Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Basketball, Rick Bragg on Jerry Lee Lewis, and Fred Chappell

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Duke plays UNC--tonight at The Regulator! 

We have just three more author events this month, but we think you'll agree we're finishing our year in style.  

--Tonight Johnny Moore (Duke Blue) and Art Chansky (Carolina Blue) will tell some great local basketball stories.   

 

--Friday night Rick Bragg will talk about wild music and wild and crazy goings-on, Jerry Lee Lewis style.  

 

--And next Tuesday Fred Chappell will elevate the common house cat to literary and poetic art. Read more below!

 

 

Our Final Events of the Year:

Tonight at 7:00 Duke and UNC go at it on the basketball court once again--right here at The Blue Divide Regulator!
Johnny Moore, publisher of the Blue Devil Weekly and Carolina grad/fan Art Chansky, former sports editor of the Durham Morning Herald will talk about their new book, The Blue Divide: Duke, North Carolina, and the Battle on Tobacco Road. Die-hard fans of both shades of blue will love all the inside info in this book on the coaches, players, and great games of this storied rivalry. Johnny Moore promises he will show up even if it snows....

   * * * * * * *
 
Then Friday night at 7:00 we'll have another big time at the old bookshop when

Rick Bragg comes to town to talk about his new biography, Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story.

 

First let's hear from Ann Patchett about this book: "I loved every amphetamine-laced, whiskey-soaked, gun-shot page of it." OK. So we got that out of the way. This is a really good book. As for the book's subject? Jerry Lee Lewis? Pulitzer prize winner Rick Bragg has some great material to work with here. You couldn't make this stuff up.

 

Quoting from Stephen King's review of Rick Bragg's book in last Sunday's New York Times:

Jerry Lee was a breech baby who came into the world (in a small town in Louisiana) feet first. The doctor showed up in time to do the delivery, but passed out before things got serious. Jerry Lee's father, Elmo delivered the baby himself as his wife, Mamie, deep in labor, exhorted him to be careful of the arms and head.

 

By the age of 10, Jerry Lee was sneaking into a local blues emporium called Haney's Big Jerry Lee House (he urged his cousin, Jimmy Swaggart, to come with him, but Jimmy, fearing damnation, refused). Jerry Lee later tried the ministry himself, enrolling in the Southwestern Bible Institute, but was expelled for playing "My God Is Real" ­boogie-woogie style. The piney woods come-to-Jesus religion he was raised in never left him (early in his recording career, he shared his belief - recorded in the Sun studios, and at top volume - that he was going to hell for singing "Great Balls of Fire"), but the call of secular music was too strong. Put simply, he was born to rock, and rock he did, through seven marriages( including one to his 13 year old third cousin), the deaths of two children, hundreds of honky-tonk hookups and more than a few wrecked cars, addiction to painkillers, surgical removal of a third of his stomach, constant (and undoubtedly justified) harassment by the I.R.S., bankruptcy, and a Rolling Stone article by Richard Ben Cramer suggesting he may have murdered Shawn Stephens, his fifth wife.

 

Jerry Lee Lewis was the first person inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. When John Lennon met him, he dropped to his knees and kissed Lewis' feet. Mick Jagger once waited to have his Jerry Lee albums signed.

 

Stephen King ends his review with this:

My mother first clapped eyes on Jerry Lee Lewis in 1958, when he performed "Great Balls of Fire" on one of Dick Clark's shows. There he was in all his leopard skin glory, with his long blond hair flying and flash-pots going off in the background. Most acts lip-synced, but that was never Lewis's way. My mother - no slouch at the keyboard herself, and more than willing to play barrelhouse boogie on the Methodist church piano after she'd had a drink or two - was transfixed. When the performance was over, after less than two minutes of high-­tension rock 'n' roll, she said softly, wonderingly, "I think that young man is crazy." Then she added, almost to herself, "But he can play the piano like the Devil lit his behind on fire."

 

Come hear the Pulitzer Prize winning son of Possum Trot Alabama talk about his new book, and of the two summers he spent talking with Jerry Lee Lewis. Along with the book, we will also have Lewis's new cd, "Rock and Roll Time" available for sale. And....well it just seems right. We'll be sharing some "liquid refreshment" Friday night as well.

 

* * * * * * * 

 

Then for our final event of the year, we're very much looking forward to welcoming one of our very favorite North Carolina writers, Fred Chappell next Tuesday at 7:00.Fred Chappell

Fred is probably best known for his wonderful novels set in the mountains of North Carolina-Farewell, I Am Bound to Leave You and I Am One of You Forever. But Fred Chappell is also a remarkable poet. He has won the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Bollingen Prize, and he was Poet Laureate of North Carolina. Fred will read from his latest volume of poetry, Familiars.

 

The poems here are all about cats. I am a dog person myself, and tend to view cats as a sometimes necessary annoyance. People I love love them, and hey, they keep the mice out of the house. But every poem I turn to in this book is marvelous, which has me believing that Fred Chappell is indeed quite an accomplished poet! And maybe I should give cats a second chance (which is, of course, more than they would give me!....).

 

A signed copy of Familiars would make an excellent present for the literary cat lover on your list.

* * * * * * * 

One Final Note: 

This Saturday, from 12:30 to 2:30, yet another duo of local acoustic musicians will be playing in the store.  Enjoy listening to some wonderful music from Sarah Kielar (hammered dulcimer) and Lynn Hayes (guitar and bouzouki) while you shop!

 

 Learn more about these and all of our upcoming events by visiting  the events calendar on our web site.
Shop Independent Durham
Tom Campbell
Regulator Bookshop
720 Ninth St.
Durham, NC 27705
(919) 286-2700
http://www.regulatorbookshop.com/
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Regulator Bookshop | 720 Ninth Street | Durham | NC | 27705

Friday, December 5, 2014

May We Recommend...

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Ideas for Books Worth Giving (a.k.a. present-a-bull books)

BOOKS FROM OUR LIST OF HOLIDAY SALE TITLES

How to Cook Everything Fast: A Better Way to Cook Great Food by Mark Bittman

Organize your time in the kitchen so you can spend more time eating and less time cooking. I've yet to try a Mark Bittman recipe that didn't pan out.

 

Family Furnishings: Selected Stories, 1995-2014 by Alice Munro

No one writes better short stories than Nobel Prize winner Alice Munro. Here is a brand new collection of some of her best.

 

The Georgetown Set: Friends and Rivals in Cold War Washington by Gregg Herken.

Journalists, diplomats and spies, drinking and dining together in D.C. during the 1950s and 1960s. Oh yes, and making national policy at the same time.

 

You can see the whole list of our Holiday Sale Titles on our web site, at https://www.regulatorbookshop.com/holiday-sale-titles-1 

 

SOME OF OUR CUSTOMERS' FAVORITES--CURRENT BEST-SELLERS at THE REGULATOR 

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton.

The Booker Prize winning 830 page novel (that everyone reports finishing and loving) by a 29 year old phenomenon from New Zealand.

 

Redeployment by Phil Klay

A collection of stories about the soldiers of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Redeployment won the National Book Award and is on the New York Times list of the 10 best books of the year.

 

What If: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe

If you're dying to know the answers to questions like: "If every human somehow simply disappeared from the face of the earth, how long would it be before the last artificial light source would go out?" this is the book for you. You can also learn how many unique English tweets are possible, and how long it would take for the population of the world to read them all out loud.


MORE BOOKS THAT WE LIKE

In the Kingdom of Ice; The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette by In the Kingdom Hampton Sides

An astounding three year long story of death and survival from a 1879 voyage of discovery.

 

Bohemians, Bootleggers, Flappers and Swells: The Best of Early Vanity Fair edited by Graydon Carter.

Writings from 1913 to 1936, from a killer line-up including folks like Langston Hughes, Clarence Darrow, Dorothy Parker, Colette, E. E. Cummings, etc. etc.

 

The History of Rock 'N' Roll in Ten Songs by Greil Marcus.

Nobody writes about rock 'n' roll like Greil Marcus. Cue up these songs on your ipod or spotify and get down to it.

May We Also Recommend

Coming by the store this Saturday (tomorrow) afternoon, when from 12:30 to 2:30 you can listen to local musicians Eileen Regan and Tim Smith playing acoustic Celtic music while you shop.

A visit to our downstairs "bargain basement" where we have just put out ten boxes of new sale books.

 

Letting us play "Santa's Helper" for you by:

--ordering your books through our web site and we will let you know when they are ready for you to pick up at the store

--emailing us your list, and will we will likewise get your books all ready for you to pick up

--allowing us to be your personal shopper and help you find the perfect book for everyone on your list. 

 

Coming to one of our final author events of the year, including books about basketball, Jerry Lee Lewis, and cats!

Upcoming Events:

JULIA ELLIOTT

Friday, December 5, 7:00 p.m.

At an obscure South Carolina nursing home, a lost world reemerges as a disabled elderly woman undergoes newfangled brain-restoration procedures and begins to explore her environment with the assistance of strap-on robot legs. At a deluxe medical spa on a nameless Caribbean island, a middle-aged woman hopes to revitalize her fading youth with grotesque rejuvenating therapies that combine cutting-edge medical technologies with holistic approaches and the pseudo-religious dogma of Zen-infused self-help. And in a rinky-dink mill town, an adolescent girl is unexpectedly inspired by the ravings and miraculous levitation of her fundamentalist friend's weird grandmother. These are only a few of the scenarios readers encounter in Julia Elliott's debut short story collection, The Wilds. In these genre-bending stories, teetering between the ridiculous and the sublime, Elliott's language-driven fiction uses outlandish tropes to capture poignant moments in her humble characters' lives. Elliot will be in the store to read and sign books.

 

AN EVENING WITH LIVINGSTON PRESS

Monday, December 8, 7:00 p.m.

We're happy to host a lively reading by three fiction authors: Gregg Cussick, L.C. Fiore, and Miriam Herrin. Come hear stories of crashing dirigibles (My Father Moves Through Time Like a Dirigible), the mingling of eco-terrorists and Christian evangelicals (Green Gospel), murder, intrigue, and a journey that winds its way through Carolina, Boston, and eventually through the jungles of Southeast Asia (Absolution).

 

ART CHANSKY & JOHNNY MOORE

Wednesday, December 10, 7:00 p.m.

Blue Divide A complete look at the storied basketball rivalry between the Duke Blue Devils and North Carolina Tar Heels, this guide is penned by two authorities on the subject-Art Chansky, a bestselling author and sports reporter who has covered the famed match up since his days as a student reporter at UNC and Johnny Moore, who has been intimately involved with Duke athletics for nearly four decades. Segmenting the various commonalities the Blue Devils and Tar Heels have shared for more than 60 years and nearly 250 meetings on the court, each chapter covers a distinct aspect of the rivalry between these two schools that stand a mere 10 miles apart. The Blue Divide: Duke, North Carolina, and the Battle on Tobacco Road offers new details on long-forgotten stories as well as a chance to better understand where the pride and passion of today comes from between the two contiguous competitors. Chansky and Moore will be in the store for a discussion and signing.

 

RICK BRAGG

Friday, December 12, 7:00 p.m.

A monumental figure on the American landscape, Jerry Lee Lewis gave rock and roll its Jerry Lee devil's edge; caused riots and boycotts with his incendiary performances; nearly scuttled his career by marrying his thirteen-year-old second cousin-his third wife of seven; ran a decades-long marathon of drugs, drinking, and women; nearly met his maker, twice; suffered the deaths of two sons and two wives, and the indignity of an IRS raid that left him with nothing but the broken-down piano he started with; performed with everyone from Elvis Presley to Keith Richards to Bruce Springsteen to Kid Rock-and survived it all to be hailed as "one of the most creative and important figures in American popular culture and a paradigm of the Southern experience." Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story is the Killer's life as he lived it, and as he shared it over two years with our greatest bard of Southern life: Rick Bragg. He will be in the store for a reading/discussion and signing.

 

FRED CHAPPELL

Tuesday, December 16, 7:00 p.m.

Solitary, graceful, and contemplative, cats have inspired poets from Charles Baudelaire to Margaret Atwood to serve as their chroniclers and celebrants. They have appeared, wrapped in their inscrutability, in verse both sensual and spiritual, weary and whimsical. With Familiars, the beloved North Carolina novelist and poet Fred Chappell proves himself a worthy addition to the fellowship of poets who have sought to immortalize their beloved cats. Chappell will be in the store to read and sign books.

 

 Learn more about these and all of our upcoming events by visiting  the events calendar on our web site.
Shop Independent Durham
Tom Campbell
Regulator Bookshop
720 Ninth St.
Durham, NC 27705
(919) 286-2700
http://www.regulatorbookshop.com/
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Regulator Bookshop | 720 Ninth Street | Durham | NC | 27705

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Shop Independent Durham Week!

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In this email:

--Shop Independent Durham Week starts Saturday. We start the week off with some very special guests. And we'll be part of 50 local businesses offering special deals from Saturday November 29 through Sunday December 7.  

--Announcing our Holiday Sale Titles. 25 hand-picked, engaging, present-able books, 20% off through the end of the year.  

--We invite you to check out the new "Good Reading" link on our web site.  

--We go Beyond Books, including a selection of "subversive" games  

--Our December author events.

Shop Independent Durham Week

Starting this Saturday, November 29th, and running through Sunday December 7th, The Regulator will be joining with 49(!) other locally owned-independent businesses to celebrate Shop Independent Durham Week. All over town, the businesses that make Durham unique will be offering discounts, deals, contests and give-aways. See www.sustainabull.net for all the details.

 

Here at the Regulator will be offering 20% off on a couple dozen great, giftable books, and we will be raffling off $100, $50, and $25 gift certificates.

 

We'll be kicking things off on Saturday (which also happens to be "Indies First" day at independent bookstores all over the country) with:

 

--Guest Bookseller Appearances by local authors Jim Wise (10:00 a.m.), David Cecelski (11:00), Lee Smith (1:00), and Laurent Dubois (3:00), and

 

--Local musicians James Olin Oden (guitar and vocals) and Donovan McCain (mandolin) will be playing Appalacian, flamingo and Celtic music from 12:30 to 2:30.

 

Come join the fun!

 

Support your community this holiday season! Keep your dough in Durham! Plan your holiday shopping on the sustain-a-bull web site!

 

Shop Independent Durham
Our Holiday Sale Titles

We have hand-picked 25 engaging, (and sometimes quirky) books that we will have on sale, 20% off, through the end of the year. We hope you might find one or two of these titles to be perfectly present-able for the right person on your list. These titles are marked with red "Holiday Sale" tags in the store, and you can see the whole list on our web site, at https://www.regulatorbookshop.com/holiday-sale-titles-1

 

I especially enjoyed picking the "quirky" titles for this list, among which are:

 

Edible French: Tasty Expressions and Cultural Bites by Clotilde Dusoulier. This is a charming collection, with explanations and history, of some popular food-related expressions in the French language. Un exemple?

"Etre tout sucre tout miel"-Being all sugar all honey.  

This idiom means being ingratiating, acting in an overly affable, considerate, and polite way. It is used ironically, to point out that the person harbors negative feelings behind a cloying front...."

"She's all sugar, all honey with her mother-in-law, but in truth she can't stand her." (Elle es tout sucre tout miel avec sa belle-mere, mais en realite elle ne la supporte pas).

 

To maintain our cultural balance, I've also selected How to Speak Brit; The Quintessential Guide to the King's English, Cockney Slang, and Other Flummoxing British Phrases by Christopher J Moore, wherein we learn that "spend a penny" is "a rather charming phrase meaning to visit the bathroom." Right. So much for the differences between the French and the Brits...

 

Then there is the newly revised and updated edition of Infrastructure: A Guide to the Infrastucture Industrial Landscape by Brian Hayes. Got a hardware geek on your list? (And we are not just talking about computers here. We're talking waterworks, the power grid, bridges, communication, shipping, aviation recycling, etc.). How does our modern society physically function? And what is all that stuff that we often see driving around? What does it do? Why does it look like it does? Days of fun and fascination await the right recipient of this book.

 

Good Reading

We've recently added a "Good Reading" menu at the top of our web site, where we have links to recommended reading from our staff, from librarians, from book reviews, and from the judges who select major book awards. Here (http://www.regulatorbookshop.com/good-reading) you can learn, for example that the number one title that public library staff across the country most enjoyed recommending in 2014 was The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry: A Novel by Gabrielle Zevin, published by our friends and neighbors down the road in Chapel Hill. ("The Storied Life..." comes out in paperback December 2nd).

 

We'll be adding to these pages frequently. If you're looking for good reading, add our web site to your bookmarks!

Beyond Books

Even die-hard booksellers like us will admit, when pressed, that there are times when a yet another book might not be the best present for someone. For these folks, we have a bunch of new "non-book items" including a great selection of puzzles, ranging from 60 to 1000 pieces.

 

We have also brought in a table full of "Cooperative Games" from Canada. With most games, the players compete among each other to see who wins. With cooperative games, the players have to cooperate with each other to reach a goal. Some of these games can be played by folks as young as 3 years old, others are good for teenagers and adults. But let the buyer beware! Some folks may consider these games to be un-American (they are from Canada, after all) and subversive. We think that just adds to their appeal.

December Events:

CARL NORDGREN

Wednesday, December 3rd, 7p.m.

When an orphan sets out on his vision quest in Anung's Journey, he sees clearly that his purpose in life is to find the greatest chief of all and tell him of the many acts of kindness the mothers and fathers of the village have given to him. In his quest to find the greatest chief, Anung travels through the 13 tribes of the First Nations, across forests, plains, water, and desert. Along the way, he is accompanied by Turtle, the interpreter of all languages. He finds friends in the most unlikely of places--a squirrel's nest, a mother bear's den, and a city filled with people from every tribe. At each stop, Anung and his drum sing of his mothers and fathers and his quest to meet the greatest chief. This ancient legend, told in the beautifully poetic style of Carl Nordgren, begs to be read aloud and savored. The book for young readers and families also features 10 beautiful paper cut illustrations by artist Brita Wolf.

 

LYNN CHANDLER WILLIS

Thursday, December 4, 7 p.m.

In Lynn Willis' latest offering, Wink of an Eye: A Mystery, Las Vegas private investigator Gypsy Moran shows up unexpectedly at his sister Rhonda's house in Wink, Texas. She introduces Gypsy to one of her former students, 12-year-old Tatum McCallen, who is in need of Gypsy's services. Tatum wants to hire Gypsy to investigate his father Ryce's alleged suicide. His dad was a deputy with the Sheriff's department and was found hanged in their backyard. Tatum believes his father was murdered after he went inquiring after the disappearance of several teenage girls, all undocumented immigrants. Against his better judgment, Gypsy agrees to snoop around to see what he can find. Between dealing with his now married high school sweetheart, a sexy reporter, and hostile police officers, Gypsy has his work cut out for him. Willis will be in the store to read and sign books.

 

JULIA ELLIOTT

Friday, December 5, 7:00 p.m.

At an obscure South Carolina nursing home, a lost world reemerges as a disabled elderly woman undergoes newfangled brain-restoration procedures and begins to explore her environment with the assistance of strap-on robot legs. At a deluxe medical spa on a nameless Caribbean island, a middle-aged woman hopes to revitalize her fading youth with grotesque rejuvenating therapies that combine cutting-edge medical technologies with holistic approaches and the pseudo-religious dogma of Zen-infused self-help. And in a rinky-dink mill town, an adolescent girl is unexpectedly inspired by the ravings and miraculous levitation of her fundamentalist friend's weird grandmother. These are only a few of the scenarios readers encounter in Julia Elliott's debut short story collection, The Wilds. In these genre-bending stories, teetering between the ridiculous and the sublime, Elliott's language-driven fiction uses outlandish tropes to capture poignant moments in her humble characters' lives. Elliot will be in the store to read and sign books.

 

AN EVENING WITH LIVINGSTON PRESS

Monday, December 8, 7:00 p.m.

We're happy to host a lively reading by three fiction authors: Gregg Cussick, L.C. Fiore, and Miriam Herrin. Come hear stories of crashing dirigibles (My Father Moves Through Time Like a Dirigible), the mingling of eco-terrorists and Christian evangelicals (Green Gospel), murder, intrigue, and a journey that winds its way through Carolina, Boston, and eventually through the jungles of Southeast Asia (Absolution).

 

ART CHANSKY & JOHNNY MOORE

Wednesday, December 10, 7:00 p.m.

Blue Divide A complete look at the storied basketball rivalry between the Duke Blue Devils and North Carolina Tar Heels, this guide is penned by two authorities on the subject-Art Chansky, a bestselling author and sports reporter who has covered the famed match up since his days as a student reporter at UNC and Johnny Moore, who has been intimately involved with Duke athletics for nearly four decades. Segmenting the various commonalities the Blue Devils and Tar Heels have shared for more than 60 years and nearly 250 meetings on the court, each chapter covers a distinct aspect of the rivalry between these two schools that stand a mere 10 miles apart. The Blue Divide: Duke, North Carolina, and the Battle on Tobacco Road offers new details on long-forgotten stories as well as a chance to better understand where the pride and passion of today comes from between the two contiguous competitors. Chansky and Moore will be in the store for a discussion and signing.

 

RICK BRAGG

Friday, December 12, 7:00 p.m.

A monumental figure on the American landscape, Jerry Lee Lewis gave rock and roll its Jerry Lee devil's edge; caused riots and boycotts with his incendiary performances; nearly scuttled his career by marrying his thirteen-year-old second cousin-his third wife of seven; ran a decades-long marathon of drugs, drinking, and women; nearly met his maker, twice; suffered the deaths of two sons and two wives, and the indignity of an IRS raid that left him with nothing but the broken-down piano he started with; performed with everyone from Elvis Presley to Keith Richards to Bruce Springsteen to Kid Rock-and survived it all to be hailed as "one of the most creative and important figures in American popular culture and a paradigm of the Southern experience." Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story is the Killer's life as he lived it, and as he shared it over two years with our greatest bard of Southern life: Rick Bragg. He will be in the store for a reading/discussion and signing.

 

FRED CHAPPELL

Tuesday, December 16, 7:00 p.m.

Solitary, graceful, and contemplative, cats have inspired poets from Charles Baudelaire to Margaret Atwood to serve as their chroniclers and celebrants. They have appeared, wrapped in their inscrutability, in verse both sensual and spiritual, weary and whimsical. With Familiars, the beloved North Carolina novelist and poet Fred Chappell proves himself a worthy addition to the fellowship of poets who have sought to immortalize their beloved cats. Chappell will be in the store to read and sign books.

 

 Learn more about these and all of our upcoming events by visiting  the events calendar on our web site.
Shop Independent Durham
Tom Campbell
Regulator Bookshop
720 Ninth St.
Durham, NC 27705
(919) 286-2700
http://www.regulatorbookshop.com/
Forward email



This email was sent to regulatorbookshop.constantcontact720@blogger.com by regulatorbookshop@gmail.com |  


Regulator Bookshop | 720 Ninth Street | Durham | NC | 27705