Author Archives: bookdwarf

Booker Longlist Announced

*Yawn* Oh, sorry. I keep yawning every time I look at the recently announced Booker Longlist. It’s a boring list and it doesn’t help that only four of the titles are available here in the US. McEwan’s the favorite so far (what a surprise). Oh well. Hopefully they don’t pick one of the books that we can’t get. It’ll be so irritating for my store, having to field a million queries on what won and how can they get it and why don’t we have it. I don’t always agree with the prestige that these prizes seem to bestow on the winner, but the books move usually (unless you’ve been written by DBC Pierre) once they win one of these things.

Dominion by Calvin Baker

Maud Newton started discussing Calvin Baker’s novel Dominion last year. Since she made it sound so good and since Maud’s taste and mine are freakishly similar (her end of the year list overlaps might at least 6 times), I dutifully added it to my TBR pile, but it lingered there for a long time. Finally, right before I left for Bolivia, I started reading this book, but I had to put it down when I left, but I thought about it the entire time I was away. I mentioned before the books I read—only two of the four did I enjoy. How I wish I had Baker’s novel to finish! I picked it up the minute I got home, even though it was late and I hadn’t slept in about a day.

Jasper Merian, a newly emancipated slave, leaves behind his wife and son in Virginia at the beginning of the novel for the free territory in the west. There he begins to carve out a utopia in the Carolinas, building a thriving estate he calls Stonehouses, with the help of a new wife Sanne and their son Purchase. Eventually the son he left behind Magnus escapes upon the death of his mother. Magnus settles down on the farm, while Purchase, a blacksmith by trade, wanders the colonies in pursuit of a woman. Their son Caelum is sent to live at Stonehouses as the pair chase each other.

I find myself thinking about this book often, although I finished it weeks ago. Is it the archaic tone that Baker uses? The mix of myth and religion—the two are intertwined here—-parts of the novel feel like the Iliad and other parts feel biblical. Yet this style, which feels old, seems new too. Check this book out at your local book store. I hope you find it as captivating as I did.

It’s Me, Not You

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I hate it when I read something that everyone else is raving about and I don’t like it. For a variety of reasons, this book Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones has not grabbed me, certainly in the same way that it’s grabbed other people. Several other booksellers at BEA raved about it and then today I read this piece on the Globe’s Off the Shelf column. I think it’s a problem with me than with the book. The writing is fine, lovely even. We’re just not meant to be. It seemed too sentimental for my taste. I find it more difficult often in describing why I didn’t enjoy a book than when I do, especially when there’s nothing overtly wrong with it. It’s me, not you, Mister Pip. We’re just not going to work out I’m afraid. Let’s end it now before we hurt each other even more.

The LBC Announces the Summer Read This! Pick

The Read This! pick is…Jamestown by Matthew Sharpe! Guess who nominated it? Yep, I did. I’m so happy that the rest of the LBC liked this book. It’s so different, but I really think it works. You can read here more about why I nominated it. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be discussing all of the nominees, which include Triangle by Katherine Weber and Always by Nicola Griffith. I enjoyed the other two books immensely. The discussions should be good all around.

Among Other Things

Last night I had the good fortune to see Aiobheann Sweeney read at my store from her debut novel Among Other Things I’ve Taken Up Smoking. The room filled up with Sweeney’s many friends and family—she’s a native Cantabrigian as it turns out. I had written about this strong book some months ago and was looking forward to meeting the author. She was nervous as this was her first reading, but she did a terrific job reading the packed room the first chapter.

The question period began with many of the people in the room asking her about the title, feeling like it had nothing to do with how the book ends. The publisher came up with the title, she says, and as long as it didn’t have some thin girl on the cover smoking, she didn’t mind it. I personally like the title and didn’t see what the fuss was about. I had read Ron Hogan’s account of meeting her for lunch and had a few questions about the book, mainly about her novel being considered gay literature. It hadn’t struck me as a “gay” novel, more of a coming of age and it just so happens that Miranda likes girls. She appreciated this and says that it could be a sign that the times have changed, since none of the reviews so far had even mentioned the gay aspect of the novel. Speaking of reviews, she kindly mentioned how much she enjoyed litblogs more so than the “canned” book reviews (she even thanked me out loud).

All in all, it was a really nice reading ,full of exuberant people. I’m glad that my store got to be her first stop for a reading.