As you might have already read, we at Lemuria Books are overjoyed to announce that we will be hosting an extraordinary event on Thursday, August 23rd, at 4:00 pm: Peter Brown is coming! We are so excited to have the amazing illustrator of Creepy Carrots come to read and sign his newest, creepiest, carrotiest creation yet!

We plan on kicking off the festivities around 3:30 with some fun activities, including making a creepy carrot bookmark! We’ll then continue the fun with the reading around 4:00, with a signing to follow. We hope to see everyone there, tomorrow at 4!

This Thursday Lemuria will be going to Livingston Farmers Market with Carolyn Brown, author of A Daring Life: A Biography of Eudora Welty.

We will also be lucky to have Susan Haltom, author of the beautiful One Writer’s Garden. We’re so excited to be honoring Miss Welty at the Livingston Farmers Market.

They’ll both be signing their books. Come on out and join us for music, food, fresh produce and arts and crafts items!

Keep up with Livingston Farmers Market on Facebook.

The Dog Stars may be Peter Heller’s first foray into fiction, but it is actually his fourth book to be published. Heller’s first three books are high-stakes adventure nonfiction; Heller’s first-hand knowledge of real near-death experiences serve him well in his crafting of Dog Stars. Hig, the fly-fishing bush pilot hero of Dog Stars, could easily be a character in Heller’s other books. (Not to mention Hig’s gun-slinging sidekick, Bangley).

Like an extended episode of Animal Planet’s Whale Wars, Heller’s Whale Warriors records the two months spent aboard the eco-pirate ship, Farley Mowatt. Hunting Japanese whaling ships in the Antarctic, the book is not only an anthropological jump into the lives of the men and women who are fighting (literally) to protect the wonders of our world, but is also a high-seas adventure which is immediately engrossing.

In much the same way as Whale Warriors captures an American sub-culture with vivid character portraits, Kook follows Peter Heller as he  surfs his way up and down the Pacific coast and works to become a shredder (a really good surfer, for those of us not in the know).

Check out this video from Peter Heller’s website as he explains the inspiration behind Dog Stars:

Peter Heller will be at Lemuria TODAY! at 5 PM for a signing with a reading to follow at 5:30 PM. Stop by and get your copy signed.

If you can’t make it, but you want a signed copy, you can reserve one here, or call us 601.366.7619

“When Will I Be Home?”

When will I be home? I don’t know.

In the mountains, in the rainy night,

The autumn lake is flooded.

Someday we will be together again.

We will sit in the candlelight by the west window.

And I will tell you how I remember you

Tonight on the stormy mountain.

by Li Shang-Yin

Hig is the main character in The Dog Stars by Peter Heller and “When Will I Be Home?” is his favorite poem.

Li Shang-Yin (c. 813 to 858) is considered the last great poet of the Tang Dynasty. Li’s work was a departure from previous Chinese poetry because of his interest and the mood of his poems. Romance began to appear in the poetry of Tu Mu and Li Ho; however, with Li Shang-Yin romance became a central theme, especially in his experimental poetry. Li influenced Tz’u, a new poetry form, with romance and eroticism being the principle concerns.

With his second innovation, Li believed a poem should embody mysteries. Poetry should comprise a consciousness blended with the inner patterns of the cosmos, a primal vitality. Li wanted his poems to create mood and move atmosphere, rather than focusing on clarity and statement. His poems are so elusive and mysterious that when I first read his work in May 2009, I found his poems hard to understand and enjoy. Many readers feel this elusiveness is his poetry’s great strength. For his time, Li pushed experimentation to its limits.

Li’s poems are symbols and they create mysterious worlds which I also found to be an interesting association with The Dog Stars. Li Shang-Yin and Peter Heller concentrate on humanity and both are experimental. Both writers are mysterious and are influenced by the inner patterns of human beings and the primal mentality of the cosmos.

Peter Heller’s odd stream of consciousness style created inner reflection and a mysterious mood, hypnotizing me, his reader, to become a part of his postapocalyptic world. I found reading Dog Stars to be an experience filled with transcendentalism, a collection of bizarre human relationships held together by nature.

The Dog Stars prompted me to read Li and I feel more comfortable now going back to his work. And so I found a favorite of Li’s poetic lines from The Brocade Ch’in:

(Ch’in is a musical instrument associated with romance and love.)

“Moonlight on vast seas–it’s a pearl’s tear”

*     *     *

For Dog Star readers who want to explore Li Shang-Yin, I suggest Classical Chinese Poetry: An Anthology edited and translated by David Hinton.

The Dog Stars is published by Knopf and is available as a signed first edition at Lemuria for $24.95. The Dog Stars is our August pick for First Editions Club.

If you’ve been to one of our super fun events ($1 beers y’all!) then you have been to our Dot Com Building.  You may have also heard it referred to as the Annex Building, the Auxiliary Building, and the Events Building.  Even though we spend a lot of time down there listening to great authors, it is called the Dot Com Building for a reason.  It is the physical representation of what is available for sale on our website.  It is a building where we like to house  a lot of our fun and collectible books: signed first editions, first editions, limited editions, and uncorrected proofs.  Sometimes if you hunt really well you’ll find books that are only available from the Dot Com Building.  I took time out of a rainy Saturday to gather up a few examples of what you can find down there but not in our main store.

Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon

New York: Harper Collins (2009).
First Edition. Signed. $25.99

Waveland by Frederick Barthelme

New York: Doubleday (2009).
First Edition. Signed. $35.00

Hitch-22 by Christopher Hitchens

New York: Twelve (2010)

Advanced Reading Copy. Not Signed $30.00

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling

New York: Scholastic (1997).
First Edition. Not Signed. $125.00

The Time of Our Time by Norman Mailer

New York: Random House (1998).
First Edition. Signed. $75.00

Gold by Chris Cleave

New York: Simon and Schuster

Advanced Reading Copy. Not Signed. $30.00

A Month of Sundays by John Updike

New York: Knopf (1975).
Limited Edition. Signed. $200.00

The Last Coyote by Michael Connelly

New York: Little & Brown (1995).
First Edition. Signed. $75.00

Certain Prey by John Sandford

New York: Penguin Putnam (1999).
First Edition. Signed. $40.00

So just a reminder, those books are NOT just for show.  Take a peak at some of them next time you at one of our great events (seriously. $1 beers).  And ya know what?  It doesn’t even have to be an event.  If you decide you’d like to browse that building just let one of our helpful hands know, and we would be more than happy to take you down there. Anytime.

Also.  Don’t forget about our First Editions Room and our Fine First Editions Room.  They are open for browsing as well!

by Simon