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Greetings!
Summer is here, and the vibe in Oxford
is officially mellow. It's a great time of year to visit the bookstore. Come
savor a cup of coffee (or scoop of ice cream) while reading the Sunday New York Times or sip your iced green
tea (or iced chai) while lounging on the balcony. There is a plethora of great
new books, and the mood is right for browsing, lingering, and discussing
literature.
This week we have readings by Dottie L. Hudson, Eric Etheridge, Jonathan Miles, Leif Enger,
and Keith Perry & Jean W. Cash. From tales of a compassionate evangelist to stunning portrayals
of the Freedom Riders to a novel Publishers
Weekly calls a "crisp yowl" to a gritty western with a folk ballad twist to
an examination of Larry Brown's southern grit, we've got a line-up that
promises delightful, thought-provoking entertainment.
We have signed first editions of DOWN
RIVER by John Hart, which recently won the Edgar Award for best mystery novel. We
also have signed copies of WHEN YOU ARE ENGULFED IN FLAMES by David Sedaris, THE ENCHANTRESS OF FLORENCE by Salman Rushdie, THE GARDEN OF LAST DAYS by Andre Dubus III, HOME by Julia Andrews, THE PRINCE OF FROGTOWN by
Rick Bragg, and BRIGHT SHINY MORNING by James Frey.
Our Dear Reader newsletter and the current calendar are available at www.squarebooks.com. |
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EVENTS
 Monday, June 2,
signing/reception @ 5 p.m.,
reading @ 5:30 p.m.
Dottie L. Hudson
HE STILL STANDS TALL
(Pelican, hd. 19.95)
This extraordinary tale of Roland Q. Leavell (1891-1962) immortalizes
the life of the inspirational leader, a spiritually and
community-minded dynamo. From his struggles on the front lines of World
War I to his expansion of the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary
from a small institute into one of the world's largest seminaries,
Leavell serves as a noble example of righteousness and goodness even in
the face of adversity. Based upon years of Leavell's own personal
diaries and carefully crafted into book form by his daughter, He Still
Stands Tall is a biography with a novel's scope and storytelling. BUY NOW!
 Tuesday, June
3,
signing/reception @ 5 p.m.,
reading @ 5:30
p.m.
Eric Etheridge
BREACH
OF PEACE
(Atlas, hd. 45.00)
In the
spring and summer of 1961, several hundred Americans converged on Jackson,
Mississippi to challenge state segregation laws. These Freedom Riders were
determined to open the South to civil rights. Over 300 people were arrested and
convicted of the charge "breach of the peace." The name, mug shot, and other
personal details of each Freedom Rider arrested were duly recorded and saved by
agents of the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission. Mississippi native Eric
Etheridge has created a richly illustrated, large-format book featuring over seventy
contemporary photographs, alongside the original mug shots, and exclusive
interviews with former Freedom Riders. This book is a testament: a moving
archive of a chapter in U.S. history. BUY NOW!
Wednesday, June
4,
signing/reception @ 5 p.m.,
reading @ 5:30
p.m.
Jonathan Miles
DEAR AMERICAN AIRLINES
(Houghton Mifflin, hd. 22.00)
Jonathan
Miles is known as Jonny to those of us who remember his stints in Oxford as the
blues
harmonica
player with the Velvetones and as investigative reporter who broke the castration incident
and the Lafayette County wild animal escape stories. In an astonishing career
arc, he has since
gained respect in the world of letters with a regular byline in The
EagleThe
New York Times and, now, finally,
what he was meant for-a novel, Dear
American Airlines. Benjamin R. Ford, on the way to his daughter's
wedding, is disconnected from a connecting flight and stranded at O'Hare. In
the airport bar he begins a letter of complaint, which regresses
into a rant, confessional, and epistolary tour-de-force. Get
on board June 4th for a wild ride via Jonny's heralded and triumphant return to
Oxford. TM BUY NOW!
Thursday, June
5,
signing/reception @ 5 p.m.,
reading @ 5:30
p.m.
Leif Enger
SO
BRAVE, YOUNG, AND HANDSOME
(Atlantic Monthly, hd. 24.00)
Leif Enger's novel Peace
Like a River was a breath of fresh air. Like Charles Frazier's Cold
Mountain, it was praised by critics and readers alike. So
Brave, Young, and Handsome,
though a very different story, has the same sort of appeal. The tale is narrated
by yesterday's overnight sensation who is faced with writer's block and on the
road to has-been. When his crotchety neighbor goes off to search for his lost
love, he joins him-only to end up in a true-life adventure more exciting than
the Pony Express story he was famous for. Set at the turn of the century, with
cowboys on the way out and cars on the way in, So Brave
is a lovely story about finding one's way home. CFR BUY NOW!
Friday, June
6,
signing/reception @ 5 p.m.,
reading @ 5:30
p.m.
Keith
Perry & Jean W. Cash
LARRY BROWN AND THE BLUE-COLLAR SOUTH
(University of Mississippi Press, hd.
50.00)
Larry
Brown is noted for his subjects-rural life, poverty, war, and the working
class-and his spare, gritty style. Brown's oeuvre spans several genres, including
acclaimed novels, short story collections, memoir, and essay collections. At
the time of his death, Brown (1951-2004) was considered to be one of the finest
exemplars of minimalist, raw writing of the contemporary South. This book considers
his full body of work, placing it in the contexts of southern literature,
Mississippi writing, and literature about the working class. The role of
Brown's mentors-Ellen Douglas and Barry Hannah-in shaping his work is
discussed, as is Brown's connection to such writers as Harry Crews and Dorothy
Allison. The volume is one of the first critical studies of a Mississippi writer
of great depth and influence. BUY NOW!
* Only books purchased at Square Books may be signed.
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SCANNING THE FRONT TABLES
NETHERLAND
by Joseph O'Neill
(Pantheon, hd.
23.95)
In
a New York City made phantasmagorical by the events of 9/11, Hans-a banker
originally from the Netherlands-finds himself marooned among the strange
occupants of the Chelsea Hotel. Feeling lost in the country he had come to
regard as home, Hans stumbles upon the vibrant New York subculture of cricket,
where he revisits his lost childhood and, thanks to a friendship with a
charismatic Trinidadian, begins to reconnect with his life and his adopted
country. Netherland gives us both a flawlessly drawn picture of a
little-known New York and a story of much larger, and brilliantly achieved
ambition: the grand strangeness and fading promise of 21st century America from
an outsider's vantage point, and the complicated relationship between the
American dream and the particular dreamers. BUY NOW!
THE BOAT
by Nam Le
(Knopf, hd. 22.95)
A
stunningly inventive fiction debut and a masterly display of literary virtuosity:
stories that take us from the slums of Colombia to the streets of Tehran; from
New York City to Iowa City; from a tiny fishing village in Australia to a
foundering vessel in the South China Sea. In the opening story, a young writer
is urged by his friends to mine his father's experiences in Vietnam-and what
seems at first a satire of turning one's life into literary commerce becomes a
transcendent exploration of homeland and the ties between father and son. Demonstrating
a versatility of voice and point of view, The Boat is an extraordinary
work that takes us to the heart of what it means to be human. BUY NOW!
THE FRUIT HUNTERS
by Adam Leith Gollner
(Scribner, hd. 25.00)
Delicious,
lethal, hallucinogenic and medicinal, fruits have led nations to war, fueled
dictatorships, and lured people into new worlds. An expedition through this
fascinating world, The Fruit Hunters is the engrossing story of some of
Earth's most desired foods. In lustrous prose, Gollner draws readers into a
Willy Wonka-like world with mangoes that taste like piña coladas, orange
cloudberries, peanut butter fruits and the miracle fruit that turns everything
sour to sweet, making lemons taste like lemonade. Peopled with a cast of
characters as varied and bizarre as the fruit-smugglers, inventors, explorers
and epicures-this extraordinary book unveils a mysterious universe, from the
jungles of Borneo to the prized orchards of Florida's fruit hunters to American
supermarkets. BUY NOW!
SKELETONS AT THE FEAST
by Chris Bohjalian
(Shaye
Areheart, hd. 25.00)
Bohjalian
(Midwives) paints the brutal landscape of Nazi Germany as German
refugees struggle westward ahead of the advancing Russian army. Inspired by the
unpublished diary of a Prussian woman who fled west in 1945, the novel exhumes
the ruin of spirit, flesh and faith that accompanied thousands of such
desperate journeys. Prussian aristocrat Rolf Emmerich and his two elder sons
are sent into battle, while his wife flees with their other children and a
Scottish POW. In a parallel story, hundreds of Jewish women shuffle west on a
gruesome death march. Bohjalian presents the difficulties confronting both sets
of travelers with carefully researched detail and an unflinching eye, capturing
the anguish of a tragic era and the dehumanizing desolation wrought by war. BUY NOW!
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BOOK SENSE PICK
THE BILLIONAIRE'S VINEGAR
by Benjamin Wallace
(Crown,
hd. 24.95)
In 1985 Christie's of London sold a 1787 Château Lafite
Bordeaux supposedly owned by Thomas Jefferson. At $156,000, it was the most
expensive bottle of wine ever sold. Billionaire's
Vinegar traces the provenance of the bottle to try and
discover its legitimacy. While unraveling the mystery, the reader learns fascinating
information about wines, especially about rare wines and rare wine bottles. You
will travel through France with Thomas Jefferson and visit some of the greatest
vineyards in Europe. But, for me, it was most fascinating to be a voyeur of the
lifestyle of these rich and famous collectors, many of whom seem to have too
much money, too much time, and a morality peculiar to their (perceived) station
in life. On a local note, Wallace pays homage to John Hailman's "definitive" Thomas
Jefferson on Wine. EC BUY NOW!
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OPENING LINES
"It is here that we
harvest the miraculous fruits your heart hungers for; come and intoxicate
yourself on the strange sweetness."
- Charles
Baudelaire
from the prologue of THE FRUIT HUNTERS by Adam Leith
Gollner
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