The Complete Vegetarian: The Essential Guide to Good Health edited by Peggy Carlson, M.D., University of Illinois Press, 2009.

The Complete Vegetarian is a handbook for serious vegetarians and as well as for those who are serious about nutrition while still eating meat. There is much to learn from this in-depth handbook on the nutritional aspects of a vegetarian life, the diseases that may be impacted by a vegetarian diet, and how to plan meals for the average vegetarian to the pregnant mother to the athlete. Key nutrition chapters include protein, fats, fiber, iron, zinc and calcium among others. Key chapters on disease and nutrition include heart disease, cancer, hypertension, stroke, obesity, diabetes, and osteoporosis.

An eye-opening introduction acquaints the reader with 25-30 years of the latest research on vegetarian diets. Editor Peggy Carlson, M.D. points out that most people become vegetarians for health reasons alone. Research has shown that vegetarian diets can both help prevent and treat many diseases. Despite this, nutrition is one of the most underutilized tools in a health practitioner’s tool bag. Not to be missed is Carlson’s history of vegetarianism and an overview and comparison of diets across the globe.

The Complete Vegetarian is one of the most comprehensive handbooks on vegetarian diet available with a robust list of medical professionals and nutritionist as contributors in addition to an extensive list of source material and further reading.

Eat Greens: Seasonal Recipes to Enjoy in Abundance

by Barbara Scott-Goodman and Liz Trovato, Running Press, 2011.

I’m scanning a shelf of cookbooks and you cannot imagine my delight when I see the title Eat Greens. Yes, Eat Greens! It’s a cookbook about growing, cooking and eating everything green. I have been obsessed with spinach salads for a couple of years now, and we’ve been growing cabbages (plus some greens, zucchini, okra, and cucumbers) successfully for several years now. In short, I have become a green vegetable snob, thinking what is the point of eating a vegetable if it is not green. Well, I am sure there is a reason to do so, and there is something to be said for variety in the diet.

Eat Greens is a delightful cookbook because in addition to the great recipes organized by vegetable, it also lists the nutritional breakdown of every green vegetable. Most green vegetables provide the most concentrated nutrition of any other food. They contain vitamins A, C, K, E and many of the B vitamins as well. If that weren’t enough, they also provide iron, potassium, magnesium, and they’re a great source of fiber, too.

Whether you are trying to increase your love for the green or simply want to learn how to cook your green veggies a new way, this is a great book. And you can reward yourself and your family by talking about all of the wonderful nutrition at the dinner table.

“Are you there, Satan?

It’s me, Madison.”

Damned: Thirteen-year-old Madison Spencer has just arrived in hell from a “marijuana overdose.”  She may only be thirteen but as she quickly and repeatedly points out, she’s not a moron or brain damaged, simpleminded or an idiot.

As excited as I am about this book coming out and us being blessed with the opportunity to host Chuck Palahniuk when he does his signing tour in October, I am most excited about the present John brought back for me from his trip to BEA in New York.

Take a look:

When John came in this past Saturday and asked if I wanted to swap my advanced readers copy of Damned for the one that he brought back I was pretty confused. When he handed me the new copy I was beyond words and could only respond with hugs and many leaps of joy.

They of course returned from BEA with much more than just personalized Chuck Palahniuk books and you can read about those things in our bookstore keys blogs.

In closing I’ll leave you with a few words of wisdom from Madison for those of us who find ourselves in hell:

-Never touch the bars of the cell you wake up in (they are quite disgusting and you don’t want to be all dirtied up when judgment day arrives).

-Do your best to not die in cheap or uncomfortable shoes or while wearing a crappy watch (remember that in hell, all plastics will melt).

-Do not eat the candy that you find on your cell floor.

If you’re a bit lost or confused, stay tuned for more about the book, the event and BEA.

by Zita

Borders as it stands today:

Borders has 200 stores for sale out of its remaining 402 stores. Gores, a distressed investor group, is in talks to buy these 200 stores but nothing is firm.

Borders has still not come up with a reorganization plan and has now received approval for a 120-day extension.

Borders still owes the largest publishers about $182 million. In April alone, Borders lost $132 million.

As book people hit the show floor at BEA, Borders talk abounded. Though nobody is comfortable or necessarily happy about what is happening to Borders, it does provide a window of opportunity for independent bookstores to take advantage of these changes. Being smaller, indies are more equipped to make these changes faster.

JOHN: The Borders talk reflected the opinion that their time is running out–too much loss in the face of too many favors that have not panned out. Perhaps their nurturing of bought time is nearing the end and their doors will close. I believe this industry drain, if stopped, will redefine the value of the independent bookstore in the bookselling system. Perhaps independent bookstores strengthen their bookselling skills as publishers and the reading public realize the value of their service.

JOE: Yup, everyone up in NY seemed to think that Borders would be gone soon. Now they seem to have found some folks to bid on parcels of the company. What this really means for the industry is unclear. Borders may still be completely liquidated or it may morph into more of a Books-a-Million model or department store model. No one in NY even cared to guess, but I agree with John, hopefully all of this will mean less competition for Lemuria, which will mean a greater market share and greater appreciation from the publishers for the skills, knowledge, and abilities of the the indie bookstores.

While in New York we bumped into Charles Frazier and feel almost certain that he’ll be coming to Lemuria this fall for his new book. Why? Because Frazier, and the industry as a whole, attribute the initial success of Cold Mountain to the work, excitement, and ability of the indies to find the needle in the haystack of this industry. We did it before and we’ll do it again. There will always be needles in this haystack.

Above right: Charles Frazier and Karl Marlantes meet for the first time at BEA 2011.

Lemuria’s Bookstore Keys Series on the Changing Book Industry

Where will e-book sales level out? (June 2) Indie Bookstores Buying from Amazon? (June 1) BEA Roundup (May 19) Lemuria’s Headed for NYC (May17) Barnes & Noble Bankrupt? (April 28) Decluttering the Book Market: Ads on the latest Kindle (April 14) Independents on the Exposed End of the Titantic? (April 6th) Border’s Bonuses (March 30) The Experience of Holding a Book (March15) Finding “Deep Time” in a Bookstore (March 8th) Reading The New Rules of Retail by Lewis & Dart (March 3) The Future Price of the Physical Book (Feb 18) Borders Declares Bankruptcy (Feb 16) How Great Things Happen at Lemuria (Feb 8th) The Jackson Area Book Market (Jan 25) What’s in Store for Local Bookselling Markets? (Jan 18) Selling Books Is a People Business (Jan 14) A Shift in Southern Bookselling? (Jan 13) The Changing Book Industry (Jan 11)

Trying to understand statistics and commentary on current e-book sales is no easy task. While in New York, John and Joe were immersed in “yak about the Big E.”

JOHN: E-books, e-reading, and e-gizmos. Does the reading future lie solely in the device? No answers here from me. The yak about the “E” was constant, especially early on. “Where will e-book sales level out?” seemed to be the big question. My guess, for whatever it’s worth, is 50/50.

My personal conclusion is how can the reader give up the magical quality time spent reading a physical book. It’s simply just too plain good. An afternoon off, reading on your porch, couch, by the beach, in a park or anywhere can’t be replaced. The young gal next to me on the plane home was reading something on a tablet. I was reading an advanced readers copy of Karl Marlantes’ What It Feels Like to Go to War, his new nonfiction book coming out in October. I thought for no amount of money would I swap places in this present situation. She looked bored and buying time and I felt hypnotized by the magic of reading a great book with a scotch, being transported into my own frame of mind.

JOE: It’s true that there was a lot of talk about e-books in NYC but I can’t say we heard anything new. No one knows where it’s going to pan out and everyone wants it to pan out soon. My guess is more like 65/35 – 35% being the e-books.

I did hear that on the first day of BEA that Dominique Raccah, founder of Sourcebooks, predicted that the industry would, in five years, be 50% of what it is now. To me that kind of prediction is pretty much “the sky is falling” kind of stuff. Sourcebooks will definitely sell more e-books than most publishers because they produce the sorts of books that people read on e-books, i.e., romance and popular fiction, but there are other parts of the industry that just won’t change that much.

There are just some things about traditional reading that are too good to go away. For example, I’m not going to read to my kids at night on a kindle or i-pad, I really can’t imagine that I would want to read anything with footnotes or maps on an e-reader, and I’m on the computer so much during the day that when I read at home at night I for sure don’t want to read on something that can have any kind of hardware failure or can crash and cause me to lose my place or not be able to continue my reading.

I did see the same person reading on her i-pad on the plane and she eventually got tired of the i-pad reading experience and switched to playing crossword puzzles. Meanwhile the two ladies I sat between were reading paperback books – on my left an Elizabeth Spencer short story and on the right The Help. As our plane descended we talked about our books and the “Jackson, MS” connections with Kathryn Stockett’s book and family – Stockett Stables, the Jitney, Belhaven, etc. That kind of thing never would have happened if we had all been reading on our e-readers. I’m glad we weren’t.

Above Photo: Pictured are members of a Boston book club. Most members decided to go with the physical copy of The Help. Taken from this article on The Christian Science Monitor website.

Lemuria’s Bookstore Keys Series on the Changing Book Industry

Indie Bookstores Buying from Amazon? (June 1) BEA Roundup (May 19) Lemuria’s Headed for NYC (May17) Barnes & Noble Bankrupt? (April 28) Decluttering the Book Market: Ads on the latest Kindle (April 14) Independents on the Exposed End of the Titantic? (April 6th) Border’s Bonuses (March 30) The Experience of Holding a Book (March15) Finding “Deep Time” in a Bookstore (March 8th) Reading The New Rules of Retail by Lewis & Dart (March 3) The Future Price of the Physical Book (Feb 18) Borders Declares Bankruptcy (Feb 16) How Great Things Happen at Lemuria (Feb 8th) The Jackson Area Book Market (Jan 25) What’s in Store for Local Bookselling Markets? (Jan 18) Selling Books Is a People Business (Jan 14) A Shift in Southern Bookselling? (Jan 13) The Changing Book Industry (Jan 11)