The Per Petterson

Just a note to let people know that we have some signed copies of Petterson's "I Curse The River of Time" and some very nice signed broadsides printed by Vandalia Street Press from the new novel for $20.

A book event is almost always a book event except...

when it is something completely different. And what Ben Weaver has planned for the next few weeks is something to take a look at. Ben is a local artist-at-large; or, at least, that's what I've taken to calling him. He's been a locally, nationally and internationally known singer for years now and this new endeavor he's set up is to coincide with the release of his new cd Mirepoix and Smoke. Over the past few years he's also released two chapbooks of poetry "Hand Me Downs Can Be Haunted" and "The Talking Comes Later". He's also brought himself back into the local food world--most recently cooking at Corner Table and The Craftsman.

To celebrate all of this he has curated a multidisciplinary three-show residency at the Bryant Lake Bowl entitled Tramping With The Pioneers. On 9/23@7 p.m. 'Food' is the focus. On 10/8@10 p.m. 'Music' is the focus with the release of the new album. And the middle event, on 9/30@7 p.m. 'Words' are the focus and that's where we come in. That night Ben will read from and play from his own work but he's asked some local literary friends to read with him. Jonathan Miles, author of the hilarious novel "Dear American Airlines" will read as will local poets Lightsey Darst, Dobby Gibson and Juliet Patterson. We will be there selling all of their work.

More info on the full line-ups for his other events can be found here and info regarding tickets and all other events at BLB can be found at their website.

Over the last seven years here at Micawber's I've been lucky to get to know Ben as a customer and then as a friend. I hope this great trio of events gets the attention I know that it deserves.

St. Paul fiction hits it big...

Jonathan Franzen is the novelist who is either madly loved or hated right now. Other novelists are upset by the amount of attention his new novel "Freedom" is receiving. He is one of only two novelists to ever be featured on the cover of TIME magazine and there are reviews in print and on-line all over the place. So I'm not going to review the book other than to say that people who loved "The Corrections" will feel similarly and those who didn't like it will also feel the same. The most recent novel is set, mostly, in Minnesota and St. Paul in large part. He will be kicking off the Fall season of Talking Volumes at the Fitzgerald Theater--though the event is already sold out.


Alas, not every quality novelist can be featured on the cover of magazines with massive circulation numbers and fancy, glossy, covers. St. Paul's own John Reimringer also has a novel just published that is set, mostly, here in our fine capital city. Next Friday, the 10th, at 7 p.m. Reimringer will be having the launch event for his book in the store. We're very exicted for this event and anticipate a large crowd so be ready to jostle for space if you're coming. A few years ago John read here for an event with Milkweed about their anthology "Fiction on a Stick: Stories by Writers From Minnesota" and the story he read from is entitled 'Betty Garcia.' She is one of the main characters in his novel "Vestments". So we're bringing this whole thing full circle and couldn't be happier to be involved in two great events for books set in this city we so love.

bookstores and Bookstores

There are oodles and oodles of bookstores housed in cool places. Old banks, Victorian houses, riverboats. You name it. My sister-in-law just sent me some pictures of a store she was at in Buenos Aires in an old theater that was renovated about 10 years ago. This place looks like trouble in a very good way.

Field Notes

My previous post was all about books. I said we carry few items other than books. Today, however, we got in a new line of journals from the good people at Field Notes. They have a variety of lined, blank and ruled journals. They also have a new line of 'County Fair' editions for each and every state. Currently we only carry the MN edition. Each notebook has state facts and trivia and comes in a pack of three for $10.

From these little notebooks I've learned that MN has 87 counties. Tenney is the smallest town with a population of six. Eagle Mtn. is our highest point at 2,301 feet.

The three-packs come in a sharp combo of blue, red and yellow.

Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics

There are days when it feels like what we're doing at Micawber's is an anachronism. We sell books and that is pretty much it. Sure, we carry some cards and magazines and blank journals. We don't sell reading glasses or stuffed animals or any other kind of sideline--all of which are markets that many small bookstores have made work for them over the past 20-30 years. The discount is often better on non-book items and if it works it works. But it simply wasn't something any of us were interested in doing.

From major media to industry publications to literary blogs the chatter is comprised largely, of late, about e-readers and electronic media and new ways to bring in revenue for publishers and bookstores. And while I don't thumb my nose at the Kindle/Nook/Ipad devices, it seems to me to be something best left to other to worry about. Just yesterday I read a very interesting piece about indie publishing. Like a lot of other industries, the book world is filled with subterfuge, evasiveness and blatant lies when it comes to what is actually selling. Publishers will say they are printing X number of copies of a book when it is actually Y. Bookstores will say they've sold twice as many copies of a book than they actually have. It's part of a larger disease--we all want to seem important and are willing to juke the numbers to make it seem so.

Over the course of time, I've taken a hard-line approach to this. When people ask about numbers of sales or attendance at an event I go with the truth. It's disappointing, at times, to certain people but it keeps things on the level. The craziest statistic, to me, from that post was the fact that the indie presses stated that 90% of their sales still come from brick and mortar stores. Even I was astounded by that figure.

But it cemented for me the idea that real bookstores can still help individual books and their sales. Convenience and price can be had on-line or electronically and there is something to be said for that. Yet the small press, the true defender of the new idea or the avant garde or the book that won't sell 50,000 copies but is important nonetheless still depends on stores to sell books. I found that heartening.

So, is the paper book dying? Maybe. But we still have customers from 10-20 and 20-30 who say they want books. And we still have E-Book users who also want paper books. The real answers to the book industry problems are in flux and unknown to even those of us in the industry. Time shall tell.

It is sweet and it is bitter

August 1st marked our seventh anniversary and it's something that we're happy about and proud of.

Sadly, we also got news yesterday of the death of Kevin Morrissey who had currently been the Managing Editor at the Virginia Quarterly Review--which he had helped shape into one of the finest literary journals in the country. Before that he had worked for the MN Historical Society Press and helped us immensely during our first year. He always thought of the one thing when we were convinced all angles had been covered. Kevin was a real book lifer and also worked at Hungry Mind and Gringolet locally. He was 52 years old and will be missed by many.

So as we continue onward and celebrate our small success we also must pay our respects to a very good man. Rest in peace, Kevin.