As mentioned in the previous post, I’m heading to Cancun on Friday for a week of vacation. Just in time too. We’re expecting a foot of snow tonight and I’ve about had it with Winter. As usual, I’m nerdily deciding on what books to bring with me. I want some Mexican literature, maybe some Carlos Fuentes, whom I’ve never read. Also, has anyone read Underdogs by Mariano Azuela? That sounds good too. I’m also into the idea of reading travel literature while traveling. I purchased copies of Down the Nile by Rosemary Mahoney, Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon, and Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuscinski. I want to bring some regular ol’ fiction too. I still haven’t read Lush Life by Richard Price. Worth bringing? Any suggestions are welcome!

• The Stranger reports on a reading by Junot Diaz in Seatlle the other night. Diaz  recommends reading Out by Natsuo Kirino, The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa, and anything by Edwidge Danticat.
• Here’s an interesting article in North by Northwestern on why independent bookstores have so much trouble. The author really tries to get at the heart of the problem.
• The New York Times covers Europa Editions, whose The Elegance of the Hedgehog has hit bestseller lists all over the place. The sales on this book increase so much each week at my store, it amazes me.
• E-Books! Both Rich at Malaprops (his blog is personal and does not represent the store. I just know he works at Malaprops.) and Patrcick at Vromans have posted about e-books. I’m going with the hyphenated spelling for “e-book” because I really like hyphens.
• I really liked this post on The Millions about literature in lieu of the tour guide. I’m off to Mexico next week. Can anyone recommend me some books about Mexico?

Just read in Publishers Weekly that Richard Nash is stepping down as editorial director of Soft Skull Press.

He said he was grateful for the reprieve Counterpoint gave to Soft Skull’s writers and readers, but said, “It is time to let Soft Skull move onto the next phase of its existence, and to allow me to take on the new challenges our industry is facing.”

I wish Richard luck in whatever new venture he begins. He’s a literary light as far as I’m concerned.

Did everyone catch Jeff Bezo hawking the Kindle 2 on the Daily Show last night? (Why can’t I figure out how to imbed video!) I can’t decide if Jon Stewart loved it or thought it was really stupid. I laughed when he made fun of the Amazon Prime membership–pay $79 a year and get free shipping! Uh, that’s not free. The Kindle 2 is still $359 plus the $9.99 per book. That’s a lot of money. I’m not against e-readers or digital formats at all. I just think something else will come along that make the Kindle look like the MP3 players that came before the iPod. The New York Times likes it. They call it “the most successful electronic book-reading tablet so far” but add that it’s not saying much as so many have failed before. I personally like the looks of the Plastic Logic reader. I’m hoping to see some of these electronic readers at BookExpo in New York later this year.

How can February almost be over? I’m not ready for March—it involves lions and lambs. Usually it rains here for about 4 weeks straight. Can’t wait. I’ve been reading Flying by Eric Kraft for the past week or so. It’s slow going as I have to stop to think about what he’s really trying to say after each short section. Plus I’m in the middle of the Summer buying season—7 appointments this week. What was I thinking?

Everyone should run out now and buy Marlon James’s The Book of Night Women. It’s that good. Read the Washington Post’s review. I liked it so much I asked for it to be the Signed First Edition Club pick for March.

Speaking of my store, one cool thing we started today was using green delivery. Now customers can get their books same or next day depending on where they live delivered via bicycle. How cool is that?

They’ve installed a completely new and fancier fire alarm system in the building here in Harvard Square. Sounds great, except they’re testing it over the next few days. I’m sitting here with earplugs trying to work, but since I never know when the alarm is going to sound, I’m finding it hard to concentrate. I spent most of the weekend trying to catch up on magazines: Harper’s, New Yorker, Cook’s Illustrated, The Atlantic. I’m almost there. I’m savoring The Book of Night Women by Marlon James. Apparently Maud likes it too.Not that I need her validation to read a book, but she’s got such good taste in books, I like to know what she likes. Speaking of Maud, you should read her piece on her father over at Granta.

This morning at the Tools of Change conference, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos revealed the Kindle 2.0, with the help of shill author Stephen King. The whole thing was live blogged by about a million people, but I Wired magazine has a thorough version. On a side note, is live blogged hyphenated? Anyway, the 2.0 version has a lot of new bells and whistles, some sort of text to speech thing, not to mention being smaller and lighter. It’ll even change your kitty litter! Kidding. I’m still not sure how all this is going to affect traditional book sales. Seems like it should all be open source somehow, not a closed loop format. Condalmo has a similar, if not the more elegantly expressed opinion. Is the Kindle the Betamax of e-readers?

Alison Morris posted this video of Stephen Colbert and Steve Martin reading Danielle Steele. Terribly amusing… especially when they go to a banjo duel.

First of all, I’m heading to Salt Lake City, Utah for the fourth Winter Institute bright and early tomorrow morning. The ABA (American Booksellers Association) began this conference four years ago as a chance for booksellers to meet each other and to learn without the chaos of Book Expo. I’m pretty excited to be going, even if I have to get up at 4:30am for my flight. The most important question of course is what books will I bring with me to read? Here’s what I’m bringing:

• The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet by Rief Larsen
• My Abandonment by Peter Rock
• The Girl who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson

I’m torn right now because I’m in the middle of Lilith’s Brood by Octavia Butler (see sidebar) and really enjoying it. Her work is so dark! And I have to complain about the cover, which makes it look like a romance novel. The reawakening of the human race by an alien race after humans annihilated themselves is not exactly a romance.

Second, I disagree with Michiko Kakutani’s review of T.C. Boyle’s new book The Women in the Times today. She calls it dreary, a “small, cheesy paint-by-numbers soap opera”. I can’t say that I liked all of the characters in the book (yes, I know they’re based on real people but they’re still characters in a novel) but I didn’t find it either of those things. Also, why is she reviewing it now? It’s got a strict on sale date of February 10th! That’s very annoying for booksellers who have to field all the requests from customers for a book they can’t sell yet.

And finally, John Updike?! What? I’m shocked. I wasn’t aware that he had lung cancer. I don’t know what to say.

I’m writing my first post in a very long time. It’s going to be a short one as I’m mostly linking to another blog post here, one that does a really nice job summarizing some exciting books coming this year. Max at the Millions always does a fantastic job at this sort of thing. I’m looking forward particularly to Colson Whitehead’s Sag Harbor, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s The Thing Around Your Neck, and Lorrie Moore’s A Gate at the Stairs. I read T.C. Boyle’s new novel The Women back in December—it’s fantastic, better than Talk, Talk. On a side note, he’ll be appearing at my store on February 11th.

Two books I’ll mention quickly. First, one of the best books I read in 2008, I didn’t read until mid-December; Philip Hensher’s Northern Clemency was the perfect ending (or nearly ending) to my 2008 reading list. The book chronicles two English families over the course of several decades beginning in 1974. There’s no straight plot, you just follow their lives. I quite enjoyed reading it. Right now, I’m in the middle of Laila Lalami’s The Secret Son. I loved Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits and so far her new novel has not disappointed me. 2009 has begun with a good start!

Andrea Walker at the Book Bench noted the cover for Serena by Ron Rash. This is an excellent book, one which inspired me to write a staff recommendation:

If the intense cover alone doesn’t draw you to this book, perhaps knowing that this novel features one of the greatest female protagonists I’ve ever come across will. It’s 1929, and George Pemberton returns to the North Carolina mountains with his new wife Serena where they plan on creating a timber empire. She’s no meek flower. She rides horses like men and even trains an eagle to kill the rattlers that plague the crews. Letting nothing get in their way, they ride roughshod over everyone who crossed paths with them including partners, sheriffs, and Pemberton’s former mistress. With echoes of Greek tragedy and Shakespeare, this story of ambition and greed and revenge has haunted my dreams for weeks.