Welcome to the 4th week of a very long and hot August! I can hardly wait for the cool and crisp Autumn weather coming in September and October. Meanwhile there's been a lot going on in the world of books and authors, notably the knife attack on Salman Rushdie decades after the fatwa was issued on him by the Ayatolla for writing a book that contained the Satanic Verses from the Muslim religion. I'm sure he assumed that he was in the clear 30 plus years later...and now some insane guy with a grudge attempts to remove Rushdie from the literary landscape over what? Religion and censorship? Seriously? Anyway, in good news, one of my recent favorite books Lessons in Chemistry is being made into a movie, as is the Decameron, one of my favorite classic pieces of fiction. Lots of news and reviews and quotes to get to, so here you are.
My good thoughts are with Salman Rushdie for his full recovery.
Bookselling News
Support for Salman Rushdie
Shelf Awareness joins the many people, companies and organizations in
the book world that have expressed shock and outrage about Friday's
violent attack on Salman Rushdie, and we wish him the best and a speedy
recovery.
A family statement from Zafar Rushdie, Rushdie's son, said yesterday,
"Following the attack on Friday, my father remains in critical condition
in hospital receiving extensive ongoing medical treatment. We are
extremely relieved that yesterday he was taken off the ventilator and
additional oxygen and he was able to say a few words.
"Though his life changing injuries are severe, his usual feisty &
defiant sense of humor remains intact. We are so grateful to all the
audience members who bravely leapt to his defense and administered first
aid along with the police and doctors who have cared for him and for the
outpouring of love and support from around the world. We ask for
continued patience and privacy as the family come together at his
bedside to support and help him through this time."
Henry Reese, who was moderating the event on Friday and was injured in
the attack when he went to Rushdie's aid, is co-founder of City of
Asylum in Pittsburgh, Pa., which promotes free expression, provides
sanctuary for writers and artists under threat of persecution and has a
bookstore. He suggested to CNN that people react to the attack by buying
a book by Rushdie and reading it; writers should "write to the full
extent of truthfulness and their ability"; and all should recognize that
creative expression "brings people to discuss important issues and to
think about people other than themselves."
Among words of support expressed after the attack:
President Joe Biden, in part: "Salman Rushdie--with his insight into
humanity, with his unmatched sense for story, with his refusal to be
intimidated or silenced--stands for essential, universal ideals. Truth.
Courage. Resilience. The ability to share ideas without fear. These are
the building blocks of any free and open society. And today, we reaffirm
our commitment to those deeply American values in solidarity with
Rushdie and all those who stand for freedom of expression."
The National Coalition Against Censorship, in part: "Mr. Rushdie has
bravely defended freedom of expression throughout his career, determined
not to be silenced by fear and encouraging others to speak out. An
established advocate for writers' protections, Mr. Rushdie is the
founding president of the International Parliament of Writers (which has
since evolved into the International Cities of Refuge Network), which
offers resources and shelter to artists and writers at risk of
persecution. At the time of the attack, Mr. Rushdie was participating in
a public discussion on the role of the United States as a refuge for
artists and writers in exile.
"Mr. Rushdie's famous refrain, 'What is freedom of expression? Without
the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.' underscores the key
democratic tenets--the right to disseminate and access ideas, the right
to public debate, and, crucially, the right to disagree--whether it be
with fellow civilians, institutions, or governments."
PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel, in part: "PEN America is reeling from
shock and horror at word of a brutal, premeditated attack on our former
president and stalwart ally, Salman Rushdie.... We can think of no
comparable incident of a public violent attack on a literary writer on
American soil.
"Our thoughts and passions now lie with our dauntless Salman, wishing
him a full and speedy recovery. We hope and believe fervently that his
essential voice cannot and will not be silenced."
Ayad Akhtar, PEN America president, in part: "As a former president of
our organization, Salman means so much to us. His leadership in the wake
of 9/11 set the course for the two decades which have followed. He has
been and remains a tireless advocate for imperiled writers, for
unfettered intellectual and creative exchange, and one of the last
half-century's great champions of freedom of expression.
"On a more personal note, as a writer whose own work is fundamentally
shaped by an early encounter with The Satanic Verses, it is particularly
horrifying to me that the nightmare set in motion by the fatwa in 1989
is still with us. We are all thinking of Salman today across the PEN
America community, and praying for his recovery."
This is just so awesome...I was totally like this as a little girl, so I get where she's coming from...bookstores are the best!
Make A Wish Comes to the Mysterious Bookshop
The Mysterious Bookshop, New York, N.Y., shared this experience https://www.shelfawareness.com/ct/x/pjJscAXZlr8I6aoyd0ogEg~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jCC5f3poMLg-gVdw from owner Otto Penzler:
"This past Thursday is a day that will live in my memory forever. The bookshop was visited by a young woman who was wheeled in by a volunteer of the Make-a-Wish Foundation. Katelyn's wish, for which she had been waiting for several months, was to visit the Mysterious Bookshop. The utter joy on her face as she browsed the shelves was unmistakable.
"As it happened, the first two books she seized were anthologies I had edited. I have autographed many books over the years but there was never a person who was more pleased to have a book inscribed to her than Katelyn, and never one I was happier and prouder to accommodate."
I LOVED this book so much, I can hardly wait to see it on the small screen.
TV: Lessons In Chemistry
Apple TV+ has rounded out the ensemble cast for Lessons in Chemistry https://www.shelfawareness.com/ct/x/pjJscAXZlr8I6aoyd012HA~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jCC5f3poMLg-gVdw as production begins on the series, which is based on the debut novel by Bonnie Garmus, Deadline reported. Joining the project's star and executive producer Brie Larson (Room) are Lewis Pullman (Top Gun: Maverick); Aja Naomi King (How to Get Away with Murder); Stephanie Koenig (The Flight Attendant); Patrick Walker (Gaslit); Thomas Mann (Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty); Kevin Sussman (The Big Bang Theory) and Beau Bridges (Acting: The First Six Lessons). The series will premiere globally on Apple TV+ in 2023.
From Apple Studios, Lessons in Chemistry is produced by Aggregate Films. Lee Eisenberg (WeCrashed, Little America) serves as showrunner. The series is exec produced by Larson and Elijah Allan-Blitz of their Great Unknown Productions; Jason Bateman and Michael Costigan for Aggregate Films; and Unbelievable co-creator Susannah Grant. Natalie Sandy executive produces through Piece of Work Entertainment alongside Eisenberg. Louise Shore also serves as executive producer and author Garmus serves as co-EP.
Jamie Ford is a great guy, and a wonderful writer whose work I've been enjoying for decades. I think it's marvelous that he's acknowledging the impact that indie bookstores have had on his life and career. I need to get my hands on a copy of his latest ASAP!
Quotation of the Day
"I owe my career to indie bookstores. Truly. It's wonderful to be a bestselling author, whatever that means. But indie bookstores are reality. They're what booksellers are reading and recommended to their readers, they're what readers are coming in and asking for. They're not the dictates of a large retail corporation and they're not affected by co-op. It's a more honest, more pure system that comes from an ecosystem that's created by independent booksellers. It's real, it's tangible, it's substantial. When it comes to going out on tour, I do go out of my way to visit as many indies as I can, either for an event or for a stock signing. For my first book we drove from Bellingham, Washington, down to California and we hit every indie store on the way just to pop in and do stock signings and say hi to people.
"Bookstores matter.... I don't have any kind of success on my own outside of that ecosystem. It's just impossible. My career is built upon that support."--Jamie Ford, whose novel The Many Daughters of Afong Moy is the #1 book on the August Indie Next List
I remember when the Horse Whisperer came out, and everyone was so dazzled by it and the idea that you didn't need to brutalize an animal to tame it enough for riding. I also loved the movie. RIP Nicholas Evans.
Obituary Note: Nicholas Evans
Nicholas Evans https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscAXZxeUI6aoydh1xSw~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jCC8StpoMLg-gVdw, the British journalist, filmmaker and author "whose novel-turned-film, The Horse Whisperer, broke publishing and movie records, along with the hearts of readers who made the book a bestseller in 20 countries," died August 9, the New York Times reported. He was 72.
In 1993, Evans had been working as a journalist and documentary filmmaker when he began thinking about an idea for a novel. He "had found an intriguing subject: the mystical, manly art of horse whispering. His source was a farrier, and Mr. Evans soon learned that the vocation of calming horses had a long history stretching back centuries," the Times wrote. To escape the class implications of the English horse world, Evans "looked to the American West for his story.
He came up trumps when he met Tom Dorrance, a terse cowboy then in his 80s, and watched him soothe a frenzied mare in California. He then found two other cowboys who practiced the same compelling magic, and began to craft a character inspired by these three men."
Evans wrote about 150 pages of what would become The Horse Whisperer, then showed the draft to agent Caradoc King, who sent the partial manuscript to a number of publishers on their way to the Frankfurt book fair that year. Suddenly, Evans was in the middle of a bidding war, juggling offers from Hollywood as well as from book publishers.
Hollywood Pictures and Robert Redford's film studio, Wildwood Pictures, "won the bid, at the time the largest amount ever paid for the rights to a first novel (almost $6 million in today's money). Mr. Evans's North American book advance, of $3.15 million from Dell Publishing, set another record," the Times noted.
Published in 1995, The Horse Whisperer was a global bestseller, translated into 40 languages, though not a critical success. The movie, which came out in 1998, was more favorably reviewed and a modest box office success. Coincidentally, Evans also unknowingly introduced the word "whisperer" into the popular lexicon to denote experts who can tame complicated creatures.
Charlie King, managing director of Little, Brown Book Group, told the Bookseller that Evans "was a masterful storyteller and one of the most successful, best-loved novelists of his generation. His era-defining bestseller The Horse Whisperer and his four subsequent novels, The Loop, The Smoke Jumper, The Divide and The Brave, have been enjoyed by millions of readers around the world. Little, Brown is extremely proud to be Nick's publisher--he will be greatly missed, but his words will live on for years to come."
I reread the Decameron back in the early 2000s, and I remember thinking that it had changed so dramatically since I'd read it as a teenager in the 70s...of coarse the book hadn't actually changed, I was the one who changed over the years and had a deeper understanding of movies like the Mask of the Red Death and other plague/epidemic stories that show us how humanity reacts to a deadly disease. Now more than ever we can appreciate the Decameron "post-Covid," especially now that we know it might never not be part of our lives.
TV: The Decameron
Netflix has given an eight-episode series order to The Decameron https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscAXakrgI6aoydkogHA~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jCCJPwpoMLg-gVdw, which is "loosely inspired" by the collection of tales about love in the 14th-century by Giovanni Boccaccio. Deadline reported that the project is from Kathleen Jordan (Teenage Bounty Hunters) and Jenji Kohan (Orange Is the New Black), who executive produced the teen drama alongside her.
Created by Jordan, who serves as showrunner, The Decameron is "set in 1348 when the Black Death, the deadliest pandemic in human history which killed as many as 200 million people, strikes hard in the city of Florence," Deadline noted, adding: "A handful of nobles are invited to retreat with their servants to a grand villa in the Italian countryside and wait out the pestilence with a lavish holiday. But as social rules wear thin, what starts as a wine-soaked sex romp in the hills of Tuscany descends into an all-out scramble for survival."
"Kathleen Jordan is the real freakin' deal," said Kohan, who exec produces. "I am so excited and grateful that I get to work with her and we get to make this awesome, funny, timely, weird show together for Netflix."
Jordan added: "I'm absolutely thrilled that I get to work with Jenji, Tara, Blake, and Netflix again. I can't wait for people to meet this ridiculous group of characters. I'm sure Giovanni Boccaccio would be... confused?"
The Second You're Single by Cara Tanamachi was a book that I won for free (in paperback form) from Goodreads in exchange for an honest review. This novel doesn't actually hit shelves until late January of next year. I found it very readable, a real page turner if you like, and full of witty banter and funny situations, plus the plot is lively and quick, though there tends to be too many predictable moments in it. Here's the blurb: Cheerfully irreverent, bitingly funny, and filled with romantic charm, Cara Tanamachi's The Second You're Single is all about navigating the most romantic month of the year, and how love always seems to arrive when you least expect it.
Freelance
writer Sora Reid believes in inertia. She’s the odd one out in a
close-knit family of go-getters, including her Japanese-American mom,
who hints about her need to lose weight, and her soon-to-be married,
overachieving younger sister, who needs her to have a date for the
wedding, since a wedding party couples' dance with their Scottish great
uncle Bob simply won't do. For Sora, minimal input, minimal expectations
is the way to go. She’d rather stay at home with her insufferable
neighbor and her adorable pitbull.
The one thing that disrupts
her inertia: an intense dislike for Valentine’s Day. What is it with the
commercial love machine? Why do we pin our hopes on one romantic day,
when staying home with a package of bacon and a bottle of tequila would
be way better? Sora’s been betrayed and disappointed more than once and
her heart is starting to feel like her Grandma Mitsuye’s antique
Japanese ceramic bowl, with its many gold-filled cracks.
When her
pledge to stay single in February inspires readers to #gosolo, Sora has
a responsibility to empower her readers. But relationships aren’t built
to last, so it shouldn’t be that hard. Right?
Enter Jack Mann. A
muscle-bound baker who looks like he lifts logs on the weekends, Sora
hasn’t thought of Jack since they were in elementary school together.
When they see each other at the local grocery store and the attraction
hits hard, Sora knows she has to shut it down, quick.
She can’t #gosolo AND get the guy. She can’t let down her readers. And
relationships always end, so why should Jack be any different–even
though he’s confounding all her long-held expectations of love?
There's a splendid HEA at the end of the novel that I appreciated for it's ingenuity and charm. I also felt that way about the characters, for the most part, they were charming and funny and sincere. However, there were many cliches and tropes added into the text that just felt like lazy writing to me. For example, the classic wealthy, skinny, ultra beautiful ex for the male protagonist, who just can't seem to let him go because he was so stupid and easy to manipulate, and the jerkish, abusive ex husband/fiance/boyfriend of the female protagonist who seems almost dangerous in his need to seek out his ex for some more abuse or scare-tactics. The fact that Sora finds her one true love during "Solo February" is straight out of a Hallmark movie. Contemporary romance cliche's aside, I'd give this book a B+, and recommend it to anyone who enjoys fun and funny romantic stories. I'd like to point out one more thing that irked me about this book, and that was the belief that Sora held that is widely accepted by society that the only "Real" journalists are the ones covering politics, sports, war, religion, tragedy or foreign/domestic terrorism. That is NOT the goal of every single female journalist out there, trust me. I believe that during my 35 year career as a journalist that the only time I hated my work was when I was forced to write about any of those things. I much preferred writing about local artists or interesting people or odd businesses. Just because there is joy or laughter or happiness involved doesn't make an article have any less value to readers than the doom and gloom reporting of our brethren. In fact, my articles were often the most popular ones in the newspaper. I won over a dozen writing awards for my fun and funny articles. So don't buy into the whole "if it bleeds, it leads" nonsense as having the only gravitas to make a journalistic career. BS. Write about what is beautiful and joyous about life and I guarantee you won't burn out half as fast as your fellow ulcer-prone reporter brethren.
Starcrossed by Allie Therin is the second book in the Magic in Manhattan series, which I've really enjoyed reading. There's only one more book in the trilogy, but I've not been able to find or procure a cheap copy yet...but I'm on the hunt for one! Here's the blurb: When everything they’ve built is threatened, only their bond remains…
New York, 1925
Psychometric
Rory Brodigan’s life hasn’t been the same since the day he met Arthur
Kenzie. Arthur’s continued quest to contain supernatural relics that
pose a threat to the world has captured Rory’s imagination—and his
heart. But Arthur’s upper-class upbringing still leaves Rory worried
that he’ll never measure up, especially when Arthur’s aristocratic ex
arrives in New York.
For Arthur, there’s only Rory. But keeping
the man he’s fallen for safe is another matter altogether. When a group
of ruthless paranormals throw the city into chaos, the two men’s
strained relationship leaves Rory vulnerable to a monster from Arthur’s
past.
With dark forces determined to tear them apart, Rory and
Arthur will have to draw on every last bit of magic up their sleeves.
And in the end, it’s the connection they’ve formed without magic that
will be tested like never before.
Rory and Ace's romance is utterly delicious, and I genuinely love the way that they love one another, even though it's across class lines and they have to deal with prejudices of both types, against homosexuals and class mixing. Therin's prose is practically liquid it flows so well over the rapid, action-based plot. I can hardly wait for book 3! I'd give this sequel an A, and recommend it to anyone who read the first book in the series.
The Drowned Woods by Emily Lloyd-Jones is a delicious fantasy that I actually paid 10 bucks for, which is 8 more dollars than I usually pay for an ebook. The prose was mesmerizing and the plot cool, dense but filled with action and adventure so readers are racing along though they might feel they're lost...trust in this author, though, and she will not leave you at the mercy of the strange things in the woods! Here's the blurb:
First of all, I adored that this story was set in Wales. I've always wanted to visit Wales, and I was delighted by all the historical and cultural background brought into this fairy tale. Second, I loved that one of the protagonists, Fane, had a Corgi (who was a very good boy!) who traveled with him and proved to be sensitive to magic (it makes him sneeze!) and who was also helpful during the groups quest for the magical objects. This was a sort of Lord of the Rings, Welsh Edition, with a motley crew of people thrown together by circumstance going out to right the world. What surprised me was how naive and trusting Mer was of all these people, known and unknown, that she trusts with her life when it seemed plain to me that the other guys all had a secret agenda or two and were more than willing to sacrifice her life to get what they wanted. Though there was a lot of earth shaking drama at the end (pun intended) I still really enjoyed the world building and some of the characters in this richly detailed novel. I'd give it an A-, and recommend it to anyone who enjoys Welsh Folklore.
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