Notes: Milwaukee Stores Update; Off the Grid
Yea! Both Daniel Goldin and Lanora Hurley, two of our favorite booksellers, are on track to open their stores in former Harry W. Schwartz locations--in early April in Goldin's case and April 1 for Hurley, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Goldin has secured funding from a bank loan and family members, and Hurley has also taken out bank loans as well as received financial help from several customers.
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"Now Available: Books Not Requiring Internet Access" was the headline for a Star Tribune
profile of Micawber's Bookstore, St. Paul, Minn., which noted, "As more
social interaction occurs on the Internet, the kind of personal
interaction a visitor experiences at a place like Micawber's becomes
more valuable, not less. It's difficult to picture the online
equivalent of browsing a section of books, reading bits of commentary
on specific titles left by employees, and leafing through a few to
evaluate whether to make a purchase."
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"'A is for apple,' 'B is for ball'--that's so boring!" said author Bev Bos, owner of
Turn the Page Press, a children's bookstore that opened recently in Roseville, Calif. According to the Press-Tribune,
visitors to the bookshop should expect to "find books that encourage
interaction, play and are 'simply irresistible' to young minds."
Bos
was inspired to open her bookstore "after being asked repeatedly at her
lectures what books she recommended parents read to their kids," the Press-Tribune added.
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Literary java gems. In the Guardian, "coffee fanatic" Benjamin Obler, author of the newly released (in the U.K.) novel Javascotia, "presents his notes on his favourite significant appearances of coffee in literature."
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The fifth annual PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature, which will feature 160 writers from 40 countries in conversations, panels, readings and performances, takes place April 27 to May 3 in New York City.
The theme this year is Evolution/Revolution, and many events mark significant historical anniversaries, including Galileo's telescope (1609), Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859), the Cuban Revolution (1959), the collapse of Communism across Eastern Europe (1989) and Tiananmen Square (1989).
For a schedule of events and participating authors, click pen.org/worldvoices.
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The most recent Lit Life column in the Seattle Times looked at how the economic downturn has affected Seattle's literary life. Among the findings: author events are drawing large crowds but a used bookstore has closed and the shutdown of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer led to the end of book critic John Marshall's column.
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Another former Collins person finds a new gig: effective May 4, Caroline Sutton, formerly executive editor at Collins, becomes editor-in-chief of Hudson Street Press. Earlier she worked at Random House and Touchstone Fireside.
Three northern California authors, all published by Eureka Books, signed their new books as a fundraiser during Fortuna Library Day on March 14 in Fortuna, Calif. From l. to r., Natasha Wing, whose latest Night Before title is The Night Before St. Patrick's Day; Mary Nethery, author of Two Bobbies: A True Story of Hurricane Katrina, Friendship and Survival, written with Kirby Larson, an IRA Teacher's Choice Award; and Barbara Kerley, author of What to do About Alice?, a Sibert Honor Book.
It's hard to resist the voice of 11-year-old narrator Zoë, who stars in Carmichael's (Bear at the Beach) swiftly-paced first novel, alongside a supporting cast of eccentric characters nearly as wild as she. A feral black-and-white cat, for example, whose perspective unfolds through an occasional third-person narrative (and fills in some of the characters' background), suspects human beings just as much as Zoë does. Their reluctance to trust and their gradual softening (the feline for Zoë, and Zoë for her uncle) run in tandem. Despite her age, Zoë's had enough life experiences to fill the memoir she's started writing. Her mentally unstable mother went from man to man before finally taking her own life--which is how Zoë wound up with Uncle Henry Royster, the half-brother of the father she never met who's also deceased. The girl and her uncle's matching gap-toothed smiles and red hair attest to their common DNA; they also share a rather prickly independent-minded personality. But as time goes on, they grow quite fond of each other. Zoë, who always found refuge in the library, warms to Henry's book collection ("Next to animals, I loved books more than anything"), and she rethinks her initial impression of her fifth-grade teacher, Ms. Avery ("dumb as petunias"), when the woman starts leaving books for Zoë and gives her time and space in the back of the room during the school day. Carmichael portrays a small Southern town with its requisite busybodies and odd personalities as well as a history of social dynamics that stretches back at least a generation. A rundown cabin in the woods and a mysterious white deer with an evasive companion introduce additional intrigue that helps Zoë to discover who she is in the world, both literally and figuratively. At times, the third-person sections focused on the cat (whom Zoë names Mr. C'mere) feel intrusive, but the relationship between the cat and the heroine is so essential to Zoë's development that readers will likely overlook this narrative device. This cluster of quirky, winning characters will feel like a throng of old friends by story's end.--