The Book Shopper

Wish List

Several notes of interest:

I recently wrote a short synopsis of George Steiner's excellent book of long essays, My Unwritten Books (2008) for Eighth Day Books in Wichita, Kansas. Eighth Day is more a friend than a sponsor of the blog and I have written about them in the past. They are a book store who appeals to a certain clientele, those with serious interests in philosophy, literature, religion, and the arts. I wish I could get the word out more to the Atlanta community especially the students and faculty at Candler School of Theology at Emory University School of Theology and Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur. You don't have to be a divinity student to appreciate Eighth Day Books, but you do have be willing to take on a more challenging read from time to time (like the Steiner book).

A couple of months ago, I wrote about the Art Institute of Atlanta-Decatur book art exhibit entitled Wallbound, which featured 23 local, national and international artists who accepted the challenge of creating of book art that had to be hung on a wall. One of the faculty members at the Art Institute, Alicia Griswald, sent me an email letting me know that there is now an organization called the Atlanta Book Arts Collective which “provides opportunities, through programs, workshops, and sharing, to learn more about both paper and book arts.”  And my wish? I think it would be cool, if the Art Institute did their next book art exhibit during the Decatur Book Festival. The school is located in the heart of the festival already. Just a thought.

Speaking of this weekend's festival, Miranda Parker, author of the Angel Crawford series of novels will be on the "Housewives of Literature" panel, Saturday, September 1 at 5:30 p.m. at the Decatur Convention Center. Through social media, Miranda keeps me informed on books that I would not necessarily know about and I appreciate her input. I wish that more blog readers would shoot me an email or comment – especially local writers. You can find the blog on Facebook, (facebook.com/thebookshopper) which is probably the easiest way to get updates.

My DBF 2012 Festival Strategy and Preview

Because of the size of the 2012 Decatur Book Festival, I take a faceted view of the festivities. First, I go online to check to see if some of my favorite book vendor/ friends have scheduled to return and then randomly sift through the links to sort out a few authors of interest. I am scheduled to work at the marketplace on Saturday morning and that's usually a good way for me to find out if there is any new book vendors.

Fortunately, a few friends are returning:

University of Georgia Press. In the past, this blog has published several reviews of UGA Press authors: Robert Craig, Barry Brown, Sara Roehen. This year the publisher along with the Nature Conservancy is hosting a discussion at the festival, Portraying the Natural South through Photography and Writing featuring Janisse Ray (shown), Charles Seabrook and photographer Wayne Morgan. Over the years, John McLeod and the UGA press staff has gracefully provided books for me to review, so it's always worth a visit to see their other offerings.

Books Again. You never have to worry about whether Books Again is going to the festival because they are always there. If you're attending one of the programs at the City Hall Stage, be sure to walk the long block south on North McDonough to Books Again, which is right across the street from Decatur High School (click on map to enlarge). I consider Books Again one of the “destination” used book stores in Atlanta. Sure they are a blog sponsor, (see Sponsor Link in the left corner) but if you are a serious book shopper you'll appreciate the wide selection of fiction especially some of the older works penned by Southern authors. Books Again also has shelves full of military history, baseball, religion, philosophy and cookbooks. The store is air conditioned and expect a Labor Day Weekend sale.

Carlos Museum Bookshop. Another favorite bookstore of mine, the Michael C. Carlos Museum Bookshop is located in the Carlos Museum on the Emory Campus, but festival goers will have opportunity to sample some of their offerings in history, anthropology and travel. The bookshop will have a tent at the festival in the Emory University enclave. Carlos isn't a sponsor, per se, but manager of the store Mark Burell knows that I “blog for beer.”

Authors. This year I hope to finally see Isabel Wilkerson, Pulitzer Prize winning author The Warmth of Other Suns, and since this blog favors  Civil War books, Adam Goodheart author of 1861: The Civil War Awakening, would be someone I would like to see too. While rambling through the links I saw that National Book Award Finalist, Julie Otsuka, author of the novel, The Buddha in the Attic will be in attendance. In the past, I've had some good chats with a few authors while waiting in line (Bill Cotter, Grant Jerkins, and Ned Stuckey-French to name a few) capitalizing on the serendipitous nature of the event.

Goodbye London Olympics (Font)

For some people like author Simon Garfield, the Olympics cannot end soon enough – especially if you find the London 2012 Olympics Typeface hideous looking. In Garfield's Just My Type: A Book About Fonts (2010), Garfield includes a chapter The Worst Fonts in the World. Included in the list includes Gill Sans Light Shadowed, Brush Script (I'm guilty of using this) and Ransom Note, but at the head of the list is London 2012 Olympic Font (click on font family at left to enlarge). Garfield is candid about opinion:

Like the logo, the uncool font is based on the jaggedness and crudeness, not usually considered attributes where sport is concerned. Or maybe it's an attempt to appear hip and down with the kids – it looks a little like the sort of tagging one might see in 1980s graffiti. It also has a vaguely Greek appearance, or at least the UK interpretation of Greek, the sort of lettering you will find at London kebab shops and restaurants called Dionysus. The slant to the letters is suddenly interrupted by a very round and upright o, which may be trying to be an Olympic Ring. The font does have few things going for it: it is instantly identifiable, it is not easily forgettable, and because we'll be seeing so much of it, it may eventually cease to offend. Let's hope they keep it off the medals.

Of course, one of the themes of the book is that what is an ugly font to some is beautiful to others. If this is the way you feel about the London 2012 Olympics Typeface, you can license it here.

Local and Universal: A Conversation with Translator Lisa Dillman

Interviewed by Chantal James

Decatur's Lisa Dillman is a lecturer at Emory University's Department of Spanish and Portuguese and translator of many literary and scholarly works (examples above). Her latest translation is the novel, The Frost on his Shoulders, by Spanish author Lorenzo Mediano, which was just published by Europa Press this June. In her English translation, the novel reads like a lyric myth, or an Old Testament fable. Its characters are farmers, peasants and landowners locked into an eternal class tension. It's a story of star-crossed love, of a rich girl and a poor boy and their ill-fated love against the backdrop of rural life in the hills of Spain, with the looming wilderness of the Pyrenees an ever-present specter.

In her own words, Dillman speaks about her path in translating a book so grounded in its locality into the English language.

A Translator's Background

“I grew up in LA, in a very multicultural area. I had friends when I was younger who would speak perfect English to me and then turn around and speak perfect Spanish to their parents. I thought, that's not fair...I studied in Barcelona, and then after college--I studied there for a year, and then after college I moved back to Madrid. And then I came back here for three years, and then I moved back to Barcelona.

And when I was living abroad I would have experiences where maybe there would be a movie or something that was translated, and I would say, well that's not what the title means! And people would think that there should be a word-for-word equivalent, between languages [like Spanish and English], like you just take one word from one language, and put the word in from the other language and it will have the same meaning, without realizing that it has to do with culture, and context and things like that, and so I was intrigued by the fact that it doesn't work that way.” 

The Frost on His Shoulders

“I think that even though [The Frost on His Shoulders is] very, very grounded in the Pyrenees, and the local land, it's also a very universal story. Because it deals with, you know, issues of class basically, and injustices, and change, a modernization of society, and old-timers being unwilling to accept change, and human emotions, like greed and that sort of thing. I think that the kind of contrast between the universal side that anyone can relate to, and the very idiosyncratic stuff that you know, if you're not in the Pyrenees right after the [Spanish] Civil War, who knows about all these different roots and berries that can be used for this and that?”

“So, to me at least, it was fascinating as something that I knew nothing about, all these mushrooms, and oh, if you're really cold in the winter you can drink the blood of a living animal and then staunch the blood. So all of these sorts of things are, I think fascinating, and incredibly different from anything that we live, or even imagine. You know, so I think that between them there's a sort of altercation between something that you can totally relate to--class issues, social justice, rich versus poor, sexism, all these sorts of things--and there are things that you really can't relate to but that are fascinating to read about.”

The Challenge of Translation

“There were a huge number of terms that were mostly related to food and plants, and different animal parts and different ages of animals and things like that...and many of them were unknown to the majority of Spanish speakers. They're so localized...Many times, those were the sorts of things that I would e-mail Lorenzo about, and you know he was very patient in all of his replies...But the number of things that were not available on the internet or in specialized dictionaries was very surprising to me. I would have had a [much] larger struggle than I did if he had been unavailable.”

Chantal James is a writer who lives in Atlanta and is working on her second novel. Her reviews have also appeared in Paste Magazine and she keeps a blog at called Globalsouth and she can be found on Twitter as well. James is on staff at A Cappella Books. (To read her other postings, visit the Chantal James link on the right.)

Atlanta Area Book Events Calendar – August 2012

One of the literary traditions of Atlanta in August is that the book events calendar is a little leaner than usual because of the upcoming Labor Day weekend Decatur Book Festival. (See link on the left for details). Nevertheless there are a few out-the-ordinary outings to think about.

Atlanta fiction writer Marc Fitten delivers the remaining three lectures about writing and publishing at Manual's Tavern on Monday, August 6, Monday, August 13 and Tuesday, August 21 beginning at 7 p.m. Fitten originally delivered these lectures as part of the Yale University Writing Series. For details including admission ($$) requirements (and benefits) visit here.

Sip and Sign is a literary reception featuring popular African American authors to discuss their new books, read excerpts, conduct a Q & A session and book signing. Its sponsored by V103/WAOK. The August featured author is Victoria Christopher Murray, author of Destiny's Divas. The next scheduled reception is August 19 at 2:00 p.m. at Lowes Atlanta Hotel 1065 Peachtree Street Northeast, Atlanta.

Even the Georgia Center for the Book is opting for a light month, with only one reading and signing. Decatur author Josh Russell will be at the Decatur Public Library on Tuesday, August 14 to debut his new novel. A True History of the Captivation, Transport to Strange Lands, & Deliverance of Hannah Guttentag. Nothing ordinary about that title.