Book geekiness and super intensity

I'm an admitted book geek and I understand, truly, how odd my love of books is to the great majority of the world. But I own my geekiness. One of 'odd shelves' of books is true stuff--and specifically, true crime related to books and other art.

So I was very happy to find a copy of "The Man Who Loved Books Too Much" by Allison Hoover Bartlett waiting for me at the store yesterday. The book doesn't officially come out until September 2009 and I'm only twenty-five pages in so it's way too early to know if it's good yet. But I was struck by one of the epigrams.

"For him that stealeth, or borroweth and returneth not, this book from its owner...let him be struck with palsy, & all his members blasted...Let bookworms gnaw his entrails in token of the Worm that dieth not, & when at last he goeth to his final punishment, let the flames of Hell consume him forever."--Anathema in a medieval manuscript from the Monastery of San Pedro in Barcelona.

Now, I'm all for serious punishment for serious crime and whatnot--but that is some serious venom coming from those monks. Just another reminder not mess with religious orders or theft.

Corpus Libris

Hey Good People: I did decide to return from NYC despite enjoying the Great Lawn, Shake Shack and wonderful public transportation an awful lot. I'll be getting to the winners of the swag in the next couple days(don't get too excited--it's recession swag) but I want to post something real quick and point you to an incredibly fun book blog. http://corpuslibris.blogspot.com/ is a site where they post pictures of people posing with book covers. I submitted one a few weeks back and we'll see if it makes the cut. Sadly, we had a hard time lining it up just right because my face is longer than a cheetah's. Almost, but not quite right.

And now I'm gone...

Not yet, really. But I will be going to New York this week for a yearly bookseller's convention. At BEA(Book Expo America) there are lots of things going on. Panels upon panels upon panels covering everything from the new books for Fall to social media(like blogs!) to ways to increase profit by selling a lot of sidelines/bizarre materials in no real way related to a bookstore.

We decided, from the beginning, that we would make it by selling actual books. Not gadgets like head-lamps for reading in bed. Not beanie babies or chewing gum or hand-towels with Shakespeare's face on them*. Not e-books. All of those things have a place in the American marketplace--we know that and do not want to seem snobbish in our regard to them. But books are what we know and love dearly. So I will head to the BIGAPPLE and try to remain focused on our task at hand--namely, getting good and different books into your hands.

So I will ignore the trinkets and madness that can accompany any trade meeting. I will go to meetings and listen to other booksellers talk about what has/has not worked for them. I will get some advance copies of books due in the coming months so we can talk to you about them. I will order more remainder books(discounted and foreign titles) that allow our customers to have some choices that are both cheap and interesting. I will talk to agents, sales reps, publishers, authors and booksellers. I will attend some cocktail parties and do my best at what I do worst--making small-talk. I will walk and walk and walk.

BEA will be different this year. Lots of publishers are scaling back the number of author appearances, parties and the size of their booths--the economy, of course, necessitates that. But I will continue to preach my gospel: the Midwest is not fly-over land. Small bookstores can still matter in a world of Costco's, Target's and a million on-line retailers. We have readers here. Readers who choose to select their own books. Readers who still depend on words printed on paper. Readers who, despite the trends, still read things beyond the national bestseller lists.

I also promise to collect some swag. The first five e-mailers to micawbers@popp.net will get some kind of gift I bring back from the convention. It might be a canvas bag. It could be some free books. It could be something I cannot even imagine. Just put free stuff in the subject line of your e-mail. Or call the store and tell them I promised something.

In any case, I'll be back around the 1st of June.

Until then....

Hans

Excuses are like opinions...

So, it's spring and I've been slacking on posting. One of the reasons is that I've been selling books at lots of events outside of the store. Author events are like anything else in life. They can seem exciting--but after time they aren't always so great. It's similar to the pizza joint your best friend worked at in high-school. At first, it's thrilling and wonderful. Then it becomes mundane and boring.

So after ten years and about 1,000 total events I'd recently become a bit jaded by events. You often hear the same questions from audience members(what time of day do you write/do you write on paper or the computer/what does it mean). And authors frequently read for far too long in my experience. Yet, in the past few weeks I've attended two events that were revelatory. Very different in many ways and similar in all the ways that are good.

Norah Labiner is a talented novelist whose style is all her own. She has published three amazingly creative novels with local Coffee House Press. I attended an event at the Loft Literary Center two weeks back--she read and was accompanied by her husband on pump organ. It was a fascinating evening and I really encourage you to see her read if at all possible. Two more chances are coming soon: 5/21/09 at the Hamline Midway Library at 7 p.m. and 6/30/09 at the Ridgedale Library also at 7 p.m. This is a great example of a small press working with a talented, if fairly unknown, author. Her novels are mind-blowing in their creativity and genre-bending ways.

This past Wednesday evening, we sold books at the Minneapolis Club for Graywolf Press and their author Elizabeth Alexander. She's now best known as the woman who read a poem at Obama's inauguration. Now a big name in the world of poetry--she has long been a stalwart at Graywolf. And only when she began to read the now famous poem did I realize that I was witnessing a truly historical moment--if on repeat. Her reading was measured and simple and powerful. She also discussed all of the pressure and madness that was involved with her writing the poem and getting it into print. Graywolf rushed a very beautiful chapbook edition of the poem into print and it is available for $8.

What these two events reminded me of was a pretty simple fact I had forgotten: events can make a powerful book or work even more powerful. Art, in person, is a very different thing than art on paper.

A bonus is that we got 20 copies of "Praise Song For the Day" signed by Elizabeth Alexander. We'll only be selling one copy per customer to limit dealers and collectors from hoarding them all. Available until they're gone.

2009 Best of the Twin Cities

We're happy to have been named Best New Bookstore(there is a Used category as well) by City Pages for 2009.

Micawber's Book Chat and a poem

Join us this Thursday, the 16th, at 7 p.m. as the four booksellers of Micawber's discuss some of our recent favorite reads. New stuff and old. Young adult, essays and new fiction. We read across the board. Stop in for some ideas to get your spring reading kick-started.

From "An Aquarium" by Jeffrey Yang

Crab

Slantwise the crab advances. Poets,
philosophers, the body
politic share different aspects
of this problem.

"What's My Name, Fool?"*

It's always exciting for a bookseller when books arrive in the store that we've already read in advance and enjoyed. This week I had that excitement tripled. Two novels and a one book of nonfiction that I've been waiting a long time for. The novels really could not be more different from one another in tone, focus and style. But what joins them, in my mind, is a very solid sense of place. "All The Living" is a first novel that follows a young woman, Aloma, to her husband's family farm in rural Kentucky. His parents have recently died in an auto accident and the book traces the couple as they try to come to terms with a dying way of life(tobacco farming), a dying town and a family in disrepair. But it isn't all woe--Morgan's writing is assured and measured and filled with beauty. The second book, Chris Cleave's "Little Bee" is a book that indy booksellers have been chattering about for months now. Due to the nature of the story I can't really talk about it too much without giving away important details and storylines. I can promise it is one of those books you want to read without the bother of phone calls or going to work or washing the dishes. It truly is a tour de force.

The last book is one I was pretty hesitant to even look at. Dave Cullen's "Columbine" takes a look at the Colorado school shooting from 1999. I thought it would be voyeuristic and too much like a cheesy newspaper or magazine article. I was wrong on all fronts. Cullen spent 10 years researching this event--looking at the how's and why's and what could have been's. He's done an amazing job weaving together the stories of families affected by the deaths or serious injuries to their children along with some serious looks into the lives of the two killers. America's obsession with firearms and our bizarre 24/7 media culture also get some examination. In the end the reader is still left with a lot of questions. Yet some answers are given and it is an example of journalism at its finest--well-researched rather than the quick point. Emotional without being sappy. Pointing towards some issues that we, as a country, need to deal with. Or else continue to face events as heartbreaking and scary as Columbine all over again.

Also, I'm just sending out our April e-mail newsletter with a focus on poetry as it is National Poetry month. Too many people are scared of this fine form. I'm going to make it a point to post some fun and accesible poems during the month. Let a little poetry into your life this month.




*That is what Muhammad Ali once yelled at Floyd Patterson during a fight when Patterson had kept calling him Cassius Clay. Happy April Fool's.