The Book Shopper

Tayari Jones' Question for Kathryn Stockett

 It is not unusual for me to get electronic solicitations for book sales and this week was no different. The Carlos Museum Bookshop at Emory is having a clearance sale through Saturday and Eagle Eye Book Shop is having a big book sale as well this weekend. In the email message from Eagle Eye they mentioned that Kathryn Stockett will be signing her book The Help for an hour on Saturday afternoon.

I noticed in the same email message, which listed Eagle Eye's signings for the next few months, that novelist Tayari Jones will be in Atlanta this spring as well. I've been interested in Jones ever since I read her essay Symbolism and Cynicism, published in 2008, about Black History month as cultural segregation, which appeared in Believer magazine. (Update: A blog review of Jones' novel Leaving Atlanta can be found here.) 

Out of curiosity, I checked Jones' blog and she recently (April 26^th) posted her views on the Southern Literary Society photo that appeared in February's Vanity Fair, which featured nine Atlanta writers dressed as belles in front of the Atlanta History Center's Swan House. She brings up several interesting points including being pigeon holed by the term “southern.” The posting includes a direct question for Kathryn Stockett.

Another related view about labeling can be found here. It's an excerpt from David Shield's 1996 book Remote.

The Blue and the Gray Go Green

To commemorate last week's 150th anniversary of the firing on Fort Sumter and Earth Day, which is Friday April 22nd , I am recycling some recent postings about a few Civil War books. We take our Civil War just as serious as we do public transportation. Here they are:

• A review of Crossroads of Conflict, a comprehensive guide to the Civil War sites in located in Georgia.
• A review of This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust.
• Savannah Book Shopping. A look at some Civil War sites near Savannah and Tybee Island.
• Battle of Atlanta Coincidences. More about the Drew Gilpin Faust book and a trip down memory lane with Topps Civil War bubblegum cards.

And for those interested in living green, there's the MARTA Book Club (just scroll down).

The Gist of Thomas Lynch's Reading in Atlanta

Where & When: A classroom in the Candler School of Theology on the campus of Emory University. Monday, April 11, 2011.

Attendance: ~100 people with about 20 note-taking Emory students.

Why I Went: I admire his book of essays The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade and he is credited for inspiring the HBO series Six Feet Under, which I also like, but there was no guest appearance from Alan Ball (Atlanta born, BTW).

What He Read: Two poems wrapped around an excerpt from Apparition and Late Fictions: A Novella and Other Stories (2010). Lynch described his reading strategy as “a root canal--thirty minutes and it's over.”

His Q & A: Surprisingly short. Lynch fielded only three or four questions. You could tell he had done this plenty of times before.

Question I Was Too Timid to Ask: Are you familiar with Ernest Becker's Denial of Death?

Did I Buy Something?: No, I already had a hard copy of the Undertaking, which I have gifted on more than one occasion. It's a great book and Lynch's appearance gave me a reason to revisit the book.

Worth Mentioning: Lynch did sing a few lines from the Beatles' Let It Be (part of the novella) which invites more comparison between Lynch and Garrison Keillor (see Lynch's website). I do think Lynch sings as “well as Keillor,” but what does that really mean?

MARTA Book Club #13: Atlanta Reads

For those unfamiliar with the group, the MARTA Book Club is a loose— very loose— confederation of people who read while riding the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority’s public transportation. There are no meeting times, no organizational rules, no t-shirts, and no special fares. Very convenient. The only requirement to be a member of MARTA Book Club is to read a book while riding public transportation.

Since we cannot determine the title of a book from an electronic reader they are not tabulated, but we have notice an increase in their use.

What We Are Reading: Either our data collection skills have improved or people just are reading more  since our last posting. Here's the list:

Creative Community Builder's Handbook by Thomas C Borrup

Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris

The Velvet Rope by Brenda Thomas

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (twice)

Law of Nines by Terry Goodkind (courtesy of Emily Britt)

The Rainmaker by John Grisham

The King of Torts by John Grisham

Life by Keith Richards and James Fox. Someone told me they picked a copy up of the Richards autobiography at Goodwill for a couple bucks.

The Freud Reader by Sigmund Freud and James Gay

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabell Wilkerson

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson

Anthill by Edward O. Wilson

Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis

Utopia by Lincoln Child

Sex & Sensibility by ??? (unsure which author: but it's a popular catchy title)

In Between Men by San Culberson

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (First book spotting for the Emory Writer in Residence)

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

Hamlet's Blackberry A Practical Guide for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age

A Preacher's Passion by Lutisha Lovely (looked more interesting than what I was reading)

Snow by Orhan Pamuk. My contribution to the club this month. Good book from the Turkish Nobel Prize winner, but not much sex.

Hot to Touch by Kimberly Kay Terry (Again, more interesting than what I was reading.)

Tortured for Christ by Richard Wurmbrand

Still Guilty by Pat Simmons

Recipe for Love by Shamara Ray

The Inner Circle by T.C. Boyle
The Glorious Cause by Jeff Sharra 

Underworld by Dom Delillo

The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls

Liar's Club by Mary Karr

Catch 22 by Joesph Heller

Bridget Jones' Diary by Helen Fielding