All the time, customers come in and want some guilty pleasure reading.  People define it in many different ways for me it is historical fiction…I love a good “bodice ripper!”  These two titles in the genre that I have read this spring aren’t as racy as some others so I think that these will appeal to a variety of you.

Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution by Michelle Moran

Marie Grosholtz , a talented wax sculptress,  torn between two polarizing worlds, whose main goal is to make her ‘family’ business successful.  Marie is thrilled when she has finally achieved her goal of getting the royal family of Louis XVI and Marie Antionette to visit the Salon de Cire and see their wax likenesses.  She knows that with the royal ‘stamp of approval’ that she and the museum will become famous and Parisians from every walk of life will come to the Salon to receive the latest news on fashion, gossip and even politics.  The visit goes even beyond her hopes when she receives a summons to come to Versailles as the royal sculpting tutor to Princesse Elizabeth, sister of Louis XVI.  At Versailles, where candles are only lit once before they are discarded, Marie enters a world far different from her own on the Boulevard du Temple, where many people are selling their teeth to be able to feed their families.  Many of Marie’s friends, Camille Desmoulins, Jean-Paul Marat and Maximilien Robespierre, are holding meetings in cafes and salons across the city lashing out against the monarchy which is leading to talk of revolution.  This is where Marie soon finds herself trying to keep a balance between being a royalist and a revolutionary even as the  Reign of Terror becomes a force to be reckoned with.

Elizabeth I by Margaret George

This novel takes us through the last 25 years of Elizabeth Tudor’s  reign as the ‘Virgin Queen” of England.  What we learn about Elizabeth is while she was the virgin queen she did not lack for suitors, while her navy defeated the Spanish Armada she hated war, and while dressed in gorgeous gowns and dazzling jewelry she was a notorious ‘penny pincher’.  We also meet Lettice Knollys, Elizabeth’s cousin (Mary Boleyn’s granddaughter) and rival, due to Lettice’s marriage to Robert Dudley, whom the Queen always had a ‘special’ relationship with.

Lettice has been banished from court but her son, Robert the Earl of Essex, from her first marriage is gaining in popularity with Elizabeth, the courtiers (especially the ladies), and the English people.  We are also introduced to many of the strong personalities that made the Age of Elizabeth great, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Dudley, Raleigh and Drake, and understand the relationships that Elizabeth had with these men as a Queen first and a woman second.

I really enjoyed both of these novels being that they are both about strong women who did not let anything stand in the way of getting what they wanted.  They both had to play two sides of the coin to achieve ‘greatness’ whether it be for themselves or county.

Most people have experienced a time in their lives when sleep was problematic. Most of us have also known someone who has a serious sleep disorder. Poor sleep affects every part of our lives, psychological, physically, emotionally, and mentally. Having a family member who has battled sleep issues for most of his life without medication, I was drawn to Sound Sleep Sound Mind because it offers a drug-free approach with mind-body techniques for getting a good night’s sleep.

Sound Sleep Sound Mind helps you to understand what quality sleep is in addition to helping understand how the mind and body can actually cause poor sleep. Krakow puts the ball in your corner by providing key questions, guidelines and step-by-step inventories to help address the psychological and physical factors that may be causing the sleep problem.

Sound Sleep might not provide everything you need to address you and your loved one’s sleep problems, but this book should not be taken lightly. I learned  some new things about sleep and was also reminded of things I already knew. The latter is particularly important because we often take sleep and rest for granted. As adults, we no longer have a mom or a dad as caretakers of our sleeping time, and much is still to be learned and remembered in the practice of getting a good night’s sleep.

Sound Sleep Sound Mind by Barry Krakow (Wiley, 2007)

Independent bookstores to financial analysts have been watching Barnes & Noble’s strategy closely since the rise of the e-book. As an independent bookseller, I couldn’t be more pleased with the impending pressure on big box bookstores.

J. P. Mangalindan of CNN Money.com made the argument for “why Barnes & Noble should go from bookstore to Nookstore.” He makes these key points about the changes at Barnes & Noble:

• B & N stock is down 80% over the last five years.
• Since B & N went on the for-sale market last August, there has been no buyer.
• B & N did beat Borders in branding its very own e-reader as opposed to Borders’ poorly marketed, little known Kobo reader. The B & N Nook has also beat the Sony reader in sales and remains second to Amazon’s Kindle.

Analysts like James McQuivey note B & N’s advantage with the Nook, but caution that changes to store space cannot come quickly enough. E-book sales are predicted to dominate the market within the next 24 months with B & N expected to cut retail space. However, McQuivey urges a faster and more drastic reaction:

“In a conservative market scenario, the company would shutter at least 30%, or 211, of its 705 retail locations, within the next three to five years. ‘If it were me? I’d cut deeper, faster–like two to four years,’ he says, suggesting a boutique model where B & N reduces store capacity by 50% through a combination of store closures, reduced store footprints, and decreased shelf space.'”

Meanwhile, Amazon announced this week that they will now be selling a reduced price Kindle–with ads. With ads?!?

The device is called “Kindle with Special Offers” and features ads from Proctor & Gamble, Buick–and the worst of all–Visa credit cards. If that weren’t enough, the screen saver is sponsored as well. Another layer of ads is Amazon itself–promoting their own products. Amazon assures its customers that the ads will not get in the way of reading.

One of the last questions Mangalindan asks in his article was important because he used the phrase digital company:

“Barnes & Noble has already gotten one thing right in having an ereader ready to help it do battle with Amazon. But as far as successfully transforming itself into a digital company? Well, that’s just Chapter One”

It made me ask myself: Can we say that B & N is moving out of the book business?

Thank You B & N and Amazon for focusing on a digital product and for taking much of the beauty and aesthetic enjoyment out of a book and allowing true book lovers to sell them! To me, putting ads on an e-reading device was the last straw.

What do you think?

The Bookstore Key Series on Changes in the Book Industry

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)

Hopefully, you are able to get away for some type of vacation this summer–whether it be some place exotic or your backyard. I am leaving for vacation next week and was wondering what the great Lemuria readers would recommend.

What is the best book you ever read on vacation?

Put your title and author in the comments section below.

This afternoon Lemuria’s book club “Atlantis” will meet at 5 p.m. in our dot.com building which is just outside of Broadstreet Bakery’s north door. We will be having a long awaited discussion of Cutting for Stone, the very popular novel released a couple of years ago which is set in Ethiopia and New York.

The story, which has received international recognition, involves the lives of twin brothers whose mother dies in childbirth and whose father flees the country. The many plot twists and turns take the reader on a roller coaster ride and explore the personal lives of the brilliant twins, who both turn to medicine, just as their father, and adopted mother and father have. Cutting for Stone also examines the political and social unrest in Ethiopia. A very lengthy and provocative novel, Cutting for Stone, is well worth the time spent in reading its over 600 pages. Powerful and persuasive, the novel is filled with all types of love and loss and redemption.

On the first Thursday in May,the 5th, we will be talking about Nicole Krauss’s History of Love and on June 2, we will discuss Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin. We read novels which have already been released in paperback. If you join our book club, please tell the person at the cash register that you are a member, so that you will receive the book club’s discount.

We always have enthusiastic and delightful discussions, so come join us. If you want more information, email me at nan@lemuriabooks.com or call Lemuria and ask for me at 601.366.7619. If I am not in, I will be glad to return your call later. If you would like to be on our book club email list, please let me know.  -Nan