Good day to all my fellow bookish friends! I am so sorry that it has taken me so long to post again, but I had the first shot in the COVID vaccine at the beginning of the month, and it has set me back a bit in terms of feeling energetic and totally myself. So I've been watching a number of free movies, reading some good and bad books, napping and trying to recuperate. So, lets March onward!
I visited Arundel Books twice when we first moved here from Florida back in 1991. It was in a classic, beautiful brick building in Pioneer Square, and they had such a variety of gorgeous rare books and used volumes that I could have spent hours in the place happily sniffing the air, redolent of gently decomposing volumes. Now they've got a new home and a new lease on life, printing and binding books as well as selling them. Once the quarantine is over, I will have to plan a visit to their new digs!
Arundel Books, Seattle, Wash., Opens in New Home
Arundel Books http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz47565606 in Seattle, Wash., moved into a new space last Saturday at 322 1st Ave. S, in an historic building dating back to 1900. The new space is larger than the previous location in Pioneer Square and is open seven days per week from noon to 6 p.m. The building originally housed the Capitol Brewing and Malting Company, which later became the Olympia Brewing Company, and was home to a gallery called Flury & Co. for decades
Arundel was founded in 1984 as an art and poetry publisher and in 1987 began selling rare and out-of-print books. Now Arundel Books has a full retail bookstore and an affiliate publisher called Chatwin Books as well as a book printing and binding operation.
RIP to the famed and amazing Lawrence Ferlinghetti. At 101, he lived a long and storied life and brought books to the people with City Lights in San Francisco. The world weeps for the loss of this legend.
Obituary Note: Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Lawrence Ferlinghetti distinguished American poet, artist and founder of City Lights Booksellers and Publishers http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz47565638 in San Francisco, died February 22. He was 101 years old. In a tribute, City Lights noted that Ferlinghetti "was instrumental in democratizing American literature http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz47565639 by creating (with Peter D. Martin) the country's first all-paperback bookstore in 1953, jumpstarting a movement to make diverse and inexpensive quality books widely available. He envisioned the bookstore as a 'Literary Meeting Place,' where writers and readers could congregate to share ideas about poetry, fiction, politics, and the arts.
Two years later, in 1955, he launched City Lights Publishers with the objective of stirring an 'international dissident ferment.' [His own Pictures of the Gone World] was the first volume of the City Lights Pocket Poets Series, which proved to be a seminal force in shaping American poetry."
Ferlinghetti continued to write and publish new work until he was 100 years old. "For over 60 years, those of us who have worked with him at City Lights have been inspired by his knowledge and love of literature, his courage in defense of the right to freedom of expression, and his vital role as an American cultural ambassador," City Lights wrote. "His curiosity was unbounded and his enthusiasm was infectious, and we will miss him greatly. We intend to build on Ferlinghetti's vision and honor his memory by sustaining City Lights into the future as a center for open intellectual inquiry and commitment to literary culture and progressive politics. Though we mourn his passing, we celebrate his many contributions and give thanks for all the years we were able to work by his side."
Paul Yamazaki, City Lights buyer and a close friend, told Hoodline that while Ferlinghetti's death is a huge loss, he hopes people can celebrate his life http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz47565640:
"That's what he would want. As we are all aware, it was quite a life. It's like the sun and moon, and it's going to affect us for a long, long time in a really positive way.... As the years have passed, what was always important to Lawrence was that we continue the tradition at City Lights that has been established over the last 68 years. That's what we are going to do."
Nancy Peters, co-owner and retired executive director of City Lights, told the San Francisco Chronicle "It was my good fortune to have worked closely with him for more than 50 years. We've lost a great poet and visionary. Lawrence--never Larry--was a legend in his time and a great San Franciscan."
Ferlinghetti's many poetry books include A Coney Island of the Mind, which was published in 1958 and has never gone out of print, with a million copies released in a dozen languages. His final book, the novel Little Boy, was published a week before his 100th birthday.
The Chronicle wrote that "his greatest contribution to the world of letters was as co-founder of City Lights, a paperback bookstore and propeller of the San Francisco Renaissance in poetry." As a publisher, one of his first books was Allen Ginsberg's Howl & Other Poems (1956), which was introduced at the famed Six Gallery reading on Fillmore Street in October 1955.
"Lawrence Ferlinghetti kicked open the door to free up publishing in this country," said San Francisco novelist Herbert Gold. "He risked a great deal for a lot of books that are now considered classics."
In a 2018 Chronicle interview, Ferlinghetti said of San Francisco: "It seemed like it was still the last frontier, which it isn't anymore. I mean, in 1951, it was a wide-open city, and it seemed like you could do anything you wanted to here. It was like there was so much missing that if it was going to be a real city, there was so much that it had to get, that it didn't have. And, for instance, as far as bookstores go, all the bookstores closed at 5 p.m. and they weren't open on the weekends. And there was no place to sit down. And there was usually a clerk on top of you asking you what you wanted.... And so the first thing I realized, there was no bookstore to become the locus for the literary community. It's really important if you're going to have a literary community, it has to have a locus."
From Ferlinghetti's "The World Is a Beautiful Place":
Yes the world is the best place of all for a lot of such things as making the fun scene and making the love scene and making the sad scene.
As Michael Barnard of Rakestraw Books, Danville, Calif., commented: "Today is a sad scene."
I've read this book, and I look forward to streaming the new movie adaptation of it this weekend.
Movies: My Salinger Year
IFC Films will release My Salinger Year http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz47607437, adapted from the memoir by Joanna Rakoff, in theaters and VOD on March 5. Directed and written by Philippe Falardeau, the film stars Margaret Qualley, Sigourney Weaver and Douglas Booth.
Set in 1990s New York City, My Salinger Year tells the story of Joanna (Qualley), who, after graduate school, pursues her dream of becoming a writer, landing a job as an assistant to Margaret (Weaver), a literary
agent whose clients include J.D. Salinger. Joanna's main task is processing Salinger's voluminous fan mail, but as she reads the letters from around the world, she becomes reluctant to send the agency's impersonal standard letter and impulsively begins personalizing the responses. As she uses the great but reclusive writer's voice, she begins to find her own.
OMG, this would be the ONLY reason I'd ever fly back to Florida, to have my own book butler at the Ben Hotel. What a great idea...I wish someone in the Seattle hospitality industry would do the same! I think there are some wonderful hotels, like the Sorento, who could really use this added benefit, especially in such a literary-forward town.
Cool Idea of the Day: Book Butler
The Palm Beach Book Store http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz47609350 in Palm Beach, Fla., has partnered with The Ben, a hotel in West Palm Beach, to create a service called the Book Butler, Palm Beach Daily News reported http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz47609351.
Through the Book Butler program, guests can order complimentary books to be delivered to their rooms. Each room has a curated book menu, and guests can dial 0 on their room phones, order a book and have it hand-delivered to their rooms. An in-room dining option called Book Bites also matches small-plate items with the titles on the book menu.
"During the pandemic, it has been especially important that we continue to connect our customers to books," Candice Cohen, founder of the Palm Beach Book Store, told the Palm Beach Daily News. "We look forward to partnering with The Ben to curate a selection of new and topical book titles that relate to the history of the hotel and the city of West Palm Beach."
Guests are free to keep the books, or they can leave them behind to be donated to the West Palm Beach Library Foundation. The titles featured on the book menu will rotate seasonally.
I used to read CJ Cherryh's books about giant cat people in space, and I remember loving them, but ultimately giving up on them when they started to get too political and militaristic (I also gave up on the later books in the Dune series for the same reason). Still, this is a well-earned award. Congrats to Ms Cherryh!
Awards: BSFS Robert A. Heinlein Winner CJ Cherryh
Carolyn Janice Cherry, known to readers as C.J. Cherryh, won the 2021 Robert A. Heinlein Award http://www.shelfawareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz47640532 for her "body of work, with emphasis on her detailed social science and commercial relationship-based stories set in the space station rich Alliance-Union universe."
Sponsored by the Baltimore Science Fiction Society, the award honors "outstanding published works in science fiction and technical writings that inspire the human exploration of space." It will be formally presented May 28 at opening ceremonies during Virtual Balticon 55 http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz47640533, the Maryland regional science fiction convention.
The selection committee consists of science fiction writers and was founded by Dr. Yoji Kondo, a long-time friend of Robert and Virginia Heinlein. Members of the original committee were approved by Virginia Heinlein, who also authorized multiple awards in memory of her husband, including the Heinlein Prize, which is funded by Virginia Heinlein's estate, and a National Space Society award for volunteer projects.
My latest book reviews:
Tip of the Iceberg by Mark Adams is the March book for my library book group, which means I had to read it, as I'm the leader of the group. Otherwise, I would have ditched this boring, redundant and sexist, fatphobic, racist and homophobic volume after the first couple of chapters. Adams is just another middle aged journalist who took a long-form story on Alaskan climate change and turned it into a padded and over-researched book about an expedition of old white guys in 1899 who were horrible people and just as racist, sexist, etc, as Adams was, but, as it was an earlier era, they were also bloodthirsty, wanting to kill bears and other wildlife native to Alaska. Disgusting. Here's the blurb:
In 1899, railroad magnate Edward H. Harriman organized a most unusual
summer voyage to the wilds of Alaska: He converted a steamship into a
luxury "floating university," populated by some of America's best and
brightest scientists and writers, including the anti-capitalist
eco-prophet John Muir. Those aboard encountered a land of immeasurable
beauty and impending environmental calamity. More than a hundred years
later, Alaska is still America's most sublime wilderness, both the lure
that draws one million tourists annually on Inside Passage cruises and
as a natural resources larder waiting to be raided. As ever, it remains a
magnet for weirdos and dreamers.
Armed with Dramamine and an
industrial-strength mosquito net, Mark Adams sets out to retrace the
1899 expedition. Traveling town to town by water, Adams ventures three
thousand miles north through Wrangell, Juneau, and Glacier Bay, then
continues west into the colder and stranger regions of the Aleutians and
the Arctic Circle. Along the way, he encounters dozens of unusual
characters (and a couple of very hungry bears) and investigates how
lessons learned in 1899 might relate to Alaska's current struggles in
adapting to the pressures of a changing climate and world.
The last lines in Adam's book exhort readers to visit Alaska and see the glaciers before they're gone, yet the way he denigrates every single town he visits as being a grubby backwater full of crazy people leads any sane reader to want to stay as far away from this state and it's crumbling infrastructure and deadly weather as possible. He even points out how horrible Alaskan cruise ships are for the environment while hypocritically trying to bum a ride on one a few chapters later so that he can sleep in a warm bed and have a decent meal. Unsuprisingly, the cruise ship doesn't allow him to ride for free, and thus Adams goes back to trying to recapture his youth by pestering Alaskans and preying on their good natures, while talking smack about them after he is done using them. By the end of the book, I loathed the author and had nearly lost the will to live. I'd therefore give this book a D, and I can't really recommend it to anyone who doesn't have a cynical and crude POV about native flora and fauna (and people) of Alaska. I wish the author had been eaten by one of the bears he quailed and wailed about during the whole book.
Soulstar by C.L Polk is the third and final volume of the Kingston Cycle, which began with Witchmark. This is the book that ties everything together and provides readers with an HFN ending (happy for now). Though I loved the first book and enjoyed the second book, this volume has a lot more political intrigue than I like in my fantasy novels, and there's also a lot more pain and suffering than is usual for this kind of book. Still, the prose was lush and lovely, and the plot moved along smartly. Here's the blurb: With Soulstar, C. L. Polk concludes her riveting Kingston
Cycle, a whirlwind of magic, politics, romance, and intrigue that began
with the World Fantasy Award-winning Witchmark. Assassinations, deadly storms, and long-lost love haunt the pages of this thrilling final volume.
For
years, Robin Thorpe has kept her head down, staying among her people in
the Riverside neighborhood and hiding the magic that would have her
imprisoned by the state. But when Grace Hensley comes knocking on Clan
Thorpe’s door, Robin’s days of hiding are at an end. As freed witches
flood the streets of Kingston, scrambling to reintegrate with a kingdom
that destroyed their lives, Robin begins to plot a course that will
ensure a freer, juster Aeland. At the same time, she has to face her
long-bottled feelings for the childhood love that vanished into an
asylum twenty years ago.
Can Robin find happiness among the
rising tides of revolution? Can Kingston survive the blizzards that
threaten, the desperate monarchy, and the birth throes of democracy?
Find out as the Kingston Cycle comes to an end.
As painful as Robin's love affair is, it's very satisfying when everything comes to a well deserved conclusion. I'd give this book a B+, and recommend it to anyone who has read the other two novels.
The Girl Who Reads on the Metro by Christine Feret-Fleury is a novel translated from French and was beautifully packaged in a pretty book jacket with a lovely font that reminded me of the Art Nouveau era. The prose was gorgeous and the plot smooth and velvety. I found myself using bookpoint post its to mark favorite passages in the novel. I rarely do this, especially with a contemporary writer, so you know that the prose has to be profound. Here's the blurb: For fans of Amélie and The Little Paris Bookshop, a
modern fairytale about a French woman whose life is turned upside down
when she meets a reclusive bookseller and his young daughter.
Juliette
leads a perfectly ordinary life in Paris, working a slow office job,
dating a string of not-quite-right men, and fighting off melancholy. The
only bright spots in her day are her métro rides across the city and
the stories she dreams up about the strangers reading books across from
her: the old lady, the math student, the amateur ornithologist, the
woman in love, the girl who always tears up at page 247.
One
morning, avoiding the office for as long as she can, Juliette finds
herself on a new block, in front of a rusty gate wedged open with a
book. Unable to resist, Juliette walks through, into the bizarre and
enchanting lives of Soliman and his young daughter, Zaide. Before she
realizes entirely what is happening, Juliette agrees to become a passeur,
Soliman’s name for the booksellers he hires to take stacks of used
books out of his store and into the world, using their imagination and
intuition to match books with readers. Suddenly, Juliette’s daydreaming
becomes her reality, and when Soliman asks her to move in to their store
to take care of Zaide while he goes away, she has to decide if she is
ready to throw herself headfirst into this new life.
Big-hearted, funny, and gloriously zany, The Girl Who Reads on the Métro
is a delayed coming-of-age story about a young woman who dares to
change her life, and a celebration of the power of books to unite us
all.
I'm a fan of character driven novels, and this one has a host of great characters whose stories are funny, sad and wonderful (I would not call them, however, zany...they're all too French for that). I'd assumed that I knew how the novel was going to end, based on Juliette's dedication to passing along books, but the author provides one plot twist after another, until the ending was a complete surprise. I won't spoil it for you here, but suffice it to say it's certainly a different ending than any I could have imagined. I'd give this wise and yet ennui-scented book an A, and recommend it to those who love the French and who love literature as well.
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