Our CFO adamantly avers that he is not a reader ("I pretty much skipped the whole literature thing in my education; film is a different matter"). And yet, D.J. can be persuaded by extravagant praise to read books. For instance, he just saw the movie Silver Linings Playbook and remembered that I couldn't stop talking about the book when it was published. He looked up the review from 2008 and bought the book. He said, "The contrast of deliberately simple language about complex emotional turmoil is really mesmerizing, and made me laugh while [envisioning] what such a journey is like."
Last year, I was going on and on about The Song of Achilles, a brilliant retelling of part of The Iliad, about the love between Achilles and Patroclus. The Iliad? D.J. said. Really? Mythology and all that stuff? But he trusted me, and in turn raved about it, then sent it to his mom. "I couldn't be less interested in the stated subject matter, but thought the writing exquisite without being inaccessible to a literature dolt. The descriptions of the greatness of Achilles told by one completely marginal to the powers of the day were so moving and swooning, and I'm probably a softy for any love story."
This year the raving was about The Son, a book that our publisher, Jenn Risko, practically forced everyone to read. An epic novel about the making of Texas, it's a bloody, violent and engrossing tale, arguably the novel of the year. D.J. "piggybacked it on Lions of the West, which really helped with the Mex/Tex historical context and the wrestling with large questions of conquest and power in the American West. The detail of the landscape and outdoor life grabbed me. The book was addictive and transported me to a place and time long lost, while leaving lingering big-picture questions of civilization."
Handselling. It's not just for bookstores. Evangelize wherever you are. --Marilyn Dahl, editor, Shelf Awareness for Readers