The Book Shopper

DBF Preview #4: Rare, Collectible, and Out-of-Print Books

The Decatur Book Festival is rife with venues beyond the venerable square. Just a block away in the Decatur Holiday Inn you’ll find the 18th Fine and Collectible Book Fair, which I always find interesting and worthwhile. Not only is this event protected from the elements, it’s also an opportunity to visit a kind of traveling book museum where you can buy first editions of one of your favorite authors or topics. I like browsing there, as the cool, less-frantic atmosphere lends itself to quiet browsing and you can often “talk books” with the proprietors. Don’t call yourself a book lover unless you stroll through.

Here’s a sampling of who will be there and some of their offerings. (Check the Comments for additional information.) 

• Books Again,  Decatur. Jim Adams will have a first edition of  Thomas Hardy’s  “Return of the Native,”  and Flannery O’Connor’s first book “Wise Blood,” some early signed Ross Macdonalds, including his second Lew Archer book “The Drowning Pool,”  a signed edition of Seamus Heaney’s first book, a 1st edition of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian and much more. See Comments for information about a weekend sale at their store.
• Kenneth Mallory Bookseller, Atlanta. Ken Mallory will be bringing a bit of everything -- Southern history, literature, architecture, and a selection of photography books. (Thanks to Ken for putting me in touch with these booksellers.) 

DBF Preview #5: A Better World for Used Books

My relationship with books has been a conflicted one this month. While I blog away about the joys of book shopping and anticipate the events of the upcoming Decatur Book Festival, I also am mired deep in the process of moving, which, for me, includes cleaning out and unloading books. I am joined in this angst-driven task by my companion and soon to be co-homeowner, Denise, who also has many books to cull, especially on scientific topics that reflect her years spent writing for the Human Genome Project.

DBF Preview #6: An Eagle Eye Future of the Book

Are we headed towards a dystopian, book-rejecting future similar to that featured in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451? (Which, by the way, has just been published as graphic novel -- Eagle Eye had a copy I was drooling over the other day – tempting.)

 The Decatur Book Festival’s Future of the Book panel will likely be addressing this question and others on Sunday, September 6, from 1:15 to 2 p.m. at the Eddie’s Attic Stage. The panel headlines writing and publishing consultant Richard Nash and John McLeod, who is the sales and marketing director at the University of Georgia Press. Teresa Weaver, the book editor at Atlanta Magazine, is the moderator.

From my vantage point as an outsider, this looks to be speakers of two diverse backgrounds – McLeod a more traditional scholarly publishing background and Nash the twittering, facebooking, social networking-but-don’t-call-it-viral promoting who used to have his own independent press. It should be interesting to hear their views on where book culture is heading.  

 I’ll try to catch part of the discussion, but will be ducking out the back shortly before 2 p.m. and heading over to Eagle Eye’s booth to sign copies of my book  "a guide to the the cluttered aisles contemporary book culture" along with fiction writers Andie Ryan, and Gino Brogdon. Located in booths 251 and 252 (at the corner of Ponce and East Court Square). Eagle Eye has quite an extensive group of authors and I’ve included the list in Comments.   

DBF Preview #7: Museum Bookshop

If you’ve never had the opportunity to go the Michael C.Carlos Museum Bookshop on Emory’s campus, you’ve missed one of The Book Shopper's favorite little haunts. But don’t worry, that fine eclectic book shop will be coming to you again at the festival this year (Booth 301-just south of the gazebo). According to shop director Mark Burell, they plan to have a small retail operation at the DBF focusing mostly on educational books for all ages. They will also be featuring some interesting bargain books, remainders, and discounted titles at low prices, since, says Burell, “these have become very popular in this economy.” The Carlos Museum Bookshop will also be promoting some book-related events including a reading club (first book will probably be "The Landmark Herodotus") and an upcoming show on 16th century bible illustration.

In the spirit of full disclosure and self promotion, the Carlos Museum Bookshop will also have a copy of my book, The Book Shopper : A Life in Review, “a guide through the cluttered aisles of contemporary book culture.”

DBF Preview #8: Very Fine Fiction

One of the events I hope to catch at the DBF is the Very Fine Fiction presentation at the First Baptist Decatur Chapel Stage Saturday, 3:00 pm - 3:45 pm. I’ll just be coming off my stint as a volunteer in the open air book market, so I hope the air conditioning is working properly (my memories of last year’s oppressive heat remain strong).  

Very Fine Fiction (as opposed to Better-than-Average Fiction) features two writers who I’ve heard a lot about: Marc Fitten and Kevin Wilson. Both writers debuted works of fiction on book tours earlier this year in the Atlanta area, but my schedule didn’t permit me to hear them.

Fitten is well known as the editor of the The Chattahoochee Review, a contributor to the New York Times opinion page, and author of Valeria’s Last Stand, which received a lot of national attention.  

Kevin Wilson’s work caught my eye when his essay about removing a dead deer from a pond on his farm in Tennessee made the Lives column in the New York Times Magazine. He has written a collection of short stories, Tunneling to the Center of the Earth. It has a great looking cover and is available as a paper back. 

DBF Preview #9: Billy Collins: A Hard Act of Follow

Despite impressive credentials as a publisher, journalist, and author, I’m afraid that Sir Harold Evans – the 2009 keynote speaker at the Decatur Book Festival (DBF) – has a tough act to follow: the Billy Collins reading which kicked off the 2008 DBF.

At last year’s DBF, my friend Denise and I went to see Collins, the former U.S. poet laureate, on the campus of Agnes Scott. We tried to get to the venue early, but apparently not early enough. The place was packed and we were almost assigned to a standby section – a room with a TV monitor -- but we refused to give up   It was looking bleak when two lumpy seats opened up and we were able to see and hear Collins do his reading. I can understand his popularity. His accessible poetry with a delivery similar to Garrison Keillor’s makes his work even more approachable. (A personal favorite: see Collins' reading of The Lanyard.) Denise bought a copy of Collins’ Ballistics for a friend.

That sets a high bar for anyone to follow even if they have been knighted by the Queen like Harold Evans. I don’t think the delightful memory of Billy Collins should deter anyone from going to this year’s keynote address, though. but one might be well-advised to manage your expectations.

P.S. Tickets are required for entry and are available from these local Atlanta bookstores.

The Decatur Book Festival 10 Day Countdown

Starting today I will be posting a daily personal preview of the Decatur Book Festival (DBF) which begins on Friday, September 4. My posts will be based on my own book shopping interests, of course.  I’ve been poking around the DBF web site (see their links page on the right) as well as checking my notes from past DBFs to come up with some topics that might be interesting to book folks.

Here’s a preliminary list of what I’ll be writing about:

• Billy Collins: A Hard Act of Follow
• Very Fine Fiction
• Museum Book Shop
• Future of the Book
• A Better World
• Rare, Collectible, and Out-of-Print Books
• The Lit Magazines
• TBD
• Final Thoughts

If I’ve made a mistake or you want to add additional related information, please comment. Remember, this is just one book shopper’s opinion and I can’t include previews about every aspect of the festival—it’s just too big an event.  

The Book Shopper at BiblioBuffet

This week at BiblioBuffet: Writing Worth Reading, Reading Worth Writing About, the web site has published an essay adapted from one of the chapters of my book, The Book Shopper: A Life in Review AND a review about the book by Nicki Leone (uh-oh) AND an editor's note explaining how this came about.

Missed Pat Conroy?

No surprise that the Pat Conroy reading next Wednesday at the Carter Center is sold out, but don’t despair too much if you didn’t make it. One alternative is to make a trip to Beaufort, South Carolina. Denise and I went there a couple years ago and noticed that several book shops stocked signed copies of his books. According to the bio on his website, (and I don’t exactly envy that successful writer’s personal life, but that’s a story unto itself) Conroy lives on nearby Fripp Island .

While you are there take a walking tour in Beaufort.  Our guide showed us where Conroy lived and wrote one of his early novels and the house where they filmed The Great Santini.  You can also stop by the shop that sells those boxes of chocolates so shamelessly promoted in Forrest Gump. (Oops—started to confuse Winston Groom with Pat Conroy…) Anyway, if you want a recommendation for a tour guide in Beaufort let me know. Ours kept us entertained for hours with stories of Conroy’s Low Country.

WILL Radio Interview

Last week I was in Champaign, Illinois to visit family and friends. While I was there I was invited by public radio WILL-AM 580 for a brief interview about my book, The Book Shopper: A Life in Review.  Coincidentally, I worked at that station as a night operator thirty years ago, a very productive reading period that appears as an anecdote in the book. You can listen to the interview here.