So Hannah and I were talking about short stories and how much we love them because of George Saunders’s new book and our First Editions Club pick, Tenth of December. I told her — because she’s new and may not have experienced this yet — that we as booksellers come across a lot of readers who don’t like short stories. After our event on Wednesday was so successful, Hannah was convinced otherwise.

Great turnout and enthusiasm aside, it is true that while George Saunders may be pardoned, the short story is still under scrutiny by the general reader. The day of our event at Lemuria, Adrian Chen at Gawker blogged that George Saunders “needs to write a goddamn novel already.” And he criticized lovers of the short story for being fetishists: “Short fiction is the Hard Stuff—pure uncut stories prized by real literature heads. Novelists are trotted out on talk shows and op-ed pages to give their thoughts on the issues of the day. Many are openly egomaniacal. But short story writers are noble craftsmen, painstakingly assembling flawless sentences into a delicate storytelling apparatus.”

Publishers can be biased, too; they know that a novel is often more marketable than a story collection. Being in the book business we know that many new writers are given a two book deal: the publisher will publish their stories as long they get a novel, too. But I often feel that for some writers, their stories are more focused. And of course that’s partly because a story is more focused than a novel. But there’s more to it than that. Hannah said it yesterday about Karen Russell. And the same is true of Kevin Wilson. His Family Fang was a great time, but in Tunneling to the Center of the Earth the quirkiness of his prose wasn’t as awkward; it confidently walked the tightrope between lighthearted and sober.

Some story collections to look forward to in 2013:

Lemuria loves Ron Rash, and we’re super stoked about the movie version of Serena that will be released this year, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper. His novels are great, but his stories will leave you stunned. They paint a tragic but poignant portrait of Appalachia. His new collection, Nothing Gold Can Stay, comes out February 19th, and Ron will be at Lemuria for an event on March 22nd.

Before you start to think I hate those filthy novels, the last author I’ll tell you about is Jess Walter. His novel Beautiful Ruins was on several best of 2012 lists. I know many of you loved this one, and Jess has a new book of stories coming out this year, called We Live In Water. I got my hands on an advanced copy and so far it lives up to his standards — the stories are about broken people doing beautiful things.

Finally I’ll leave you with some George Saunders quotes from Wednesday night. I’m sorry if you missed the event; it was really the best way to start off 2013 at Lemuria.

George talks about writing only stories:

“Art is not all that generous of a thing, it doesn’t let you do what you want always. Like Flannery O’Connor said, ‘You can choose what you write but you can’t choose what you make live.’”

“If I have an eight page thing I kind of know what to do. I have strong opinions about it and I know how to compress it. If someone says take that eight pages and make it fifty, I don’t mind trying but I don’t have a strong sense of what to do. … So far anyway whenever I start to write something longer it will get to a certain point and the energy goes down and some little voice in my head will say just cut it, and compress it, and then it works out okay.”

George read the first part of the first story in Tenth of December, “Victory Lap.” Here’s what he had to say about his method of articulating the inner voice of a teenage girl:

“If you walk from here [Lemuria’s dotcom building] to that coffee shop across the way there [Broad Street] and it takes you forty seconds, there’s actual phenomenon occurring in your mind in those forty seconds. Can we articulate it? I don’t think so, but it’s a really fun thing to try. … It’s exciting to think about how you would come close to expressing actual mental phenomenon in prose. … So the first pass you do it for eighty pages and you go, ‘I’m a genius! Nothing happened — all he did was scratch his ass — but I got that down!’ And then you remember it’s a story, so you have to cross pollinate the mental phenomenon with some kind of physical action. That section I read was originally three times as long, but it was static. So on some fateful day you say, all right, I have to get this down to six pages, and at the end, something has to happen to escalate the action. So this guy shows up and then it goes from there.”

Last week I was in a meeting with some fellow Lemurians trying to convince Kelly that the best idea we could ever have would be for us to obviously get a liquor license and a cat to roam around the store. (I know, I know. Cats are trendy. Next year we’d look at the cat and be like, “Really? This cat is like, so 2013.”) As unproductive as this meeting may sound, there is one thing that we left determined to share with you, sweet fellow readers, and that is that these days just like the old days, the Southern short story absolutely refuses to be ignored, nor should it be.

In the wake of the George Saunders event we held last night in our Dot Com building for the release of his newest collection of short stories, Tenth of December, I realized that maybe I was mistaken about the seemingly waning following of the Southern short story. (If you weren’t at the reading, let me just tell you. You don’t want to keep missing events like this! Incredible.)

The event turnout and some of the discussions I overheard showed me that our friends here in the city not only like short stories, you people love short stories! You think they’re fabulous! And let me tell you guys, so do we. So what was originally conceptualized as a blog designed to plead with you all to open your minds to the smallest member of the fiction family, is instead going to turn into something of a greatest hits list.

Charity, Mark Richard

If you read nothing else from this moving and sometimes hilariously disturbing collection of stories, read the opener story, a tidy little piece of work called “Gentleman’s Agreement.” Richard narrates the day’s events of the young boy the story centers around in a convincingly childlike manner. The storytelling, while simple, is startlingly sharp, offering little bursts of realization hidden among the sparse narrative. Beginning with the slow, steady plod of a tentative story that has yet to learn its own ending, the story reaches a wonderfully crafted crescendo as the reader realizes the gravity of the turn the story has taken.

With Mark Richard, when it comes to the mantra “less is more”, he is truly the king. This collection is filled with staccato storytelling, with deliciously interesting characters. Oh, and another must-read from this book? “The Birds for Christmas.” Yikes, that was good.

St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, Karen Russell

Y’all. Can we talk about how incredible this book is for a second? I mean, really. You probably recognize this name from her lovely first-ever novel Swamplandia– a book that we had a signing for here! (Again, hopefully you guys are coming to these things. Take advantage of having these great writers come visit our home. That’s Karen on the right with her friend.)

St. Lucy’s Home was Russell’s otherworldly and beautiful debut collection of dream-like stories, which have (not surprisingly) already made an appearance on Lemuria’s blog. So a refresher! I plead that you wouldn’t forget about the small beginnings that in one instance, created the inspiration for Russell’s novel. In a story called “Ava Wrestles the Alligator,” Russell toys around with characters and ideas that bloom fully later in Swamplandia.

If you already know and love Russell or would like to, rejoice! She has a new collection of short stories titled Vampires in the Lemon Grove coming out on February 12! My heart will always belong to St. Lucy’s though- my favorite story from her first inspired collection? “Z.Z.’s Sleep-Away Camp for Disordered Dreamers.” And no, that has nothing to do with the fact that my boyfriend read it out loud to me in while I was in college and I was like, super totally smitten with him.

Music of the Swamp, Lewis Nordan

My hope is that you’re rolling your eyes because I’m putting this in my blog. I hope you’re like, “Really Hannah? We’ve all read this a thousand times. We already know how amazing it is.” Yes! Good for you! I’m so glad you have such amazing taste in books. If, however, this is one of Nordan’s greatest hits that you haven’t gotten around to yet, then get around to it, my friend.

Using absolutely scrumptious descriptions, Lewis Nordan takes pieces of the South that were before only grey and over-written and turns them into magical people and places we never imagined were possible. With childlike imagination, he tells his stories with a wealth of beauty and hopefulness that does not shy away from sadness. Truly heartbreaking and whimsical all at the same time, the stories from Music of the Swamp follow the life of Sugar Mecklin, at first a child filled with wonder and imagination, and then later, a man who begins to realize the beautiful ache that comes from loving and losing the people he loves.

I’ll never forget reading this book for the first time. It filled me with the most rapturous longing, a desire to just be in the sticky heat that surrounds me and my family and all of this whole, hot place we call home.

I was truly heartbroken to hear about Lewis Nordan’s passing last year, but I am happy to say that I will never hesitate to pick up this book, over and over again, to re-read these stories that will never cease to feel fresh and new.

Sherry and John Petersik are self-proclaimed “DIY dorks” who love to work on home improvement projects and share their experiences along the way. Their blog, younghouselove.com, has been such a hit that they have recently published a book with the same title. Joining the likes of design*sponge  (I’m sensing a trend here,) this fun collection of deceptively easy home improvement projects and decorating tips is the perfect incentive to actually pick out a project and get to work on it (instead of just daydreaming about what projects you would love to work on.)  Young House Love is geared towards first-time homeowners with a need for budget-friendly projects with style, but most of the projects work for anyone looking to redecorate or change up their home’s look. With just a few basic tools, any homeowner/DIY enthusiast can transform a bland wall or recover a headboard in little time and with little expense. I’ve just gotten my copy and am excited to get to work (if I can get beyond my daydreaming stage…)

Here’s before and after shot of their living room to help get a feel for Sherry and John’s decorating style (also, who out there doesn’t love a good before and after shot?)

by Anna

Sometimes I wonder about the timing of book releases. For some books, it just doesn’t seem to make any sense — there appears to be no forethought given to the timing. Other books are launched with what seems like good timing, but circumstances conspire against them. But for certain books, everything just clicks into place. Serendipitous, even.

Nate Silver was fairly well known as a baseball writer (particularly in sabermetric circles), and had gained some notoriety for his election forecast blog FiveThirtyEight. Silver’s projections had performed well in the 2008 and 2010 elections. But the FiveThirtyEight blog really grabbed public attention in the 2012 elections. After months of criticism that alternated between charging Silver with unwarranted overconfidence and accusing Silver of uncertainty and hedging his bets, Silver’s projections correctly forecast all 50 states and predicted Barack Obama’s popular vote percentage within 0.3%.

And it was in the midst of this pre-election discussion and debate that Nate Silver’s book was released. The Signal and the Noise was on the shelf for a little over a month when the election results vindicated Silver’s methods and nearly every post-election report begrudgingly acknowledged his excellent performance. I imagine Silver’s publicist at Penguin was dancing around his or her office at this point.

The question now is whether Silver’s book holds up. Election forecasts are one thing, but writing an engaging and entertaining book about forecasting is another. And it’s my experience that this kind of book often tires the reader over a few hundred pages — I find myself wishing it were a really tight 10 or 12 page article instead of a 500 page book. But I had reason to be optimistic here. Silver isn’t just an excellent forecaster; he’s adept at communicating the idea, the theory behind the forecast. I’d enjoyed his baseball writing years ago; I was hopeful he’d brought the same clear writing to The Signal and the Noise.

412 pages into a 454 page book, and I’m not disappointed. Sure, I’ve set it down a few times to read something else, but not out of boredom, nor out of fatigue. I’ve set it down at times because the writing is so clear, the thesis so fully fleshed-out, and each chapter so complete and well-formed, that I have no fear of losing interest or momentum. The chapters are unique, separate stories; each addresses a new topic, a new field or industry or controversy, and can be read individually. But Silver expertly ties each chapter together into the central theme; each chapter serves as a piece of the argument Silver is constructing.

And that argument? That more data does not equal more knowledge. The massive data explosion in the internet age does not ensure greater understanding, or wisdom, or insight. If anything, the increase in the pure mass of data offers great opportunity for misinterpretation, for obfuscation. The forecaster faces a constant balance: the signal and the noise.

The signal: the meaning, the truth, that which delivers the information we seek. The noise: the static, the random, that which threatens to drown out the signal. When the forecaster constructs his argument too broadly, he includes not only the signal but also much of the noise; he risks drawing conclusions from random bits of data. When the forecaster constructs his argument too narrowly, he excludes the noise but also much of the signal; he throws out information critical to an accurate prediction.

Each chapter addresses a new topic. Baseball, elections, climate change, chess, online poker, earthquakes — each is an opportunity to examine forecasting from a slightly different angle, and Silver uses each to expand and elucidate his methods. In one chapter you might learn why your local weatherman is more interested in avoiding sending you out in the rain without an umbrella than in delivering an accurate forecast. In another, you might see how Gary Kasparov’s eventual defeat at the hands (digits?) of Deep Blue was possibly caused by a programming error. The stories are compelling. The pages fly by. The book holds up.

The other night I found myself frozen in front of the television as I watched a couple work out the details of the husband’s end-of-life care. It was heartbreaking and brave. It was also frightening when I imagined myself in their shoes.

This couple was being interviewed because they were at an unusual hospital where self-directed care was the norm. As hard as it was, patients were empowered by making their choices for their end-of-life care with their physician. As a result, patients could devote their time and energy to their loved ones and to the activities they enjoyed the most.

In a typical visit to the doctor we can all understand how easy it is to forget questions we need to ask and to sometimes not understand what the doctor is telling us. The fault lies on both sides. Doctors and patients can make mistakes in communication that can result in serious consequences. Furthermore, if the patient does not understand her situation, how can she explain it to her family members?

Needless to say, I was primed for the topic, when a friend recommended Critical Decisions by Dr. Peter A. Ubel, a physician and behavioral scientist. Dr. Ubel has combined his own research in doctor/patient relationships with his personal experience of caring for loved ones during difficult times. With Dr. Ubel’s compassionate reflection on medical care choices, Critical Decisions shows how patients and doctors can improve their communication skills.

Initially, this book made me uneasy, but once I read Dr. Ubel’s stories I felt I could use these lessons to make better decisions and increase my quality of life. I like what Dr. Ubel says in his bio: “My research and writing explores the quirks in human nature that influence our lives — the mixture of rational and irrational forces that affect our health, our happiness and the way our society functions. My goal is to show you, in an entertaining way, why the key to living better, healthier lives, and improving the societies we live in, is to understand human nature.”

Critical Decisions by Peter A. Ubel, M.D. September 2012, HarperOne.

This review of Critical Decisions was featured on The Book Shelf of Mississippi’s very own Well-Being magazine. We are proud to contribute to Well-Being and always enjoy working with the Well-Being team. Mississippi is lucky to have such a great magazine and Lemuria has copies to pick-up for free at the Fiction Desk! Well-Being magazine is great way to keep up with local healthy events and fitness activities. You can also follow Well-Being on Facebook.