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Greetings!
This week we've got a fascinating variety of author
events--tales of race relations, plague, drug addiction, cornbread, and good
eats along the Mississippi River. On Monday, Ellen Feldman will
transport her audience back in time via historical fiction when she reads from
SCOTTSBORO. At Thacker Mountain Radio on Thursday Fionna Maazel will
read from her darkly comic debut novel LAST LAST CHANCE and Crescent
Dragonwagon will educate listeners on the many intricacies of a southern
classic with THE CORNBREAD GOSPELS. And on Friday, Food Network star Alton
Brown will read from FEASTING ON ASPHALT. Saturday, April 26th is Double Decker. Come to Oxford to enjoy great food, art, and music. Amidst the many entertainment options available, Square Books employees Andrew Mullins's and Colin Sneed's band, The Sleepwalkers, will be rocking hard, and bookseller Dent May will delight audiences of all ages with his "magnificent ukulele." For more information, visit the Double Decker Arts Festival website.
We have signed copies available of WHAT NOW? by Ann Patchett, SEPULCHRE by Kate Mosse (author of Labyrinth), WIT'S END by Karen Joy Fowler (author of The Jane Austen Book Club), BOONE by Robert Morgan, BLACK WIDOW by Randy Wayne White, CHRIST THE LORD: THE ROAD TO CANA by Anne Rice, and ANOTHER THING TO FALL by Laura Lippman.
April 22 is Earth Day. Founded in 1970, and celebrated in
many countries around the world, this day is intended to inspire awareness of
and appreciation for the environment. Here at Square Books we make continuous
efforts to green up our ways. If you're interested, we have a wide selection of
books about environmental concerns, eco-friendly living, and green
architecture.
Just to give you an idea...
GORGEOUSLY GREEN: 8 SIMPLE STEPS TO AN EARTH-FRIENDLY LIFE
by Sophie Uliano
EASY GREEN LIVING by Renée Loux
GO GREEN, LIVE RICH by David Bach
GREEN THIS! GREENING YOUR CLEANING by Deirdre Imus
50 SIMPLE THINGS YOU CAN DO TO SAVE THE EARTH by John
Javna
THE HOT TOPIC: WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING by
Gabrielle Walker
TEN SHADES OF GREEN: ARCHITECTURE AND THE NATURAL
WORLD by Peter Buchanan
Our Dear Reader newsletter and the current calendar are available at www.squarebooks.com. |
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EVENTS
Monday, April 21,
signing/reception at 5 p.m., reading at 5:30 p.m.
Ellen Feldman
SCOTTSBORO
(Norton, hd. 24.95)
Alabama, 1931. A posse stops a freight train and arrests nine black
youths. Their crime: fighting with white boys. Then two white girls emerge from
another freight car and cry rape. Four days later, the Alabama courts have
tried and sentenced eight to die. With a keen sense of drama, Feldman follows
the story as worldwide indignation grows, and the case bogs down in appeals and
retrials before an eventual hearing by the U.S. Supreme Court. By intertwining
historical actors and fictional characters, Feldman stirs racism, sexism, and
anti-Semitism into an explosive brew--vividly portraying the story of a
shocking injustice that convulsed the nation. BUY NOW!
Thacker Mountain Radio,
Thursday, April 24.
Event begins at 5:30 p.m.
Fionna Maazel
LAST LAST CHANCE
(Farrar, Straus and
Giroux, hd. 25.00)
This is a rollicking comic tale about (in no
particular order) plague, narcotics recovery, and reincarnation. A lethal
strain of virus vanishes from a lab unleashing an epidemic--and the world
thinks Lucy Clark's dead father is to blame. The plague may be the least of
Lucy's problems. Her lover is hell-bent on finding a womb for his dead wife's
frozen eggs, and her dysfunctional family is obsessed with paganism and coping
with addictions. And then there is Lucy herself, whose wise, warped approach to
life makes her an ideal guide to love among the ruins. LAST LAST CHANCE is a novel about
survival and recovery and, finally, love and faith in an age of anxiety. BUY NOW!
AND 
Crescent Dragonwagon
THE CORNBREAD GOSPELS (Workman, pb. 14.95)
"Cornbread?
I LOVE cornbread!" For six years, that's the response Crescent
Dragonwagon got when people asked her what she was writing about. This
wonderful cookbook is full of curious anecdotes, history and cornbread lore,
from tales of the Native Americans teaching Pilgrims to make cornbread to
stories of slaves living on little but "ash cakes." Most intriguing (and
delicious) are the recipes themselves, which span the globe to find the happy
taste of cornmeal in dozens of novel incarnations and the greens, the beans,
the salads, stews, and soups that accompany cornbread to perfection. This
author knows not only is hot, just-baked cornbread delicious, it evokes the
heart, soul, and taste of home. BUY NOW! Musical Guests: Afrissippi, Rocky Mountain Rhythm
Bums and The Yalobushwhackers. The TMR website is www.thackermountain.com.
Friday, April 25
reading at 5 p.m.,
signing/reception will follow.
Alton Brown
FEASTING ON ASPHALT
(Stewart, Tabori & Chang,
hd. 27.50)
Alton Brown is host of the Food Network show Good
Eats and color commentator of the network's Iron Chef America
series. Following America's first "super-highway"-- the Mississippi River--Alton and crew are off on a thousand mile south-to-north journey. The crew
travels by motorcycle along the heartland's byways to scout out the very best
of roadside food and to get to know the people who spend their lives preparing
and serving it. The barbecue joints, doughnut parlors, museums, inns and
markets offer up their best wares and stories, and even some long-secret
recipes are shared in this travelogue. BUY NOW!
* Only books purchased at Square Books may be signed.
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SCANNING THE FRONT TABLES
When entering the bookstore, it's difficult not
to be struck by the sheer quantity of great books that are now available in
paperback. Here are just a few:
THE SAVAGE DETECTIVES
by Roberto Bolano
(Picador, pb. 15.00)
This dazzling novel tells the story of two modern-day
Quixotes--the last survivors of an underground literary movement, perhaps of
literature itself--on a tragicomic quest through a darkening, entropic
universe: our own. An exuberant, raunchy, wildly inventive, and ambitious novel
from one of the greatest Latin American authors of our age.
"Bolano is a mad genius. Think Borges meets Kerouac
and you begin to get the idea." CM BUY NOW!
 I FEEL BAD ABOUT MY NECK
by Nora Ephron
(Vintage, pb. 12.95)
With her disarming, intimate, completely accessible
voice, and dry sense of humor, Nora Ephron shares with us her ups and downs--a
candid, hilarious look at women who are getting older and dealing with the
tribulations of maintenance, menopause, empty nests, and life itself. Utterly
courageous, uproariously funny, and unexpectedly moving in its truth telling, I
FEEL BAD ABOUT MY NECK is a scrumptious, irresistible treat of a book, full of
laugh out loud moments. BUY NOW!
 YOU DON'T LOVE ME YET
by Jonathan Lethem(Vintage, pb. 13.95)
A hilarious novel about love, art, and what it's like
to be young in Los Angeles. Lucinda Hoekke's daytime gig as a telephone
operator at the Complaint Line--an art gallery's high-minded installation
piece--is about as exciting as listening to dead air. Her real passion is
playing bass in her forever struggling, forever unnamed band. But recently a
frequent caller, the Complainer, as Lucinda dubs him, has captivated her with
his philosophical musings. When Lucinda's band begins to incorporate the
Complainer's catchy, existential phrases into their song lyrics, they are
suddenly on the cusp of their big break. There is only one problem: the
Complainer wants in. BUY NOW!
MISSISSIPPI SISSY
by Kevin Sessums
(Picador, pb. 14.00)In a book that echoes the time-honored fiction of
Harper Lee and Flannery O'Connor and memoirs by Mary Karr and Augusten
Burroughs, Kevin Sessums brings the American South and the experiences of a
strange little Mississippi boy to life. BUY NOW!
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BOOK SENSE PICK
TWENTY CHICKENS FOR A SADDLE
by Robyn Scott
(Penguin, hc. 24.95)
"An astonishingly
written story of growing up in modern-day Africa with loving, eccentric, and
adventure-loving parents. Every character in this book could fill a
novel." -- Lillian Kinsey, Bohannons' Books With a Past, Georgetown, KY
BUY NOW!
Visit the book's official website at www.twentychickensforasaddle.com/
to read an interview with the author, view photos, and learn more about
Botswana. |
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OPENING LINES
"People I love know how to get on with their
lives."
- from LAST LAST CHANCE by Fiona Maazel |
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