I have written about my excursions out in the community before  and I am still here to tell you it is my FAVORITE part of my job here at Lemuria.  Yes, yes, I still love it when you come in the store and we can have great conversations about books and I can help you find your next read but it is a lot of fun coming to you and seeing you out and about.

I want to tell you about the collaboration that Lemuria and Millsaps College has started up.  Lemuria has always been involved with the Millsaps Arts & Lecture Series but now we have expanded to help out with the Friday Forum Series and the Visiting Writers Series.

Charles Baxter was the first author of the series and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing him again.  He walked up with Suzanne Marrs, who promptly introduced us, but I reminded him we had met before.  He had done an event at Lemuria for his novel, Feast of Love, about 12 years ago.  He quickly smiled and remembered that he had done his reading in a bar. (For those who don’t know, Lemuria and Musiquarium worked together for Literary Brews.)

Students, Professors and Jacksonians began swarming in the auditorium and the program began.  Baxter read a unpublished story, “Loyalty,” and laughter ensued.  One suggestion that he made to writers in the crowd was “never throw anything away.”  He then told us that the first 8 pages of this story he had written 16 years ago and recently found it in a old notebook he was looking through.  I found that to be very interesting and passed it along to Ellis, an aspiring writer on staff at Lemuria.  You couldn’t have asked for a better Wednesday afternoon and I hope that you will start taking advantage of these great programs.

All of these events are open to the public, some are free and some are ticketed events. They are all fantastic and there are a lot of people working together to bring them to you.

Bringing Home the Dharma: Awakening Right Where You Are

by Jack Kornfield

(Shambhala, 2011)

Dharma is the nature of things, including the nature of our mental lives and the world we live in. Dharma is the “great norm” underlying our world. The teachings of the Buddha are recognized as Dharma. Dharma is the manifestation of reality through the norms of behavior and ethical rules. Dharma includes mental content, objects of thoughts and reflections of a thing in the human mind.

For me I sum up Dharma as simply trying to live with truth in reality, and this concept drew me to Jack’s new book.

I enjoy reading mind books. It seems I always have at least two different approaches going. I guess being a child of the 50s, born in 1950, and coming of age during the counterculture movement, I’m hounded by the neurosis of my era.

Born in 1945, Jack Kornfield  has been on the forefront of the study of self-reflection for us baby boomers. His books have been instrumental in expanding the modern cultural blending of Buddhism and Western Psychology.

After graduating from Dartmouth College in 1967, he trained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, Burma and India. In 1975, he co-founded the insight meditation society in Barre, Massachusetts. He holds a Ph.D in Clinical Psychology. He is one of America’s most respected Buddhist teachers with over 40 years of committed study and practice.

Jack insight is shared with his new book Bringing Home the Dharma: Awakening Right Where You Are. The first section is a reflection for learning who you are. The following sections deal with accepting your place in time now, developing insight about how you got here, and understanding your present through mindful reflection. These lead to developing a spiritual path that fits your perspective amid the ups and downs of daily life.

Jack reviews lessons from three modern masters who influenced him. He addresses some of the problems early Buddhist leaders confronted when opening the doors for the West. This section was very interesting as it dealt with issues like:

1. The sex lives of our modern gurus

2. Drugs and spiritual practice

3. Shadow work or healing personal pains

4. The different interpretations of enlightenment

Jack’s final section offers suggestions about useful daily practices.

Jack also selected and edited The Buddha Is Still Teaching: Contemporary Buddhist Wisdom. Last year I read this and have enjoyed sharing this easy-to-read little book with others. Jack picked out short sections of the lion’s roar from the most highly regarded contemporary Buddhist teachers. These selections revolve around a common theme, for example, compassion and courage. The index of teachers is a Who’s Who and the bibliograpy is an excellent reading list.

Over the years I’ve enjoyed Jack’s writing. Four favorites are:

1. Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation with Joseph Goldstein (Shambhala, 1987)

2. A Path with Heart: A Guide through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life (Bantam, 1993)

3. After the Ecstasy the Laundry: How the Heart Grows Wise on the Spiritual Path (Bantam, 2000)

4. The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology (Bantam, 2008)

A couple of years ago, I read Philip Roth’s Everyman and became intrigued with his ability to get inside a character’s mind, my favorite characteristic of  my favorite kind of writing: psychological realism. So, when Roth’s new Nemesis was published last fall, I knew that I would probably choose it for book club once it was out in paperback.

Set in the 1940s and early 1950s, the novel  Nemesis explores the effects of the devastating disease of polio and how it chose at random young innocent children, snatching them from their families and friends, often with the result of a quick demise, if not life long paralysis. My own paternal grandfather suffered the effects of polio as a young man. He walked with a limp his entire life because of the disease. This made me so sad as a child, his limp, and his shorter leg. The older brother of one of my childhood friends contracted polio only months before the vaccine was available to his sister and to me and my family, as well as other families in my south Mississippi hometown. On Sunday afternoon, we all went to the local high school and swallowed our “sugar” pills which protected us for life. I remember the day well. I was about five or six years old. And we were the lucky generation. We were born at the right time and were protected from the debilitating disease which affected, as we all know, President Roosevelt. So, this novel had a personal interest to me before I picked it up.

The protagonist, a young twenty something, is prevented from going to WWII due to his poor eyesight. He sadly failed the test, that is in his opinion, and, therefore, was prevented from going overseas with his buddies. His grandparents with whom he lived, were relieved, thinking him safe at home teaching  grammar school and junior high school children during the school year and supervising the playgrounds during the summer……until, his special loveable young boys began contracting the disease. They fell, one by one. The New York and New Jersey communities were devastated, scared, and angry. Was the physical education playground person in charge, letting their children get too hot, or too tired? Was that why these boys got polio?

Scared to death herself, the protagonist’s fiance persuaded her future husband to leave the playground and join her at a  polio-free summer camp in up state New York. He arrived to find happiness and no polio, at least for the first two weeks. Then a boy in his cabin woke in the middle of the night sick, very sick, and within days was dead. The verdict: polio. It turns out that the protagonist was a symptom free carrier.

I am not going to tell “the rest of the story”, as my childhood radio star Paul Harvey would say. You, reader, must read this incredible novel, AND come join us for book club on Thursday, March 1, at noon at our dot.com building. The book is short, so there is still time to read it before next Thursday if you have not already started.   The discussion will certainly prove to be lively and thought provoking. It always is!  -Nan

People that work in bookstores love to talk books. (actually we just plain love books) So of course we’re always getting asked “what are you reading”. Well, this and that, but lately the answer has been Judy Moody. Having kids means I don’t get to read as much as I might want – I mean I don’t get to read as much in the “grown-up” genres. Harper is five almost six and we’ve read every Judy Moody book and are on the very last of the spin off series about Judy’s brother Stink. I can’t really explain the Judy Moody phenomenon – you’ll have to trust me – Judy is cool and zaney and little girls like this stuff.

Another book we have read recently is Children Make Terrible Pets by Peter Brown. This beautifully illustrated book flips the normal childhood experience of finding an animal in your yard and asking your parents if you can keep it. In this story a bear cub finds a little boy and although his mother tells him that Children Make Terrible Pets he still has to find out for himself. Maybe Anna will read this one at story time sometime.

Harper is learning to read and we had a tolerable time sounding out words in the Peter Brown book, while in the Judy Moody books we are usually so carried away by the story that we don’t work on our reading as much.

Check out Judy Moody here.

and Children Make Terrible Pets here.

and if you’re wondering the boy child is still way into truck books.

Dear Listener,

I’ve never been a fan of Black Sabbath.  I’ve never hated them, either.  They’re just one of those bands that came and went before my time. On the subject of my last blog (which can be viewed here), a 33 1/3 book that really stuck out for me was the fifty-sixth in the series covering Master of Reality by Black Sabbath written by John Darnielle.  There are two things that make this book special to me, and neither of them have to do with Ozzy Osbourne.

1.  John Darnielle is a name that was familiar to me before discovering this book.  Darnielle is the only continuing member of the band The Mountain Goats.  Being quite literary, Darnielle frequently writes albums of fiction.  Stories that continue from song to song.  Sometimes fictional, sometimes non.  As a proponent for literature, I have always been fond of John Darnielle.

2.  Unlike nearly every other book in the 33 1/3 series, Darnielle wrote his as a work of fiction.  Amazingly he still manages to discuss every song on the album, including background information on the musicians, all while developing his characters.  If it weren’t about Black Sabbath, it may very well have been the perfect merger of music and fiction.

Below is Darnielle under his moniker The Mountain Goats performing his song “Color in Your Cheeks” from his 2002 album All Hail West Texas.  For more on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert click here.

by Simon