tall heap of pale mashed turnips, and hill of stewed yellow pumpkin. Then he sighed, and tucked his napkin deeper into the neckband of his red waist. And he ate plum preserves and strawberry jam, and grape jelly, and spiced watermelon-rind pickles. He felt very comfortable inside. Slowly he ate a large piece of pumpkin pie."

The Devil's Larder, Jim Crace
"She liked the aubergine's affinity with olive oil and garlic, its generous response to mushrooms or tomatoes. It kept good company. She liked its versatility, just as happy to be stuffed as fried, just as tasty in a moussaka or ratatouille as in a dip or served as Fainting Priest."

The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
Yeah I know they all get poisoned from the crabmeat but OMG this is the tastiest spread in literature:

"Arrayed on the Ladies' Day banquet table were yellow-green avocado pear halves stuffed with crabmeat and mayonnaise, and platters of rare roast beef and cold chicken, and every so often a cut-glass bowl heaped with black caviar. [..] Before I came to New York I'd never eaten out in a proper restaurant. I don't count Howard Johnson's, where I only had french fries and cheeseburgers and vanilla frappes with people like Buddy Willard. I'm not sure why it is, but I love food more than just about anything else. [...] My favorite dishes are full of butter and cheese and sour cream."

Like Water for Chocolate, Laura Esquivel
This book! Recipes in every chapter and saucy descriptions like gangbusters! Here's a teaser:

"It was as if a strange alchemical process had dissolved her entire being in the rose petal sauce, in the tender flesh of the quails, in the wine, in every one of the meal's aromas."

A Movable Feast, Ernest Hemingway
"As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea."

The Book of Salt, Monique Truong

Photo ©Rebecca Perriello

"I wanted to tell her that I would cut the first pineapple into paper-thin rounds and saute them with shallots and slices of beef; that the sugar in the pineapple would caramelized during cooking, imparting a faint smokiness that is addictive; [...] I would cut the second pineapple into bite-sized pieces, soak them in kirsch, make them into a drunken bed for spoonfuls of tangerine sorbet; that I would pipe unsweetened cream around the edges, a ring of ivory-colored rosettes."

Lynda Barry love, animals getting drunk, did I mention I'm an art school dropout?

2011-11-17T20:13:00.001-05:00

I was a very creative little kid, which led to a lot of kits, and journals, (I believe I've blogged about those before) and various arts-n-crafts situations from distant family members. Some I used, some I didn't. I didn't really like other kids, I found most of their shenanigans insufferable, so I spent a lot of time doing stuff in front of the television or listening to books on tape. Creating stuff always came pretty naturally to me as a child, and then I grew up and went to art school (for a hot second) and found it really very difficult. Art school wanted me to investigate why I created, and how I could better that instinct, and most importantly, how I could make money off of that instinct. Those are all really important things to think about if you're pursuing art as a serious career; I have been working for Abstraks, which is an online art journal run by my friend Darius Loftis, in an interviewing capacity. In my work interviewing artists, I've found you really have to know you're stuff if you're planning on making this into a career choice.

I remember once in Art school, in one of my foundation classes, I spent hours making this digital collage that was supposed to reference this science fiction genre of comparing space to the final frontier, (this was a thinly veiled excuse to talk about my favourite television series of all time, Firefly, which is about space cowboys) and I was psyched about using photoshop, something I had been teaching myself in my own time since high school (so now that I'm reading this I'm realizing that I am the hugest nerd in existence and should probably just be stopped). I spent so much time crafting this complicated vista of vintage photographs and stills from movies like "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" and "The Lone Ranger", and I really tried very hard to make this thing that spoke to my interests in a format that I understood, and of course, the teacher didn't get it. It was about space? But cowboys? What was the deeper meaning here, what did space and cowboys represent to me? I was incredulous. My narrative was falling on deaf ears, but more than that, I myself didn't really know what I was talking about, and I had hoped that art school would help me figure that out. When it didn't, I left.

I never stopped thinking about it, though. I don't know why I personally create. Some of us don't, I suppose. To some of us it might just be a natural form of communication; my parents are both quietly creative, my mom writes a little, my dad is a master color-er. I learned pretty early that art makes people happy; not necessarily the content, but the fact of art. Draw somebody a picture sometime, watch their reaction. It doesn't have to be what you would call "good". Around here I'm known as a pretty serious doodler. I recently made some silly art for a friend's kitchen, and she remarked that her last apartment had practically been a museum for another artist friend. I said, "You should make your current place into a similar museum; Billy-Bob (names have been changed to protect the innocent) is a much better artist than I am." My friend replied, "Billy-bob is a very good painter, but she's not as silly as you. Much fewer animals getting drunk." Sure enough, there's a monkey in a bow tie drinking a glass of wine on the piece I made for her. It's not fine art, but its definitely a line drawing of a monkey drinking a glass of wine. Just the fact that it's good for nothing else makes it art, and I stand by that sentiment. And when she looked at it, she got jazzed about that monkey drinking that wine. Come on! It's a monkey drinking wine! What's not to love?

The point I'm getting at is: Art don't always have to be beautiful, friends. I don't mean in the feelings department; sure, art can be used to manipulate emotions in a bevy of different ways, and I don't mean to shock you, but sometimes art is not meant to make you feel good. But you guys aren't dummies, you know that, you've listened to Joni Mitchell, you know the drill. I'm just worried that sometimes we don't let ourselves create because we think what we're going to create is going to be 'bad' or not look good. If that's you, then let me hip you to the groove of one Lynda Barry, author of these books and a few more:

Lynda Barry gets me, you guys. I've mentioned her on here before on my list of Greatest Booksmith Author Events I've Ever Attended, and she is truly the queen of creation. Barry addresses any and all of your qualms about Makin' Stuff and Bein' Artsy, not only does she address them but she lets you in on her own creative angst, to boot. Her creative angst! This, from an amazing woman who's published several graphic novels and a few fictional ones. And yet, she too, lets herself get in her way sometimes. I love Lynda Barry, I hope everyone who longs to make stuff reads her books and starts a-makin' in their own way, at their own speed. The books themselves are pretty gorg, too boot - I'm batting my eyelashes at you, gift book lookers-for. Yeah. You heard me. I would get this for any Empty Nesters Looking To Expand Their Suddenly Free Time and Young Family Members That Sorta Like Reading And Being Alone. I'm totally kidding, you see right through me, internets. I would get these books for anyone, ever, that's how much I love them. I don't just love them, I loooooooooooove them. I wanna leave an anonymous note in their locker and then never make eye contact with them again for as long as I live. You know, usual adult stuff. You know.

Destination: A White Whale

2011-11-15T16:47:00.013-05:00

Even those who have not made it all the way through Moby Dick (I currently have three people in my life who have never finished, all of whom will remain nameless, but one is my father, one is my boyfriend, and one is a coworker who shares my middle name), even if you've never done anything more than heft the book off the bookstore shelf for a moment before setting it back down and rubbing your strained muscles, you probably know that Moby Dick is a white whale whose evasive nature has made him the perfect metaphor for, well, anything.

In fact, perhaps the most prevalent meaning of Melville's white whale is the enigmatic nature of the beast itself. Lately though, Moby Dick has been anything but elusive. He's everywhere at Booksmith. Choose almost any section and you'll find him: from art books to pop-ups, fiction to destination literature, U.S. history to children's books, Melville is becoming a presence in bookstores difficult to ignore.

Why? In a recent article published in The Rumpus, Roary Douglas claims Moby Dick maintains its popularity for the fact that someone could write an essay for every page of the book. David Foster Wallace, apparently, wrote three essays on one chapter. Douglas's essay is about Moby Dick as travelogue, which is exactly what it is. I challenge anyone to read the first chapter (come on, just the first) without making a trip to the seashore, or booking a whale watching cruise, soon after.

Still struggling to find an essay in every page? How about a drawing? Matt Kish recently published an art book the heft of Moby Dick, in fact, it contains the same number of pages. In Moby Dick in Pictures Kish has created a work of art for each page in the novel. An impressive task. For example, how would you illustrate: For so revolvingly appalling was the white whale's aspect, and so planetarily swift the ever-contracting circles he made, that he seemed horizontally swooping upon them?

If you like the visual approach to so much text, there is a pop-up in our kids' section. Or you can try the Classic Starts version in children's books. This is part of a new series that strives to make classic literature palatable for beginning readers.

Skeptical that a narrative as intricate as Moby Dick could be translated into juvenile language, I took a look at how Classic Starts chose to "retell" the story. The book, thankfully, preserves the first line, and even the one that soon follows about Ishmael feeling so restless that he wanted to knock the hats off of people's heads: so far, so good. Plus, you only have to wait until chapter six (as opposed to twenty-eight) to finally meet the infamous Captain Ahab, and the entire book is only 141 pages. Any references to spermaceti, however, are excluded.

When I first read Moby Dick a little over a year ago, I read Phillip Hoare's The Whale simultaneously. The book just came out in paperback this year and is a wonderful supplement to those readers who get hooked on all the whale facts artfully woven into Melville's narrative. Hoare takes you from his experience swimming with whales to the Whaling Museum in New Bedford (where you can also find Melville sights such as the Seamen's Chapel, lined with memorials to men who lost their lives to whales and complete with a pulpit that looks like a ship's prow).

And if you are more interested in the life of the author, try Jay Parini's novelization of Melville's life, Passages of HM, released this month in paperback.

Still not convinced you want to pick it up? Start with Nathaniel Philbrick's new book Why Read Moby Dick, and if he doesn't convince you, I give up. Philbrick has written on this subject before—his In the Heart of the Sea tells the true story of the Essex, the whaling boat whose tragic tale inspired Melville to write his novel.

These books all orbit around the novel, much in the same way Melville describes a pod of whales circling their young. Even outside of the bookstore, I'm surrounded by references to the novel. My copyediting class was assigned a passage from Melville to proofread. And last week, a play of Moby Dick was even showing at the Paramount. I tried to go, but it was sold out. The white whale wins again.

What's all the noise?

2011-11-11T08:00:00.000-05:00

Books may not make a whole 'lotta noise on their own, except maybe for the satisfying sound of a cracking spine (BOOK spine!). But books can certainly be splendiferously sonorous: great volumes of poetry and well-written children's books BEG to be read aloud and shared, and just as many books are the conveyances of great music or the science thereof. Below are a few recent finds in the Used Book Cellar that showcase the gamut of sound-related books for part two of my little blog-series on UBC finds and the senses...

The Singing Life of Birds by Donald Kroodsma is a book on how to listen to bird's sing. You wouldn't think you'd need to read a whole book weighing in at 400-some-odd pages, but this bad boy delves deep into the science of bird songs, as well as differences in songs among many types of birds. It even comes with a CD to follow what Kroodsma is talking about. It's a beautiful hardcover in fantastic condition that would make an excellent gift for the avian audiophile in your life.

Just a Little Critter Collection by Mercer Mayer is a a collection of seven of the Little Critter books all in one volume. No more reaching for another and then another when the little one(s) cry "MORE!" - the crème de la crème of America's favorite monster are all handily bound in a not-unwieldy volume. Whenever I think of read-alouds, the first that comes to mind is Little Critter. Of all the books in my library as a child, Little Critter were my mom's favorite to read over and over, (HI MOM!) and perhaps that's why I have so many fond memories of her voice reading the refrains ("I was so mad!") when I think of childhood, books, or nondescript lovable critters. Pick up a copy and make it your family's bedtime favorite.

Vermont Sings is a tiny pamphlet of sheet music printed in 1959. It has great lettering throughout and a lovely illustration on the cover. The songs within all celebrate the awesomeness of Vermont, and there are even a few songs in French and German. It's a great little find that celebrates music AND The Green Mountain State. Win!

That's all from the UBC this week, folks, thanks for reading. If'n you have any books to sell, be sure to bring them by Wednesday through Saturday, 10 AM-4 PM. Tune in next week when I celebrate all things tasty for the Thanksgiving holiday.

The Sounds Around

2011-11-09T19:32:00.003-05:00

Every year I am always on the look out for the new the fantastic winter holiday season picturebook. Looking through some of them in the summer (yes, we see them that early for ordering purposes) I wonder if any will catch my eye. And then one finally does. When it arrives in our store approximately four months later, we are nearly inseparable. This year it is Lita Judge's Red Sled. Let's sled along to the form of this new release...

What do you think of when you hear the words "wordless picturebook"? For me, the last words on my mind are "babyish." Sadly, this is what some customers view them as. However, the amount of words have nothing to do with the appeal, age level, or success of a book. For picturebooks, it is not simply the words that drive a story but the art.

I love wordless picturebooks for a variety of reasons. The first is that it gives children an opportunity to read the story to you, even if they can't read yet. The second is that it teaches art skills. How do you know the character is intrigued if there are no words to indicate this? Through the illustrations. When I nannied for two small children one summer, the three-year-old asked me what the character liked to do for fun. We had a great time looking at the illustrations discovering various things that this character enjoyed doing and looking at the toys she had.

All right, so back to Red Sled. A boy's sled is borrowed by a bear who ventures out with it. Soon a rabbit joins him. And then a moose, two raccoons, a mouse, a possum, and a porcupine. What a great midnight adventure! Guess who joins the next night?

As you may have guessed this book is a wordless picturebook -- with the exception of some onomatopoeia. The sounds really work to bring the story to a whole new dimension. I mean, when your sledding, shouts of joy are often inevitable. And then there are screams of fear. Judge depicts the huge difference between this:

AND this:

The art of the picturebook is illustration. Words exist to help drive the story along and to add to the atmosphere of the story. And sometimes sounds take it that much further.

The holiday of a thousand spellings is back!

2011-11-08T19:17:00.002-05:00

Hanukah, Chanukkah, and everything in between begins the night of December 20th. Looking for a book to help explain all the candle-counting and potato-frying to the young people in your life? Your holiday wish is our command.

A standout this year is Chanukah Lights, with popups by King of Popup Robert Sabuda and text by poet-even-when-he-writes-prose Michael Rosen. Each of the eight nights gets a winter-white popup spread and a sentence or two about the holiday's significance.

Little hands not quite ready for delicate three-dimensional paper art? Priddy's Bright Baby Touch and Feel has the perfect offering. Hanukkah introduces one word per page with tactile illustrations. Warning: 3D frosting may cause cookie cravings.

Slightly older readers may enjoy bopping to the beat of Erica Silverman's The Hanukkah Hop! And anyone who likes good stories and likes getting mail should enjoy the Send-a-Story edition of Naomi Howland's Latkes, Latkes, Good to Eat. If you've read Tomie dePaola's Strega Nona, you'll recognize elements of the abundantly delicious plot (and if you haven't read Strega Nona, I know what's going on your gift list this year).

We've got coloring books. We've got activity books. We've got candles and gelt, and we're full of gift advice. Come on in!

Destination: Valley of the Assassins

2011-11-08T18:04:00.015-05:00

Over the past year, my boyfriend and I have been reading Homer's Odyssey out loud together, a project initially introduced over the phone in an effort to soften the distance between coasts, and now, as we are both in Boston, continued for the sheer joy of a mutual read. But we've brought lonely Odysseus home now, and are searching the shelves for our next literary adventure.

Our attention has recently focused on the Arabian Nights. We are now facing the difficult task of choosing a translator and a cover, both essential factors when selecting a read-aloud, the former for obvious reasons of cadence and tone, the latter because the listener needs something nice to look at. If anyone can point us to the ideal edition, please let me know.

Until we've located that treasure trove of stories, I've decided to embark on a different kind of Arabian adventure. I picked up a copy of Freya Stark's Valleys of the Assassins from the Middle East shelf of Destination Literature. In these pages, I found a modern day Scheherazade whose tales are as imaginative and beautifully wrought as those of the heroine storyteller of 1001 Nights.

Born in Italy in 1892, Stark spent the following century that her life encompassed on daunting adventures in the Middle East. In the 1930s, Stark traveled into the then-uncharted territory of Luristan, which lies between Iraq and present-day Iran. Her travels take her deep into country where, though no one will charge you for a meal or bed, they may without compunction, rob you while you sleep. Theft is, Stark reports, "the country's natural past time, with rules of its own: and who are we, after all, to demand consistency in morals?" On one of her first nights, Stark's hosts thoughtfully tuck her shoes beneath her mattress. In this country, she quickly learns, you sleep on your belongings.

As she is guided by various tribesmen through dangerous terrain, Stark's deft language allows the reader to travel effortlessly along with them. She describes the sound of a refrain sung by her guide across one stretch of plain as "very like the yodeling of the Alps but fiercer, as a purring tiger is like a cat."

Stark paints her landscapes with equal charm: "Like a human being, the mountain is a composite creature, only to be known after many a view from many a different point, and repaying this lovely study, if it is anything of a mountain at all, by gradual revelation of personality...you will know it ever after from the plains, though from there it is but one small blue flame among the sister ranges that press their delicate teeth into the evening sky."

She introduces characters that seem to be drawn from a book of illustrated fairytales, such as Alidad, a guide who, as he leads her harnessed mule through treacherous mountain passes, is described as always keeping "one sinister eye shut."

While I would most likely have no trouble discovering such a character in 1001 Nights, Stark's stories have the added pleasure and sometimes stomach-clenching thrill of having actually occurred. The reader has the benefit of knowing that these wonders of the world exist in the one that we inhabit.

Sometimes Stark is on the hunt for Bronze Age skeletons for the sake of archeology, sometimes we see her charting--from the top of a precipice to which she has somehow convinced her grumbling guides to escort her--lands never seen by European eyes. For awhile she is actually on the trail of a cave of treasure, following a tattered map brought to her by an adolescent tribesman. But usually, she seems to be simply traveling, often at the risk of her life, for the sheer joy of it.

For those who wonder at the motivations behind such an audacious traveler, in her preface, Stark lets the reader in on what started it all: "An imaginative aunt who, for my ninth birthday, sent a copy of the Arabian Nights, was, I suppose, the original cause of the trouble."

See, Spot, Read

2011-11-04T08:00:00.000-04:00

This post is the first in a series from the Used Book Cellar highlighting books that tickle each of the five senses. I'm starting with sight. Lately we've gotten a lot of great field guides in from all kinds of genres and time periods. Y'know, the kind of books that help you spot things. Or at least illustrate things visually that you might not be able to see every day.

So. You're reading Dune for the 18th time. You pick it up every year right when the first snow hits New England. You gotta get away; gotta get to Arrakis. Hot. Sultry. Dry. Sandy. You get to that cool part with the Navigators, and you're all like, "man, I read this book every year but I still cannot correlate in my BRAIN what these things look like." Man. I feel ya. I got the book for you, though. This comprehensive, illustrated-in-color-and-researched-to-the-gills field guide to all extraterrestrials from the sci-fi canon is only $7 and will help you spot a Heinlein alien from a Poul Anderson one if you ever go intergalactic. Or it could be a handy reference as you get started on your intricate costume design for next Halloween.

We got four volumes of this pocket Gold Nature Guide series from the 60s; Flowers, Fishing, Gamebirds and Trees. Each has great, almost full-page illustrations with a handy amount of information. The binding is surprisingly tight and all books are in great condition. The size is perfect for walking around with, or they won't take up too much space in your studio if you want to use them for reference in your illustrations. OR hack them up and get decoupage-ing.

Rounding out the crème de la crème of UBC field guides is this rare gem: a comprehensive guide to identifying--in the field--stray shopping carts throughout Eastern North America. Ever spotted a stray shopping cart but been unable to identify whether it's currently in use as a receptacle, or whether it's decomposing due to natural forces? What if it's languishing on an Allston street corner because the wheel lock caught and it was found outside its 2-block radius OR it was the victim of some hesher's careless joy ride? Never be caught unawares again! Carry this handsome guide with you always and be an Urban Audubon to friends and passerby everywhere!

Tune in next week as we gear up for Thanksgiving week's post on TASTE, with a post on SOUND.

Narnia Had 100 Years of Winter, January in Boston Only Lasts About 40-50, Max.

2011-11-03T21:12:00.000-04:00

I am a Masschusetts native, so there has never been a time for me when winter wasn't relevant, and more then that, what it represents to me has gone through every incarnation during my lifetime. When I was a kid, and, I imagine, when you were a kid as well, winter was that iconic wonderland that we tend to remember through rose colored glasses. To a kid, the only negative aspect of winter is cold; things like shoveling, buying the gloves and the down coats, heating the house, driving the cars on the icy roads, those are all adult matters that children (and a select few 23-year-olds, ahem) don't think about. To a kid, winter is just another phase thrust upon us ( I mean uh, them) that doesn't quite have the same mouth-watering allure of the holy grail of seasons, summer vacation.

But winter does mean snow.

And you guys? Snow means forts. Snow means snowball fights and big fluffy snow suits, snow means coming in from the snow which means hot chocolate with the little marshmallows or grilled cheese and soup. Snow could lead to SNOW DAYS. Which is when you're supposed to go to school? But you don't. You can stay inside and wear pajamas and play with your legos all day and watch old Paula Poundstone stand-up VHS' that you taped off of Comedy Central.

Okay well that might just be specific to 10 year old me but you understand where I'm going with this. Snow days rule.

That's what snow means to a child, but what winter means to grown-ups is totally different. I don't have to describe winter to ya'll; you guys know what it's like. It's freezing, it's wet, it's dark, it lasts forever. It has all those holidays in it which are nice but super stressful. I started reading "Winter" by Adam Gopnik a couple of days ago to try to alleviate the pressure (the metaphorical pressure and the barometric pressure - sudafed and I have become fast friends this season) of the oncoming darkness; I've never read a book of essays before, I assumed that essays would be like a boring novel-length book report, but they're definitely not, or at least these one's aren't. Gopnik is able to capture my attention with an easy, conversational prose that I find incredibly easy to read, and so it's not until I'm several paragraphs in do I realize that I'm reading facts about wood carvings and Hokusai and the Japanese floating city. It's like Gopnik is tricking me into learning. If only he also ran the online biology class that I am consistently getting C's in. Somebody email him. This is a choice opportunity.

Gopnik's most interesting impression of winter is that, while he himself tends to see it as I do (a dark hulking behemoth of grime, salt, and heaviness), he discusses the attitudes of winter from a varied collection of cultures; the lyrical french, for example, who compose poems and see winter as a majestic season, an opportunity to experience the glory of nature, compared to the luxurious Japanese, who tend to view winter through the fogged glass of a penthouse, swathed in fur and pearls; winter as a time of pampering. I'm totally fascinated by what Gopnik is going to say next. He skillfully interweaves personal diaries, descriptions of classical music, plays, all sorts of things, together to make 5 essays about something we can all understand: winter. It's so simple. It's so interesting. Read it. Don't go gentle unto that good night, rage, rage against the dying of the light! We can't just slough into winter, belly out, toes turned in, like a child in the wrong. We have to fight back, and this is a great way to start, by confronting winter and it's glorious history. Don't let the impending long months get you down, buckos. There will be dog days of legos, hot chocolate and Paula Poundstone ahead of us yet, so take heart, take Gopnik, and stride with me into the grey months that lie ahead.

Destination: Japan

2011-11-01T18:04:00.009-04:00

I've never met a Murakami fan who was not a die-hard Murakami fan. So if I write about Murakami's 1Q84, released one week ago, those of you who know of it, have probably already read it, and those of you who don't, probably don't care.

So I'm not going to write about 1Q84, but why not take the occasion to talk about Japanese literature in general? True, as Sam Anderson reports in his interview with Murakami in the New York Times Magazine, Murakami does not claim writers of the Japanese canon as his literary ancestors, citing instead European and American influences on his work. The current, however, flows both ways. Over the past few years I've been delighted by the subtle and sweet beauty to be found in the literature of Murakami's Japanese predecessors--including Natsume Soseki, Yasunari Kawabata and Yukio Mishima--a current perhaps contemporary American writers would do well to pay attention to today. Last week, while everyone else was reading Murakami, I was reading Mishima.

Mishima's The Sound of the Waves was published in 1954, and is set in the twentieth century. However, because it takes place on the island Uta-jima, the isolation of the culture lends the story an archaic tone. Mishima's beautiful descriptions of the island landscape are tied directly to the narrative events, as nature and culture have yet to be severed on the island. There is an innocent charm to the traditions and the characters, such as the boy Shinji, that rise out of this culture. Throughout the entire love story that develops between Shinji and Hatsue, the daughter of a rich and powerful citizen of Uta-jima, I feared the destruction of this beauty and innocence. While Mishima does bring tragedy dangerously near, ultimately what the reader wishes for is preserved, which is not always the case (hardly ever, my coworker Katie assures me) in Mishima's novels.

However far Murakami's work might at times feel from the Japanese writers who came before him, it is not difficult to discover some connections between them. Murakami, for example, loves to play around with memory, imagination, and reality. During his interview for the NYT Magazine, he stops the car to point out a place in the landscape where a key point in the plot occurred. "But it's not real," he assures his interviewer, but does not seem convinced of the fact himself.

Last week, I found hints of such imaginative play in Mishima's Sound of the Waves: "The children of the island got their first notions of the world outside from the pictures and words in their schoolbooks rather than from the real things," Mishima writes, "How difficult, then, for them to conceive, by sheer force of imagination, such things as streetcars, tall buildings, movies, subways. But then, once they had seen reality, once the novelty of astonishment was gone, they perceived clearly how useless it had been for them to try to imagine such things, so much so that at the end of long lives spent on the island they would no longer even so much as remember the existence of such things as streetcars clanging back and forth along the streets of a city."

For those of you wondering about the "Q" in 1Q84, the number "9" is pronounced like a "Q" in Japanese. To hear the numbers 1-10 pronounced in Japanese, and in about 30 other languages for that matter, visit our Used Book Cellar, and ask for Natasha. To hear another bookseller rave about more of Mishima's works, ask for Katie. To find more of the forerunners of Japanese literature, visit the shelves of Destination Literature.

Obsession by Calvin Coolidge

2011-10-28T08:00:00.000-04:00

I'm going to break an arbitrary rule I set for myself when I assumed blogging duties for the Used Book Cellar. I'm going to talk about a book that we don't currently have in the UBC. Because I brought it home with me. Dalkey Archive Press are a rad-chilies publisher based in Dublin, London and exotic Champaign, Illinois. What makes Dalkey so rad? Here are the top two reasons:

No. 1: National Literature Series. For a few years at a time, Dalkey puts the spotlight on a handful of countries and translates a lot of great fiction and non-fiction from places we don't hear from too often and gets them in print in the States. Currently, Norway is one of the countries on the docket. I am OBSESSED with all things Scandi-hoovian, and the Norwegians hold a particularly dear place in my heart. I was lucky enough to score an advanced reader's copy of one of the novels they've published from this series, The Faster I Walk, The Smaller I Am by Kjersti Skomsvold. It's a tiny little novel with a quirky narrator that navigates the invisibility of aging in a warm-hearted, funny way. We have it upstairs in Fiction AND Destination Literature. But I digress.

Reason No. 2: Best European Fiction series edited by Aleksander Hemon. This series--now in its third year--picks particularly great short stories from authors native to a handful of European countries. Each and every story is completely engrossing and totally singular. These books are a great way to find new favorite authors, gain some cultural experience, or to just have a literary smörgåsbord (OBSESSED, I tell you!) to change things up.

So anyway, I had a point and it was this: the UBC acquired the 2011 volume of Best European Fiction and I TOOK IT HOME RIGHT AWAY. I'm three quarters done. Yeah, I read Norway, Iceland and Finland first and then started at the beginning again. SO WHAT. They were so gooood. I probably won't bring it back to the UBC anytime soon, but maybe someone else will. Or maybe you can just buy the 2012 edition upstairs (brand new! on the New Paperbacks table!) and see what I'm talking about.

But that's just a sliver of my own personal obsession with world literature. Just today we acquired something like 400 American Arts, Arts, and Ceramics Monthly magazines, from the 1940s through the 70s. The fruits of another's lifelong obsession with art. Chock full of beautiful reproductions, great ads for all you Mad Men afficianados, and just generally unique illustrations and covers that are great collector's items, decoupage material, or fodder for the ol' inspiration board. They're $3 a pop. Get one from the month your aunt was born for Christmas. She'll be impressed you remembered her birthday. Or offended. Skål!

We Are Pracitcally GIVING It Away Now That We're 50...

2011-10-27T19:04:00.002-04:00

In honor of our 50th anniversary, I've decided to cut out linear thinking. It's exhausting, I don't like it one bit.

Oh, the rain. The rain is back, you guys. Catalyst for emotion and the very bestest bosom buddy of poets across the globe, there's nothing better for staring into the dark face of the night and confronting the moldering Tower of Babel of your emotions than a dim, cold, damp day in Massachuetts, and Massachusetts is happy to oblige.

In her memoir, "Lit", Mary Karr talks about sitting on her back porch and getting loaded (truly, impressively, legendarily drunk) while her family falls apart in the early years of her young son's life. I think of this aspect of the memoir all the time, I think about Karr and her tumblers full of whiskey, and the glimmering porch light she stares into each evening until the ground begins to lurch and swing around her. These passages remind me of my father, who, while no alcoholic, also seeks solitude on the porch of his Newton home. If he doesn't answer when called, chances are good he will be found on the porch, smoking a quarter of a cigar, in any weather. Where do we go, on days like these, to be alone? Where are the crevices, the nooks, that we are driven to when time gets down in the dirt on its belly and we are left idling, re-reading old novels, cleaning under the kitchen sink? Maybe you have a porch, or a corner of the bed. Last week I found myself reading and eating breakfast on my (filthy, but never mind) kitchen floor, and as the kettle came to a boil, clouds rearranged themselves across the sun and a finger of light lay itself on my outstretched legs.

And I was like, oh okay, afternoon, be a little more iconic, why don't you? Jimminy Christmas.

My point is, on these dreary days, your mind may start to wander and when it does, I hope you find it here. Especially next week: November 1st through the 5th we are going to be having a bevy of 20% off sales in all areas of the store, so don't hesitate to pick up the phone and give us a call to ask more. We also have umbrellas. There's no earthly need for you to be alone when we are having our birthday and just handing out discounts all willy nilly, all helter-skelter, all topsy turvey. I have it on good authority that our very own poet and night manager extraordinaire, who helped me write this blog post and has helped me live my tepid little life in more ways than he can ever come to know, Ric, will be jumping out of a nine layered cake dressed in full Victorian garb.

Yeah. It's totally going to happen. It's going to be so compelling. Compelling, provocative, Victorian burlesque. What's that? No, I'm not doing this for the keyword search hits, my god, what kind of fiend do you take me for? Zombie dinosaur monster trucks! Joey Calderone eats a hot dog! Jonas brothers!

I mean if you don't want to see that, that's fine. But I won't be blogging about it. In fact, after it happens, everyone is forced to sign a pact of silence and must never mention it again until the day they die.

Yeah no, we are really serious about this. Don't miss it. November 1st - 5th. I'll be here. I'll see you here.

Never judge a book by its cover...

2011-10-26T16:54:00.002-04:00

An overused phrase, I know; but its truth often holds. Even so, I find myself looking over titles and thinking okay that title or cover is just weird, despite the fact that the book still has the opportunity to be brilliant (and then there are the duds of which the cover is already too much to look at). Sometimes titles are misleading -- or maybe misleading in the adult's eyes.

The Hating Book was one of the most checked out books in my elementary school library, and probably one that received countless eye rolls. Yes, the major theme in the book is ~~hate~~ a strong dislike, but it does not hold to the last page.

There are two best friend, see, who aren't talking with each other, "When I went to walk home with her, she had already gone" and "when she took her dog out and I whistled to him, she put him on a leash and led him away." Ouch. Her mother tells her daughter to "ask [her] friend why." But she wouldn't, couldn't, and would rather die. It turns out all this hate is the direct result of a mishearing. Her friend never said she looked like a freak. She said she looked neat.

When parents see this book, they think it teaches how to hate. But in the end, it is learned that all this hate was never necessary and could be a misunderstanding gone all wrong. What can one do in such a predicament? "Ask, ask your friend why."

The Hating Book is a masterpiece that has been going strong for over 40 years. All because, I think, some kids were willing to go beyond the cover.

Destination: Dewey Square

2011-10-25T17:27:00.006-04:00

I've noticed a recent slew of literary pilgrims joining the ranks of Destination Literature of late, travelers eager to see the world through the pages of literature, whether it be Finding George Orwell in Burma (Emma Larkin) or Chasing the Devil: A Journey through Sub-Saharan Africa in the Footsteps of Graham Greene (Tim Butcher). Most recently, in Freud's Couch, Scott's Buttocks, Bronte's Grave, scholar Simon Goldhill explores and critiques the Victorian obsession with literary tourism.

I have been on several literary pilgrimages, including one that, a few years ago, took me to Wiemar, Germany, following in the footsteps of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Over the past year I've continued my pursuit of Goethe on the page, through his impressive Italian Journey. In these pages, I discovered that the impulse to pilgrimage to literary sites, still very much alive today, is also much older than the Victorians. In 1786 Goethe himself traveled to Italy, longing to see what he termed "classic soil." Before traveling he describes a "secret malady, or mania" that possessed him. "My passionate desire to see these objects [of literature] with my own eyes had grown to such a point that if I had not [traveled]...I should have completely gone to pieces."

Last night Goethe and I set sail off the coast of Sicily, passing landmarks that, previous to this journey, existed in my mind only in the mythical landscape of Homer's Odyssey: Charybdis and Scylla. "Now I feel, not that I am seeing them for the first time," Goethe writes, "But that I am seeing them again."

For the skeptics out there (such as Anne Trubek, who last year published a satirical Skeptic's Guide to Writers' Houses) who fail to find significance in the abandoned houses and empty landscapes of dead authors, reading of past travels can also connect one more intimately with the present moment. According to Proust, the memoirs of dead authors act as the “slender bridge thrown between the present and an already distant past…which joins life to history, making history more alive and life more historical.” Reading of Goethe's travels into the ancient world not only made me aware of the past, it awakened me to my own present moment.

As Goethe passes through Messina, a city that had just been ravaged by an earthquake, he observes the makeshift shelters erected in the aftermath of the natural disaster:

"...a barrack town was hastily erected in a large meadow north of the city. To get a picture of this, imagine yourself walking across the Romerberg in Frankfurt or the market square in Leipzig during the Fair. All the booths and workshops are open to the street. Only a few of the larger buildings have entrances which can be closed, and even these rarely are, because those who live in them spend most of their time out of doors. They have been living under these conditions for three years now, and this life in shacks, huts and tents, even, has had a definite influence on their characters."

I've never been to a Frankfurt market, but I could easily picture Messina's barrack town after wandering through Dewey Square in Boston the day before. It was a cold, blustery fall day, and the citizens of Occupy Boston were busy securing tent stakes and erecting tarp barriers to protect themselves from the wind. The towering buildings of the financial district loomed ominously around the square. The sturdier members of the group lined the sidewalk bordering the makeshift village and held signs (Tax the Rich, We are the 99%) to passing vehicles, some of who honked in support. Others huddled together in small groups, passionately but peacefully debating the present moment in which we find ourselves.

Madeline Rodenberg. Remember that name.

2011-10-22T11:45:00.006-04:00

A dear friend of mine posted a poem her 10 year old daughter wrote, and I had to share it. It is sweet and subtle and mature. It is proof that poetry is alive and well. Also; what an affordable and accessible art!? All one needs is language, and some senses. I think children in particular should be exposed to poetry, and frequently. Tomas Transtrom-trom better watch out. Maddy-lion has arrived.

Feelings

Feelings change as quickly
as the wind blows,
since I'm human I cannot
explain how I feel all times
it is as if I must be a different...
stranger creation
it feels as if I were a calmed tiger,
a slow horse, a turtle at the speed
of light, a lake as still as the spider's
web untouched by rain or wind,
a circle with an end.

Feelings change as quickly as
the wind blows but today the wind is still.

Madeline Othilda Rodenberg (in her own words)

I like old movies, Mexican food, Indian food, and seafood. I dislike cottage cheese and clothes with holes in them. I love to write and want to write for a living, and I take pride in my work. (My favorite color is blue) and I play the piano, the violin, and the bongos. I'm 10. My birthday is August 2, 2001. My birthstone is perry-dote (haha). I also like watching Arrested Development, Glee, and 30 Rock, and I love love love my family.

Your Destiny Awaits

2011-10-21T08:00:00.000-04:00

I think of the Norns in Norse mythology, but almost every culture has a version, the Fates from Greece, those witches in Macbeth...each life has its own inevitable course and is overseen by some all-seeing deities. Man has been obsessed with the trajectory of his ultimate destiny since time began. Of course, fate and its prediction can take many shapes. Scientists try it, astrologists try it, even school-children think they've got it mastered. Or at least have fun pretending. Observe:

Recent acquisitions in the Used Book Cellar all demonstrate the many ways in which we look toward our fate. In Paul Davies' The Last Three Minutes, a scientist offers popular conjectures to the ultimate fate of our Universe. What if the universe just disappeared instantly? What if worlds continued to pop into existence ad infinitum for eternity? There are a lot of possibilities that scientists kick around, and this book is exhaustive but accessible.

Older than string theories are attempts to determine fate and destiny by means of constellations and the stars beneath which we were born. The UBC recently got in a small paperback--Astrology and Your Destiny--by Edith Niles, complete with charts, tables, fun illustrations and an easy introduction to the methods of Western Astrology and how these methods can illuminate the future path your life may take. No matter what your sign, there is also a great deal of useful information contained herein to protect and enlighten. Did you know Geminis are capable of carrying on two affairs at once, and might be cheaters? Beware! Just think of all the other tidbits you're missing--the mess you're making of your destiny--by not reading this book.

I don't know about you, dear reader, but I learned about how the choices one makes can significantly affect the course of your destiny at 8 years old. I believe the title was something like Choose Your Own Adventure: The Abominable Snowman in the Marshes of the Moon or somesuch. And I was eaten by that accursed yeti because of a foul turn made on page 13. But if the bigness of fate--the universe, your life--is overwhelming, maybe this traditionally-nontraditional method of storytelling is something worth revisiting.

Perhaps a version of fate you can play with might be in order. Lost in Austen: Create Your Own Jane Austen Adventure by Emma Campbell Webster is just such a book. Traipse through an 18th century British love triangle of your own, choose your destiny, and see where it leads you. If you don't like it you can always start at the beginning again and choose differently. Ah, the power of literature!

As I said before, schoolchildren have their ways of determining fate. That's where the human element of this blog comes in. For what is a tale of destiny without the destinies of some very real used book buyers weaved into this tapestry? So your humble used book buyers, Carl and myself, took up the threads of the Norns and played M.A.S.H. Do you remember it? The easiest way to find out your destiny with a paper and pencil. There are infinite variations, but in mine, I learned that I'd marry Jon Stewart, we'd live in Oslo with no children but a pet snow leopard instead, and that I'll be in a metal band called Nymeria. COPYRIGHTED. Carl, on the other hand, will be a gym teacher in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, married to Natalie Portman and they'll have an impressive brood of 99 children.

Your destiny probably holds something different. Maybe one of these books is in it? Or perhaps there's a different book waiting in the Cellar for you, and only YOU. Come check it out. Your destiny awaits...

Some Alternative Narratives to Chew On

2011-10-20T18:49:00.000-04:00

We had a little store meeting last Sunday, just an hour or so, when most of the staff convened downstairs to put our huge collective brain power to the task of thinking up some new ways we can make ourselves available to the community and generate more buzz about books. Afterwards, the few of us that weren't still working or didn't have anywhere to be went to The Corrib, a little bar down the street that are very familiar with me. Anyway, as we intellectuals (as I type this I have a conical 'dunce' cap on and a finger lodged up my nose ALMOST to the knuckle) are want to do, we started talking about alternative forms of narrative and specifically, time in narrative. I'm taking a class right now based entirely on narrative in film and novels, and it is my very favourite class. So favourite in fact, that I am approximately 75% more likely to do the homework for it than that of my online biology class. I mean, go figure.

You may remember I posted about this book about a month ago. I said that I believed that I would enjoy this book, I had the strong sensation that it was going to drive me quite insane. It didn't, actually, although by reading the blurb and the quotes on the back of the book, the main reveal of the story was a bit ruined for me, but no matter. This story is the narrative of one mans' life, run entirely backward, beginning with his death and ending with his birth. Everything is backwards, for example, Tod T. Friendly would go take the food out of his fridge, take it to the grocery store, put it back in its appropriate spot, and then receive money from the staff. In the beginning it seems impossible that you'll ever acclimate to the description of doing things backwards, but halfway through the novel you do kind of get the hang of rearranging events in your mind.

"Memento" was paired with Time's Arrow in my class, and "Timecode" got brought up the other night at our MENSA: Beer Drinker's Club meeting. Both experiment with narrative, "Memento" not only runs backwards but also has forward-moving scenes spliced into its main events sequence. So that's fun. If you haven't seen it, it's based off the short story "Memento Mori" by Jonathon Nolan. In "Timecode", the screen is split into fourths and each square follows a character. So that's four different narratives, moving at once, that are drawn together by certain events that effect them all, for example, the movie takes place in LA and at one point, there is an earthquake. For a second, all four of the characters are experiencing the same thing. I haven't seen this movie since art school, but if you're interested in any kind of film stuff, I recommend it.

Jes brought up this music video by Cibo Matto for "Sugar Water", that bisects the screen, with each half following a different girl, one in forward motion, one in backwards. When the two girls meet, their trajectory changes. It's cool to look at, I'm not sure that it means. I only know Cibo Matto because they were one of the bands The Bronze featured in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" sometime in the 90's. If you need to know ANYTHING about "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", now that, I can help you with.

Swish

2011-10-19T17:09:00.000-04:00

The sound of the rain and wind and the general wet atmosphere is making me relax (yeah, I'm not from around here. I come from places where seeing the sun is a true rarity). What I really want to do right now is read Caroline Kennedy's new poetry collection, Poems to Learn by Heart, but alas, it is not due out until late March. So, later, I may just settle for the companion Family of Poems -- this is one of the most beautiful collections of poetry I have ever come across. John Muth's illustrations are simply gorgeous.

Unfortunetly, I can't read Family either, as being on the clock means I can't curl up and read. But I can demo games (if you ever want to see one of our games open and in action please don't hesitate to ask). I decided to open up one of our brand new games: "Swish."

It's really hard! And fun. The cards are transparent with various dots and hoops (together they are called swishes, though they look like eyes). 16 of these cards are laid out and you must match the hoops with the dots -- none can be left out. The challenge is you aren't allowed to touch the cards until you see the "swishes." It's a great solitaire and group game that can be tucked away in its carrying mesh case for travel.

Apparently this game is supposed to improve your spatial IQ, but I just think it's cool.

Destination: Elsewhere

2011-10-18T16:31:00.012-04:00

Last week, I was chatting with a coworker as she prepared an after-shift smoke, carefully rolling the tobacco as we discussed the day and her present need, at the end of it, to be elsewhere. "I like to sprinkle a little dried lavender in," she said. "It has a nice effect."

I gasped and wouldn't let her go smoke the lavender-and-tobacco bundle until I had dragged her down to Destination Literature to show her the essay I had read the night before, entitled "Lavender."

The essay is the first in a new collection by Andre Aciman, Alibis: Essays from Elsewhere. The book begins with the scent of lavender, as vivid as if you had been smoking it yourself, emanating from Aciman's father's aftershave. In the next pages Aciman will be tracking the essence of this memory and the essence of the self, trying to determine what fragrance best expresses, epitomizes, and may one day, for his own son, immortalize, him.

The Proustian shadow is eminent in this as well as in the essays that follow. All the reader has to do is replace the scent of lavender with the taste of a tea-soaked madeleine to understand that Aciman is on his own hunt for lost time. Aciman acknowledges his emulation of Proust, accepts it as a part of the self he explores, as a Proust scholar and editor of The Proust Project. A Proust fanatic myself, I forgave any parasitic tendencies in these essays, as Aciman does not just evoke the style and philosophical musings of my favorite author, but continues Proust's exploration of the romantic relationship that our imaginations hold with alibis, elsewhere.

Aciman left Egypt with his family when still a young man, an exodus captured in his work Out of Egypt. In Alibis, Aciman returns to the streets of Rome, his first city of exile, to discover if anything of the past remains from his three years in the city. Instead of memories, however, he finds the streets paved with scenes from the literature he escaped into as a young man absented from any homeland outside of his imagination.

Aciman's tendency to read place through the literary imagination infuses his travel essays with beauty and nostalgia for places never to be returned to. Sometimes literature overrides his experience of reality, and the reader is left believing that the places she longs for can only be found within the confines of the self. But every once in a while the spell works in reverse, as art, such as a cherished Monet painting, leads Aciman on a pilgrimage to a place never before experienced in the immediacy of a present moment. Aciman's descriptive, winding prose captures such moments and tantalizes the reader in much the same way that scenes from literature and art inspired his own travels--to Rome, Venice, Tuscany, Barcelona, Paris, Alexandria, and New York.

The reward of reading these essays in getting to travel with Aciman, not only into new landscapes, but into the reflective depths of the self. After all, much of what the traveler sees in a city is simply a projection of the self. This is what Aciman calls "the miracle of intimacy with a place that may be more in us than it is ever out on the pavement."

Reading these essays is, in fact, not far from the experience of an after-shift smoke: breathing in a new atmosphere, a fresh scent, looking up from the page to letting the reflections swirl about, deep within the self, before exhaling the ephemeral language that inevitably leads your imagination back out into the surrounding streets of your city.
As I neared the end of Aciman's book, I went back to the initial essay, this time with a lavender-laced tobacco pipe in hand. The essay ends in a lavender field in Provence, where Aciman has traveled with his wife and sons. There is a sense of fulfillment in this ending, a comforting feeling that things have come full circle: here is the source of the scent, the thing itself, and, perhaps, a glimpse of the ever-elusive self, no longer dwelling in the past, no longer elsewhere, but finally, fully present, if only for a moment. As I read this passage, I exhaled and sniffed the air.

Like Aciman, and before him, Proust, I was remembering. I first read Proust while house-sitting in Seattle. For me, one of the greatest pleasures of house-sitting is getting to try out soaps, shampoos, and lotions other than your own. The lotion of that particular host, which I would lather on after a bath and before curling up with Proust, was scented with lavender.

Foreign Correspondent

2011-10-14T08:00:00.000-04:00

From the trenches of the Used Book Cellar, the latest foreign delicacies imported for your perusal.

It's fun to occaisionally see foreign editions of beloved books come across our buying desk. We don't get too many, and unfortunately don't buy too many as only well-known titles or titles in specific languages (French and Spanish) tend to sell the most, but here are some super cool ones, with newly interpreted covers worth scoping out.

Morto Até O Anoitecer, or Dead Until Dark, the first in Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse series, the inspiration for the HBO series True Blood, in BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE! Check out this spooky cover!

Mesajci, or The Messenger, the third in Lois Lowry's Giver trilogy, in TURKISH!

And finally, three volumes of George R. R. Martin's fantasy epic "A Game of Thrones" in FRENCH! According to the list at the front of the book, each American version of the novel is broken up into 2-3 volumes in the French translation. But that's okay, because the covers feature amazing art, and the more the merrier. We currently have volumes 9-11, the end of Storm of Swords, and most of Feast for Crows.

You're Not the Boss of Me.

2011-10-13T23:50:00.001-04:00

" 'I believe that within every great reader there are multitudes of people,' [Sarah McNally of Mcnally Jackson Books] said. 'And you have to open yourself to all of them. I love British chick lit and I love Proust. Don’t judge yourself! There are so many kinds of writing that are great but bear no relation to each other. ‘A Book of Memories’ by Peter Nadas is like climbing a mountain. ‘Cutting for Stone’ is like going down a waterslide.'

Book-buying is aspirational.' She added. 'They are deeply hopeful purchases.'

- Sarah McNally, McNally Jackson Books, 52 Prince Street, NY NY.

I read this quote in McNally's recent profile in The New York Times, and it resonated with me in a couple of ways. I don't know what our policy for mentioning other independent book stores on this blog, but I imagine it is inclusive and perhaps, even "psyched". I have included links to both the NY Times article and McNally's website, and if anybody is planning a trip to NYC any time soon, I recommend checking this store out.

I believe, above all, in being oneself. I, myself, have a big personality that I frankly cannot hide, nor can I pretend I don't enjoy the past times that I enjoy. I've always been a nerd. Mostly about nerd things, like science fiction or zombies or tv shows about vampire slayers, what have you. I used to try and keep it on the down-low, like maybe it wouldn't come up, but it always does, ya'll. Somebody, off to my peripheral, will ask a question like "What, exactly, is Dr. Who?" or "What kind of spaceship are they on in 'Firefly'?" and I will be forced (forced!) to jump in.

My goal for you guys, when you enter our store, is to not feel like you can't be 100% into whatever it is you're into. When Twilight came out, we got so many 20+ year old women (and some men), shame-facedly coming in and asking where the Stephanie Meyers books were, already planning how they were going to sneakily read it on the T on the way home without giving themselves away. To those ladies and gents, I said nay! You have but one life to live, and if you have a freak flag, by all means, let it fly. Don't be afraid to tell everyone that they're not the boss of you. I don't know when that happens, when we stop saying that, maybe its when we get actual bosses? And everyone just assumes they don't have to proclaim it anymore? I make it a point to say it at least once a day. You're not my mom! You're not the boss of me! DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!

Try it. It's awesome. I mean, don't get fired or anything, maybe just yell it at your roommate/dog/nanny, or what have you. You and your spouse can yell it at each other and then make out. I don't know, I can't make that decision for you. I would never. If someone tries to make you feel embarrassed about reading something silly, or that what you're reading isn't 'smart' enough or 'cool' enough, you can just tell them what's what. You know more than you think you know, and you are better equipped to handle life than society has led you to believe. Reflect this mantra in your every action. Read Twilight unabashedly on public transportation! Ask me where the Karma Sutra page-a-day calendars are! Ask to exchange a political science tome for the new Jodi Picoult because the second you got it home you realized what your heart of hearts wanted was a satisfying novel. I dig you, customer. We all dig you, come on down. We're book people too, we understand these little heartbreaks of life.

I couldn't finish The Corrections and I couldn't start Infinite Jest, because my big dumb soul is too full of a beautiful, terrible hope. I read The Room and A Stolen Life as my 'beach reads' this summer. I recommended a vampire novel (Let the Right One In) to co-workers that are almost incomprehensibly smarter than me, and I did it with a smile on my face and a song in my heart. And if you think that I'm naive, that maybe a fourth-year English major should be a little more selective in her literature and spend a little less time on the internet, shut her big mouth and treat this serious business we call life with a little more respect, then,well. That would be something I would definitely take into account.

If you were the boss of me.

Destination: Eastern Europe

2011-10-11T18:20:00.012-04:00

A few years ago, I was traveling with my sister and her husband in Serbia. We spent a day visiting a cluster of monasteries situated at the heart of the Balkans and spent a night camping on top of a wind and rain swept mountain. We woke the following morning shivering and damp, and quickly drove down the mountain to a small village, in search of some hot coffee.

It was difficult to find. All that was served in the marketplace that morning was rakia, Serbia's famous plumb brandy. My brother-in-law laughed at my desperate expression in the rear view mirror. "It's like the Serbs are saying, 'To hell with the Turks and their coffee.'" The three of us downed the burning liquor without complaint and climbed back into the car. Sufficiently warmed, I curled up in the backseat and pulled out Ivo Andric's Bridge on the Drina. In its pages, I found our breakfast explained:

"It was a cold day in late autumn and there was no coffee maker on the kapia, nor had the town Turks come there to sit and drink coffee. Therefore the people of Okoliste sat down as if they were at home, opened their bags of food and began a fresh flask of plum brandy."

That brandy breakfast convinced me of the necessity of story in understanding cultural experiences other than my own. Andric's book is a marvelous introduction to the stories that shaped the cultures of Eastern Europe. As epic as the bridge itself in dimension, this book spans centuries, yet never looses the reader in time, encapsulating each era in unique story.

Andric spent his childhood in his mother's village of Visegrad, on the banks of the Drina. Growing up at play on the kapia of the bridge he made famous, the legends surrounding the bridge were imbedded in his memory. Bridge on the Drina begins with the children of Visegrad and the colorful myths they were told about the bridge's origins. Andric's book draws on such stories to paint a complex portrait of a region whose history remains an enigma to many of us in the West.

Not far from where Andric's book sits on the Eastern Europe shelf of our Destination Literature section, you will find several titles from writer Dubravka Ugresic. This week Ugresic will be reading from her new book Karaoke Culture on Friday at 7pm in our events space at Booksmith. Ugresic was born in Yugoslavia, but left Croatia in 1993 and often writes about the plight of Yugoslav exiles. This story is particularily well-told in her novel The Ministry of Pain, in which a professor of literature in Amsterdam encourages her students to write essays indulging their nostalgia for their homeland and exploring their experiences in exile.

I first came across Ugresic's work in her essay collection Thank You For Not Reading, in which she applies her sharp wit and critical eye to publishing and book culture around the world. It may be a bit of a stretch to apply the term "exile" to those of us who still cling to the book as a work of art, but I couldn't help thinking, while reading these essays, that Ugresic's ability to identify with a downtrodden or forgotten culture makes her the perfect champion for the cause of the book.

And what better way to preserve a culture than to keep its myths alive. Ugresic's novel Baba Yaga Laid an Egg, does just that, by transforming the ancient Slavic myth of Baba Yaga into a postmodern narrative that follows four contemporary women around Eastern Europe. While Baba Yaga is commonly thought of as an evil old crone, Ugresic's work goes back to earlier oral traditions in order to restore beauty and dignity to the modern women of Eastern Europe. Not unlike Andric's achievement, this tale captures readers of any culture, bringing a far off part of the world right to your breakfast table, whether you are serving coffee, or plum brandy.

Tears of a Clown: How to be a 12 Year Old Girl

2011-10-09T20:00:00.002-04:00

So first things first, Netflix uploaded "The Wonder Years" to Netflix streaming, and it might be the best thing to ever happen to my life. In addition to that, I received in the mail (yeah, I'm now paying the $20-odd dollars or whatever it is every month so I can have streaming AND discs sent to my house, because the third season of The Gilmore Girls isn't going to watch itself, internet) the movie "Now and Then", which is a 90's movie with baby-faced Christina Ricci, Gaby Hoffman, and Thora Birch, among others. I've seen it before but surely, something happened to me months ago that prompted me to add it to my Netflix cue and immediately forget it until it arrived a few nights ago.

As I watched the movie, I was struck by how closely some of the things had mirrored my preteen experience. I, too, had a very close-knit group consisting of four female friends, each with their own quirks and differences. I, too, had long, patternless summers where we ran wild and free. The movie is set in a suburb in the 70's, so while I couldn't empathize with being able to ride your bike everywhere and get black cows down at the local diner, I got the jist of what emotion was being prompted of me. My actual experience was closer to taking the red line to Harvard, getting burritos at Anna's, or walking into Allston, a place my mother warned me about the dangers of every single time we went there. The dingy little shops we used to wander around with wide-eyed amazement is now about a block away from my apartment.

There was one moment that truly got my attention though, besides the part where Gaby Hoffman is narrowly rescued from drowning in the sewer by the town tramp, a man the girls refer to as "Crazy Pete", was the fact that, several times during the movie, our heroines are playing truth or dare, and they always pick truth. This is an obvious move, you may think; dare is always embarrassing, always involves either getting naked or doing something you will regret later. My friends and I always used to choose truth, no matter what. I hadn't thought about it until that moment, but what if truth or dare is actually some epic catalyst of the Young Female Experience? Groups of girls, detached from time, joined together through a mundane exercise in sharing secrets? Nobody ever mentions it because it seems like something so minuscule; obviously, everybody plays truth or dare. But its not obvious, not to me. That means there is something inherent within truth or dare that fulfills some biological desire that we all have when we're about 11 years old. That's fascinating to me. Growing up in a world where things are obsolete easily within the year of their creation has instilled in me a fascination of things that don't seem to ever go out of date. Truth or dare has survived generations. When I was 11, truth or dare was part of life, along with a slew of other things that I doubt I would have made it out of adolescence without. The following is Zoe Hyde's "In it to Win It" emergency crash-landing kit of how to get through your preteen years with minimal scarring, maximum fun, and zero making out. Sorry ladies, I have many talents, but that was and is not one of them. You're on your own with that one.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is key. You are going to be attending all-girl sleepovers, and going on school trips, and eventually would-you-rather and gossiping is going to get old (I mean, it'll take a while, but it will get old). When this happens, the best thing to do is turn out all the lights, whip out a flashlight and pretend to be scared. I don't remember if Scary Stories actually frightened me as a child, or if we were just affecting it, but it doesn't matter. These books will serve you well after a horror movie marathon, or in any kind of camping situation you might find yourself in. If you can get your hands on them, I also recommend listening to the books on cassette, I know they used to have them in the children's section of the Brookline Public Library. Caveat Emptor: Do not try and memorize these stories and pass them off as your own if you have a smarty mcsmartypants best friend named Gabrielle who is going to totally call you out on it in front of everyone.

You probably are going to have all sorts of questions about your budding womanhood that you would rather get hit by a full truck of hot garbage rather than ask your mother about. Not because she wouldn't give you specific, diagram-worthy answers about how your own lady parts work, but maybe because you'd rather not talk about about said lady parts for like an hour with your mom. Just a thought. This book, however, is part of The American Girl series, which, for the most part, I find genuinely capable of relating to normal girls without getting too saccharine, which was always a deal breaker for me. The drawings are helpful and accurate without being cold, and the advice is lighthearted while being serious an helpful. Definitely a must have for preteen and teenage ladies who are figuring out how to operate these crazy body machines they find themselves trapped in. Very specific illustrations on how tampons work. Because seriously. It's not intuitive.

Alice in Wonderland is a classic I would recommend to any one of any age, but something about Alice's fearlessness makes me put it on this list. I've read this book time and time again but I can't help feeling that Alice's tenacity in the face of overwhelming bizarrity has had some hand in my making. Those formative years are tough, and when you're on the cusp of teenager hood, you're going to need the kind of role model who, when confronted with falling through the earth's core, for example, does not panic, but speculates where and when she is going to land. That's what growing up is like, like a crazy free fall through experience, and its good to know that Alice does land, the fall doesn't kill her, and is in fact actually the start of her story, not the end.

Okay, so not every 8th grader is going to be down for some Emily Dickinson, but for those of them that are, this one goes out to my homies. Yo, Emily Dickinson got me when I was 12. Emily didn't front; she knew all about the pain of being yourself, and her poetry spoke to me in a way that I think only dead authors from the 19th century can speak to little nerdy girls heading in what I call a "feelings" direction. Having this collection (or one like it, I've forgotten) was also helpful when I was going through my goth phase. Just saying.

There are other books worth mentioning here, ones that resonated with me or I was reading during a particularly tumultuous time in my life, but that list could go on forever. I think the topics I've covered here are as timeless as truth or dare, and its going to be necessary to pass these volumes down to the following generations, perhaps even more so as time goes by. What can we count on in this crazy world, for example, if not our own capacity for awkwardness? If not our questioning? If not our adolescent fear of everything and everything that could or couldn't even happen? The times are constantly a-changin', kids today have different worries and fears than the kids of yesterday, but that seems like all the more reason to address the ways in which we haven't changed, and maybe won't ever. Which is why, as a former adolescent queen of awkward now faking adulthood with an alarming alacrity and poise, I ask you, friends, Romans, countryman: truth or dare?

Vintage Spreads

2011-10-07T08:00:00.000-04:00

Among the neatest finds in the UBC this previous week are the following treasures whose covers each highlight the epitome of haute couture for their respective epochs.

Exhibit A: Annette: Sierra Summer For the pink deer and scuba enthusiast in your life...this retro treasure features Annette Funicello engaged in all kind of adventures in the summer of 1950. The best part of this book is the illustrations; featuring her fancy dresses, a John Waters-look-alike, a Colonel Sanders-look-alike AND Scuba Steve:

Exhibit B: The Boy Scouts for Uncle Sam; this cover demonstrates the height of 1912 Boy Scout fashion, including whatever those thingies are that go over your boots to protect them from tree sap, bears, and given the political nature of this book, the sweat of Bolsheviks.

Exhibit C: Pine Man and Ax. This volume from a 1962 science series is an American history of man's utilization of timber resources. But mostly, I just can't get over this guy's rad beanie. Inside are all kinds of full-color illustrations of burly lumberjacks in plaid and suspenders. UNMISSABLE.

Exhibit D: And really, I have saved the best for last. J. Charles "Scotty" Thompson's treatise and cultural history on wearing a kilt, So You're Going to Wear the Kilt, is indispensible. This book delves into the history of all the elements of formal kilt attire for both men and women. It discusses tartans and plaid pattern distinctions. Even down to the engravings on dirks. It also describes the proper wearing and accessorizing of the kilt. A seriously fascinating and fun-to-read book on Scottish attire.

Thanks for reading, folks! Remember to bring your neato books to sell to us Wednesdays through Saturdays, 10 AM to 4 PM.

One poem you should read right now. Especially if this hasn't been your week.

2011-10-06T15:15:00.000-04:00

Dell'interno

aria from Giancarlo Cazetti's L'anima di Marina

Sad, you are sad, say the pitying ones.
I have consulted my wisest friends,
I have brought my troubles to the priest,
I have knelt till my knees are cold.

But in no place does the sorrow part,
this curtain that muffles me from light and warmth.
I stare into green leaves but they do not open for me.
I sit in the sun and the sun stays cold.

It is as if the world itself has said No.
It offers to me only a cold surface, dull
but slick, where I cannot grasp hold.
It tells me this is the bed I have made.

Inland, I long for the sea. It too
is cold, but with time the cold goes warm
and its roar is like a mother's heart
and its No becomes the one I speak.

This is from April Bernard's collection Romanticism. Buy it here. *Or *come on in, it's on the display shelf in poetry.

Destination: Trieste

2011-10-04T18:59:00.008-04:00

"I'm leaving for (destination) tomorrow. Can you recommend a book set there?" This is a rather frequent inquiry that booksellers face, and one of my favorite. It is also fun ot listen to my coworkers attempting to describe the exact location of the Destination Literature section of our store, which is a little hard to define. "Go down aisle three about, let's see, three-fourths of the way toward the back of the store, and at the second intersection, take a left..."

While Lisa has described the unique location of the Destination Literature section as a winding "Venetian canal," now that I think about it, the section really more closely resembles another Italian city: neither here nor there, composed of diverse genres from a variety of nations, and, of course, populated with dozens of exciting literary names. You could find a similiar demographic if you were to travel to Trieste, Italy.

The Italian shelf of Destination Literature is crammed full of books guaranteed to guide your travels to the typical Italian destinations. Glimpse Florence through Forster's A Room With a View, take a gondola along the canals of Thomas Mann's Death in Venice, wander through Tuscany with multiple writers. Yet a few lesser-known titles on that shelf can take you into a lesser-known place, a corner of the world just about as hard to define as the Destination Literature section itself: Trieste.

You can find a great introduction to this city in Jan Morris's Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere, a title that comes as close to defining the place as any I've seen. Trieste is an elusive city, situated on the coast of the Adriatic, somewhat cut off from the rest of Italy by that sea, and directly across the border from Slovenia. Morris describes Trieste as a place that often gets lost in the folds of the map. Trieste only recently achieved its Italian identity in 1954, having been occupied over the years by Austria, the United Nations, the British, and even Yugoslavia. The resulting population is, of course, a diverse one. I was not surprised when I learned that James Joyce wrote much of Ulysses there. The multiplicity of national identities must have been the ideal setting for what he described as a "Greek mother--a sea of a book," in a letter to one of his English students in Trieste.

That student was none other than Italo Svevo, whose works can also be found on the shelves of Destination Literature, provided that you have located the shelves. I particularily recommend reading Zeno's Conscience, but As a Man Grows Older is also quite charming. If you like the wandering melancholy of Svevo's Triestian prose, try out the works of the city's poet, Umberto Saba, who ran a bookshop there.

Saba wasn't the only poet to frequent these shores. Rainer Maria Rilke resided for a time in the Duino Castle, located just up the coast from Trieste, where he composed his Duino Elegies. (Mark Twain also visited the Duino Castle, but I think he was everywhere.)

"La mia anima e a Trieste" Joyce wrote in a letter to his wife, Nora, "My soul is in Trieste." Even Proust's sickly narrator longs to go to Trieste, imagining the city as "a delicious place in which the people were pensive, the sunsets golden, the church bells melancholy." And Natasha has just informed me that Nietzche's doctor sent him there. What were all these literary folk doing in this obscure corner of the world?

It's a question worth exploring through the literature of these writers, who all tend to circle around the elusive identity of the place. You can find the sweet melancholy tones of the exile in all of them. Simply ask the nearest bookseller how to find the Destination Literature section. But be careful, you may never find your way back.

There is still one Triestian author I have yet to mention, Claudio Magris, whose travel narrative, The Danube, wil take you from the mouth of the Danube River, wading waist high and sometimes deeper through European history and literature, and into Eastern Europe.

Which is where I will pick up next week, exploring the literature just across the border from Trieste, in honor of our upcoming event with Dubravka Ugresic, whose brilliant essay, "The Writer in Exile," I have just finished.

My Oh Mylar!

2011-09-30T08:00:00.000-04:00

from the bowels of the Booksmith, another installment of life in the Used Book Cellar

Thursday was a quiet, rainy day in the Booksmith, and my colleague Carl found a treasure while digging around in our overstock space: a box of MYLAR! For those that don't know the technical term, you definitely know what Mylar is, I promise. Mylar is the plastic wrap that folds around the dust jacket of a hardcover book. Libraries use it like gangbusters to protect dust jackets for the ages, and now that we've found a grip of it ourselves, we'll be using it to fancy up books in the UBC.

But I thought you didn't buy used hardcovers? you might ask. WELL. That is mostly true. Typically, hardcover books don't fly off our shelves once the paperback is available, so by-and-large we don't buy a large amount. However, there are exceptions to every rule, and in this case, there are exactly three reasons we'll consider buying a hardcover:

1) It's a super-hot title (think, Dance of Dragons by George R. R. Martin) that is only currently available in hardcover, we'll consider it based on condition.

2) It's a classic or super-interesting book--with a dust jacket--that readers might want to have in their collections (think Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë).

3) It's a cookbook or art book, which are frequently printed only in hardcover.

So now, for those rare, interesting, beautiful, unique, quasi-collectible books, we can fancy them up with mylar covers. Carl and I spent the quiet, rainy morning mylar-ing a stack of books, and these treasures now have a new lease on life! They feel nice and new, they're protected from aging (the mylar comes with an acid-free, archival backing) and they are shiny! And whom among us does not love shiny things?!

I've posted a photo of one example, Here is New York by E. B. White. A classic essay on the Big Apple by one of America's treasures was already a cool find, but now it shines like the city herself! But a photograph can't do these books justice, you gotta feel how slick these things are! Come in and check 'em out!

To add a human element to this gripping tale, your used book buyers, Carl and Natasha (that's me!) used some of the excess mylar backing to offer you a chance to get to know us. Following are the transcripts of the question-and-answer session we scrawled Kerouac-style on these fancy scrolls.

Natasha's survey for Carl:
N: What did gas cost when you started at the Booksmith?
C: $2.75
[Carl's been with us since May 2000! --Ed.]

N: Unicorns or zombies?
C: I have nothing funny to say here

N: How do you say "Happy Birthday" in Japanese?
C: Happy Birthday in Japanese

N: Draw a bunny
C: [see image. the bunny is eating a carrot. --Ed.]

N: Can you make a book without using scissors?
C: Yep. Also without hands.
[Carl runs his own literary press! Check out Greying Ghost here! --Ed.]

N: Is there anything you can't do?
C: Lay off the sweets

N: Who would win in a fight: Henry Miller or Norman Mailer?
C: Are they nude? If so, I'd say Kerouac.
[We mylared Mailer today! --Ed.]

N: Any advice for the youth of today?
C: Be kind and rewind. Unless you're using DVDs. In that case, don't scratch 'em up. They're technically not mine.

Carl's survey for Natasha:
C: If Sartre went to an AC/DC show, would he be miserable or relish in the ambiance?
N: He'd stand in the corner derisively. And bum smokes from the roadies.
[Carl likes classic rock and I majored in Philosophy as an undergrad. --Ed.]

C: Do you have Focus on Grammar 4?
N: Yes!
[We got our shipment in! And we carry all kinds of books for Brookline Adult Education. --Ed.]

C: What is it like basking in my Greatness?
N: Every day is like eating marshmallows covered in sprinkles while petting bunnies.
[Fun Fact, my favorite animal is a bunny! --Ed.]

C: What gets your Goat?
N: usually a tin can

C: Have you seen my house keys? I sort of need them.
N: Did you check near the recycling?

C: Philosophy--powerful motivational tool or a bunch of Mumbo-Jumbo?
N: depends on whether it's American or French.

C: Did you take your funny pills today? Cuz you are OD'ing.
N: Today is somehow different? I'm always losin' it...
***

Thanks for reading, kids! Now that you know all about us and our awesome, newly mylared books, stop in and say hi and check out our wares! Or sell us more! Wednesdays through Saturdays, 10 AM to 4 PM. Though seriously, we ARE selective about hardcovers. E-mail us questions at ubc@brooklinebooksmith.com.

When I Talk About When I Don't Talk About Books

2011-09-30T01:23:00.001-04:00

The other day, somebody said to me "By the end of your blog posts, I forget we work in a book store." I can't remember who it was or if they were kidding or not (some booksellers seem to think that it is 'funny' to 'berate' me in order to 'get a rise out of me' but I assure you that that is incorrect, dear reader, that there is nothing funny about being mean to me. Saying I'm pretty and giving me candy, on the other hand, is a totally different matter entirely and I encourage you all to do so), but I kind of took it to be a compliment. This is not the first time I've misinterpreted a would-be insult as a compliment, and by the golden, syrupy grace of God, it won't be the last. I don't know though, what does that mean? It probably means I don't talk about books enough in my entries. I understand that, we're a book store, the blog should probably be about books. But I can't blog about books. I mean I can, and I sometimes do, but what I'm really psyched about is the other stuff.

I get excited when people are surprised when somebody super-famous comes to the store to do an event for our Writers and Readers series. I love when people come into the store, look around, faintly overwhelmed and ask me, "do you guys have birthday cards?" and I get to say 'Oh sir and/or madam, such cards, such wonders do we have.' and I get to tell them about card and gift, aisle one, on your left. As frustrating as it can be, I really like when somebody comes over to Infosmith with a vague plot outline of a book they just heard about on the radio, and through their memory and my most impressive google skills, we find the book and they leave with it in their hands.

So if you forget that I'm talking about a book store when I write these blog posts, its probably because sometimes I don't really think about the books very much. I like books, I'm an english major, I'm a writer (whatever the heck that means) but what I do when I work isn't about books, it's more about people. When I'm on my game it is, anyway; I have my bad days, too, where I don't want to deal with your problems and I'm hungry and probably bloated (come on now, it's the internet, I have to be honest) and I just want to go home, but I swear with scouts honor that I will do my very best to hide those facts from you. I want you to be happy, I promise. I like that the store I work in is unique, and I like that it is part of a community. In this economy, we are taking steps in order to branch out, to find other ways to stay afloat, and all the other things that we do at Booksmith are going to help us do just that. All the ephemera that comes out of my internet crazy mouth, that's all equally important. Okay, its mostly all equally important, my tales of ripping up stop signs and going to the MFA with my sister, maybe not so much. I never said I wasn't a package deal.

Also, whoever said that, who I know is going to come up to me tomorrow, wide-eyed and apologetic: don't even think it, I did not write this because I'm mad at you. The deep and profound truth of your words just struck me, that's all. Yes, I DON'T write about books terribly often, and yes, I DO live under a cloud of terror that, someday, one of the managers will discover it's because I can't read. However, until that day comes? I remain, as ever, your humble servant, blog readers. This is thursday, signing off.

But before I do, just to let you know, I was not in the store for an hour on Tuesday before I bought two of these fake, moldable mustaches. If there's any left tomorrow I'm buying more. Just saying, may be the greatest thing to ever happen to me. Okay goodnight.

Destination: Myanmar

2011-09-27T20:00:00.016-04:00

About a month ago, my sister and her husband and their (as yet unborn) first child moved to Myanmar (formerly Burma), to teach at an International School. With their limited Internet connection and my nonexistent travel budget, I wondered how we were going to stay connected. I knew that my sister had been reading abou the country to prepare for the move. On her recommendation, I picked up Emma Larkin's Finding George Orwell in Burma, which I found conveniently on hand in our Destination Literature section at Booksmith, along with a surprising number of other books about Burma. I may not have the means to visit my sister, I reasoned, but I could follow her (and, coincidentally, George Orwell) at least as far as these books could take me.

Myanmar proves a fascinating country to read about. Soon after Burma became independent from the British in 1948, a dictator sealed the country off in order to promote Burmese Socialism. The country became poor, isolated, and its people neglected. Larkin reports that some Burmese refer to Orwell as "the prophet," and consider his novels Animal Farm and 1984 to be just as much about their country as his first novel, Burmese Days, which takes place during the last days of British rule (Orwell served with the Imperial Police).

I've discovered several other novels set in Burma during this time, including Daniel Mason's Piano Tuner, in which a taciturn piano teacher must travel through Burmese jungle on a commisson from the British War Office to tune a piano. Amitav Ghosh's Glass Palace, also set during the British invasion of the 1880s, follows a poor boy who befriends a woman in the court of the exiled royal family.

Reading these novels becomes even more exciting in light of the changes that have been taking place in the country over the past few years. Nobel Peace Prize-winner Aung San Suu Kyi was recently released from a house arrest that was inflicted by the military junta in 1989. The letters of this extraordinary human rights activist, who left her family to return to Burma and fight for democracy there, are available for order.

With so many vivid descriptions, historical explorations, and compelling anecdotes told by extraordinary guides, I feel not only better connected to my sister's experience, but to the world of many others I would not have otherwise encountered. Feeling disconnected? Find more engaging reads from around the world in our Destination Literature section, located between aisles two and three at Booksmith.

Where Wisdom is Found

2011-09-25T14:10:00.000-04:00

Thus commencing weekly tales from the depths of the Booksmith: the Used Book Cellar.

Last week, your faithful used book buyers acquired several titles (as per usual), but the following particularly peculiar finds illustrate the many forms in which wisdom passes our desk.

Dancing with Dragons; Invoke their Ageless Wisdom and Power - for devotees of House Targaryen, or simply those with fire in their bellies, I present to you D. J. Conway's TIMELESS, CLASSIC work of dragon-wisdom. Available now for $8 is a singular volume containing all kinds of stories, rituals and tips on harnessing the dragon energy within you. But that's enough from me, allow the jacket copy to speak for itself: "Call on dragons to brighten your day-to-day life and to solve problems that require timeless wisdom." A great gift for the dragon fanatic in your life, or a charming addition to the library of any academic acquiring the vast wisdom of our realm.

On to Exhibit 2, a young customer (with the assistance of her mother) has outgrown her Dr. Seuss collection and we have benefited. An entire library of Seuss: Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, even the rarer I Wish That I Had Duck Feet can all be found in the UBC now, in great condition, priced at $5 each. The first stop of wisdom for most beings of this world, Dr. Seuss can never be underestimated. Ten Apples Up On Top, a CLASSIC, EPIC tale of perseverance and life-balance should never be forgotten. When any of us feels we have too many apples on top, and that "Our apples all/are going to drop," it serves well to remember that with the help of friends we can have "Ten apples/on us all!/What fun!/We will not/let them fall."

Finally, the UBC has also recently acquired 11 volumes of Will Durant's EPIC, EXHAUSTIVE Story of Civilization, a series of thousand-page (each!) tomes that cover the gamut of world history and culture in stunning hardcovers complete with bold dust jackets. Each volume is priced at $10.50. For all the wisdom contained herein, that's quite the bargain. Randomly opening to page 414 in Volume 1 ('Our Oriental Heritage,') Durant offers a valuable insight on the distinction between the foundations of Hinduism and Christianity: "It is an abstruse heaven, however, that Yajnavalkya [of The Upanishads] promises the devotee, for in it there will be no individual consciousness, there will only be absorption into Being, the reunion of the temporarily separated part with the whole. [...] Such a theory of life and death will not please Western man, whose religion is permeated with individualism as are his political and economic institutions."

No matter your age or interest, the UBC can satisfy the endless quest for wisdom, and on a budget, too. And if you need to make room for all this wisdom in your collection, we buy used books Wednesday through Saturday, 10 A.M. - 4 P.M. E-mail us at ubc@brooklinebooksmith.com for more.

Last Tuesday I Gave Myself a Sugar Coma With Candy Corn, I'm An Adult, Read My Blog Post!

2011-09-22T17:22:00.001-04:00

The great thing about being scared is that it doesn't change. Times do, certainly. My generation is completely different than my sisters', separated by only six years but to look at pictures of me when I was 12 and Emma when she was in her preteen years, you can see how the '90s formed me (overalls, fleece, awkward accessories) and she remained relatively unscathed. She never really went through an awkward stage, mine last until I was about 17, and depending on who you ask, might still be ongoing. Even a period of time as short as 6 years can take two groups of people and make them drastically different.

Kids definitely seem to get more cool and less susceptible as time goes by, but I think that most of it is just hoopla and bravado. Everybody wants to be cool, nobody wants to be the scaredy cat. I recently watched "Insidious" with my roommate, which is basically your standard movie plotline about a haunted house (/person) , but because of some of its effects and unusual turns, we were absolutely terrified. We had all the lights on in the apartment, and I didn't get a good nights sleep for two days afterwards. Things kept falling over in my room and I was certain it was the very horrifying phantom-menace looking demon that terrorizes the characters in the movie, come to steal my soul down to hell. I was surprised because I am no stranger to horror movies. In high school I got so mad that my friends thought "The Grudge" was a scarier movie than "The Ring" that I watched both of them back to back and took notes, compiling a system of checks and balances to rate the movies by. Yeah. I really did that. I told you, awkward stage until 17, possibly until 23, jury is still out. I really like overalls, you guys. Getting scared is still something a lot of us seem to enjoy, whether or not we're cool enough to admit we are scared.

Whether you're having a wholesome bobbing-for-apples, three-people-dressed-as-the-blue-power-ranger, black-and-orange-wrapped-peanut-flavored-mystery-candy kind of party or a brain shots kind of party, or maybe you're a sad loser taking notes on Hollywood movies alone in your room to prove your 'friends' wrong, feast your eyes on all the sweet halloween goodies we have in stock for you this year. Way more than previous years, if you ask me, although that could also be our fancy new tables at the front of the store that present festivities like a magnificent cake. Particularly cool are all our spider-themed jewelry, the singing ghost key chains, and the stuffed puppies dressed in costumes that bark when you squeeze them. We also have these skeleton aprons for sale, which I think about buying every time we get them in until I realize that I don't have time in my life for aprons.

Everyone knows Halloween is the best holiday because you get to eat candy and wear a costume, essentially the two greatest activities that humanity has to offer. If you need any kind of party favors, you know where to go. Remember to stay safe, and if you're throwing a Halloween party and are interested in having a bookseller/english student dressed as Agent Mulder for the 3rd year in a row drink all your booze, you know who to call, and it ain't Ghostbusters.

The truth is out there.

Count off to 4 and you're ready for more

2011-09-21T17:07:00.000-04:00

We have so many new titles coming in right now that we've had to completely re-arrange some of our shelves and overstocks just to fit it all in the store. What are some of the hot new children's titles? Well, for that, I'll have to make you wait for our children's newsletter, soon to come.

Well, okay, I will share one growing area with you. Our early readers. Penguin Books has released a ton of leveled readers from levels 1 to 4, all snug within a new sleek rack. What I love about this new rack of ours is that it explains the differences between each level:

Level 1, the emergent reader: uses simple vocabulary, word repetition, picture clues, predictable stories, and familiar themes.
Level 2, the progressing reader: uses longer sentences, simple dialogue, pictures with context, in-depth plot, and a little more variety in subject matter.
Level 3, the transitional reader: uses multisyllable and compound words, more dialogue, different points of view, more complex stories, and an even greater range of genres.
Level 4, the fluent reader: use more advanced vocabulary, detailed text, complex sentences, very in-depth plots, and a wide variety of genres.
Where's level 5? We'll, at this point we encourage young readers to try early chapter books -- because they are ready!

Aren't you glad the people writing and plublishing these know what they are doing? You may find some of them uninteresting. Others may surprise you in their hilarious stories. But that's beside the point. All books are tools in some way. (How can one not argue that reading is foundational element in life, no matter your path.) Leveled books didn't really exist when I was growing up, which often made reading a huge guessing game. The beauty of these is that they help build confident readers by giving them just enough of a challege to keep learning new words, grammar, and story comprehension. Being a kid can be frustrating enough, right? Remember when you began reading; it was hard right? Level by level is the way to go!

Destination: Portugal

2011-09-20T19:02:00.013-04:00

Autumn has made its rainy debut, and many of us at Booksmith are returning from summer vacations and adjusting our thoughts to study or holiday prep (yes, it begins...). Dana sighs with relief as time-off requests trickle and slow. We are settling in again. But just because summer freedoms are over does not mean your travels must come to an end. Personally, I've been to Lisbon several times over the past few years, without ever leaving U.S. soil (or putting in for vacation).

There is a Spain/Portugal/Morocco Let's Go guide book sitting on my nightstand. Don't worry, Dana--my budget won't allow me to take off anytime soon. The travel guide was simply the natural culmination to a series of other books that graced my nightstand before it--namely, the literature of Portugal.

My obsession with Lisbon began with Jose Saramago's The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, which begins, "Here where the earth ends and the sea begins..." For those of you who do not assign much literary merit to travel guides, I actually learned from reading a guidebook that the original referent of this lovely line was actually Portugal's famous 16th century poet Luís Vaz de Camões, who referred to Portugal as a country "where land ends and sea begins." I think it was the very topography of the place, situated at the tip of Europe on the edge of the Iberian Peninsula, that first sparked my imaginary journeys to Portugal. In another of Saramago's books, The Stone Raft, the tip of the peninsula breaks off and the entire nation goes drifting across the ocean.

I read Saramago's Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis because I read Fernando Pessoa's Book of Disquiet. Pessoa, one of Portugal's most esteemed poets, actually had several identities--at least 72, by his translator, Richard Zenith's, count. These personas were more than just pennames--Pessoa's term was heteronym--one of them wrote Pessoa's only lover letters that rivaled his own. Pessoa's heteronym Bernando Soares narrates his Book of Disquiet, a poetic series of journal entries reflecting on, among other things, the role of art in daily life.

Pessoa, along with another heteronym of his, Ricardo Reis, are the main characters in Saramago's novel, the premise of which is that characters live nine months after the death of their authors and sometimes conduct ghostly conversations with them as they wander the streets of Lisbon, talking about, among other things, the role of art in daily life.

One of the best things about reading geographically (a practice encouraged by our Destination Literature section, shelved according to the Atlas) is discovering the themes that emerge between authors writing out of a shared landscape or culture. More ghostly, melancholic conversations about art and life can be overheard on the streets of Lisbon in John Berger's novel Here is Where We Meet as well as Cees Nooteboom's The Following Story. Both authors, like Saramago, blur the boundaries between the living and the dead, creating a mystical melancholy atmosphere that hovers over the tip of the Iberian Peninsula.

In Here is Where We Meet Berger's narrator discovers his deceased mother on a park bench in Lisbon, and sits down to chat. "The dead don't stay where they are buried," she tells him. Sound familiar? In The Following Story Nooteboom's Herman Mussert goes to bed a teacher in Amsterdam and wakes up in Lisbon with a pocket full of Portuguese currency. Like Bernando Soares, Mussert's journey is an attempt to escape his mundane existence (he teaches Latin and Greek) through a transformative journey that carries him, and the reader, beyond life and death, land and sea.

It is hard to draw conclusions about a place the very boundary of which is defined by the shifting tide, but the shared motifs between these books is hard to miss. In the least, each seems to shimmer with the charm of pavement after an autumn rain shower, glistening with fallen leaves. Read them for yourself--it is certainly the season for it. When Ricardo Reis arrives in Lisbon by boat, the city is shrouded in a rainstorm.

Booksmith welcomes the newest member to the Portugal section of Destination Literature: António Lobo Antunes' The Splendor of Portugal , recently published by Dalkey Archive. The book is narrated by a matriarch and her three grown children who have lost the family plantation in the Angolan War of Independence. The novel has only just arrived, so I haven't read this one for myself, but other readers are saying Splendor of Portugal is what would Faulkner might have written, had Faulkner been Portuguese.

My most recent trip to Lisbon was taken through Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's Letter to a Hostage. This is a pretty little blue volume published by Pushkin Press--it's not much thicker than a letter; if you put a stamp on it you could post it. Saint-Exupéry writes of Portugal in 1940, when his own native France was a hostage and invasion was imminent in Lisbon.

As he passed through the city on his way to the States, Saint-Exupéry writes that "every town at night appeared like dying embers." And this is how the literature of Portugal calls to me from bookstore shelves--as tiny forgotten chinks of light in a darkening night. "Portugal talked of arts with desperate confidence," Saint-Exupéry writes, "Lacking an army...she had raised...all her sentinels of stone: poets, explorers, conquerors...Who would dare to crush her in her inheritance of so great a past?"

This inheritance, I have discovered, is still very much there for the taking--in fact, the treasure can sit as near as your nightstand, after a trip to your local independent bookstore. You don't have to be someone who reads travel guides in order to fall asleep at night to enjoy the fantastic selection of international titles in the Destination Literature section of our store.

Kids, we need your help!

2011-09-14T19:20:00.000-04:00

We tell you our favorites day in and day out, but we would like to hear your children's! Soon we will be starting up a children's newsletter focusing on upcoming events, new releases, and musing of the children's section. We're looking for kids of all ages to write to us and tell us what their favorite book is and why. (Make sure to provide us with first names and ages as well. Send in your entries to emily@brooklinebooksmith.com.) We look forward to hearing about what is on your shelves, whether it is a new release or an older classic!

The rain it raineth every day, upon the just and unjust fellah, but more upon the just, because, the unjust has the justs' umbrella.

2011-09-08T23:20:00.004-04:00

Well friends, I don't know about you but I'm damp. Its been piddlin' up a storm in Boston this past week, mother nature's definitive way of letting us know that summer is over, so quit your smiling already. We've begun to rearrange the store for the upcoming holiday season, big changes coming your way. If you were in the store today at all you probably noticed the higher incidence of drills, disarray, dudes standin' around lookin' serious. I myself was utilized at one point to measure the infosmith's new designated area for the ambulatory ease of people over 5'5". This is not the first time I have wondered if they keep me on at Booksmith simply for my height. "Zoe, can you reach that for me?" is something I hear often. For those of you that have never seen me, I am 11 feet tall and have long, knobbly gargoyle fingers that I use to punch open soda pop cans.

So changes in the store are occurring, and in addition to that I went back to school this week. I'm taking four classes, two of which are English classes; one is about Shakespeare's early work, and the other is about narrative in novel and film. For the latter, I'm going to be reading this doozey right from the off:

I suspect that it'll inspire me but also drive completely batpoop bonkers at the same time. From what I can tell, Time's Arrow is a narrative told backwards, so it begins with the end and ends with the beginning, if you catch my drift. We'll be comparing it to the movie "Memento", which makes sense, all that experimenting with event sequence and whatnot. We also have some dumb textbook to read from, snore. You guys should see the textbook I had to buy for the Shakespeare class, its easily 20 pounds, its the Riverside Complete Shakespeare. It looks very uncomfortable to read and I haven't yet figured out if we'll be expected to bring it into class every day, three times a week. However, I am impressed by whoever designed the cover art; renderings of Shakespeare always freak me out, he's always painted with a pointy chin and beady little rat eyes, but the blue and pink used on the cover was unexpected and pleasant.

This is a terrible picture, you can't see the colors at all, but I couldn't find a better one online. TRUST ME, that is a sassy pink on the bottom there. Shakespeare would totally have approved, he was a sassy dude.

Aside from all that, I think my palate grew up a bit in the past few months, I've started relating to tea in a deep and meaningful way that I never have before. This morning I made a pot of Jasmine and sat in bed listening to a combination of the rain outside and Fleetwood Mac coming from my computer. Guys, alls I need is a dream journal, some birkenstocks, some loud clunky, jewelry and a degree in art education. This is happening. This is the future.

Thanks for moving in.

2011-09-02T20:17:00.003-04:00

It's September 2nd.
Sore feet and aching backs dragging themselves into the store. College kids (oh i'm so close, so close, if only this were tomorrow i could be walking through this door alone.) with parents at their shoulder (oh we're so close, i can't believe it, should i be feeling better than this? worse? what has all this been for?) trailed by bored little brothers and sisters (they said we're getting ice cream next. if we spend more than two minutes in here, i'm going to scream.) dragged into town to help get the oscillating fan out of the rental and into the dorm. Eager, resigned, dogged.

Welcome to Boston, everyone.
When the freshness of your corporate-owned campus bookstore and its in-house satellites of Starbooks cafe and SuperSnips salon begins to get a bit stale, remember that we are here, mid-semester or winter-break, a T ride away. And know that most of us were out there doing the apartment shuffle just like you. Because that is the price you pay for staying past graduation. You dance the double-parkin' dosey doe with the returning students until the day when you intentionally break your lease and take a two-thousand dollar loss just to jump to the rare and glorious lease that starts on the first of February.

Now that I'm off the September lease leash, I can love this time of year without reservation. It's my twelfth here at Booksmith, which means that it's been twelve years since my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Scene Design for Theatre meant anything to anyone but me. Doesn't matter. I just really like all the new September faces. I hope you all become regulars, and I hope you remember that we are the premier supplier of fine art supplies outside of Central Square. Tell your friends.

How I Got Home From My Vacation: A Hero's Journey

2011-09-02T01:08:00.003-04:00

Imagine, if you will, me, your faithful Thursday blogger, groggy and exhausted, staring heavenward into the fluorescent lights of the LAX airport so as not to dislodge any more welling tears from my eyes besides the wayward droplets already streaming through the foundation on my cheeks. Trying to get home from my week long vacation in LA, (it was awesome, thanks for asking) I'm in a line of about 10 people that have all just been told that their 1:30 pm flights to Philadelphia have been canceled; due to Irene, nobody is going to be flying into Philadelphia today. Kaitlyn (friend since squalling infancy, in it for the long haul) and I have been standing at the desk for about 15 minutes now as a very professional US Airways clerk maintains a deeply impressive calm as airports across the country close their runways left and right, and more and more angry, hungry, unwashed masses swarm at her gates, boarding passes held high clasped in sweating, clenched fingers. We're all tense; its Sunday, august 28th, and Kaitlyn and I have already had our connecting flight from Philly to Boston canceled at about 2 am that morning. The plan now is to get as close to Boston as possible and take a bus, train, car, another plane, we don't know. I make a joke to Kaitlyn about renting a burro and leading her into Boston, Mary and Joseph style. My own laughter at my own joke makes me start to cry in an obvious way, so I excuse myself to the ladies room.

When I get back, puffy, red faced, we book a flight from LAX to Charlotte, North Carolina leaving at 10:30 pm, and a connecting flight to Chicago that will land around 9 AM. Chicago is as close as US Airways can get us, and its still 17 hours and change away, but at this point, getting out of LA is our primary goal. The next step is to whittle away at the hours separating us from our flight. If you've never spent the day at the airport, let me tell you, it's a surreal in-between experience, the way I always imagined the anti-gravity room in Ender's Game must have felt like. You can attempt resistance, try to create a forward propulsion for yourself, but you'll just end up spiralling, wandering around a children's toy store and stroking the fur of a plush Spongebob Squarepants doll like some kind of feral wolf-child, just for the tactile comfort it provides you. My advice: take a nap, sprawled across two or three of those uncomfortable airport chairs with one foot on your baggage, then find a bar. Gin, if you can afford it. Just gin, gin, gin, 'till your breath reeks of juniper and suddenly, magically, everything starts to seem just fine.

We landed in Chicago around 9 AM, Saturday, August 29th, right on schedule. From there we took a shuttle bus to Alamo car rentals, and rented a boxy, early-model black PT Cruiser that was promptly named "Rosie O'Donnell" for reasons I can't remember now. We immediately start driving, blasting through Chicago, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and finally, we're in New York when Kaitlyn's parents call at around 7 PM and tell us that there are road closures, and that we shouldn't try for the straight overnight boom to Boston the way we had originally planned. A little defeated but mostly oily and exhausted, we book a room at a Hampton Inn, buy some Margaritaville Lemonades and Miller High Life tallboys at a nearby Walmart Superstore, and watch TV until Kaitlyn falls asleep with National Treasure 3 or something equally inane starring whats-his-name projecting fluttering light across her closed eyelids. I turn off the tv and sink into a quiet cave of soft, white hotel linens and I don't stir until 8 AM the next day.

We are back on the road by 10 AM, where we cook along at a good pace until about 1:50 PM, when we follow signs forcing us off of I-90, which is closed for a few exits because of flooding and other damage. We are taken through Johnstown, New York, which, it turns out, is a pretty rural part of New York. We hit traffic, oh, such traffic do we hit. We hit epic poetry traffic. We hit traffic that the movie "Traffic" should have been based upon. If Odysseus had found himself in this kind of bumper to bumper line up, he would have instantly thrown in the toga. Or maybe he would have done what we did: cry. We cry. We cry and cry and cry, and then I have a panic attack, and then Kaitlyn calls her mom and we cry more. We are crying because we can't get home, no matter how hard we try and it just seems like we never will, we will never get out of these back roads and we'll never feel the tepid, stale air of Allston ruffle our lashes again, not even once more. As you all already know, I am not licensed to drive, nor am I insured, nor am I insured to drive the rental car we are in, so it's totally up to Kaitlyn to drive the entire 900-odd miles between Chicago and Boston. My role is purely that of encouragement, support, rearranging beverages in the cup holders according to necessity, and half-assed navigator. I perform these with a stalwart heroism, but when Kaitlyn grips the wheel and starts yelling obscenities through her tears, it is all I can do to look out the window and not think about how we are doomed forever to trees, and cars, and the little hick towns we pass through where citizens sit out on their lawns in deck chairs taking digital camera pictures of the traffic because this is the most exciting thing to happen on their street since the street itself was cobbled.

Finally, around 8 or 8:30 PM, we reach an intersection and some blessed modernity; stores, a fire station, a Wendy's. We get to use an actual bathroom, porcelain and everything. When we get back in the car and back on the road, we rejoin I-90 and it is a ghost road, just our lone car, passing orange safety lights and the dark outlines of trees. When we get into Massachusetts I try to take a picture of the border sign, but the reflection of my fingers from the inside of the window shield turns the photo ugly, blends two separate images into something bizarre. We pull into a large, dark parking lot and take a power nap; half an hour of quiet time, to try and fool our bodies and minds into thinking we've actually had some legitimate sleep. We recline the front seats into an almost-horizontal position and ignore the adjacent highway. When I open my eyes next I notice the cars on either side of us are doing the exact same thing. It's weirdly intimate, napping with strangers. Kaitlyn and I get back on the road, where we play 20 questions for the next two hours just to stay awake. We play until I can't remember names anymore, and I'm curled up in the passenger's seat with my chin on my knees trying to remember if Meg Ryan has done any movies in the past five years. We pull up in front of my apartment at 2:30 AM, Monday, August 30th, my key works in the door and there is mail crammed inside the small vertical mailbox my roommate and I share. Bills, and something from school, something from Fedex. I get upstairs and my room is a mess, clothes everywhere, dishes abandoned. Proof of my sloth. It looks like a goddamn hurricane hit it.

Okay, so it's 3 days later...

2011-08-31T19:42:00.000-04:00

I don't think we even sell batteries here, or, in other words, probably about 95% of what we sell does not need electricity. If you have been through power outages before, or if Irene brought your first one, you know that your world vastly changes. By candle light and lantern, the sound of silence lingers. What? You mean no texting and FaceBook (if phones are out or have run out of battery power)? I can't charge up my GameBoy? No more re-runs on TV? But what to do with the hours (or possibly days) ahead?

[Dramatic gasp!] How about a book or magazine? A puzzle to finger in between awkward moments of conversations that no longer involve a keypad? Or a game?

Right now, I love to recommend the game "Flip Out" for adults and children.

The object of the game is to match up four cards of the same design together. You can see one side of your opponent's cards, but not the other. So as you trade, you could be benefitting or defeating your opponent. It seems too easy, right? But I assure you that once you get going it is a lot of fun. Switching, swapping, and flipping cards appears to be a basis for one great game.

Takes 2-4 players and I recommend it for children as young as 6.

The Dragons

2011-08-24T19:24:00.000-04:00

Wow oh wow, did we have a lot of new titles out on our shelves this week! Out of them all, the most attention-getting was King Jack and the Dragon by Peter Bently and Helen Oxenbury. Mighty King Jack along with his men have quite the day building up a strong castle -- "A big cardboard box, an old sheet and some sticks, a couple of trash bags, a few broken bricks..." -- and fighting off the dragons and beasts with their swords. But when Jack's men are taken away by giants at night, can he still fight the dragons alone?

Maybe even kings need a little help. Sometimes.

Great for adventurers ages 2-8, who are sure to love this book again and again.

Meat and You, and You and Meat, So Happy Together?

2011-08-18T19:59:00.007-04:00

For about a solid month in the beginning of the summer, I drove Cressida and Jess, two of the girls who work in card and gift, completely insane because I couldn't stop talking about hot dogs. I sincerely apologize but honestly, it was out of my hands. I couldn't stop. Without fail, every time a break rolled around, I'd somehow steer the conversation back to hot dogs. One day, Boston magazine did a spread on the greatest place in Boston to get a hot dog, its glossy cover all alive with hot dogs in various stages and forms of dress. I was incredulous. I begged Cressida to kill me. I mean what's even the point of living if the very mention of hot dogs drives you into a half-crazed state of delusion, foaming at the mouth, eyes rolling around like an upended baby doll. I couldn't live like that. Something had to be done.

Why am I telling you this? 1, to demonstrate how horrible I am to my fellow co-workers when nobody is watching, and 2, to demonstrate that I have really serious feelings about food. My relationship with food really began to kick into gear when I as about 20, finally living on my own and totally in charge of what I ate and when. Foodler.com, a website devoted to ordering take out on the Internet, factored in a lot in my life back then. I was young, I was heavy, I was in a long term relationship and I had a predominantly sedentary job in a video store. Then my video store closed, I got broken up with, and I moved upstairs to the book store where, suddenly, I was on my feet CONSTANTLY. That first 6 months I worked here I used to go home and lie on the hardwood floor, knees drawn to my chest to stretch out my throbbing back.

So a bunch of stuff happened to my body all on its own, due to a couple different things, but I began to do something I had never really done before, which was cook. I didn't really get the swing of it until later, but it began to be something that I thought about. One Christmas, my Dad got me these:

Three of Cooks' Magazine "Best Of" books. I don't know about the other booksellers, but the most common question I get around cookbooks is "My son/daughter/adopted wolf-child raised in the wild has just gone off to college and they have their first kitchen. How will they feed themselves?! Will it just be twigs and berries, or what?! What do I do?" First of all, I say, don't panic. College is a time of experimentation, so those first few years they are going to eat a lot of stuff while under the influence that they will probably regret later. Peanut butter and chicken. I don't have to specify how I know that. I mean, I should instinctively know that but you know what? Sometimes you have to learn to crawl before you can fly. Boom. Real talk. Eventually your kid will learn that they can't keep nutella and ranch dressing in the house at the same time, and then they will join the rest of us Grown Up Land.

Aside from that, though, I ALWAYS recommend these books for youngsters striking out on their own. The recipes are fail safe, literally tried and true, and they range from the very simple and quick to the more challenging and specific. A lot of the recipes even have easy or moderate options within the recipe itself, which I like a lot. Plus they're substantial, heavy hardcovers. Mine are all missing their dust jackets and the yellow pages are smudged and splattered because I've put them through the ringer. I love these books, I couldn't do without them.

Last month, I was looking through the vegetarian cookbooks at the store and I took some recipes out of this guy:

The day I bought it I told everyone about it because generally, as a rule, I can't keep my big obnoxious mouth shut, and the response I got from that was that a lot of people are intrigued by vegetarian cookbooks, but are scared that the recipes are going to be too complicated and they'll never make any of them. This is a totally valid fear, because cooking with vegetables, just like any type of cooking, can be as complex or simple as you want it to be. However, most of us - myself included -lack the culinary knowledge to tamper a recipe to our specific needs. Rose Elliot's book is great for this! There are recipes in here that are literally, a cup full of bulgar wheat, throw in some boiling water, let it sit, stir in some chopped peppers, onions, raisins, and feta, and serve. That is a recipe in this book. It's delicious, its like cous cous but not boring. Yeah. I said it. Come and get me, cous cous fans. Total grain rebel over here.

Finally, recently I've been doing some research online about veganism, which led me to this blog: The Reluctant Raw Foodist, written by someone who has some very serious allergies and, as a result of which, can eat almost no processed foods and even some produce. I'm not entirely vegan or entirely vegetarian, which usually tends to confuse and even aggravate some people. Most see vegetarianism as something you either do or don't do, but I find dabbling works for me. That way, I can limit my contribution to a fairly corrupt conglomerate that abuses its animals, but I can also enjoy a hot dog once a freakin' year.

Guys, I like food. I like ethically grown and killed food, I like food that was harvested by people who are treated fairly and compensated appropriately. Those addendums are super hard to achieve in this day and age! Dude, I like to get my steaming translucent paper cone of street meat out the back of a van outside of Fenway as much as the next citizen, but to what end, Brookline? To what end?

Grammatical Obsession Can Begin with Board Books

2011-08-17T16:13:00.000-04:00

Board books are great for babies and toddlers. But, give one to a ten-year-old, and you'll probably get a look of disdain.

When handselling books, audience is key. You don't want to overwhelm someone by giving them a book that is way too hard or completely uninteresting. But you also don't want to insult someone with a book that is so easy they'd be embarrassed to be reading it -- even under the covers by flashlight. Nevertheless, there are books that transcend many age groups, and each time you read it -- no matter if you are six or seventy-two -- you always have a new experience. Really, this is the mark of an awesome book.

Board books are great because they are durable enough to withstand bites, endless pulling, repeated whacking, and drool. Many fantastic books make their debut in beautifully jacketed hardcover picturebooks before becoming a board book, such as Orange Pear Apple Bear by Emily Gravett. I'm glad this book is finally in board because, sadly, many people mistake this book as a baby-ish book due to its count of five words and four objects. Don't get me wrong, it's great for toddlers as well as five-year-olds, but what many people don't realize is that this book is quite sophisticated. It is not just a book about three pieces of fruit and a friendly bear.

It's all about comma usage. "Orange, bear" basically means an orange and a bear. However, if you were to say "pear bear" then you must mean a pear colored bear. This is the perfect book for learning objects and language as a toddler. Orange Pear is also a great book for grammatical geeks who love to obsess over commas.

Audience can be everything, but don't let it limit your reading list!