Dear Listener,

For those of you that don’t know me yet, my name is Simon. Lemuria was gracious enough to give me a job about a month ago when my beloved employer Be-Bop Record Shop was forced to close its doors. I am very excited to share my insight on my favorite recent read, but a part of me is still strongly linked to music.

Luckily! I had an idea in which I could share both. I regularly read and I regularly listen. Naturally, I am forced to listen while I read, otherwise I wouldn’t consume nearly as much as I prefer. It wasn’t long before I realized that these two artistic entities were actually working off each other and creating a tension between the moods of the book and the music. Frequently one will overpower the other and convince me to feel things that I wouldn’t have normally felt from the tone of one alone.

Recently I finished Sharpshooter Blues (1995) by Lewis Nordan. It’s no secret that reading Nordan can be comparative to stabbing yourself in the heart with a knife made out of love. Elation and hospitality exist to build one up as to have a longer drop when the floor is ripped away from you.

Having already read Music of the Swamp (1991), I had a pretty good idea of Nordan’s ability to perform this magic trick. It was for this reason I decided to try a little experiment. I thought maybe if I listened to something that was almost too happy, the bittersweetness would be easier to deal with. I picked an album by a defunct Jackson band called Circus of the Seed. Raspy southern vocals, trumpet, and a very melodious rhythm section made for an appropriate background for the over-optimism of the lyrics. Well by golly! I’d say it worked. The mixture produced a warm ambiance that very nearly turned what would have been tears of sadness into tears of joy.

My good friend Cody Cox and I produce a monthly mix cd that attempts to spread the good word of local, regional, and nationally known music to garner awareness of the caliber of art that surrounds us. A track from the unreleased Circus of the Seed EP is the first track of the latest mix (Issue #3) that can be picked up for free at Lemuria.

by Simon

Ok Jackson…I always hear someone say that there is never anything going on well here is something!!!  This Saturday, July 16 at  F. Jones Corner on historic Farish Street  is Beer and Bones: “The Duece”- a Backyard Grilling Competition, Art and Music Festival.

I have a special place in my heart for this particular event for many reasons:

1.  I’m a supporter of downtown Jackson revitalization.

2. My good friend, Justin Gann/Party Like a Professional is putting this wingding on.

3. I love live music and my husband is playing in one of the bands.

4. I love art.

5. I love food.

6. I am selling tickets up here at Lemuria.

This is what I suggest you do.  Come by Lemuria and pick up an advanced ticket for $15.00 (they are $20.00 at the gate) and then you will have a little extra “beer money”.  The Beer and Bones Grilling Competition will start off about noon.  The four person grilling teams will follow the Memphis in May cooking guidelines  and compete in ribs, chicken and burgers categories.  These teams are really going to have to step it up with the judging panel including many of Jackson’s top chefs, tv personalities and city officials but with names like The Drive-by Smokers, The Bull Moose Smokers (2010 overall champions), FatBacks, Natural Born Grillaz, I think they are up to the task!!  Oh and don’t forget that you all get to sample all that good cookin’!

While you are waiting for all the food to be prepared you can also take a look at the booths of talented Mississippi artists that will be set up.  Last year, I helped my friend Teresa with her booth and we had a great time talking to the other artists and to all the folks at the festival.  There will be an eclectic group here this year, Billy Moore Folk Art, Hoggy Bottom Creations, and Kynd South Art, just to name a few so I know that you will find something that you just can’t live without!

You are going to bring a chair because after you have seen the art, tasted the food, stopped off at the Cat Head, Lazy Mag and Raise your Pints booths you are going to want to have a seat and relax and listen to all the great music that is happening through out the day and night.  There are four bands and over 12 hours of music and the line up is great!

Otis Lotus 3:00-5:45

M.O.S.S. 6:00-8:45 (the cute guy playing the sax is my husband Steve)

Kudzu Kings 9:00-11:45

The Legendary House Rockers 12:00-4:00 (yes the am)

With this much music there really isn’t any excuse for anyone to miss this even if you do have to work on Saturday!!

I will expect to see all of you there!!  Come on downtown and support Jackson and all of your friends that have been working hard to plan this great event.

At the end of June last year, Adam Ross came to Lemuria for an early stop on his first book’s tour. Mr. Peanut was released by Knopf on June 22, 2010, to great acclaim: master of crime Scott Turow penned a front page New York Times Book Review article, Stephen King blurbed the novel, calling it “The most riveting look at the dark side of marriage since Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” and Lemuria, with overwhelming support from the staff, chose it to be our
July First Editions Club pick
(it’s the 6th review down, written by Zita).

A year later, Adam Ross is back with a book of short stories. In an interview with Dan Coxon on CultureMob, Ross talks about how the stories in Ladies and Gentlemen came to be:

The stories that comprise Ladies and Gentlemen were written during breaks that were thrust upon me while drafting Mr. Peanut, because there were stretches where I was simply stuck, quiet and quite anxious times when I was figuring out how to link up its disparate narratives. Meanwhile I had all these other ideas that presented themselves on what seemed like a much more manageable scale and I desperately wanted to get a taste of The End of something, so I’d honor inspiration at these times; and when my agent was ready to shop Mr. Peanut I also had thirteen or more stories under my belt which we boiled down to seven and which, we discovered, orbited similar themes as the novel.

The first story, the longest at 62 pages, is about an out of work middle aged man who, coming to realize that his desperation connects to his lifelong lack of ambition, attempts to take a neighbor’s son under his wing when he sees him choosing the same path. But just like in Mr. Peanut, that’s only the surface of the story. The connection between Ross’s stories and his novel is evident in his, well, storytelling. After all, doesn’t “telling a story” essentially mean “lying,” in order to beguile (Ross’s stories do this), instruct (yes, this too), or entertain (yes, without a doubt)?

In both books, the reader is being told a story, first and foremost, and if he ever forgets it, the outcome of Ross’s stories may shock him. As the narrator in “The Suicide Room” says, “I’m free to embellish, to treat memory as fact or shape it to suit whatever I’m working on. My primary responsibility, I suppose, is to set you dreaming. If that requires me to alter things, then I will.” But there is much truth among the lies (excuse me, stories) of Ladies and Gentlemen, and for that Lemuria will always be glad to listen to the stories of Adam Ross.

Adam Ross will be signing and reading at Lemuria Thursday, July 14th, beginning at 5 o’clock. Ladies and Gentlemen, New York: Knopf (2011), is available for pre-order here.

FEC members: If you received a signed first edition of Mr. Peanut last year and would like to add a copy of Ladies and Gentlemen to your First Editions Club shipment this month, email zita@lemuriabooks.com

Do you ever find yourself making excuses for a book when you are attempting to recommend it to someone? Stumbling over yourself to point out its shortcomings and failures, assuring your listener that it’s not really a bad book at all (instead of communicating why it’s a good book)?

I’ve been reading Bill James’ new book Popular Crime and I’ve been enjoying it so much I thought I would write up something for the blog about it. I sat down in front of my laptop, and as I tried to organize my thoughts about the book, I found that I was preoccupied with the book’s shortcomings – as if I needed to apologize for liking the book. I imagined myself handing a copy of the book to a customer and mumbling, “You probably won’t like it anyway…”

It struck me that too often I’ve tried to evaluate books on a simple, one-dimensional scale, with one end labeled “Unreadable” and the other end labeled “Life-Changing,” as if there’s only one relevant quality that can be measured and communicated. Books like Popular Crime challenge this notion – they may have obvious and possibly numerous flaws, but those flaws are either canceled out by the strengths, or at least they may be overlooked in order to enjoy the strengths.

Let’s get the weaknesses out of the way. The book is long but not comprehensive. James rambles at length; the digressions border on self-indulgent. The author’s research is essentially anecdotal; no footnotes or endnotes will be found. At one point he notes that he found a piece of information on Wikipedia; later, he recounts a story from an article he admits he can no longer find. This habit would be less noticeable if James didn’t frequently criticize other crime writers for their poor research. James repeatedly reminds the reader of how many crime books he’s read. The structure of the book is uneven; it’s organized chronologically, but the amount of attention paid to each story varies greatly – James may explore the crime for ten or fifteen pages, or he may abandon it after two paragraphs. I could go on, but I won’t.

So why read it? Because all those flaws are momentary distractions. Actually, that’s not even true – I’m not distracted by them while I’m reading – they are just little realizations that come to mind when I’m not reading. But when the book is open, it’s just enjoyment. Yes, it’s a bit rambly, but it’s not tedious, just a pleasantly relaxed discussion on some fantastically interesting crime stories. The digressions may be occasionally self-indulgent, but James always returns to the main story before the readers’ interest wanes. The writing style is direct and unaffected; writers are often described as writing in a “conversational” tone, but too often that simply means that their writing is unpolished. Not here — James’ writing is unadorned, devoid of cliche, and readable.

I will unapologetically recommend Popular Crime. Yes, it has flaws, but they are incidental, not fatal. To allow its flaws to distract from one’s enjoyment would be, well, a crime.

What is one to do when they realize that they are the last of their kind? Jake Marlowe has to make a decision. After learning that the one other werewolf besides himself has been killed, Jake knows that he will soon be facing his enemies at the WOCOP, an organization that was created to control the occult phenomena.

Harley, a member of WOCOP but also Jakes best friend and confidant, has come up with a plan to get Jake into hiding and safe for awhile but Jake has other ideas.  He is really just tired, tired of the loneliness, tired of drinking scotch by himself and having sex with prostitutes (though he does have his ‘unfavorites’). He is tired of knowing that all he can do is kill his victim since no humans have been turned into werewolves for years due to a virus and tired of knowing that he will never find someone to love as he could in the past.

While he can confide in Harley, he does wonder how Harley has been able to deal with knowing that all these years he has been a co-conspirator in the murders that Jake has had to commit while on “The Curse.”  Jake has made his decision: he will die in 27 days.

Jake soon learns he is not in complete control of his own destiny. Rogue WOCOP agents start popping up everywhere and the stench of Vampire is everywhere around him.  His final days are just not as peaceful as he would like them to be.  Then the most surprising thing of all just steps off the train.

If you are a Twilight werewolf/vampire fan then this book is probably not the book for you, but if you like good writing with a supernatural twist then I highly recommend The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan.  I will be certainly be looking forward to the next one.

If you would like to order a signed first edition of The Last Werewolf click here.