I have really had a hard time trying to figure out what to blog about this week. Every book that I am reading and liking it seems so is everyone else in the store–which ultimately means that there are a lot of people in the store with good and similar tastes. So while I was scanning my bookshelves I found a book that I really loved earlier this year and tried in vain to get people to read. Alice I Have Been is a historical fiction book about the real Alice in Wonderland!!! And if that doesn’t interest you than I am at a loss. Everyone loves Lewis Carroll’s classic and if you don’t I bet you are real hesitant to say so in most crowds. It is a staple in every library period!

Alice Liddell is her name and she was the daughter of the Dean of Christ Church at Oxford. She had free roam of those grounds with all that knowledge that surely must cloud the air there. So many students, some even princes, and professors to meet and befriend. Mr. Charles Dodgson aka Lewis Carroll was quite fond of the Liddell girls, especially Alice. He took them on boat rides in the pond, made up stories for them and often photographed them. FYI: Lewis Carroll was quite a fine photographer and I am willing to bet that most are familiar with his photographs of Alice and just don’t know the whole story about the photos.

But of course where there is a closeness between a small girl and a full grown man the rumors will start to materialize. So that is all I feel at liberty to say about this book without spoiling this great read. After I was finished with this book I went back and reread Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and became obsessed with everything about Lewis Carroll and Alice Liddell.

Luckily shortly after I read this book I came upon a book about Lewis Carroll in the store with his books, The Mystery of Lewis Carroll. So of course I had to buy it and I went straight home and started to read it. So I truly wanted to do a research project on the whole subject after reading this book!

So I implore you to give into your flights of fancy, but also learn about a fun little snippet in literary history at the same time.

Check out some of the many beautiful editions of Alice in Wonderland.

-Ellen

The China Study by T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D. and Thomas M. Campbell, II

You are what you eat. This is today’s topic. I am not a physician, not a nurse (even though I entered that course of study in trepidation and departed almost as quickly in greater trepidation. But I can practice what I preach and this is the sermon):

We Americans don’t eat right. We eat too many of the wrong kinds of calories. We eat too much meat. Meat is an acidic food. Too much acidic food creates a chain of events that looks a little like this: eat some part of a cow, say, while out to lunch with the kids at a burger joint, and during the course of its digestion (the cow), it is absorbed into the bloodstream which makes our blood and tissues more acidic. The body then attempts to neutralize the acid by pulling calcium from the bones, the bones have thus lost calcium. Over time, dem bones from head to (“the leg bone connected to the foot bone . . .Oh, hear the word of the Lord (you know the song)” to toe might just get weaker and weaker, leading to easier fracturing and osteopenia or osteoporosis.

Of course, if we exercise and eat right and have a positive outlook, then perhaps that won’t happen. Bear in mind that the bare bone facts about this weighty subject suggest that the exercise we do to strengthen our framework, must be weight bearing. That means you must do something standing up and moving forward (or backwards, if you prefer) on your weight bearing bones (all those that hold up something above them) while following your feet until they have moved you somewhere for an hour. Or you can garden on your knees and stand up to prune a tree then lean over to swat a mosquito while holding your gardening shears in your other hand and repeat these activities for an hour, at least. Swimming and biking are nice for your circulation and your muscles ( you probably won’t do either anyway, unless you look just fab in a bikini or biking shorts) but don’t count it as weight bearing.

If you eat right (and we haven’t gotten to RIGHT yet, but I’m saving that for another sermon. I’ll give a little hint: plant-based diet), you just may get to move forward into that most desired state of a happy, healthy life well into old age. Of course, remember the bare bones facts in paragraph 2–you must exercise. The China Study goes on to say that even though many of us may have genetic dispositions toward certain maladies, a plant based diet as opposed to a meat based diet can go a long way in preventing those genetic markers to materialize. And that’s great news for all of us. And if you have been confused about proper nutrition as we all have, then it is NOT TOO LATE. The body is a remarkable thing. Feed it right and it will give you high fives till those cows that we will no longer eat, come in.

To find out more about why this is true, read this book. Several smart, forward thinking, down to earth, bare bones doctors in metropolitan Jackson have been sending their patients into get this book, The China Study, from which this info was extrapolated and poured into this mustard seed blog. The exercise part (though covered in depth in the book, also) came from my longtime OB-GYN who has challenged me to reverse my lifelong bone loss through some vitamin D-3 supplementation while eating a spinach salad a day and walking for at least an hour while removing the gentle but sacred cow from my diet.

-Pat

When I learned that Norwegian writer Per Petterson had written a new novel, I was so excited, for I just loved Out Stealing Horses, released in 2007. In fact, I liked it so much that I chose it for our book club to read and discuss for one of our meetings. It’s hard for me to believe that Petterson’s work always appears in translation since the language flows so beautifully that it seems to be written  in our native tongue here in the United States. This, of course, speaks well for the ability of his translator, Charlotte Barslund who translates Scandinavian novels and plays.  In fact, at the conclusion of this new title, information is included about the translation.

I Curse the River of Time, an unusual title for a novel, comes from the lyrics of a tune whose words are included within the novel’s pages, as are the lyrics of other songs throughout the novel. Written in a flashback structure, the novel should be read, in my opinion, in two or three readings, and not over a period of two or three weeks, as I did. It is short enough to be read in a few sittings. The problem with stretching it out over a longer period of time is that the reader can’t remember the flashback location, and with the locales being in Norway, the recognition of the cities is not as easy. (I tend to read four to five novels at the same time, and sometimes this can be the detriment of not being able to finish one in the period of time that would be advantageous.)

The main character, thirty-seven year old Arvid, experiences great anxiety due to many factors in his life: his impending divorce, his terminally ill mother, his inability to find a job which satisfies him, and his frustration with the current state of politics. (He has made a conscious decision to support Communism in the late 1980s.) That should be enough to stress out anyone, but add to this mix the fact that obviously there is a slight Oedipal complex at play which rears its head often in the limitless number of flashbacks involving his mother who seems to favor another of his many brothers. Suffice it to say that Arvid is discontented.

On page 186, Arvid’s self realization comes to the front as he admits:

“…..it suddenly dawned on me that what I had tried to do might not be possible: to leave behind the Arvid I had been up to this point in my life, to pull him up by his hair and then lower him into some other Arvid I still did not know, yes, with full conviction turn my back on the Arvid who was loved by those he loved the most, who greeted him and called him by pet names when he passed them in front of the house, the Arvid who got one hundred kroner notes from his mother when he was broke, but now had done what I had done and joined the “peuple” which really did not exist any more, but was an anachronism. I was a man out of time, or my character had a flaw, a crack in its foundation that would grow wider with each year.”

-Nan

Is that beautiful writing, or what? Take a look again at the length of that sentence and how smoothly it flows.

What I came away with after turning the last page, still stands for me today as I write:  sad can be beautiful too. This is not a depressing book, but it is a sad one, but the way Petterson handles the character is with such beauty and craft that I was fulfilled as a reader to be a part of such a creative, well written novel. The reader has hope about Arvid and believes that he is not a lost soul forever, but is one slow to mature and deal with life’s challenges and problems.

It’s no wonder that Petterson won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the largest international prize for a work of fiction published in English for his previous novel Out Stealing Horses. The “New York Times” and “Time” also named this prior novel as a Best Book for 2007. Petterson is a master at his craft. He was born in Oslo to a working class family, and he still lives in Norway today. Readers who have not discovered Petterson yet are in for a treat.

P.S.  In case any of you readers speak Norwegian, this book was published with the title: Jeg forbanner tidens elv by Oktober Forlag, Oslo, in 2008 and the English translation was first published in Great Britain by Harvill Secker, Random House Group, London, in 2010.

Around 20 years ago, John walked into Lemuria, introduced himself, and asked, “Do you want to help me work on my new book?” As easy of a guy to like as John Grisham is, it was a no-brainer for me to say, “Sure, let’s give it a go.”

As John was visiting Lemuria on Monday, signing his new thiller, The Confession, I’ve reflected on this friend’s kindness and willingness to support our bookstore. John is a book guy and he loves good books. He also has a passion for collecting literary first editions. Over the years, Lemuria has placed a few gems in his fine library.

The real fact is John Grisham’s enhancing support of Lemuria, more than any other author, has helped make Lemuria the bookstore that it is. Without his generosity, tough times would have forced change in our bookstore in ways we don’t want to think about. However, this author’s love and friendship have enabled us to maintain our efforts of desire to give our community the best bookstore we can.

I feel it is difficult to show thanks to John, perhaps our booksellers being the best they can be shows our thanks to John in a way he can appreciate. All of Lemuria says thank you very much, your support is greatly appreciated.

From the projects hustlin’ crack to the top of hip-hop to board room executive, Jay-Z has been around. For me, as a white boy who was raised in what felt like the heartbeat of the suburbs, I didn’t exactly grow up feeling like hip-hop was the voice of my experience in the world; but neither is Baroque polyphony and I can get down on Johann’s fugues all day long. Overtime I have nurtured a strong respect for the hip-hop phenomenon and the artists who define it.

In this fresh looking book Jay-Z tells his story and outlines a host of his songs with footnotes for clarification. One might say he: decodes them…But in all seriousness, so far, what I have read of the book it is very fascinating. Jay-Z has had the insight to be able communicate his experience with a person like me and know that there is power in that.

“Hip-hop had described poverty in the ghetto and painted pictures of  violence and thug life, but I was interested in something a little different: the interior space of a young kid’s head, his psychology. Thirteen-year-old kids don’t wake up one day and say, ‘Okay, I just wanna sell drugs on my mother’s stoop, hustle on my block till I’m so hot niggas want to come look for me and start shooting out my mom’s living room windows.’ Trust me, no one wakes up in the morning and wants to do that. To tell the story of  the kid with the gun without telling the story of why he has it is to tell a kind of lie.”

-John P.