Hello All!  It looks like I’m moving up in the world. I am the new lover and upkeeper of the film bookcase. Also dubbed the “MTV/Autobiography” section, there are many fascinating reads that are just waiting to be discovered.  Some of my personal favorites are now facing out, including Isabella Rossillini’s entertaining read, Green Porno, based on her video shorts about the mating rituals of animals. In the next few months, I hope to encourage readers and all the self-proclaimed “movie-buffs” out there by bringing you my picks.

This week, I’ve been reading Chelsea Handler’s Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang. Being an avid watcher of Chelsea Lately, her late-night talk show, I was a bit concerned about how her humor would translate to book form. And guess what! I loved it.  Taking the reader on a journey through the material fixation that was the 80s, Chelsea gives a hilarious portrayal of her childhood pursuits, ranging from getting the Cabbage Patch doll of her dreams to discovering “The Feeling” between her legs at a third grade slumber party.  It was interesting to read her present-day, formulated humor coming out of a young Chelsea.  While there was some disconnect between how that little girl would actually speak to her parents and Chelsea’s current developed humor, I enjoyed being let in on the foundational years and influences that have built her craft…of being hilarious.

Full of chapter-length anecdotes, one scene in particular struck me. After doing some necessary hazing to find the “dumbest people working on the show” at Chelsea Lately, she sends out an all-staff email regarding a gynecologist coming in to give pap smears and advice on infertility.  Seeing which staffers would sign up, she also sends the email to her boyfriend/CEO of E! Network, Ted. After much confusion and legal bills, Ted comes to his senses:  “In true Ted form, he was not in on the joke, which is basically the foundation of our relationship. No matter how much time goes by, I am still able to make him believe stories that no one who has completed high school would believe.”

A fun, fast read, I look forward to reading her other books My Horizontal Life and Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea.

-Peyton

I know, I know.  I’ve already blogged about an Aimee Bender book.  Zita has blogged about her, John P. has blogged about her.  Well, that’s because she’s great.  I recently read her first novel An Invisible Sign of My Own in two afternoons.  This novel is about Mona Gray, a young OCD math teacher who struggles with making a commitment to anything (or anyone) ever since her father came down with a mysterious illness.  As he quits doing the things that he loves, so does Mona.

She’s forced to face her fears after becoming an elementary school math teacher.  For one, a student who latches onto Mona divulges that her own mother is sick with cancer, and for two, Mona begins to fall in love with the young, eccentric science teacher.

My favorite passage in the whole book is the one in which Mona first begins to realize how she feels about the science teacher.  She finds him outside, hiding from parents on Back-to-School-Night, and blowing cigarette smoke-filled bubbles.

I tensed my wrist, and taking the cigarette up to my lips with my other hand, sucked in. The smoke waited, patient, in my mouth, and I raised the swirling bubble with my arm, and released the smoke in a stream into a hold of the wand. It whooshed out of me: white, intimate.

I got ready to seal up the bubble and he was watching. I could feel him waiting, and I felt the bubble wobbling, and smelled the bucket and breathed in the smoke and I knew right then that mine would work. Mine would seal up, take off, and rise over our heads. A beautiful shuddering pearl in a sphere.

I felt him waiting for me, and I wrecked it. (pg. 109-110)

-Kaycie

The Fall of the House of Zeus by Curtis Wilkie (Crown, October 19, 2010)

“[Steve] Patterson encouraged friends to call him ‘Big Daddy,’ or, more symbolically, to refer to him as ‘King Fish,’ a nod to the nickname of the late Huey P. Long, the populist leader of Louisiana.” (page 11)

“Eager to play national politics, Patterson signed on in 1987 as a regional director in Delaware senator Joe Biden’s first attempt to win the Democratic presidential nomination. After Biden’s failed bid, Patterson refocused on the state level and won election himself, as state auditor of Mississippi in 1991. Officially, his responsibilities included oversight of bookkeeping in state agencies; the job also enabled him to peep into transactions involving public money.” (page 12)

“One evening in 1992, as Scruggs struggled to deal with the case Patterson and [Ed] Peters were building against him, he received a phone call at his home from a man named P. L. Blake. ‘I know what’s going on, and I’m going to help you,’ Blake told Scruggs. ‘You need to come up and see me.'” (page 13)

“Blake was cryptic, but Scruggs understood the significance of his call. Blake’s name was not recognizable in most households in Mississippi, but among the political cognoscenti he was regarded as one of Eastland’s original agents who still had the ability to fix things. Blake had contacted him, Scruggs believed, at the direction of Scrugg’s brother-in-law Trent Lott . . . ” (page 13)

“. . . Scruggs flew in his private plane to Greenwood’s small-town airport, where Blake met him. ‘You helped me a lot,’ Blake told Scruggs. ‘Now I’m going to help you.'” (page 15)

Reserve a signed copy online or call the store at 800/601.366.7619.

Curtis Wilkie will be signing on Thursday, Oct. 21^st.

Click here to see other excerpts from The Fall of the House of Zeus.

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Both John and Joe have worked a lot with Mike so I put their comments together.

John says:

Mike is a real bookstore hound. I’m sure he checks out the bookstores wherever his travels take him. He studies staff, inventory quality, in- store marketing, customer service while formulating judgment on the overall store. Needless to say, Mike is a great guy to toss around a few ideas. He is an avid book collector as he chooses titles for his beautiful home library, his place to read and write.

Mike’s books on the music business have been on the shelves of Lemuria for quite a while. More recently we have come to know Mike and his sons (Mike 3 and Marty) as they have published the much-loved volumes of Gridiron Gold and Ya’ll vs. Us, and the latest publication, Bull Cyclone Sullivan.

We’ve worked so hard together at Mike’s events that I consider him not only an author and publisher but a fine bookseller on the Lemuria team.

Joe says:

Like John said, we’ve been working with him for a while, but you never know what he’s going to come up with. When Mike calls and says he wants to set up a meeting my attitude is to totally clear the brain – he could say anything. I’m almost a little scared to see what he’ll come up with next, but it’s always fun to work with him mainly because you can tell he’s having fun. (We also really like M3, Marty, Judy, and Janice.)

Click here to see all of “Lemuria Reads Mississippians.”

Editor Neil White will be signing at Lemuria on  Thursday, October 28th.

Reserve your copy online or call the bookstore 601/800.366.7619.

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I’m not sure if it’s an age group or a certain type of football fan or just the sort of person who is loyal to Mississippi, but there is, no doubt, a certain group of Mississippians that perk up when the name Bull Sullivan is mentioned. In the story telling tradition of Mississippi there is a certain kind of story that doesn’t seem like it could be true but you sort of suspect that it is… Bull Sullivan stories are just those kind of stories. Tougher than the Junction Boys, using trees as tackling dummies, placing a guard at the practice field with a shotgun, and on and on…

In 1984 Frank Deford wrote a long story for Sports Illustrated called “The Toughest Coach there ever was” – it’s a great piece of sports writing – you can still read it online here. Nearly 40 years after Bull’s death the Frascogna’s have done a wonderful service for our state. We now have a document, a book we can read and keep, that re-tells many of those great stories. A book for folks who knew him, a book for those that have heard of him, and a book to educate a whole new generation of the man who truly was The Toughest Coach there ever was.

Come to our book signing tonight – appearing with the Frascogna’s will be Bill Buckner, one of Bull’s most storied players. If you can’t make it you can order a signed copy of Bull Cyclone Sullivan on our site here.