Christmas Recommendations

Are you looking for something to brighten your holiday?

I have two great, hilarious book for those of you who would like to laugh through the holidays.

Laurie Notaro's Idiot Girls Christmas is great.

I'm skipping around in David Sedaris' Holiday's on Ice. If you only read one story about a Christmas Elf this season, read the first chapter in which David becomes an elf for Santa at a major department store. Laugh out loud funny, with a lesson in it for all of you holiday shoppers. Merry Christmas!

Bite Me!

Oh how I love Christopher Moore. He is one of my favorites, and he never fails to disappoint. In this the third of his vampire trilogy (Bloodsucking Fiends and You Suck), it follows the story of Tommy and Jody, new vampires, and their hysterical minion Abby Normal (I know, I hear Igor in my head when I see that name too).

Are you not familiar with Tommy, Jody, Abby and the rest of Moore's San Francisco characters? Why? You should be. If you need an intro to Moore's San Francisco, start with Dirty Job, and then read this trilogy. I find them to be beautifully written. No, really, the man can write. But it's his humor that is the real find here. He's managed to pack a lot of funny into every page. I just loved him writing in Abby's voice, it was hilarious.

I read this book curled up on a couch, with my new cubs Snuggie, drinking starbucks Christmas blend. It was paradise. READ CHRISTOPHER MOORE. That is all I have to say. Fool (King Lear as told by the Fool) comes out in paperback soon. Read it, cherish it, tell me why you love it nearly as much as I do below.

Half Broke Horses

Jeanette Walls is a popular author, the Glass Castle was a great biography (I hear, I haven't read it yet, I'm going to I swear), and her latest Half Broke Horses was great. It's a fictionalize telling of her grandmothers life. Lily grows up on a poor ranch in Texas, moves to Chicago, and moves back west throughout the story, and throughout all of it, Lily is interesting and entertaining. Lily is tough, self assured, and independent during a time when that wasn't typical, making her life as a teacher, mother, wife and sometimes breaker of horses all the more interesting. I hear you should read this one before Glass Castles, but I'll let you know.

Sarah's Key

Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay is just the latest in a string of WWII books I've been reading lately. I don't know why there is that theme in my reading, but it's there. I'm going to try to read mammoth books by my favorite authors for the month of December (Stephen King and Edward Rutherfurd put out huge tomes the last month or so). Sarah's key is about a young girl in France during, you guessed it, WWII. It details the French police's rounding up of Parisian Jews and sending them to Auschwitz. The story also follows an American in Paris in 2002 as she discovers that the apartment she and her family are about to move into has more history than they knew. I liked this book a lot, though the people who said it would make me cry were off the mark. I've had this book forever, but I lent out my ARC, and it only recently made it's way back to me, so many of you have probably already read it. I found it interesting and well written, but I'm not sure I understand why it's been so hugely popular. Thoughts?

The Strain

I found this book for a couple of bucks at Half Priced Books a while ago, and many people said it was good, so I got it. I liked it. It's a SciFi thriller, but mostly a thriller by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan (seriously, reviews acted like I knew who those guys were. I don't). A doctor with the CDC is called in when an airplane arrives at JFK with all passengers dead.

Okay, it's a vampire thriller, and because this one doesn't have the main character as a brooding, fwoppy haired love interest, I like it. Vampires are a plague (literally) to be destroyed, and the CDC doctor and a former professor have to figure out how to save New York. It's the first book in a trilogy, and as long as they don't extend it to a fourth, I'm excited about this series. I'm sorry, the Twilight Books were great (except for that last tragic one), but the first movie was so bad it made my head hurt, and now the New Moon mania is driving me nuts. So go books that don't have sympathetic vampires!

The Book Thief

I had to reread this book for my book club this month, and I just love it. Marcus Zusak's WWII teen novel about a young girl, Lisel, in Germany is just fabulous. Lisel, after the death of her younger brother, is sent to live with Hans and Rosa Hubermann in Munich, and mets an incredible cast of characters. This book is well written, with an wonderfully unique narrator. Lisel starts her career as a book thief by stealing a book called the Gravediggers handbook, but through the narrative she steals many more. It is through these books that her foster father Hans teachers young Lisel to read, and it is books more than food that she and her best friend Rudy conspire to steal. Lisel's family harbors a fugitive Jew named Max, putting them all in danger, but bringing them closer together while showing the fear that was rampant during that period of history. It's a great read, and by the fourth chapter you stop hoping that Kurt or Maria will show up (WWII story with a Lisel, of course I was thinking of the Sound of Music for most of the beginning). This Lisel's Nazi's weren't nearly as nice as Rolf (spelling on that?) though.

The Eyre Affair

The Eyre Affair is the first of Jasper Fforde's series of Thursday Next books, and it's one of my favorites ever. Thursday Next is a police woman of sorts in a fantastic version of England in the 80s. I say fantastic because the entire world is obsessed with literature! It's a wonderfully complicated book that is as difficult to explain as it is to put down. Thursday gets involved hunting down master criminal Hades Acheron (oh read it, there is a part where Hades' brother Styx is calling people who have put out advertisements to sell their car, and I had missed it every time I had read it before, but this time I was laughing for a half an hour). And when Thursday's uncle finds a way to go into books, or bring characters out, Thursday is tasked with keeping Jane Eyre safe. It's awesome!

Okay, now I have to reread the Book Thief for Book club in two weeks! It's really long...

Jane Eyre!

After lying about it for years (I'm a terrible person), I have actually finished Jane Eyre. I have to admit it, I liked it a lot. Charlotte Bronte was a genius... All things I have said at the bookstore over the years while trying to talk high schoolers into picking it for their summer reads were true. I feel like less of a fraud now. I liked Jane a lot. Though for my money, Rochester could man up a little. I'm not a fan of pretending your illegitimate daughter is your "ward", or that the crazy woman in the attic trying to kill you is a servant (poor Grace Poole, she was just a girl trying to do a job), but since he helped Thursday Next in The Eyre affair, I've decided he's great. And how long did we need to spend with the cousins? I know, I know, Bronte was proving Jane was independent, and providing a way for her to go back to Rochester without compromising her character, but did I care about St. John's missionary trip? Not so much. But then Jane went back to Rochester and there was a happy ending (thanks to Thursday).

I feel smarter, like reading a classic counteracts reading Us Weekly. Which is why a number of years ago I decided to read a classic every summer. It's been more fallish than summerish lately, but I've kept it up pretty well. Last year was Sense and Sensibility, the year before Catch 22 (I'm not entirely sure I finished that one, to be honest, I got confused, put it down, and I should really go back and check for a bookmark in the middle of my copy someday). I've been doing it since the summer between my freshman and sophomore years at college. And now that I think about it, I did it to impress a boy. I was reading probably Stephen King or Dean Koontz or something equally fun and easy at my summer job, and he came in one day with The Prince. And I countered with Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. He was going to be a senior, and going to England for a semester, and I wanted to seem smart. Of course, by the time I finished all 2000 pages of Les Mis, he still hadn't finished the Prince (200 pages in large print that one). Perhaps, looking back, he was trying to impress the funny well read girl in the tram booth, and I actually ended up with an almost ten year long project that has led me to books like Jane Eyre, all the Austens, and several other classics I missed in school (MacBeth, read almost entirely on a beach once).

My reward? I get to read the fabulous, funny and interesting Jasper Fforde novel, The Eyre affair. Rochester helps Thursday Next to save Jane! It's awesomely weird, and the book I was referencing in my head the WHOLE time I was reading Jane Eyre... I can't wait!

Juliet Naked

Thank goodness. Nick Hornby is back. Did you love High Fidelity, adore About a Boy (or just really like the John Cusack or Hugh Grant movies), but hate How to be Good and the Long Way Down (I think that's what the last one was called, it was so bad I won't look it up on Amazon like I normally would)? Does dry British wit entertain you? Because then you should read Juliet Naked. Okay, I'm going to give my manager credit, he was right, the ending wasn't great, though I can't think of how it should have ended that would have made it better... Annie is living with a loser boyfriend she's not really in love with, and dumps him when he cheats on her. Her loser boyfriend, Duncan, is obsessed with Tucker Crowe a formerly popular singer/songwriter. Through a fairly convoluted series of events, Annie starts e-mailing Tucker, and then Tucker and his 6 year old show up in Annie's tiny sea side English town. Whatever, the plot can plod along, the characters can be completely aimless in life, and I will still love Hornby's humor. Now onto the John Shors book I haven't read yet, or my friend Shawn's book. Shit, I mean, I'm going to finish Jane Eyre this time.

Julie and Julia

I am inspired! So last night a friend and I went to see Julie and Julia after a nice dinner in which two of the biggest bibliophiles I know did not discuss books for almost two hours. Well, except to share a great story about a stupid customer and the movie cover of the Tucker Max book, which involves me practically acting out the last three seasons of Gilmore Girls to this strange woman and her 15 year old son. Have you seen Julie and Julia? It's awesome. Meryl Streep, of course, and Amy Adams were both fantastic. But the whole move is Julie writing this blog about cooking everything from Mastering the art of French Cooking, and Julia Child writing it. So, as I am not going to learn how to cook anything from Julia Child's book, I have decided that I will be more active on this blog. Do I think Nick Hornby is going to read it and contact me? No, though strangely enough that's kind of what his new book is about. But maybe it'll get my friends to read something they normally wouldn't have, something amazing. Maybe just one person will pick up a book they wouldn't have by an author I adore. For all the joy Marissa De Los Santos has given me in her two books, getting even one person to read her is the least I can do. In related news, Half Priced Books has Love Walked In for a buck yesterday, I picked it up as a lending copy, so if you haven't read it, I'll lend it to you as long as you PROMISE to love it. Not that I'm worried, you will.

We'll see how long this resolution keeps up. Though I am 45 pages into Jane Eyre and I haven't started another book yet, so that one held out longer than I thought...

South of Broad

Pat Conroy's latest book deserved me writing about it a month ago when I actually finished it, but you know.

It's the story of Leo King in Charleston South Carolina, alternating between his senior year in high school and his present twenty years later. During his senior year in high school he meets all of the people who will shape his future, including his best friends and his future wife. I liked it, though the characters tend to be whiny or to perfect to exist in real life (Leo, really? No one's that good a person man). But for fans of Prince of Tides or the Great Santini, it's a great read.

Hopefully Nick Hornby's newest won't be a month between reading and making it up here. It's really good so far, though I hear the ending sucks.

Starvation Lake

RATS! If I lent you Starvation Lake, I need it back, next week is Book Club, and I remember nothing! The author is coming too... Join us Friday August 28th at 7:30 at the Vernon Hills Barns and Noble. Especially if I lent you my book...

This is where I leave you

I haven't put up This Is Where I Leave you by Jonathan Tropper yet? WHAT? I am failure as a blogger (among the many things I am a failure at). Seriously, I think this book has been out for two weeks now, and I have hand sold it a ton, but I haven't reviewed it? I'm sorry. Read it. Check it out from the library, borrow a copy, wait a year and buy it in paperback, whatever you need to do, but read it. A fall away Jewish family loses their patriarch and they find out that in his will he has asked his four children and his wife to sit shiva. The narrator is a man who has just found out that his wife is sleeping with a jerky radio personality and lost his job. His older brother runs the family sports store, his sister is married with three little kids and a distant husband, and his younger brother coasts through life on his charm. During the week the siblings fall back into their childhood roles, and hilarity ensues. Funny, sweet, heart warming and well written, I recommend it for anyone who has a weird family. So everyone.

Spooner

Pete Dexter is an odd man. Even if I hadn't met him in New York at BEA, having read Spooner, his latest, I would like him for his oddness (I'm not sure that's a word). Spooner is a strange, slightly slow child in a family of exceptional children being raised by his ever put out mother and kind hearted step father. This book is laugh out funny at times, flat out interesting for the rest. It's a 500 paged book I didn't want to end. Someone pointed out to me that I am often reading strange funny books, and I'll tell you why, they interest me. I like authors who can capture the oddities of life, and create characters I haven't seen before but find believable. Spooner is interesting, funny and sweet, his step father is kind and loving despite the difficulties of raising a strange young man. Read it. And tell me why she is only ever called Spooners wife or Mrs. Spooner and how Philip didn't fall out of that row boat.

Day After Night

Day After Night, Anita Diamant's newest is coming out in September, and it's Diamant at her best. This novel follows Jewish survivors after WWII as they try to make their way to Israel, but are held by the British military at an interment camp for illegal immigrants While held at Atlit, the interment camp, four young women come together and in their own unique voices tell the story of their survival from the Nazis. The end of the novel details the rescue from Atlit that was made in October 1945, freeing 200 prisoners. If you are looking for historical fiction, this is a great book.

Await your reply

Await your reply, by the great Dan Choan, I must warn you doesn't come out for a full month (August 25th, I think). But it's worth picking up when it does. In seemingly three separate plot lines, Choan fleshes out the story of Miles, a young man searching for his twin brother, Lucy, a recent high school graduate running away with her history teacher, and Ryan, a Northwestern student who after screwing up his college career goes to live with his biological father. The characters are interesting and well done, and the underlying mystery in the book kept me inthralled throughout. An exceptionally well done mystery.

The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death

Have I mentioned that I adore Laurie Notaro? I love her. She's the author of 5 humorous essay books and one fiction novel. I love them all completely. Her newest one is no exception, it is funny, wickedly beautifully funny. I often find myself reading her essays and tears running down my face as I laugh. She is a klutzy, honest, warm and can turn an incident that has happened to many of us into something truly brilliantly funny. This is for all of us who can't quiet keep it together, and don't seem to mind that much, just so long as we can have a beer and laugh about it. Try her first book The Idiot Girls Action Adventure Club. I picked it up on a whim at my local bookstore when it first came out, and I have been pushing Laurie ever since to my friends. Perhaps the reason I haven't liked the last few books I've read was because there was a new Notaro sitting on my shelf waiting for me to start it, or because I had just read it and now find anything without a pitch perfect sense of humor annoying. Girls, seriously, need a laugh, go get it.

Shanghi Girls

I had high hopes for Shanghi girls by Lisa See. I even stopped at the Bookstall in Winnetka the day after she was there to buy a full priced sign book (If you've never been, go to the Bookstall, Roberta and her staff are amazingly knowledgeable and they have the best author signings. They always have an amazing collection of signed books), and I don't like to buy full priced books. Despite liking See's other books, this one wasn't very good. It's the story of two sisters in Shanghi before World War II, their arranged marriages to American and the life they find in L.A. I wasn't all that impressed with the main characters, and the rest of the characters were never fully realized. Read Snow Flower and the Secret Fan instead.

Worst Nightmares

Worst Nightmares is by Shane Briant. BookExpo, and his publisher would like you to believe he is the next Stephen King. We spent most of the time in line for his autograph and book joking about Tommyknockers (worst King novel), and wondering how good this horror novel was going to be. The answer? Not very. I had the killer pegged twenty pages in (beating Tommyknockers by about a 100, that book was too long), and I was annoyed with the actions of the main characters by, oh, half way through. Joe Hill is the next Stephen King, for my money, though if Duma Key is any indication, we aren't going to need a new Stephen King for a long while. Okay, so the basic plot is an author is giving a manuscript by a crazy homeless looking guy called Worst Nightmares, which the author finds out actually details the gruesome murders of several L.A. citizens. When the author finds out the murders are real, and watches the crazy homeless looking guy die, he decides to pass the journal as his own fiction work. Imagine the problems that arise. Got it? Yeah, that's exactly what happens. I'm a fan of horror, done well, but these characters were so uninteresting that I can't remember their names, the plot was cookie cutter, and as I said, I had the real killer pegged within twenty pages (that may give it away a little bit, I'm sorry). If you want good horror, go early King (though as I said Duma Key was awesome, and his new one coming out is supposed to be ah-mazing), middle Koontz (he's new stuff is completely unreadable, I'm sorry). or Joe Hill, his stuff is creepy.

The Story of a Marriage

The Story of a Marriage by Andrew Sean Greer is a book I read right when it came out (Greer was at BookExpo in New York two years ago), but which I had to reread recently because Barnes and Noble has started a book club, and the first one is tonight, and we are talking about this book. As we were discussing which book to pick, I realized that while I remembered reading it, and meeting the author, who seems great, I don't at all remember this book. Certain surprises in the narrative were surprising even during my rereading of it, which I enjoyed. It's the story of Pearlie and Holland and their life in 1953 San Francisco, and what happens when Holland's old friend Buzz shows up. It's a great book, full of interesting characters, Pearlie especially is a strong female character whom I really enjoyed. Read it, it's not long, and if you want to discuss it, Friday June 26th at 7:30pm at the Barnes and Noble in Vernon Hills.

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane

  By Katherine Howe.  It's the Barnes and Noble recommend for this month, and something I got from BEA, so I hurried to get through it.  Now that I've finished it, I wish I hadn't hurried.   I did love this book (not always the case with Barnes and Noble recommends, as the our customers and the other booksellers are aware, really? Sandra Dalles last time? Ick).  But this one.  This is the kind of book they should be picking (in my opinion).  This is Howe's first book, she's a friend of Matthew Pearls (which made me more eager to read this book), and it's unique.  It deals with a Grad student working on her dissertation while trying to clean out her grandmothers house, and finding Deliverance Dane's (a woman tried and convicted during the Salem Witch Trials) possible spell book.  None of these are new topics for fiction, but Howe takes the interesting angle of asking, what if the women convicted were really witches?  She researched the hell out of the historical aspects her of novel, making the Salem witch trials come to life as told by one of the witches.  Connie, the present day women working on her dissertation, is interesting, funny and has a cute dog (I like stories with cute dogs), and her New Agey mother is actually funny.  This was a great book, if you like interesting historical fiction, switching back and forth from history to present day (which actually bothers a lot of people), magic and strong female characters.

Sacred Hearts

   Sarah Dunant's latest book, Sacred Hearts, let me warn you, comes out in July.  But it's great.  Birth of Venus and In the Company of the Courtesan were better, but I liked this one, especially the ending.  Sacred Heart's follows two very different women in a convent.  One is the daughter of a doctor, who after he dies is forced into the convent, but once there finds a way to practice medicine.  The other is a novice, forced into the convent after her sister married (a common occurance during the time) who is torn away from her musician love.  Despite my day job, I don't find nuns or convents very interesting, and I skimmed most of the religious descriptions.  But I did like the characters, and the historical aspects of the story were very interesting.  It's a little heavy for a light fluffy summer read (seriously, anything with nuns is too heavy for the summer), but I'd recommend it for fall (or for those of you who want to read a good story and don't think summer is for avoiding Catholicism).

That Old Cape Magic

That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo was the first book I read from BEA, and it was great.  During two different weddings at Cape Cod, a man and his wife reflect on where they've been and where they are going.  Russo's characters are always interesting and well developed, and Griffin and Joy are no exception, along with their daughter and various family members.  It's a great summer reading book (though it comes out in August, sorry), not to long or complicated, but with a great narrative.  Sorry, I read most of this book on a plane after 4 days in New York, and except for the end, most of it's a blur.    

BEA Saturday and Sunday

  The rest of BEA was fun, though a little slow.  There were fewer good authors on Saturday and Sunday than on Friday, and I never even used my tickets for the 'most famous' authors for Saturday.  Of course, Kate DiCamillo is great, but more than an hour in line for her new kids book?  Thanks, I'll borrow it when it comes in.  But there were some books I'm excited about.  Dan Choan signed his new one, Michael Malone (a nice man, quiet a talker though), Alan Furst and others.  Eileen Goudge must have signed for hours!  We went to get someone else, came back and she was still signing!  Her new one looks good, and not just because she signed for almost two hours, and they gave away her new paperback (seriously publishers, listen to this, I am pushing Eileen Goudge because she was nice, and because I got her book).  James Ellroy, who was yelling people in front of us, one for not wanting a personalization, and the other for having tatoos, was a little scary, or just crazy.  Elin Hildebrand was very nice, and I liked the tote back they gave out with her cover on it (they also gave out the advanced reader of the new one).   Sunday, Richard Russo was the favorite, and the only one I was really looking for, though I also got the 'new Stephen King' Shane somebody (which I will read soon and review it).  The rest of the Sunday was spent wandering around and being annoyed there wasn't more.  

The show was great, though I missed the publishers giving out a ton of new books, and the authors weren't very good.  The best part of the trip though, were the musicals we saw after walking around for hours.  We saw Guys and Dolls, and then Billy Elliot and Hair.  Billy Elliot was amazing, the best musical I've seen possibly ever.  And Hair was awesome!  Those hippies really can sing!  I love New York, and we drove by Citifield (new home of the Mets) on the way to the airport after wandering around Central Park all afternoon on Sunday (and no, despite what US weekly seems to indicate, I didn't see Hugh Jackman or Jon Stewart in Central Park that afternoon, though the weather was perfect, I was a little disappointed).

   Hopefully next years author lists will be better, and Harper won't decide to mostly hand out electronic books (I've finished three books since we left, I'm on page 2 of the first electronic book I've started, I'm not sure I'm a fan of the medium).

  Hopefully the books from BEA will all be as great as the three I've already finished, which I'll write about now...

Book Expo 2009

For those who don't know, BEA, or Book Expo is a three day conference for booksellers, librarians, publisher and others in the industry.  It's pretty much heaven for people like me.  It was 3 days, Friday through Sunday this year, in New York.  Publishers come to show others in the industry what we should be excited about through the next year, and the rest of us come to get as many free books and met as many authors as possible. With the industry in trouble, this was a bare bones year, and many publishers scaled back or didn't come at all (Suck it MacMillian, see if I push any of your books in the next year, you can't even show? Lame).  This was my third year attending, and unlike my first two years, it wasn't a free for all of grabbing a ton of free stuff, running from great author to author.  While many publishing companies scaled back but still wanted to give out good stuff (Harper Collins did a good job, I thought, and so did Hatchette), some were flat out jerks.  You know what Random? You are THE publishing company, you can give out a few books without making us stand in line.  Despite the problems and frustrations of this year, the low turnout for authors (I mean it, my two friends and I are serious readers, we are high quality booksellers, and we had not heard of most of the authors who attended, or thought they sucked), the lack of books, and that woman who was in front of me in every line and talked to each author for a long time (I needed to pee in the Lee Child line, and I almost killed her with a stanchion), it was a GREAT TRIP.  I'll try to keep it to the highlights (and not tell stories about wanting to kill my nemesis, or Dan's enemy.  Patricia is more calm than we are).  

   We got in Thursday, after a two hour delay at O'Hare, which is a fun place to wander, let me tell you.  I'm going to forget, by the way, to write about Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith, but it was amazing, I even liked it stuck in O'Hare.  Finally we were in New York.  We went to the Heartland Brewery after going to the hotel, and being to late to do anything else.  I love it there, we went last time we were in NY as well, and they have a nice light atmosphere, and great beer.  After we went to Sardis for dinner.  It's apparently a famous Broadway restaurant, though I defer to Dan on all of those decisions.  There was saw Phylicia Rashad giving an interview for her new play.  I saw Clair Huxtable! She's gorgeous, by the way.  We then went to see Guys and Dolls with Lauren Graham (Gilmore Girls!) and Oliver Platt.  Lauren Graham was amazing, while Oliver Platt was... Well, amusing.  I don't think his singing was that bad, but it's a musical, and the man does not dance.  But it was really great despite that.  

   Friday was the first day of the show, and of course we got there super early, and waited in line so we could be the first ones through the gate.  Now, I think the most fun part of BEA is the people you randomly met waiting in lines.  As soon as we got there, we ran into Sara and her Mom, who during the 3 day event we only ever call Mom.  They go every year, and during those three days, we are like best friends.  We also saw a few other people we only see for three days once a year, but you get to know these people, you hold spots in line while the other wanders, or talk about authors who are good or not, it's summer camp for the bookish set kind of.  Finally the gates open and we all rush in to grab as many books as we can, and thrown them into tote bags we carry around all day.  My shoulders will hurt for a week after that.  This year there wasn't as much to grab as the previous years, but it wasn't as bad as they had led us to believe it might be.   

Friday was the best day of the show by far, there were more authors I had heard of and wanted than the other two days combined.  The best was meeting Julie Andrews.  Now, a long time ago she wrote a few young readers under her married name, which I read and just loved (Mandy was a favorite), and it was years later I realized that I was watching the Sound of Music while reading the book by Maria!  And so as she was signing my book, I told her that I loved her young readers, and she said "Oh thank you dear." REALLY!  Sarah Durant (Birth of Venus and another title, I'm sleep deprived) signed her new one, which I'm pretty excited about.   Oh, a cute story.  Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson write the Peter Pan series for young readers, and they are really great books.  But besides that, those two are really great guys.  They come every year to BEA, they talk to all the booksellers, and they are just nice.  This year they went to a breakfast meeting, signed for more than a hour for the 4th in the series, came back like a half an hour later for their new Peter Pan picture book, and then Ridley signed his new Kingdom Keepers book in the afternoon.  That had to be brutal.  But when I saw them they were joking and talking to everyone.  They opening credit booksellers with their series' success, and pushed to be able to attend BEA this year to thank us for our help.   A serious note publishers: Booksellers like the ones who want to thank them, who are nice and give out their books, I am going to sell the shit out of Barry and Pearson, and their backlist, just because they were super nice guys.  I got Lee Child's new one (long line, stupid nemesis lady was in front of me and would not shut the fuck up, I hate her) and Joyce Carol Oates (weird woman, I think it scares her to be away from cats and tea cozies). 

     More on the show tomorrow....

The Last Dickens

The Last Dickens by Matthew Pearl (author of The Dante Club and The Poe Shadow) follows an American publisher in search of the end of Charles Dickens last novel.  So I talked about Dan Simmons Drood in a previous post, and this books seems similar in plot.  But I liked this one a lot better.  First off, Drood was more mystery/scifi than this novel, and this one is better written (sorry).  James Osgood (a real publisher during that time) is Dickens' official American publisher, and when news of Dickens death reaches him, he reflects on Dickens last American tour, and embarks on an interesting journey to try to find the ending to his last novel, and the mystery surrounding it.  Pearl is great at the historical fiction dealing with publishing and authors, and this is not a let down from his other two.  And it's better than Drood, so if you want to read a great historical novel with an interesting mystery, read this one!

Fool

  Oh Christopher Moore, is there nothing you can't do?  I think I've mentioned Lamb is one of my favorite books.  In Fool, Moore takes on Shakespeare and King Lear and does a tremendous job of it.  Lear's fool, Pocket, is the narrator and main character weaving in and out of Shakespeare's narrative skillfully, charmingly and with a lot of swearing and shagging.  Moore's characters always walk that narrow line between hilarious and sweet, and Pocket is among my favorites.  Pocket is completely devoted to Lear and his youngest daughter Cornelia, and Moore makes him a master strategizer, controlling all the players.  There is a quick rewrite at the end, well hell, Moore managed to raise the dead in Lamb, why not make it a happier ending for Lear?  I adored this book, it ranks up there with Lamb and Dirty Jobs (now my third favorite Christopher Moore book).  Unlike Lamb, I think I can recommend this to all of my catholic school teacher coworkers, even the ones without much of a sense of humor.  Just an amazing book. 

Starvation Lake

Starvation Lake by Bryan Gruley is a great mystery.  He's a new author, local to Chicago, and if the rest of the series he's promising after this book is as good, he's going to be very popular.  He's very Harlan Coben/ Denis Lehane, but with Hockey, and I love Coben and Lehane.  Gus, the editor to the small Pilot newspaper in his home town after being forced to leave Detroit when his career suddenly collapses, isn't thrilled to be home with his old friends and family.  His old hockey coach apparently drown several years ago, but when his snow mobile is found in the wrong lake, Gus finds himself trying to figure out the secrets his entire town has been keeping for years.  It's really really good if you like murder mysteries.

The Help

  The Help by Kathryn Stockett is being compared to the Secret Life of Bees and several other southern books dealing with race issues.  It's not a bad comparison, but I think Stockett is a better writer than those she's being compared to. The Help follows three very different women in 1960's Jackson Mississippi.  Two are black maids working for rich white families, the last is Skeeter (why would you allow your child to grow up with that nickname?), a young white woman who has just graduated from college and returns home.  Skeeter, after discovering her beloved maid has disappeared, beings to see the way things are in her home town.  She enlists Aibileen and Minny to help her write the true stories of the maids, even though they all know it will be a dangerous and difficult project.  I was incredibly impressed with the way Stockett created three such distinctive voices, and a very interesting and real story.

Remember Me?

  Remember Me?  by Sophie Kinsella was great.  It's been a while since there was a book I was willing to read through House (though it's been really bad this season, I should stop watching it all together) for, but yesterday, I was so enamored with this book, I went home and read for three straight hours.  Not that I had time for that, of course.  But I had to find out what happened!  Remember starts with a normal twenty something, Lexi, and her slightly sad life.  She just started working at a carpet company with her best friend, she's dating a guy named Loser Dave, and her teeth and hair are bad (it's England of course).  She wakes up one day in a hospital to find that the last three years have been erased from her memory.  But suddenly she's married to the perfect guy, rich, with a great new job, it seems perfect.  But of course it isn't.  She's lost all of her friends, her husband is too perfect, her house is too nice.  As she tries to remember the last three years, of course she runs into Jon who works with her perfect husband, and she seems to remember only him.  It's so sappy and dorky, and I loved every second of it.  Kinsella is one of my favorites, and her sense of humor is fabulous.  It's funny, it's sweet, and I loved Lexi (Kinsella's main characters are part of her charm, they are funny, sweet and always a little weird).  It's great for beach reading, and I should have known better than to start it right before a full day at B&N followed immediately by a full day at school.  I wanted to read it all at once!

I Love You, Beth Cooper

By Larry Doyle.  Awesome.  Hilarious.  Just so funny.  I was not surprised to find, in reading the author bio, that he has worked on the Simpsons.  This was a recommendation I didn't take too seriously, but was wandering around B&N looking to buy myself books for Christmas (well, an organization what will remain nameless, for which I do well above and beyond what I should  bought me a fuchsia pencil case for Christmas, I'm buying what I want with my employee discount, in all fairness it was a very expensive pencil case.  Which I can't return.  I hate fuchsia).  ANYWAY.  So I walked by it and picked it up.    It is the story of the Buffalo Grove Valedictorian, and how telling Beth Cooper he loves her during his graduation speech changes the course of well, at least graduation night.  It's funny, it's smart, it's wickedly clever, and it might even have a good message (I was too busy laughing to be sure).  This will be my go to male above 16 recommendation for a long time.  Which, considering how much I adore Christopher Moore, and would use him as a recommendation for ANYONE, is a big compliment.  Read it.   

Holiday's on Ice

  Have you read David Sedaris?  Why not?  I love him.  He's hysterical.  And I think the first essay in Holiday's on Ice, in which he takes a job as an elf during the Christmas season at a department store is one of my very favorites of his.  Every year I read a Christmas book.  Stupidest Angel by Christopher Moore, Laurie Notaro's Idiot Girls Christmas, and of course Holiday's on Ice. This year I read Holiday's on Ice, I think next year I'll reread Stupidest Angel, but all are funny and very festive for the holidays.  

Lame

  So two of the books I read over Christmas break were lame, and I'm pretty disappointed.   So the first one was Lady Elizabeth by Alison Weir.  I have to stop reading the historical fiction chick lit that people keep recommending.  It's about Queen Elizabeth's childhood and right before she takes over the throne from her half sister Queen Mary.  So I find the time period interesting, and I thought reading a book about Elizabeth's early life would be good.  And then it wasn't.  Especially the part where the author has written several biographies and history books on the time period and Henry VIII's family, and in all of them asserted the Elizabeth was actually the virgin queen.  But because it's the new historical fiction chick lit (my new least favorite genre), Elizabeth had to have sex and get pregnant.  WHAT?  

   The second one was Dean Koontz's The Darkest Night of the Year.  Several people told me I had to go back to Koontz.  Despite loving Dark Rivers of the Heart, Seize the Night and it's sequel and lots of his early stuff, his books lately have been awful.  But this one was about a woman who rescues Golden Retrievers and of course something weird and scary happens to her.  I thought I'd like it.  I did not.  The characters were boring, the kids in the story were tortured and beaten by their parents(one was autistic (maybe), the other one had Downs Syndrome, I don't like reading about that kind of thing anyway, but especially for special needs kids, what was he thinking?).  I did not find the dog charming (here's a hint there buddy, people like reading about real dogs.  Not special dogs who can do amazing things.  Remember Rocky from Dark Rivers of the Heart?  That dog was a character in your book).  I skimmed through to the end because I couldn't take it anymore.  If you are curious, the kids live happily ever after.  Despite the emotional damage they had to deal with.  

   I don't like to review books I didn't like, but both of these came recommended by lots of people, and I hated them both.  Luckily I took my manager Kelly's recommendation and started I love you Beth Cooper.  Amazing, when I finish I'll post my thoughts.