Many booksellers, bookstore owners, publisher reps, editors and agents landed back at their desks this week a little disheveled, excited, confused, optimistic and pessimistic all at the same time. We were so glad to have John and Joe back at the store this week. As they decompress everything they observed last week, they’re gradually sharing some of their thoughts on the book industry based on their New York impressions.

Above right: A bunch of book nerds hit the show floor.

John told me that contemplating the 2011 book expo is like contemplating a Zen Kōan. Essential to a Kōan is a paradox, a question or statement is beyond reason. Instead, the only way to deal with the Kōan is through intuition, a leap to another level of comprehension. Indeed.

Last week, while thousands of book industry professionals came together in New York, Amazon announced, with obvious calculation on timing, its plans to become a major book publisher. Here are Joe and John’s reactions, observations and questions.

JOHN: Amazon hires Larry Kirshbaum to establish and direct the “Big A” to be a major publishing competitor, to compete with Random House, Simon & Schuster, etc.

The buzz on one side was that Amazon has bit off more than they can chew. On the other side was “oh boy, look who we have to compete with now.”

Above: Larry Kirshbaum spent 10 years as CEO and Chairman of the Time-Warner Book Group. He says: “Publishers to some extent are beating back the waves here. They haven’t accepted that digital content is going to be a major factor.”

I presume this means the “Big A” bucks will be bidding for top notch authors to live in the “Big A” House. Do the traditional houses have the money to compete in bidding wars with Amazon? Can the advertising advantage of Amazon lure the cash cow authors away from the traditional big houses? Can Amazon manage the publishing headaches and still make cash dealing with the extensive array of dilemmas traditional publishing deals with? Personally, I was surprised by Amazon’s move but it will be great fun to watch for answers as we tune into the publishing game show network.

JOE: This news broke just as we got to New York. It was such new news that I don’t think people had any idea what to think. At first everyone was saying that Kirshbaum is “such a nice guy”–I guess so, wouldn’t know. Then, after a day or so, we started to hear the scoffers: “He didn’t do such a great job at Time Warner”–I wouldn’t really know about that either. I do know that Time Warner isn’t really even around anymore.

My question is whether or not Lemuria will be buying books from Amazon as a publisher. And I guess we’ll wait and see if they offer wholesale terms to bookstores. If they do, I don’t think we’ll be able to avoid stocking their books. I imagine they’ll want us to do that, but if they don’t, it will be a pretty big message about what they think about the future of the indies– i.e., do they or don’t they think the indies have a future?

I do know they’ve already signed their first author–Barry Eisler–an author whose books sell moderately at Lemuria. There have been some funny lines floating around the publishing world like “He’ll be running through the industry trade show begging traditional publishers to publish his books in just a few years time.” Again, we’ll see.

Above right: Barry Eisler spent three years in a covert position with the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, then worked as a technology lawyer and startup executive in Silicon Valley and Japan, earning his black belt at the Kodokan International Judo Center along the way. When he’s not writing best-selling thriller novels, Eisler blogs about torture, civil liberties, and the rule of law.

Lemuria’s Bookstore Keys Series on the Changing Book Industry

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)

This post, despite the misleading title, is more of a query rather than a how-to.  I, like many readers I know, keep a large stack of unread books nearby so I have plenty to choose from each time I finish something. This habit can get a bit out of hand when I’m leaving my house for vacation or even just to go to a coffee shop for a few quiet hours, and I end up lugging a heavy bag of two or three books…just in case.

I don’t have any tricks for choosing my next read.  I just look at my shelves and wait for one of the books to pop out at me.  Naturally I want to read them all (or I wouldn’t have acquired them), but that doesn’t mean I want to read all of them at this exact moment.  Sometimes the first book that sticks out isn’t the right one, I’ll read a few pages and put it aside for another time and go back to the shelves.  This habit exasperates my boyfriend who likes to taunt me by saying that he still reads in the “old-fashioned one book at a time” manner.

So, dear readers, I want to know how you choose your next reading adventure.  Do you use the same method I do, scanning the shelves for “the one?”  Do you set out to read certain books one after another and keep yourself to it? Do you venture into the bookstore and ask your favorite bookseller?  All suggestions and comments are welcome, but please don’t tell me to get an e-reader to alleviate the pain of carrying so many books around.  I want a real book that I can throw in my bag and fold its pages and write in and stretch out with on a picnic blanket on a warm summer day.  -Kaycie

Hiking and Mississippi are not the first two words I would put together. However, after spending a good deal of time hiking in the North Carolina mountains, I began to long for the benefits of hiking closer to home. While Mississippi doesn’t have near the inclines, I have been learning in Helen McGinnis’s book, Hiking Mississippi, that there are many challenging and beautiful hikes to be had in our very own state.

Did you know that there are over 1 million acres of federal land designated as six national forests in Mississippi? In these national forests, there are 276 miles of hiking trails and 21 developed campgrounds and picnic areas. Most of this land has been recovering since the 1930s after being stripped of all its virgin trees. It was “Roosevelt’s Tree Army” who replanted the trees and established recreational areas for us to enjoy.

Author Helen McGinnis has hiked nearly every trail she writes about in her book. Much of the writing makes you feel like you have your very own trail leader. She points you to places you have never heard of and provides interesting tidbits of history rarely told. For example, she points out the little known Old Trace Trail, a pleasant 3.5 mile walk, which is not marked on the official Natchez Trace Parkway map:

“It is the wildest trail along the Parkway–crossed by no roads and out of sight from vehicles. The spell is broken only at the northern end, where the Trace passes along the edge of a large recent clearcut on private land.”

All of these details, historical notes and trail maps will certainly whet your appetite for a hike in Mississippi, but I would urge you to have a state atlas handy to get the bigger picture as you prepare for your hike. It also may be helpful to contact the National Forest office in the area for the most up-to-date information.

If you have not heard about our book club, come join us this coming Thursday, June 2 at noon at our dot.com building. We always meet the first Thursday of the month to discuss our latest selection.

This Thursday, June 2, we will be discussing Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann. Set in New York during the 1970s, an unexpected cross section of New Yorkers are drawn together as they witness the greatest artistic crime of the century. Not only did this novel win the Man Booker award, it has also been greatly loved by Lemuria readers.

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For Thursday, July 7, we will be discussing a Man Booker nominee from last year: The Long Song by Andrea Levy. Set in Jamaica during the slave revolt of 1832, this novel follows the life of a slave named July. Being candid, shocking and brutally honest about slavery in Jamaica and the prejudice against skin color among the blacks themselves, The Long Song captures the interest of the reader immediately and ends with the hope of a sequel.

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Our last pick for the summer is Parrot and Olivier by Peter Carey. Parrot and Oliver, servant and master, embark on a journey from Europe to the United States in the late 1700s. Winner & nominee of numerous awards, Peter Carey is said to be at his best, his most tender and true with this his latest novel.

We would love to have some new members join our expanding eclectic group composed of men and women of all ages. Bring a sandwich and come join us at noon for an invigorating discussion of current great literature.

Call me at Lemuria’s number 601 366-7619 or email me at nan@lemuriabooks.com for more information about our fun book club, “Atlantis.”  -Nan

I was just sitting here this morning ringing up a customer…my usual banter–thanks for coming in, come back to see us!  Have a great holiday weekend!  Holiday weekend? Wait a minute what is that?

Ah yes, Memorial Day, the beginning of summer.  I decided that this weekend will be the perfect time to make sure that you all know about Harry Hole.  Harry is someone that y’all can get acquainted with this weekend and hang out with him all summer long.   Jo Nesbo is the creator of the Harry Hole series and while all his books have gotten rave reviews, his newest novel, The Snowman, is going to be the book that takes him out into the public eye.  So far four of Nesbo’s novels have been translated into English and we are so happy about that and the great thing is that Nesbo’s three previous books are all in paperback so you can take them to the beach!

The Redbreast

This novel takes the reader between the last days of WWII and modern day Oslo while recovering alcoholic, Inspector Harry Hole, chases a neo-Nazi who has escaped prison on a technicality.  After overhearing something on surveillance Harry Hole is drawn into a twisted mystery with roots in Norway’s dark past of collaborating with Nazi Germany and now 60 years later disgraced old soldiers are being murdered one by one.

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Nemesis

Harry awakens with a serious headache, no cell phone and brief memories of a drunken night with Anna, an ex girlfriend who called out of the blue.  He and a young detective have been investigating  a string of bank robberies one of which ended with a bank teller being shot.  Harry is dealing with his relapse while trying to solve one murder when he himself becomes a suspect in the mysterious death of Anna.  After tying the bank robberies to a notorious bank robber (who is in jail) he soon begins to wonder if Anna’s demise is connected some how.

The Devil’s Star

Harry has been assigned to solve the murder of a woman with one of her fingers cut off and a tiny red star-shaped diamond placed under her eyelid.  He also has a new partner, Tom Waaler, whom Harry hates and thinks is responsible for the murder of his partner.  When another woman is found murdered in the same circumstances Harry realizes that they have a serial killer on their hands and his determination to catch the killer and expose Waller’s crimes will lead him down paths that he never expected.  He will be forced to make difficult decisions about his future while both cases merge together in the shadows.

The Snowman

The first snow has fallen in Oslo and a young boy awakens in the night calling for his mother.  Where is she?  Out on the lawn a mysterious snowman appeared earlier in the day and now Jonas sees that his mothers pink scarf adorns it’s neck.  Harry suspects a link between the disappearance of Jonas’s mother, at least a dozen other women and a letter which he received all on the day of the first snow fall that November.  As the case goes on Harry is pulled into a ‘game’ where the rules are devised and constantly revised by the killer.

I hate making comparisons of authors because frankly, I’m not very good at it. But if you have liked the other Scandinavian authors, i.e., Henning Mankell and Steig Larsson and Michael Connelly’s character, Harry Bosch, then I know that you will be thrilled to be introduced to Jo Nesbo’s Harry Hole.