Maggie triumphantly paraded her latest review acquisition at the desk last week: she got a copy of Mark Dunn’s new book, Under the Harrow. After she read aloud to us the description (it sounds great: some sort of social experiment where orphans are left to create their own society when the only books available to them are an encyclopedia, a bible, and a complete set of the novels of Charles Dickens), she turned to me and asked, “You’ve read Ella Minnow Pea, right?” I had to admit I hadn’t. “I’ve always meant to,” I said. I know it seems like I say that a lot. But as Mark just hinted at a few entries down, the list of books that we readers and (maybe more so) booksellers want to read is so long, and our stacks can get quite high, and there are always those books that get passed over time and again, waiting to catch our eye and interest when the time is right. Apparently, the time was right for Ella Minnow Pea; the book made it into my carry on for Thanksgiving vacation and I read it in a day.

As I recovered from stuffing myself with stuffing, Dunn swept me up into his “Novel in Letters” which features a fictional island people who revere a man named Nollop, the supposed author of the pangram sentence (one that uses every letter in an alphabet) “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” When the story opens, the “Z” in the phrase has just fallen off the statue of the island’s namesake, and the leaders of the community believe it’s a sign: no more Zs may be spoken or written. As other letters fall from the monument, more letters (and thus more words) are stricken from the islanders’ (and the book’s) vocabulary, until Ella decides that disaster is definitely imminent if something isn’t done. The best part about reading this book was getting a sense of the tedious work it must have been for Dunn to write during increasingly restrictive conditions. Dunn goes 165 pages, letters steadily dropping out of use, until he cannot write any word that contains B, C, D, F, J, K, Q, U, V, or Z, before he allows the characters to communicate using homophones and misspellings (“ph” for “f”). Prior to that point, Dunn just masterfully avoids words, which in most cases is undetectable. Brilliant. Or should I say, more acceptably to Nollop, astonishing.

I’m glad the stars aligned or the fates conspired or simply that two events — the arrival of a new book combined with my pushy coworker’s insistence (love you, Maggie) — coincided to put Dunn’s book in my path. Now I can’t wait to read his new one.

Because I work in the children’s section, I like to joke that I haven’t read an adult book in over a year. While this is not true, as I loved Don Delillo’s last book Point Omega last February, it often feels like it. To get back in touch with the adult world, I decided to pick up Steve Berry’s new book The Emperor’s Tomb.

Berry has been a favorite of mine since I read The Romanov Prophecy during my obsession with Anastasia, and the mystery around her disappearance and her family’s demise back in ’04. Since then, as Berry developed his books around the recurring character of Cotton Malone, I have enjoyed getting to know the former Justice Department operative. When we first met Malone he was living in Copenhagen trying to run a bookstore. I say trying because, for six books, Malone has been dragged back into the world of historic mystery and theft, whether it was to help a friend or because it was the right thing to do.

In Berry’s newest book, Malone must come to the aid of his long time friend Cassiopeia Vitt. When Malone gets a message that leads to a video of Cassiopeia being tortured, he is at a loss of what to do to help. He has no idea what she has gotten herself into, but he knows that Cassiopeia needs his help. This novel is filled with old and new mysteries and a battle between countries that feels much older than this story.

One reason I find myself coming back to Berry’s works is the history he includes in his novels. Much of this book involves China’s historical background and how it has influenced their current situation. If you have never read Steve Berry’s works, this novel would be a great place to start. And better yet, come out tonight to hear Steve talk about his novels. Steve Berry will be here tonight to sign at 5:00, with a reading at 5:30.

Real-Time Marketing and PR: How to Engage Your Market, Connect with Customers, and Create Products That Grow Your Business Now by David Meerman Scott

John Wiley Publishing (November 2010)

As we seem to be coming out of the tough last two years, it’s obvious that doing business will be different than before the recession. Marketing appears to be going through a major overhaul. The new rules are being formed in the present tense. Not only are our businesses changing rapidly, new customer habits are being formed daily with the increase of constant information access. Real-time marketing is about connecting with your customers and speeding up your marketing.

We know customers want immediate thoughtful information and response. They want quick recognition and satisfaction for their effort and action. Lemuria is trying to react immediately to help service your reading needs. With our Facebook and blog work, we are striving for more real time communication.

Most small businesses are not set up to respond to opportunities in real time, thus wasting customer reaction time. We are interested in using our web services to figure out how you are responding to Lemuria in the instant and reacting to your response.

Real-time marketing is a mindset we are trying to learn about. Scott’s very new book has given me many fresh ideas–more ways to enhance our Lemuria experience, and enlarging what we can do beyond the brick and mortar tools.

We are Jackson’s real bookstore; however, if you don’t live close by, we want to connect with you as if you had just walked into Lemuria to browse and talk books. We are striving to offer more convenience than we have ever been able to in the past.

One of the best skills we can teach our kids is how to cook, and Kids’ Fun and Healthy Cookbook is one of the best kids’ cookbooks out there. The recipes are actually ones that you can easily make with your child and still satisfy everyone at the dinner table–kids and adults. Each of the 100 recipes is laid out in simple steps with accompanying photographs. I also like the opening section designed to help parents and educators teach kids about the keys to nutrition. Some of the tastiest recipes include: Banana Pancakes, Tuna Quesadillas and Carrot Salad, Salmon Parcels, Fruit and Nut Cookies.

True Grit is one of those books that I’ve picked up and put back down over and over. It has hovered near the top of my reading list, but somehow it kept getting leapfrogged. I think I had even set it aside as a possible vacation book, but when it came time to pare down the stack, it got put back on the shelf.

Well, a concatenation of events led me to finally bump it to the top of my list. Two nights ago, as I was watching TV (only to briefly educate myself on what non-readers spend their time doing, I assure you), the trailer for the new Coen Brothers’ adaptation of True Grit came on. Then yesterday, as I was opening boxes of books in the freight room of the store, I discovered the new Penguin paperback edition of True Grit, with

SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE

DIRECTED BY THE COEN BROTHERS

emblazoned* on the cover. I felt like the universe was speaking to me — it couldn’t simply be a coincidence. (Actually, upon reflection, it was mostly just well-timed marketing.) In any case, I marched (in my car) straight home and sat down to write this, so that you could read it and then come in the store to get your own copy of True Grit. This will enable you to say (at some future date, preferably at a cool party), “Well, of course the movie was alright, but I’m just glad I read the book first — it really kind of ruins the book if you see the movie first, doesn’t it? You HAVE read it, HAVEN’T you?”

Of course, it must be mentioned that some have already had True Grit ruined by the 1969 John Wayne feature film by the same name. The film was generally well-received, with Wayne receiving both the Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Actor. The plot of the film did stray on several points from the book (more cool party talking points!). Ethan Coen has said that the 2010 film will be a more faithful adaptation of the novel (but honestly, he could hardly get away with saying they intended to stray as far as possible from the book). Not content to leave things there, John Wayne returned in a 1975 sequel Rooster Cogburn. Plans for a third John Wayne True Grit movie never came to fruition, so in 1978 Warren Oates took over Wayne’s role for a made-for-TV movie called True Grit: A Further Adventure.

It must also be mentioned now that Charles Portis himself ruined True Grit by first publishing it as a serial in “The Saturday Evening Post” with a storyline that deviated from the novel, therefore spoiling it for those readers who had not the foresight to wait for the final (superior) written format. What embarrassed partygoers there must have been in 1968 when they admitted to eagerly reading through the serial form of True Grit instead of waiting for the authoritative novelization.

Consider your True Grit experience ruined:

Hmm.

You know what? That actually looks pretty good. Forget everything I said about the risk of ruining the book. Read the book first, watch the classic 1969 film first, or watch the new film first. It doesn’t matter. Charles Portis created characters, created a story, but he didn’t set it aside to be preserved word for word. The serials were published in 1968, the novel the same year, and the John Wayne film just a year later — each different in detail and in form.

But do come pick up a copy of True Grit. At the very least, you can leave it lying casually on your coffee table for your dinner party guests to notice. And maybe you’ll pick it up after they leave, turn to the first page, and read these opening lines:

People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father’s blood but it did not seem to strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day. I was just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robbed him of his life and his horse and $150 in cash money plus two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band.

You can’t ruin that, even if you tried.

*Have you ever noticed there are words that appear frequently in articles and essays and reviews, but you’d get stared at if you used them in everyday conversation? Why is this? What keeps us from speaking aloud words like aplomb, moribund, or emblazoned? And why is emblazoned always past tense? Why do we never hear someone say, “I’m off to go emblazon something bright on the front of my shirt,” or “I’m so tired, I spent all afternoon emblazoning the front of my house”?