Author: peterwesley

Staff Reviews: Adam Levin’s THE INSTRUCTIONS

Kester’s review of Adam Levin’s The Instructions (from the always dependable McSweeney’s press) is the first of several from our staff. The book has really taken hold here at BookPeople, and to give you a sense of it’s immensity and presence (it’s a real big book), we’ll publish several different perspectives. I know what it’s like to believe a thing that lots of people think is crazy to believe. In my case, it is that there is a God, that that God has a Son, and that that Son died and then, three days later, wasn’t dead anymore. It is the craziest thing that I believe wholeheartedly. I mention this, because it shapes how I come at a book like Adam Levin’s The Instructions. That isn’t to say that you have to be religious or even to believe in God to enjoy it. You don’t. But it made me empathize with Gurion Macabee (a boy who may or may not be the messiah) all the more. This is the story of a boy who struggles to know what it is he’s meant to do and who it is he’s meant to be. A boy who feels a high degree of confidence that he is the messiah, but a willingness to admit that he can’t really know until he knows. You know? It’s that kind of struggle, a knowing unknowing, that make faith the exciting adventure that it is. I’m pretty sure I’m right…but what if I’m wrong? I have to live into the truth of what I believe in order to discover whether it is true, but what if I give my whole life to that truth only to discover it’s a lie? This is the risk of faith. To watch that risk play out in the life and mind of a twelve-year-old boy is a marvelous and sometimes frightening thing.

RJ Rozan Q&A with Hard Word Book Club

OCTOBER 29TH - HARD WORD BOOK CLUB DISCUSSES RJ ROZAN'S ABSENT FRIENDS WITH CALL IN FROM AUTHOR One of the things crime fiction conveys better than any genre is loss. A human being's extinguished existence is what usually sets the plot in motion. Whether a detective questioning those who knew the victim or a hard boiled hero out for revenge, the protagonist tours through a void, seeking tangible answers to give some sense of meaning. SJ Rozan's Absent Friends is a prime example of this.

Remembering David Thompson

On September 13, we lost a good friend in David Thompson who suffered a heart attack at age 38. He was a bookstore manager, publisher, and a person to know in the mystery scene. All of these things were tied to the fact he was one of the best booksellers around. He was synonymous with his store Murder By The Book in Houston, where he started as teenager with a salesperson's job and worked his way up to his assistant manager. He ran publicity, getting many of the world's crime fiction authors to come to the store. It is were where he met a lovely coworker, McKenna Jordan, who married him not long after she bought the store. Talk about knowing how to get what you want.

California Reading

The Voyage Out Book Group reads regional fiction. We focus on a certain locale for three months, and then we pack our bags and move on. I’ve always been excited to start the next region. From the American South, to Japan, to Africa, and many more, we’ve had a great trip, so far. But I have to say, I was a little weary of our newest region, California. With the exception of In &Out Burgers and burritos, I’m not a big fan of the left coast. I don’t want to read about San Francisco Beatniks, and I don’t care about surfing. What do you read about a culture that is paper thin and incredibly young? But then we chose our three books: “Play It As It Lays” by Joan Didion, “The People of Paper” by Salvador Plascencia, and “Ask the Dust” by John Fante.

Melville House and the new direction of literary humour

I like talking about books. Nothing makes me happier than having a customer walk into the store and ask me for a recommendation. I also love it when customers recommend books to me. Please come into BookPeople and interact with us. It’s a long day, and we get lonely. That being said, we get some tough questions. "I’m traveling to Indonesia, do you know any uplifting Indonesian fiction?" or "I’m looking for a mixture of Robert Jordan and Flannery O’Connor, what do you suggest?" Usually these questions lead to great conversations, and usually I end up leaving with a new book, and, hopefully, the customer leaves with, at least, a smile. Some questions are harder than others, but one question has tormented me for a long time, and only recently (about an hour ago) have I come to what I consider a quality answer: "I want something really smart, highly challenging, fresh, and funny. It has to be funny. Got anything like that?" Yes, I do. Thanks to Melville House Publishing, we now have a place to go for Literature that makes you laugh, Literature that doesn’t make you want to put your head in the oven. I should say that Melville House puts out a variety of titles, so they don’t simply put out humor, but in 2010 with releases like T Cooper’s art project/Hollywood fable The Beaufort Diaries and Tao Lin’s enigmatic novel Richard Yates, this Brooklyn based company has found the mysterious funny bone of American writing.

Franzen Mania

Even if you didn’t read the recent Time magazine cover story, you may have noticed one of the seemingly hundreds of articles and blog postings praising the work of Jonathan Franzen and salivating over the release of his latest novel. Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections is considered by many to be the best work of fiction produced in the last decade. Fans of Franzen's were provided a collection of essays in 2002 and a memoir in 2006, but waited expectantly for his next novel, hoping that it might provide the same humor, pain, and pathos as his previous novel had. Today, the wait is over. Nine years after penning his Corrections, Franzen has written Freedom, and it is as rich and rewarding as anything he has ever done; the characters are fully realized, the backdrop is perfectly captured, and the story is playful and sad, as heartbreaking as it is hopeful.

Words of Williams (part III)

Good news dear readers! Our trusted man, E.D Williams has once again stared into the abyss and returned with a rollicking and invigorating post. Now into our third installment, E.D. battles against the dull blade of summer with only his pen and wits to protect him. Enjoy his prose thoroughly, but remember, Williams is a trained professional - any injuries or fatalities incurred during your attempts at mimicry have no legal recourse with this fine online publication. With that said, I give you....E.D. Williams: The rolly pollies are rolling in their graves. The banana spiders have grown as thick as a milk maid's wrist and the mosquitoes are blood drunk and buzzing. Butterflies are liars and anyone worth their weight in Bacillus Thuringiensis knew them from before as very hungry caterpillars. This is summer in the garden of sweat and swelter; the throes of the heat index, if you will. Hello again. I'm Engle Dale Williams and more so than any book, I would recommend a stiff drink and a deep woods insect repellent. It's only practical. But enough of all this rigamarole. Let's reminisce.

The Hard Word reads TRUE GRIT

True Grit is one of those books I've been meaning to read for years. Authors I love, like George Pelecanos, have sung its praises and my fellow employees have raved about it. I grew up on the John Wayne movie and would hear the famed line, "Fill your hands, you son of a bitch!" almost every Saturday night at whatever Missouri bar I was in. Even when my manager loaned me his copy, I let it sit on my table for over a year and a half.

By any other name; Talking about titles

Self-deprecation is important. It’s especially important in the book business. There’s a funny website making its way around the literary blogs, Better Book Titles (http://betterbooktitles.com/). The idea is simple, Dan Wilbur is gonna change the titles of some of our favorite books so that we can tell what the book is really about by the title alone. Great! Here is a list of my favorites: