We at Lemuria always get excited about new voices. There is something thrilling about finding a new author, about cracking open a debut novel with the hope that you could be discovering your new favorite author. And with Southern debut authors, we can’t help but tell everyone about them, to celebrate these treasures. We Southerners are immensely proud of our literary past, but our literary future is why places like Lemuria exist — to help nurture and share with the world Mississippi’s new voices.

Mary Miller is one such Southern debut novelist, but she’s not new to us at Lemuria. We have been following her since she released her short story collection, Big World, back in 2009. Her novel, The Last Days of California, comes out January 20th, and we couldn’t be more excited to add Mary to the growing list of new Southern authors. Mary grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, and at the start of the school year this fall, she will become the Grisham Writer-in-Residence at Ole Miss.

We’ll have more on Mary as her book’s release draws near, but for now, just go ahead and put the date of her signing at Lemuria on your calendar: Thursday, January 30th at 5:00, with a reading at 5:30. This is one of those events everyone will be talking about.

And if you want to know more about Mary Miller right now, here are some of our favorite links:

Mary Miller’s Tumblr

“Southern writing lives online”: an article about the new Southern writer

The Believer Review of Big World:  a review of Mary’s debut collection of short stories from McSweeney’s magazine, The Believer.

Cereus Readers book club  meets on the fourth Thursday of every month. Unless otherwise stated, the book club meets in the Lemuria’s Dot Com building. We always welcome newcomers and no previous reading experience of Eudora Welty is required.

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Please note that we’re taking a break for the summer.

We’ll reconvene on Thursday, September 25 at Noon to discuss Virginia Woolf and Eudora Welty.

We’ll be discussing the following selections for September:

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (Houghton Mifflin edition, introduction by Eudora Welty)

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

Two essays in The Eye of the Story by Eudora Welty about Virginia Woolf

THURSDAY, APRIL 24 AT NOON:

After we read The Underground Man by Ross Macdonald and listened to a wonderful talk by Carla Wall on Ross Macdonald in February, we decided to read some more mysteries from Miss Welty’s bookshelf. Here are the three we have selected: The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler; The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie; The Blue Hammer by Ross Macdonald.

THURSDAY, MARCH 27 AT NOON:

We will have a kind of “free meeting” on March 27th since the Welty House will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Eudora Welty Garden being open to the public.

If you’d like to participate, there are a few ways to do so on your own. The Welty House will be open for tours all day. (Please call the house to reserve: 601-353-7762) The garden will be open for self-guided tours all day. Cereus Readers are also invited to the Welty House Luncheon with Julia Reed. The luncheon will be at the Mississippi Museum of Art. Please note that tickets are required to attend the luncheon. Click over to the Welty House website for all of the details.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27 AT NOON:

We will discuss the Mysteries of Ross Macdonald and his friendship with Eudora Welty. Our reading assignments are Sleeping Beauty and Underground Man by Ross Macdonald and Eudora Welty’s review of Underground Man which can be found in Eye of the Story.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23 AT NOON:

Patti Carr Black will be talking about her book Early Escapades and Eudora Welty as an artist. No advanced reading is required for this meeting. Copies of Early Escapades will be on hand for Patti Carr Black to sign.

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If you’re completely new to Cereus Readers or would just like a recap, please find a full introduction to our book club and a list of what we have read so far.

The goal of the Cereus Readers is to introduce readers to the writing of Eudora Welty–her short stories, essays, and novels–and then to read books and authors she enjoyed herself or were influenced by her.

We meet at noon in the Dot.Com building adjacent to Banner Hall. Feel free to bring your lunch. All books are available at Lemuria, and be sure to ask for the “Cereus Reader” 10% discount when making your purchase for the book club. Please e-mail Lisa if you plan on attending or if you have any questions: lisa at lemuriabooks dot com.

This is a reading group open to all level of readers–anyone interested in learning about Jackson’s most important writer. Eudora Welty considered Lemuria her bookstore, and we want to honor her by discussing her books and authors she loved–meeting in the store where she shopped and signed her books.

After reading many works by Welty, we will read authors and works she herself enjoyed: Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster, Chekhov, and mysteries. Finally, we thought we would read authors who have acknowledged Welty as an influence and inspiration such as Ann Patchett, Anne Tyler, and Clyde Edgerton. It’s a bold undertaking, but we plan to be meeting for a while!

Cereus Readers is led by Carolyn Brown (author of A Daring Life: A Biography of Eudora Welty), Carla Wall, Freda Spell, Lee Anne Bryan, and Jan Taylor.

A look back at our reading in 2013:

January 2013: A Daring Life: A Biography of Eudora Welty & “A Sweet Devouring” from The Eye of the Story

February 2013: The Optimist’s Daughter

March 2013: The Golden Apples, Part 1

April 2013: The Golden Apples, Part 2

May 2013: Two short stories: “Where Is the Voice Coming from?” & “The Demonstrators”; An essay by Miss Welty: “Must the Novelist Crusade?”

June 2013: We listened to an audio/video recording of Miss Welty reading “Powerhouse.”

July 2013: The Ponder Heart

August 2013: The Robber Bridegroom

September 2013: We listened to an audio/video recording of Miss Welty reading “Keela, the Outcast Indian Maiden”.

October 2013: Hunter Cole, friend and scholar of Eudora Welty, was our guest speaker. Hunter Cole read a paper titled “Eudora Welty and Her Bachelor of the Arts.” It details the lengthy friendship of Welty and Frank Hallam Lyell and focuses mainly on their year together as students and chums at Columbia University.

November 2013: No meeting due to the holidays.

December 2013: Lemuria displayed a special collection of Eudora Welty books—from trade to fine first editions. Suzanne Marrs and Carolyn Brown were also on hand to sign their books Eudora Welty: A Biography and A Daring Life: A Biography of Eudora Welty respectively.

“It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by people, that books were not natural wonders, coming up with themselves like grass. Yet regardless of where they came from, I cannot remember a time when I was not in love with them–with the books themselves, cover and binding and the paper they were printed on, with their smell and their weight and with their possession in my arms, captured and carried off to myself.”

-Eudora Welty, One Writer’s Beginnings

This Saturday, December 7th, we will celebrate our love of the physical book and the books of Eudora Welty from 2:00-4:00.

Carolyn Brown will be on hand to sign and inscribe her biography of Eudora Welty, A Daring Life. Lee Anne Bryan will also be here from the Welty House. If you’ve never been to The Welty House and Museum, it’s a great time to get some information and plan a tour with some friends.

We will have on display rare editions of Miss Welty’s work as well as some of our favorite trade editions of her novels and stories. Our first edition rooms will also be open for browsing. You never know what you might find!

We’re calling Saturday Welty Day. We hope you’ll join us in the spirit of community, in the very community Miss Welty loved so much.

The idea for Welty Day came from a group called Cereus Readers–a book club that is open to anyone who would like to read Eudora Welty’s work and also the writers she knew and loved.

We will be resuming our regular meeting schedule on January 23rd and we are still open for new people to join. If you’d like to learn more or be added to our e-mail list, please send a note to: lisa at lemuriabooks dot com.

Above: Eudora Welty on top of the Lamar Life Building with the Standard Life Building in the background. (Mississippi Department of Archives and History)

That Grinch gets a bad rap, being cuddly as a cactus and charming as an eel.

But this Christmas Season, he’ll be visiting us at Lemuria and helping kids grow their hearts 3 sizes by doing good deeds in your community! While the Grinch’s past misdeeds included a plan to STOP Christmas from Coming, he wants all of YOU to help out, all-the-while humming!

So what does this mean?

1.) Pick up your 25 Days of Grinch-mas Bingo Cards at any time, as they include 25 different good deed ideas for you (and your parents too) such as “Read or tell a story to someone younger than you.”

2.) Finish a row on your Bingo Card and receive a, “I Grew My Heart 3 Sizes!” button and a special Christmas present from us at Lemuria Books.

3.) When you have completed your good deeds, we will mail the Grinch a postcard of 3 of the good deeds you’ve done in your community. We’re partnering with Random House, and for every 3 GOOD DEEDS you accomplish, Random House will donate a book to First Book here in Jackson, MS.

Amidst your fun and good deeds, the Grinch HIMSELF will be stopping by Lemuria to check on everyone. On December 10 at 4 PM he will be in this very store teaching you what the Christmas Spirit is all about by playing BINGO, coloring CHRISTMAS CARDS, TAKING PICTURES and other fun games!

December 20 is your last day to turn in your Bingo Cards, so hurry and be of good cheer because Christmas Day is PRACTICALLY HERE!

Whether you’re young or old, we all know the frustration that ensues when memory fails us. It’s easy to find techniques on how to improve memory, but while researching for an article on memory competitions, Joshua Foer decided to formally train his memory and see if he could actually win the USA Memory Championships.

Moonwalking with Einstein is Foer’s narrative as he trains for the competition, learning ancient techniques that Cicero and medieval scholars used to memorize entire books. I found myself fascinated with Foer’s efforts while also learning about what memory is, what can go wrong with it, how we can improve as well as a history of memorization techniques.

This is book you’ll pass on to family and friends, and don’t be surprised if you end up putting yourself and others to a memory challenge. Joshua Foer did better than he ever imagined; he memorized 52 cards in one minute and 40 seconds, winning the 2006 “speed cards” event while setting a new record for the USA Memory Championship.