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....