Pura Vida: Local Flavor

In an interview with Knight Arts, Miami poet Emma Trelles said "Anything can thrive down here. You could fling a tadpole into a gutter puddle and have a colony of frogs a week later. That kind of insistent life is inspiring."  This is true about Miami.  It's true in Costa Rica a hundred fold.

Geckos cover the streets of Miami, those little ones people up north buy at pet stores.  In Costa Rica, we saw these bad boys outside of a restaurant:  

That black triangle in the upper-left corner is the edge of the patio roof.

Iguanas like plaintains.

June 10, 1928 – May 8, 2012

A recent survey declared Goodnight Moon the best picture book of all time, but for me it begins and ends with The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  I loved that book so much, almost as much as I loved Snowy Day.  It takes a lot of effort to admit that Where the Wild Things Are comes in third, because Maurice Sendak's death is clouding my judgment.  But can you really compare degrees of love?  People don't make you pick a favorite child, so I can't really pick a favorite childhood memory.

It doesn't take a degree in children's literature to declare Wild Things the best of the three.  It's a paean to imagination, it understands children in a way the others don't, and it's a perfect example of using illustration to represent emotion in a picture book.  Sendak was one of the greatest (and easily the most reluctant) children's author / illustrators ever, and the landscape of children's bookselling that he helped create has muted colors over his passing.

As loyal Sweet Readers know, Maurice Sendak has a special place in our hearts that he has enjoyed for some time.  Apart from the homage and the semi-serious pleas in those posts, Becky and I have been working behind the scenes for some time to make a Max tattoo drawn by Sendak himself a reality on Becky's famous arm.  Becky and I work in the book business at an indie with a lot of clout.  We don't know people, but we know people who know the right people, and we wanted to make it happen.

A couple of months back, we got our answer; Sendak said he "couldn't commit to something like that at this time."  I didn't blog about that because we never gave up hope.  Now, well.

I'm not trying to make this about me.  The loss to books is greater but the loss of the dream hits closer to home.  Everyone I've spoken with has their own memory of his work, and their own sorrow at his death.  This is just mine.  We may not have a tattoo to remember him by, but at least we have his work.

On Tuesday night, Becky and I put Dylan to bed with In the Night Kitchen, Outside Over There, and Where the Wild Things Are; all three read just fine.  Mighty fine, in fact.  Dylan did say he was "too sad" to fall asleep, but he was probably just trying to delay his bedtime.  Or sympathizing with his sad sack parents.

Eventually we'll enjoy his work without the taint of sadness.  In the meantime...

You Should Read Jenny Lawson

BUY THIS NOW.

“Because you are defined not by life's imperfect moments, but by your reaction to them. And because there is joy in embracing - rather than running from - the utter absurdity of life.” 

― Jenny Lawson, Let's Pretend This Never Happened

When I wrote about all the books Becky and I were giving away at our wedding, I compared Chelsea Handler to David Sedaris.  For months now, I've intended to write all about the sexist literati who heap accolades on Sedaris while dismissing Handler as a vulgar TV star with some hit memoirs.  I put it off because my heart wasn't in it.  As promising a start as My Horizontal Life was, Are You There Vodka?  It's Me, Chelsea didn't measure up.  And I still haven't read Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang past that first tear-inducing (from laughs!) story.

My heart is behind Jenny Lawson.

The Girl with the Pigeon Tattoo: Meet Cloudette

In case you didn't know, there's something in publishing called a "book trailer."  It's like a movie trailer, except for a book.  Genius, right?  Readers don't need them and booksellers actively hate them.  Still, when moving 5,000 copies constitutes a hit, it never hurts to try to reach outside your core demographic for new readers.

But Hollywood has been making trailers for ninety-nine years; publishing has only made the effort since 2005.  The result is that very, very few trailers make one say, "Wow, I really need to buy that book."  I've enjoyed three book trailers in my life: Carolyn Parkhurst's The Nobodies Album (see the trailer in which authors are funny; now buy the book), Gary Shteyngart's Super Sad True Love Story (trailer here, rife with cameos; now buy the book), and Kristen Schaal & Rich Blomquist's The Sexy Book of Sexy Sex (trailer with actual comic actors who are also the authors; now buy the book).  Caroyln Parkhurst made me laugh out loud but the book came out two years ago and I haven't read it, Gary Shteyngart amused me but I already owned Super Sad True Love Story before I saw it, and I'll never read The Sexy Book of Sexy Sex - way to go, trailer-makers!

And remember, those links represent the cream of the crop.  If book trailers are movies, you just watched The Godfather, Casablanca, and Citizen Kane.  Except, you know, funny.  Most book trailers look like something your local high school AV club made for their final exam sophomore year.


All that having been said, I love this trailer:

It perfectly captures the mood of Tom Lichtenheld's whimsical, witty Cloudette.

Buy me.  I rock hard.  Well, softly.  I'm a cloud.

My first Lichtenheld experience was Shark vs. Train.  All the the little asides in the Cloudette video ("tee-hee!" "hi!")?  Lichtenheld peppers his illustrations with those.  Half the fun of reading his books is seeing Dylan giggle over those asides - particularly the trash talk in Shark vs. Train.  Finding them, reading them, and getting the joke; it's like watching a pinball machine light up.


Becky met Tom Lichtenheld at his hotel when he came to Miami.  I dropped her off and waited outside in the car so we wouldn't have to pay the $20 parking fee.  Becky emerged about half an hour later.  We're fairly sure the valets thought she was a call girl.  Or a drug dealer.

To capture Cloudette's rough look, Lichtenheld used pencil before tracing over it with Sharpie.

We don't worry about lead poisoning when art is at stake.

Especially cute art.

Somehow, Becky convinced tattoo artist Dicky Magoo to open Tattoos by Lou not only on his day off, but early so she could get back to work.  I don't think Becky has ever heard the word "no."  

Dicky used an extra-fine needle to create the outline and shading.  What looks deceptively simple holds a lot of detail.  Tom Lichtenheld looked very happy with the result.  

For a minute, Becky wanted Cloudette tattooed inside her wrist so she could see it better.  But as we all know, The Very Hungry Caterpillar is the tattoo that started it all.  So imagine them chummily side-by-side on her arm.

Caterpillar fart?

Of course, one could argue that as she lays, Cloudette could be seen as en extra large chuff from Otis that got blown astray.  Nevertheless, we've had fun with Cloudette.  Like the time Dylan decided that Becky and I should have matching tattoos.  He whipped out a pen and went to town on my forearm.

Uncanny, no?

The Secret Handshake: Do You Really Need an MFA to Get Published?

If you answered "no" then click here.

Quotidian. Why use quotidian when mundane works just as well?  Don't try citing some subtle shade of connotation, because there isn't one; they mean the same damn thing, except ninety-five percent of the English-speaking world could tell you what mundane means.  Barring mundane, why not give everyday, commonplace, or ordinary a day in court?  Too quotidian?

Using quotidian, you're not trying to tell us what the office is like, or describe Chester's workaday habits, or what materials an artist used for his pieces - unless you're Lionel Shriver, you're being deliberately obscure to add mystery to your piece, to make the reader work a little harder and invest more of herself.

I see the word all the time.

"Look out! The Quotidians are behind you!"

That, and words like it.  Elegiac ("expressing sorrow") is one.  Anodyne ("uncontentious or inoffensive") is another.  To me, it's all grandiloquent ("Pompous or extravagant in language, style, or manner, esp. in a way that is intended to impress").

I think my vocabulary is better than the average bear's.  If you're not David Foster Wallace, it ain't right to have me running for the dictionary (well, for Google).  It's also no comment on my lack of education (I hope) because it's the same words over and over.

I remember a poster in my sixth grade English class, back in the days when it was called Language.  Flying in the face of the Mighty Elmore Leonard (see Rule #3), this poster declared, "Said is Dead; Use These Instead."  An alphabetical list of words which wouldn't make it past an AP writing class followed- Argued, Berated, Chided, Declared, etc.  Seeing elegiac in four different books I've read in the last two months makes me imagine a spreadsheet handed out at creative writing programs across the country; Simplicity is Dead; Use These Instead.

Leonard says, "if it sounds like writing, re-write it."  John D. MacDonald says, "Author intrusion is, 'Gee, Mama, look how nice I'm writing!'"  John Dufresne says, "thou shalt not be obscure."

Look, I'm all for high fallutin language if it serves the voice of a piece.  I like learning new words, particularly from a Shriver or a Wallace who knows how to use them.  But most of the time these words just seem underlined.  If you tell me your book is a "bildungsroman" rather than "a coming-of-age novel," you're proffering the secret MFA handshake.

McWriterface, listen closely: shake off all those fancy words you discovered pursuing your degree.  They are weighty words and you need to build up your muscles before you can lift them properly.  I see intransigent ("unyielding") and suddenly you're not trying to tell me a story, you're waving your MFA in my face.  You can't expect editors to stop these words because they all have their MFAs, too.  So it's up to you, Authorton.

Only you can prevent grandiloquence, Authorton... only you.

Girl with the Pigeon Tattoo & Anna Dewdney, Too

Yesterday at Dylan's after-care program, two girls with eyes and a flair for the obvious told Becky she was the most beautiful girl they'd ever seen.  As Becky walked away, one of them pointed.

"Llama llama!  Llama lama!" she shouted.

This led to a tour of Becky's arm, a few minutes of book talk, and the near kidnapping of two girls from Dylan's after-care program.  

I'm sorry, kidnapping is never funny.  There was nearly a Forceful Non-Blood-Related Family Expansion, but we had to leave in a hurry to beat traffic.

Llama llama is a character from a beloved series of picture books that have been flying off the shelves for about seven years now.  Is it llama llama's sweet naivety?  The fact that llama llama can always count on Mama?  Or some magical combination of charming rhymes and gorgeous illustrations?  Whatever the secret, llama llama is one of Dylan's most-requested bedtime stories.  When author / illustrator Anna Dewdney came to Books & Books, Becky had the spot on her arm all picked out.


The tattooing has already been covered in depth by Publishers Weekly.  I love the picture I took with Llama Llama Red Pajama in the foreground, tattoo artist Dicky Magoo in the center, and the Miami Dolphins playing in the background.  I especially love that we just returned from our honeymoon and the last name "Curtis" was all over the place.

But since Shannon Maughan was so thorough, I'm reduced to this:

Look how cute!  Buy it.

I said, BUY IT.

Please buy it?

I'll also share some pictures which weren't in Publishers Weekly.

Signed by the artist; that arm is worth money.

There was a good deal of blood involved, but Becky was determined to get llama llama picture-ready.

All that scrubbing was worth it to see the look on Anna Dewdney's face.

This is why Dewdney looks so pleased; sweet job, Dicky Magoo.

The Girl with the Pigeon Tattoo Gets a Tractor to the Forearm

Barack Obama's daughters loved Drummer Boy so much that when Obama wrote a children's book, he picked Loren Long to illustrate it.  The result is Of Thee I Sing:

Buy it, coz.

But toddlers couldn't care less about that.  When you need to entertain a five-year-old, you want something a little more funkengrooven.  You want a friendship between a tractor and a calf.

If that sounds dumb, it's because you're old and your heart is a brittle, numb thing.  It sounded dumb to me when Dylan requested it as his bedtime story, the first time I ever watched Becky put him down. When she read the gentle purring of the tractor's engine that lulls the little calf to sleep, Otis's putt puff puttedy chuff, I fell in love.  Being a family is mostly making things up as you go.  There are very few moments you feel you're getting it right, while they're happening.  That was one.

Also, when it comes to matters of the heart, Becky is my Otis and I am her calf.  In fact, when Loren Long scheduled appearances at Books & Books Bal Harbour and Coral Gables, I wanted to ask for the calf to go with her tractor.  It would have represented her saving me, us as a couple, and the father I became when she brought Dylan into my life.

But I didn't ask, so we'll have to come with another couple tattoo.


You know how this thing with Becky's arm works, right?

First comes the drawing.

While Mo Willems scribbled the Pigeon in about twenty seconds ("The thing is to capture the energy!"), Loren Long was meticulous.  He stopped several times.  He'd stand, step back, stare, erase, and start again.  "I wasn't this nervous for President Obama," he said.

Then comes the tattooing.

Dicky Magoo of Tattoos by Lou (seriously) loves the challenge of replicating other artist's work, trying to get the same effects in tattoo as they did in whatever medium they originally used.  He did Becky's first illustrator tattoo, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and returned to the scene of the ink for Otis.

Side Note: That last link is to the Los Angeles Review of Books, where Lisa Jane Persky writes, "Becky Quiroga’s “Very Hungry Caterpillar,” drawn on her arm by Eric Carle himself, is a piece of body art that soccer moms from Sandusky to Timbuktu would find it [SIC] hard to disapprove of."  But people see what they want.  The more ink Becky gets, the more strangers are wary of the badass tattooed chick.  Few look closely enough to see that they're pictures from children's books.


So it's a tattoo artist's rendering of an illustrator's actual drawing on Becky's arm, get it?  Stop saying, "I guess you'll never wash that arm again."


Becky was able to get Otis between Loren Long's first and second appearances, so he was able to see the finished product.

Pictured: Natural behavior.

Long was soooo nice.  He's the type of nice guy who's so nice that I walk away thinking, "Why can't I be more like him?"  Most people who meet me immediately think I'm an asshole.  Which is 1) not far off 2) why hand-selling books is difficult for me.  So this asshole thinks I should buy "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet;" whoop-dee-freaking-whoo.

The Otis tattoo made Shelf Awareness as well, on September 19th.  Yes, that's how topical I am.  More to the point, that's what Miami Book Fair International 2011 did to me.  It took over all three of my lives, the internet one, the writing one, and the breathing one.

With the presidential credentials on her forearm, can Maurice Sendak's Max be far behind?  Are you listening, Mr. Sendak?  Say the word and we're Connecticut bound.

Miami Book Fair International Day 6: The Party Starts Today

This year opened with Christopher Paolini's Inheritance on Sunday afternoon.  The Miami Writers Institute, Student Literary Encounters, and the heavy hitters - Dorothy Alison, Harry Belafonte, John Sayles, Ron Suskind, Calvin Trillin - have been hitting all week long, but these next three days are key.  The Street Fair is its own monster, and Books & Books is 90% ready.

It's ten minutes to six am.  Becky and I are dropping Dylan off at school in the dark so we can finish the job of getting the tents set up.

Some retailers have the holiday season; at Books & Books, we have Miami Book Fair International.

Tensions are high.  Illness runs rampant.  Three of us have almost quit this week, including me.  When the gates open in about four hours, we'll find out if it's all been worth it.

There have been more cancellations.  I read an apologetic email from an author just recovering from the flu.  This author knew that flying down to Miami for the weekend would cause the flu to return, so... he can't make it, sorry.

Not everyone at Books & Books is or has gotten sick but there's a fairly sturdy illness making the rounds on some key players.  I worked a sixty-hour week, spent a miserable Friday night and all day Saturday in bed, and then worked another sixty hour week starting Sunday.  14 and 16 hour days are just as beneficial for your health as you'd imagine.

I'm putting more effort into stocking Authorton McFluwhiner's books than he is into promoting them.

As Becky says, "His loss, don't it so personally."  I don't.  Much.  I just get annoyed when people have the kind of jobs where they can make those choices.  I wonder what it is about me that I have never had the kind of job where I can take a sick day.  It is me, refusing to take one?  People call out all the time at every job I've ever had, so maybe it is just me.

Anyway, I've gone off topic and now the alarm is going off.  My point is, there's stuff I wanted to do.  I haven't written in forever, and not just blogs.  I've been sleeping in until seven, because waking at five would be pushing myself too hard, and this cold keeps nipping at my heels.  I wanted to morph that post about the wedding books into something Book Fairish for The Heat Lightning, because a ton of those authors are appearing.  I wanted to interview someone awesome like Vera Brosgol or Hillary Jordan for THL, too.  I wanted to drink juice and eat soup.

Well, I did that last one.  Just not enough.

By the end of every day, I'm in that mode where I have to keep moving, because if I stop, I'll crash.  It was over a hundred degrees in the tent yesterday.  I think I lost ten pounds of water.  I know I didn't pee once.  It's supposed to rain all weekend.

Wish us luck.

The Wedding Giveaway

I'm prouder of these invites than my last five short stories

You may or may not know that Becky and I are having a book-themed wedding.  The books listed here are our partings gifts.  Some have come to us from reps, some from the famed Indie Bound goodie box, some from our shelves.  With these as our take home gifts one thing is for sure - our family will leave happy. 


Because these books are all worth your time, I wanted to share.  Click a link and take one home, why don't you?


I'd like to especially thank Jim Barkley, Gail Whitten, Geoff Rizzo, Doni Kay, Eric Svenson, and Marty Conroy.  They're publisher's sales reps, some of the best booksellers in the business.  When I get praised for doing my job well, I'm usually just foisting work off on one of them.


Only 15 days to go!

Fiction:

Piers Anthony; The Source of Magic

It's the second book in the series but the first one I read.  God, I loved these as a teenager.  I bought this intending to see how it had aged, but hopefully someone else will love it as much as I did.

Madison Smartt Bell; The Color of Night

I grabbed this one from Mitchell's personal collection because it looked too good to wait for him to read it.  Of course, I didn't get to read it yet myself.  Yet.

Naomi Benaron; Running the Rift

This is the third winner of the Bellwether Prize, the others being the amazing The Girl Who Fell from the Sky (see below) and the mighty Mudbound.  I think you've heard me praise those a time or two before.  If Barbara Kingsolver loves Running the Rift, that's good enough for me.

Brian Michael Bendis; Ultimate Spider-Man vol 2: Chameleons

Okay, I admit this one came straight from the rep.  But Brian Michael Bendis wrote goddamn Goldfish and freaking Torso, so how could it be anything but awesome?

David Benioff; The 25th Hour

We all remember how much I love this book while hating the author's pretty face, right?  Enough said.

Ray Bradbury; Collected Stories: A Critical Edition Volume I: 1938 - 1943

On any list of short stories authors who have most influenced modern fiction, Ray Bradbury makes the top five.  Maybe the top three.  I cried a little when I gave this one up.  

Ken Bruen and Jason Starr; Slide

A re-gift from the Hard Case Crime series.  Becky and I wrapped and labelled all of the books in cobalt blue to match our wedding colors, and we had a mass market-sized piece left over.  I promise to read it one day, because Hard Case is cool.

Bonnie Jo Campbell; Once Upon a River

I seldom read jacket copy or reviews, I just pick up a book and start reading.  If I'm hooked, I'll take it home.  I grabbed this one because it passed the test, but it looks like someone else will need to tell me whether the rest of the book lives up to the first chapter's promise.

Glen Duncan; The Last Werewolf

While I have mixed feelings about the praise being heaped upon this book, I have no doubts about Duncan's skills, or how much I enjoyed reading it.  Not without flaws*, but ultimately a hell of a lot of fun.

*I thought some of the passages got a little too military, which is not to my taste, and Duncan was much more deft with the character-driven scenes than the action; so there's a gentle critique which hasn't stopped me recommending it all over the place and getting nothing but smiles back, okay?

Heidi W. Durrow; Girl Who Fell From the Sky

By contrast, this is not one I'd call fun, but you can read for years and never come across a book half as good.  In all ways, finding a book like this is why we read.  I mentioned Kingsolver and the Bellwether Prize on this one already, right?  Good.  Just read it, already.

Anne Enright; The Forgotten Waltz

I can't remember grabbing this one.  I like Norton, and I probably figured it was about time I read something by Anne Enright.  It hasn't come out yet, but if you check Amazon, you'll find a slap-down of a review which is exactly what I was talking about a few posts back. 

Nigel Farndale; The Blasphemer

Another one I haven't read yet.  Another one it pained me to give up.  I fell in love with this one all over again while I was wrapping it and immediately saw why I took it home.  Why I didn't read it immediately is a bigger mystery, but I'll get on it.

William Giraldi; Busy Monsters

I hate reviews which say stuff like "it's like Kurosawa on steroids" or "Jane Austen on crack."


Busy Monsters is like Chuck Klosterman's Killing Yourself to Live on acid.

Sara Gruen; Ape House
I've written about this one for THL.  I want to reiterate, I liked this book.  Did I love it?  No.  I still wish she'd written three beautiful, carefully considered books with this rich material.  Nevertheless, it's a page-turner, and a worthy read.

Hillary Jordan; When She Woke

Apparently I've mentioned this twice in passing (best reads so far this year and hoping it's huge in my BEA wrap-up) but I haven't posted a love-letter to it yet.  Huh.  Well, I guess this will be the third passing mention.  I really, really hope it's an out-of-the-ballpark success for Algonquin, Water for Elephants-style.  Remember the Bellwether Prize-winning Mudbound I mentioned?  This is the author's  second book.  Different, but equally awesome.

Stephen King; The Colorado Kid

Stephen King!  Hard Case Crime!  Mass market-sized scrap of cobalt paper!  Re-gifting!  Now it's out of print so I might never get to read it!  I suck!

A. Lee Martinez; Chasing the Moon

This dustjacket I did read, because it's nothing but a giant quote from the book.  I picked it up because it looked fun, in a Terry Pratchett meets Warren Ellis kind of way. 

Simon Morden; Degrees of Freedom

This should only appear in manuscript form because all the market associated with it is off-putting.  Just pick it up, start reading, and enjoy.

Marisa De Los Santos; Falling Together

Ever since Marisa de los Santos did an author appearance for Love Walked In and forever made it a Books & Books bestseller, I've wanted to read her work.  That was 2005.  Then a freebie of Falling Together came in and I grabbed it, thinking, "Finally."  I hope someone in my family enjoys it.

Steven C. Schlozman, MD; The Zombie Autopsies

It's tough to pin down the coolest thing about this book.  The fact that it creates a very believable scientific reality?  The we-found-these-transcripts-in-a-deserted-remote-location tease in the manner of The Blair Witch Project?  The anatomical drawings?  It's all so good.

Martha Southgate; The Taste of Salt

Another one which I shed a bitter tear to see leave my shelves, but if you love something you're supposed to let it go, right?  Also, further proof of my Algonquin crush.

JM Tohline; The Great Lenore

Maybe I shouldn't have looked through what I was wrapping, or chosen differently.  I just wanted to give decent stuff, you know?  This one looks so damn good.  Letting it go might have been my biggest bitter tear.

Alexi Zentner; Touch

Judge a book by its cover, but only when it's that good.  This made me think of a family gathered around a hot stove in the dead of winter, telling stories to pass the time.  It's off my shelf, but I still look forward to reading it.

Nonfiction:

Diane Ackerman; One Hundred Names for Love
Grabbed it from the bookseller freebie shelf, started it, took it home, passed it on.

Martin Amis; Everyday Drinking
That link is for the paperback but I bought it in hardcover.  In fact, everything I bought at Voltaire I bought in hardcover, every time I visited - they didn't go out of business because of me.  Are there plans for a Books & Books Key West?  I'm not at liberty to say.  Are there intentions, wishes, hopes, and schemes?  Perhaps.

This is the type of book which should only be given as a gift.  The rich wit harkens to a simpler time when a fun-loving drunk could live beyond judgement.  Nowadays it's too guilty a pleasure to buy for yourself, but getting it from someone else is a treat.

Kevin Avery; Everything is an Afterthought: the Life and Writings of Paul Nelson
After I wrapped this one, I plucked another off the freebie shelf the very next day.  The smidge of guilt I feel for depriving someone else of the book is overwhelmed by the joy at keeping this on my shelves.

Donia Bijan; Maman's Homesick Pie
When women writes about food and family, they become part of a sub-genre.  Chances are they'll be marketed a certain way, a way that brims with nostalgia and coziness.  There's nothing in life more important than food, friends, and family, and slapping a cover like that on Bijan's memoir feels dismissive.  Or maybe another set of eyes would have to have this book, I don't know.  To me, this should only exist in manuscript form as well.  Pick it up, start reading, and be sucked in.

Marshall Chapman; They Came to Nashville
I've had this on my shelves for a bit.  It seems like a good one to have, doesn't it?

Stephen Greenblatt; The Swerve
I don't read much history myself but this just came out and our customers are going apeshit for it.  I'm not sure if it's because Greenblatt wrote Will in the World, or if they just really want to read about the renaissance.  Ask a history buff.

Chelsea Handler, Chelsea's Family, Chelsea's Friends, and Other Victims; Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me
My Book Club, Page Against the Machine, read Handler's second book because of me.  I told them that My Horizontal Life was equal to David Sedaris, that I read the first story of Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang aloud to Becky while she was driving and we both cried laughing and almost crashed the car, but I didn't mention Chelsea's breakout hit, her post-talkshow second offering, Are You There Vodka?  It's Me, Chelsea.  Parts awesome, meh overall.

For me it doesn't get better than My Horizontal Life, a pre-talk show stand-up comedian, very self-aware, very inappropriate, writing about her life.

I stand by my statement; give My Horizontal Life the Pepsi challenge vs. Me Talk Pretty One Day and see which one makes you laugh out loud more.  Yet Sedaris is a national treasure, while Handler is that talk show chick.  That's why she's had four different publishers - they just don't get it.  (How four publishers but three books, not including this one which she didn't write?  Harper agreed to publish Vodka first; it had an ISBN, a page in their 2007 catalog, then bupkiss; next year, Simon & Schuster put it out).

What does all of his have to do with Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me?  Very little.  Which is what Handler had to do with this book.   

Sam Kean; The Disappearing Spoon
Oh those madcap scientists, using gallium teaspoons as a prank on their guests.  One of my best friends from high school went to MIT.  He told me about a prank pulled during the first week wherein students would press the button on a drinking fountain and the lights on the entire floor would flicker off.  So, um... yeah.  Read this.   

Robert Morgan; Lions of the West
In an ode to Manifest Destiny, ten historical figures tromp westward to prove they deserved America more than the Indians.  I'm sure it rocks, though.

Penguin Classics (Various authors); Know the Past, Find the Future: The New York Public Library at 100
While Miami-Dade considers shutting down 13 libraries to close a $400-million dollar budget gap created by a ridiculous stadium no one gives a rat's ass about apart from the politicians and contractors who got their pockets lined, New Yorkers enjoy this love letter from Penguin publishing.  Celebrities literary and otherwise gush about their favorite piece in the library's collection, and get their picture taken.  Miami, why not try being a real city?  

Mary Roach; Packing for Mars
Mary Roach is another author who I've been meaning to read for years, but the difference between her and Anne Enright or Marisa de los Santos is that I have a bunch of Roach's books.  Before I gave this one away, Roach held the dubious distinction of being the most-represented, least-read author on my shelves.  Now, she's tied with Zadie Smith.  

Tom Ryan; Following Atticus
For me - and I doubt I'm alone on this one - dog memoirs jumped the shark when Marley and Me multiplied into a picture book, a Young Adult book, and finally a movie.  Dogs suck, okay?  Didn't your mom love you enough, you have to roll around on the floor with a smelly bundle of drooling dog breath whose big selling point is that it will love anybody?  Unless your book is Travels with Charley, shut up about your damn dog.  I love cats, but I don't want to hear about how they changed your life, either.  And I really don't want them solving cozy mysteries.

Anyway, you know, Tom Ryan is cool.  

Amy Stewart; Wicked Plants
Amy Stewart in coming to Fairchild Tropical Garden in the fall.  I was sorely tempted to keep this one to have her sign it.  It was even a first edition.  But a book this cool deserves to be shared.  It's a lot, lot, lot of fun.  I'll more than likely end up buying it again.

Young Adult:

Brian Michael Bendis; Takio
What's Takio?  No idea.  This is another one right from the rep.  But again - Brian Michael Bendis.

Vera Brosgol; Anya's Ghost
I loved this book.  Becky loved this book.  We both love hand-selling this book.  Apart from one woman who didn't feel comfortable giving her grandson a book with references to smoking and menstruation, we've had zero complaints.  You'll love it, too.

Anya's Ghost proves that First Second, while not my favorite graphic novel publisher (that title goes to Vertigo for Preacher, Y the Last Man, and the mighty Scalped), puts out work that really means a lot to me.  First Second scratches me right where I itch, with stories about characters trying to navigate the muddied waters of mixed culture.  Don't get what I'm talking about?  After you've read Brosgol, grab American Born Chinese off my dessert island shelf.

Katie Crouch; The Magnolia League
I really enjoyed Crouch's second book, Men and Dogs.  I've also found that a keeping a table stack on hand leads to decent sales - never a given unless there's also a bookseller there to recommend it.  I was on a panel with her at SIBA and found her intelligent and charming and I've been saving Girls in Trucks for a rainy day.

Crouch sent me Magnolia League with a personal note.  I meant to read it, and to give her a slamming introduction at her reading at Books & Books like I did with Joe Hill, but somehow. . .  I never did.

I kept a copy, though.  The cover of the ARC is much more interesting than this girl in a chair.  You'll see it when I scan it and gush over the book in a future post.  

Julie Anne Peters; she loves you, she loves you not...
Teenage love hurts.  This book proves its hurts just as much for lesbian teens.

Joe Schreiber; Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick
Becky's in charge of the YA, and she loved the shit out of this one.  She couldn't stop laughing, and I could barely get her attention the whole time.

So Joe Schreiber, I hope your book is supposed to be partly funny, and you owe me two days of loving.

Cooking:

Lauren Chattman; Cookie Swap!
How much fun is a cookie swap!  Actually, I have no idea, never having done one myself.  But I've heard good things.  Primarily from the jacket copy of this book.  I did do a few clothing and costume swaps that were awesome, and I imagine the principle is the same.

Of course, those swaps may have been awesome because they involved nudity.  But the right cookie can compete with nudity.

Janice Cole; Chicken and Egg 
Really a memoir about a food writer who decides to raise chickens in an urban setting.  I imagine her publisher decided to fluff out the memoir with recipes to give you more bang for your buck.  Or should I say. . . cluck?  Ahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaa!!!

Lilach German; Cupcakes, Cupcakes and More Cupcakes!
Confession time.  I often mistake cupcakes for muffins, and vice versa.  More bad news?  I describe cupcakes thusly: "The same as a muffin, except with frosting."  I probably should've kept this one and leafed through it daily until my mental block / disconnect corrected itself, but I wanted it to go to someone who would actually use it.  Plus, I want to see the aunts fight over who gets it. 

Viola Goren; Pies, Pies and More Pies!
Imagine Publishing never met an exclamation point they didn't like.
Fun fact?  Type the title into my job's website and the first book that comes up is The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.  So close. 

Laura Werlin; Great Grilled Cheese
I bought this one because of Werlin's presentation at the South Beach Wine and Food Festival this year.  Transforms grilled cheese from a guilty pleasure into a gourmet delight.

Coffee Table Books:

Marcelo Bendahan; Carnivals of the World
We opened the shrink-wrap to give it our cobalt blue wrap and were blown away.  Gorgeous and fun.

Seth H. Bramson; Historic Photos of Greater Miami
Historic Photos of - is an awesome series.  If you live in South Florida, you know the name Seth Bramson.  This one is the perfect marriage of series and author, and another Books & Books bestseller.

Dennis Connors; Historic Photos of Syracuse
The hoops I had to jump through to get this book to come up on our website make we wonder how Books & Books ever sells anything online.  Like some CD and movie databases I've been on, sometime your really need to know exactly what you're looking for.

Anyway, I take it all back - giving this up was the biggest bitter tear I shed.

Robert A. McCabe; The Ramble in Central Park
It took my last trip to New York City to make me really appreciate this book.

Jennifer Ortiz; Historic Photos of Cuban Miami
Another Books & Books bestseller.  I wonder whether my family or Becky's will snatch this up.

K.Y. Solonin; 19th Century Paintings of Life in China
The tiniest picture for the largest book?  Gosh, the internet is a strange place.


I love the story behind this book almost as much as I love the paintings.

Silliness:

DK Publishing; Alice in Wonderland Visual Guide

Love this movie or hate it, now in book form.

Warner Brothers; Harry Potter Poster Book: Inside the Magical World, Ultimate Collector's Edition

For ultimate collectors.

If you've made it this far, congratulations.  You're either a fiercely loyal Sweet Reader, a member of our family setting your sights on a particular book, or you have way too much time on your hands.  Nevertheless, you deserve a reward.

Enjoy.