Road Dogs: A Novel

by Elmore Leonard

Morrow (2009)

In June, Lemuria was visited once again by our pal Elmore “Dutch” Leonard. Real joy from working in a bookstore comes from developing a friendship with an author which is bridged and forged by the tool of the book itself. The author’s work meets your work in achieving fulfillment: author through bookseller to reader.

Around 30 years ago, I started reading this fine writer and set off on the path to bring Elmore Leonard to Lemuria. After about a decade, I succeeded with a first trip to Jackson. Since then, Elmore’s now been here a half dozen times or so, helping us to get readers for his fine work.

Reading Road Dogs during his visit increased the magic of this trip. It is a favorite among many Elmore Leonard favorites. If you have not read Elmore in a while or ever–try this one. Road Dogs is delightful, full of clever characters with tight, offbeat, and surprising dialogue. It’s a great weekend summer book. And when you’re finished, check out La Brava, perhaps Elmore’s best.

I hope Elmore will visit Lemuria again in friendship and give us many more fun reads down the road.

Here’s a link to a cool video that was shot in our store on June 2nd when Reza Aslan was here for his new book How to Win a Cosmic War.

See John’s blog on Reza Aslan.

In case you’ve been living under a frying pan or hanging out at the pool for the past few months and are not familiar with “Julie and Julia,” it is the newest foodie movie coming out on August 7th. The movie tells the story of Julia Child and Julie Powell and how their lives intertwined 41 years apart from each other. It is a movie based on the book Appetite for Life, the biography of Julia Child by Noel Riley Fitch, and a food blog–turned book–Julie and Julia by Julie Powell. The film is written and directed by Nora Ephron and stars Amy Adams as Julie and Meryl Streep as Julia.

It all started with this simple blog entry by Julie Powell on Sunday, August 25, 2002:

The Book:
“Mastering the Art of French Cooking”. First edition, 1961. Louisette Berthole. Simone Beck. And, of course, Julia Child. The book that launched a thousand celebrity chefs. Julia Child taught America to cook, and to eat. It’s forty years later.  Today we think we live in the world Alice Waters made, but beneath it all is Julia, 90 if she’s a day, and no one can touch her.
The Contender:
Government drone by day, renegade foodie by night. Too old for theatre, too young for children, and too bitter for anything else, Julie Powell was looking for a challenge. And in the Julie/Julia project she found it. Risking her marriage, her job, and her cats’ well-being, she has signed on for a deranged assignment.
365 days. 536 recipes. One girl and a crappy outer borough kitchen.
How far will it go? We can only wait. And wait. And wait…..
The Julie/Julia Project. Coming soon to a computer terminal near you.

Powell was living with her husband in New York. She was nearing 30 and miserable in a dead-end secretarial job, but instead of continuing her descent into despair, she resolved to reclaim her life by cooking, in the span of a single year, every one of the 524 recipes in Julia Child’s legendary Mastering the Art of French Cooking. She loved this book as a child and often pulled her mother’s copy down from the bookcase and proceeded to sit for hours, engrossed by Child’s enthusiasm and descriptive way of writing. When Powell made her first blog entry in 2002, she had no idea that anyone would be at all interested in her experiment, but immediately she acquired a very active and enthusiastic following. Her book, Julie and Julia, chronicles her year-long cooking adventure.

I read Powell’s book a couple of years ago and it sparked my interest to learn more about Julia Child. I found Fitch’s biography and could not put it down! Julia Child’s life was truly remarkable. She was a wildly exuberant California girl who spent her college years at Smith College. Her zest for life and her easy going nature made her a favorite of anyone who came in contact with her. She volunteered with the OSS in India and China during WWII and there she met her future husband, the cosmopolitan Paul Child. It was he who introduced her to the glories of art, fine French cuisine, and love. Theirs was a deeply passionate romance and a modern marriage of equals. Their relationship is as fascinating as her account of learning to cook in Paris and the background information on how she came to write her bestselling book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, as well as her PBS series, “The French Chef.” Her cooking show series would become such a classic that after Child’s death, her entire kitchen was torn out and moved to the Smithsonian!

I love what Powell wrote about Julia Child in her book’s introduction:

“Julia taught me what it takes to find your way in the world. It’s not what I thought it was. I thought it was all about . . . I don’t know, confidence or will or luck. Those are all some good things to have, no question. But there’s something else, something that these things grow out of.”

“It’s joy . . . obnoxious word, isn’t it? And yet, it’s the best word I can think of for the heady, nearly violent satisfaction to be found in the text of Julia’s first book. I read her instructions for making béchamel sauce and what comes throbbing through is that here is a woman who has found her way.”

Julia Child brought French cooking into American homes and Julia Powell did an ingenious, modern twist on a classic. Don’t miss the books or the movie!

Bon Appetit!

-Norma

As usual, I’ve had my hands in the fictional and theological pies of late.

I’ve been consuming Timothy Keller’s book, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, for the past couple of weeks.  Keller is the pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York, and is renowned for his speaking, writing, and teaching.  The book is intelligent, readable, and challenging, without the “holier than thou,” politically charged agenda of many Christian voices today.  Keller promotes tolerant discussion, social justice, and the in-depth search for Truth.  He says, “A faith without some doubts is like a human body without antibodies in it.  People who blithely go through life too busy or indifferent to ask hard questions about why they believe as they do will find themselves defenseless against either the experience of tragedy or the probing questions of a smart skeptic.”

I’m not an expert on the must-reads of theology and contemporary apologetics.  Nonetheless, I haven’t come across a better book geared towards both the skeptic and the believer.  If merely for the mental gymnastics of considering Keller’s answers to (or attempts to answer) hard questions, give the book a read.

I was certain that I wouldn’t be able to find Larry Brown‘s Facing the Music without hitting up Amazon.com or Abebooks.com.  I was browsing around Larry’s section not long ago, scanned the shelf below where Mary Ward Brown (who will be here August 11th) is stationed, when I saw two copies of Facing the Music with Mary’s books.  I quickly grabbed one, checked the computer, and discovered that the two books weren’t even in the system.  I quickly corrected the error, and put the book in its proper place–after buying one for myself.  The other sold not long after that.  I’m not sure when this collection will be reprinted, it shouldn’t be long, but get your hands on it if you can.  I thoroughly enjoyed Big Bad Love, and Facing the Music is more of Brown’s signature goodness.  Brown’s characters are fueled by heartbreak, alcohol, bad backs, and too many hours without enough pay.  Brown knows the heart of the “common man,” and his stories prove that everyday life is full of truth and despair.

I’ve also been reading on the collected short fiction of Anton Chekhov.  My first exposure to the Russian literature was Dostoevsky, and let me affirm that the Russians do not disappoint.  Chekhov is considered the father of the modern short story, and rightfully so.  One needs only to read Chekhov’s three page story “The Huntsman,” to discover how much heartbreak he packs in a very small space.  I have been blown away by his fiction so far, and recommend his stories highly to anyone looking for short controlled bursts of greatness.

One of the biggest perks in being a bookseller is the opportunity to read advanced readers copies of books on the near horizon. Within the last three weeks, I have devoured two incredible reads: Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood and Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore.
Followers of Margaret Atwood have been awaiting with curiosity and anticipation her next release. Having been a fan of Atwood’s for decades, I remember the jolt I initially got from reading The Handmaid’s Tale, Cat’s Eye, and Oryx and Crake. A couple of years ago, Lemuria’s book club “Atlantis” discussed Oryx and Crake, so I was delighted to find two of the same characters toward the end in this new release Year of the Flood. A true dystopic novel based on the scary prediction of what may be yet to come in our world as we know it, Atwood invents a group of people called God’s Gardeners comprised of “Adams” and “Eves” who seek to learn how to live off the land in order to prepare themselves for the inevitable breakdown of society and commerce. In The Year of the Flood, Atwood describes a waterless flood which in essence means the world is near total destruction from a deadly virus which sweeps through the world like a merciless flood. The “brainiac” scientific community has been busy gene splicing creating such animals as the lamb/wolf and the super intelligent pig and the sheep with purple tinted human hair. Atwood’s innate ability to keep the reader entertained with some humor, all the while creating a disturbing scenario marks her as one of the very best writers today. Look forward to a September 1 release!
Known for the success of her 1994 novel Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?, Lorrie Moore creates another page turner with Gate at the Stairs. A true bildungsroman, or coming of age story, Moore introduces the reader to a eighteen year old college freshman female who leaves home and encounters the usual challenges of freedom mixed with responsibilities and romance. However, when she gets her first job as a child care provider of an adopted African American two-year-old little girl living with a Caucasian family, a myriad of new experiences and feelings shakes her world. Joy, pain, sorrow, anger, and in the end hope all mix together in a beautiful way although at times the novel becomes overly steeped in correct political awareness. References to native flower and fauna thrown in to describe the native countryside add a nice touch and levity much needed at times. Moore’s true ability to draw the reader into poignant feelings of the characters gives her a special place in modern day novels with current societal issues. In the end, this coming of age well developed story rings true simultaneously causing the reader to wish for, and yet be relieved to be past, the delicate adolescent turning point of human awareness. Look for Moore’s new release on September 9!
-Nan