This is an event, a book, a group of people that every independent bookstore in Mississippi is talking about.

Everybody’s talking about Lucas McCarty and the Trinity House of Prayer in Moorehead, Mississippi. The word is spreading because Mockingbird Publishing has teamed up with writer T. R. Pearson and photographer Langdon Clay.

The event has been making its way across Mississippi over the past couple of months–to Turnrow, to Squarebooks and finally to Lemuria on December 4th. As every other bookstore has said, I, too, say that this has to be one of the best events of the year and surely one of the most unique Lemuria has ever had.

The choir and band of Holy Trinity House of Prayer from Moorehead were gracious to travel to Jackson and share their good spirit along with Lucas, Bishop Knighten, and of course, writer and photographer T. R. Pearson and Langdon Clay. The Dot Com building was packed and no doubt that little green tin roof must have been thumping with the joyous singing.

Year of Our Lord is about so many things: the amazing journey of Lucas McCarty and his decision to join an all black church and leave behind his Episcopalian upbringing, a little church out in the Delta with no signage but a heart bigger than you can imagine. It is about hope and community and loving others just the way they are.

Watch this short video narrated by T. R. Pearson:

Here’s what one person from Alabama said about the event:

“Year of Our Lord is the story of Lucas and the community – black and white – that he has helped to create.  It is about looking for hope, not in Washington, as Bishop Knighten said so eloquently at the book signing on Saturday, but looking for it in the faces of those we live next to, go to school with, and worship with each Sunday.  Hope is each of ours to give.  It is the love we share with one another and in the humanity we display to our fellow man.”

“In that room in Jackson, Mississippi last Saturday night as we listened to the glorious voices of the Trinity choir, as we marveled at the coming together of people from every imaginable socio-economic range, as we clapped and sang and celebrated the young white man with cerebral palsy who brought us all together, I had hope.  Hope that we will see past the divisions that “they” keep telling us exist.  Hope that we will find our way out of the economic mess we are in.  Hope that people will continue to treat each other with dignity and humanity.  Hope that stories like these that we never hear about on the news or read about in the paper will continue to play out each and every day across America.  Because I believe that we are a nation of good people, generous people, caring people, kind people, even if “they” don’t want us to know about it or believe in it.”

I remember when the book came into Lemuria. I thought that Year of Our Lord must be a really special even though I had not yet had time to sit down and read it. Now, this one is top on my Christmas list.

Mockingbird Publishing partners with non-for-profit organizations on every book. A portion of the proceeds from Year of Our Lord will be donated to support the outreach programs of the Trinity House of Prayer and a foundation for Lucas McCarty. It’s available for purchase here.

You can also find Mockingbird and Year of Our Lord on Facebook.

What are you working on?

Answer: A small book, the next Theodore Boone. I’ll finish it early next year and it will be published around June 1. I usually get bored on my birthday, February 8, and start writing another big book.

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Is The Confession the first legal thriller published in the Fall? Why?

Answer: Yes. To sell books. One/third of all books are sold during the Christmas season and Doubleday has always wanted to test the market at this time of the year. So, this is an experiment. If sales are up, I might do it again. If not, I’d love to go back to an early Spring publishing schedule.

6.        What are you working on?

        Answer:  A small book, the next Theodore Boone.  I'll finish it
early next year         and it will be published around June 1.  I usually
get bored on my birthday,         February 8, and start writing another big
book.

7.        Is The Confession the first legal thriller published in the Fall?
Why?

        Answer:  Yes. To sell books.  One/third of all books are sold during
the         Christmas season and Doubleday has always wanted to test the market
at this time         of the year.  So, this is an experiment.  If sales are up, I
might do it again.          If not, I'd love to go back to an early Spring6.        What are you working on?          Answer:  A small book, the next Theodore Boone.  I'll finish it early next year         and it will be published around June 1.  I usually get bored on my birthday,         February 8, and start writing another big book.   7.        Is The Confession the first legal thriller published in the Fall? Why?          Answer:  Yes. To sell books.  One/third of all books are sold during the         Christmas season and Doubleday has always wanted to test the market at this time         of the year.  So, this is an experiment.  If sales are up, I might do it again.          If not, I'd love to go back to an early Spring publishing schedule.
publishing schedule.

It’s funny that since I started working at Lemuria I never get any books for Christmas.  To remedy that situation through the years I have just bought myself a few.  I guarantee that there will be a few under the tree with a card that say Merry Christmas Maggie…Love, SC!   This year I thought I might let you all know a few books that I’m interested in just in case the Christmas spirit might move one of you to help me out!!!

Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

This is the new translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.  I usually like to read a classic after the first of the year and have decided that this is the one.  The fact it has been translated by Pevear and Volokhonsky is really the main reason I chose it.  I have read some of their other translations and have really enjoyed them.  I’m embarrassed to let you know that I have never read this book but alas I have only seen the movie.  The time is now!

Hellhound On His Trail by Hampton Sides

When this book came in I really wasn’t interested in reading it but I have had way to many of you telling me how good this is.  This book is about what James Earl Ray ( or rather his alter egos)  and Martin Luther King were doing in the days leading up to Kings assassination.

Spirit of New Orleans by Bruce Keyes

When I look through this photography book of New Orleans it just makes me feel like I am in NOLA.  The photographs just take me back to some experiences I have had myself and I know you have too.  I also think that it will look fantastic on my coffee table!!!

Thanks and hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

Maggie

When I went home for Thanksgiving my dad told me he’d been trying his hand at bread baking. His loaves, a sort of sourdough born of the book Artisan Breads Every Day by Peter Reinhart, came out golden, with a crunchy crust and a crumb that was both chewy and fluffy. In other words, he had done what many have tried and failed to do: make a consistently good bread by hand. It looked easy.

So I got back to Jackson anticipating coming in to Lemuria to get a copy of it myself, only to have my eyes caught by another of Reinhart’s: Whole Grain Breads. Hey, if my dad can bake a white bread with minimal practice, why can’t I go just one tiny step further and bake, with maybe one or two deflated loaves, a whole wheat challah?

Reinhart begins his cookbook with a command to read his introductory material before delving in, which I’m okay with, because I love reading cookbooks. As I read the first chapter, though, where Reinhart relates the germ of his idea to write the cookbook, followed by a lengthy description of the bread seminars he went to, the multiple testers he had working on his recipes, the amount of times he failed to get his loaves just right, I started to get nervous. Just exactly what is a biga? I have a better idea now that I’ve read through his intro and his chapter on equipment and starters, mashes, and soakers, on the history of the wheat kernel, and on the basics of enzyme activity during bread baking.

I never realized, to use Reinhart’s term, how much “drama” goes on inside bread dough. He says, “As we connect the dots of the intricate patterns and roles these ingredients play, we can see how their various aspects and properties participate in the great dance of bread baking.”

I’ve done my reading, but I haven’t baked a loaf yet. I’m going to start with a sandwich loaf, a recipe Reinhart says is relatively simple, and my starter is getting ready as I write this. I’ll let you know how it goes.