Even as she wound up a 9-month-long tour for Her Fearful Symmetry, Audrey Niffenegger kindly answered the curious questions from an audience of some 35 fans Wednesday evening at our events building. And even as she was about to wrap up a long day of travel and talk, she shared dinner with six of us booksellers–who had all read and loved Symmetry–and her driver and friend Ronzo. To top it all off, I was glad to see that Audrey was able to browse our first editions and rare books.

For her devoted readers, they will be pleased to know that she has started work on a new novel about “a nine-year-old girl named Lizzie Varo who has hypertrichosis (she is covered with hair) and her desire to go to school (she’s been home-schooled by her clever and amusing Aunt Mariella) and what happens when she does go to school (things get weird)” (see Audrey’s website). If you cannot wait that long, don’t forget about her latest visual novel The Night Bookmobile which first appeared in The Guardian and will be coming out in book form in September of this year.

See Kelly and Lisa’s blogs on Her Fearful Symmetry.

i don’t remember the moment someone mentioned this book but soon after our copies started coming in. a few at a time and then each time i checked the order screen, i saw that 5 or 6 more copies were on order. i was looking for something to read and this caught my attention.

emma and dexter meet in july of 1988. july 15 to be exact. one random night. one night it is. there is a connection that is worth noticing but the night stands alone.

until july 15 of the next year..and we will check in to what is happening in the lives of these two. one day each year–july 15. they live in different places, they date other people, their jobs flop, life happens. at times there lives are intertwining, at times they are not in contact. regardless, you may catch emma’s mind floating to dexter but not always at the same time that dexter’s mind floats to emma.

i found myself cheering for them to find one another as they did that first night. i’d give it a year and i would be happy with their admirable friendship.

after finishing, i thought long and hard about focusing in on one day each year of someone’s life, perhaps my own. what would i see? what would be the same? what would be different?

and i think that’s the comforting thought in one day. there is that one person that is consistent in your life. you may not talk every single moment of every day of every year but should something happen and you need someone, you know it is them you want by your side. there are those friends who you need to be glued to your side when you have joys, sorrows, and heartaches in your life.

emma filled that gap for dexter just as dexter filled that gap for emma. em, dex. dex, em.

so i say read it…today…tomorrow…one day.

-quinn

LeBron has made “The Decision.” Baseball is into the dog days of summer. The World Cup has flopped to a finish. Fortunately, this means we are just days away from…

…the 2010-2011 NFL football season (woohoo!). Most teams will open their training camps over the next few days, and for the first time ever, the New Orleans Saints will open the season as the defending Super Bowl Champions.

Now, the Saints open camp on July 29th, but we’ve still got a month and a half before a real game (and 3 weeks until the preseason exhibition games begin) — and if you find yourself waiting just a little impatiently, you can fill your football appetite with a couple new books:

Home Team, by the Saints’ head coach Sean Payton, recounts the synchronized rebuilding of New Orleans and the Saints post-Katrina. Sports exist as artificial, contrived conflicts, but a team can take on significance because it stands as a symbol for the fans, for its home city, particularly for a city beleaguered like New Orleans was after the storm. Payton was perfectly positioned to see how the city, struggling with the rebuilding effort, and weary from years and years of poor Saints teams, latched onto the team as proof that New Orleans could thrive.

The perfect companion book is Drew Brees’ Coming Back Stronger. Brees’ book covers the same time period as Payton’s (as you’d expect), but with the added personal dimension of Brees’ own career struggles. Brees is now mentioned along with Manning and Brady as the best QBs in the league, so it’s easy to forget that during his time with the Chargers, he was widely regarded as an accurate, but weak-armed game-manager who could be trusted to hit tight ends and running backs, but couldn’t win the big game for you — and that was before he suffered a devastating shoulder injury that many predicted would sap what little arm strength he had. Brees’ story of rebuilding his own career dovetails perfectly with the Saints’ rise to the the championship.

So, I know that both Kelly and Lisa have already gushed about this book, but I really just can’t help but do it again.  If you’re a fan of The Time Traveler’s Wife, then you already know something about Audrey Niffenegger’s work. And for those of you who haven’t yet read The Time Traveler’s Wife (or seen the film), then there’s nothing wrong with just going straight for her newest book  Her Fearful Symmetry.

I read all of this delightful book in about two days, and I’m already itching to read it all over again.  The summary (set near London’s Highgate Cemetary, involves ghosts) might sound too gloomy, but trust me, it’s the good kind of melancholy that you’ll surely want to lose yourself  in on the next rainy day.

So come meet Audrey today at 5PM in our annex building.  We’d love to see you there!

P.S. Read Lisa’s and Kelly’s great blog posts on Her Fearful Symmetry here and here.  -Kaycie

I went to hear Mary Karr read at Lemuria Wednesday night.

I was familiar with her name but had never read any of her memoirs or poetry. Her latest book, LIT, had caught my eye with its fabulous front cover and knowing she was coming soon, I picked it up last week.

I finished it in two and a half days. When I walked in to hear her, I had only finished the book a couple of hours before. As often happens, it can take me a little time to transition back into the present world after being so “immersed” so I was still somewhat dreamy and emotional when I arrived.

I knew who she was immediately.

I wanted to fall on her and say, “Are you alright? Are you happy? How is Dev?” She was my friend. She just didn’t know it! I cared deeply about her. I longed to sit down and flip through so many passages that had moved me or made me laugh. But I also felt like maybe I knew too much about her…too much of her. I knew her sins; her terrors; her doubts and hopelessness but also her strength, determination, courage and wit. I admired her refusal to repeat history with her own child and the incredible willingness to open herself to wonder about previously unthinkable things like faith. Without ever meeting her, I felt like we were on hallowed ground.

Strange, isn’t it? That someone’s words can move us and affect us so strongly. But that’s the power of great writing and of great memoirs especially.

It wasn’t so much MARY KARR who got to me…but the ME that Mary Karr got to…that made all those feelings come to the surface. Great writing that also happens to be “true life” seems able to penetrate our defenses in a unique way. Even if those experiences have nothing to do with any of my own life experiences. I can still take them in, still be moved by them and on special rare occasions even be changed by them.

I think that is why the outrage was so huge when we learned that James Frey’s memoir, “A Million Little Pieces” had been partly untrue. We felt betrayed, made fools of, swindled. Why such a gigantic reaction? It certainly appeared to be out of proportion. Why do I care what James Frey made up or what was true? I think it was because he had touched us somewhere way down deep; scraped the scab off some long ago feeling of wanting to redeem ourselves and make our life count. I know that I want to count.not that I’d ever tell you perhaps but books can put a name on feelings and a voice to thoughts that we are too afraid or embarrassed to utter ourselves. Thus is their power.

In Out of Africa, Isak Dinesen writes,

“If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on, or the children invent a game in which my name is, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me?”

I could never put those gorgeous words down on paper but I know that feeling, I resonate with that longing and those words have stayed in my soul for years since I first read them.

Karr ends her book with some more words that I hope will be just as hard to forget for they bring to life a sense of wonder and renewed hope that fills her soul and can teach mine.

“Every now and then we enter the presence of the numinous and deduce for an instant how we’re formed, in what detail the force that infuses every petal might specifically run through us, wishing only to lure us into our full potential. Usually, the closest we get is when we love, or when some beloved beams back, which can galvanize you like steel and make resilient what had heretofore only been soft flesh. It can start you singing as the lion pads over to you, its jaws hinging open, its hot breath on you. Even unto death.”

Read LIT.

Also: here are Billie and Lisa’s blogs on Mary Karr.

-Norma