Jane Austen (and Katy Munger) at The Regulator

Join us on Wednesday November 14th, at 7:00 p.m. when Durham author Katy Munger leads our latest "Blast from The Past" book discussion -- a celebration of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.  

Katy is issuing a special invitation to the men of Durham: she asks you to swallow your pride and set aside your prejudice about Austen. It is time for you to join the women of Durham in celebrating Austen's remarkable ability to capture the essence of unforgettable secondary characters with a single phrase or mannerism. Forget Lizzie. Ignore Mr. Darcy. November 14th will be a time to examine how Austen has managed to paint a devastating portrait of virtually every male archetype in a single volume. And the women?  Let's talk about those sisters, all of them... and that mother... and let us not forget Lady Catherine de Bourgh or Miss Bingley. We've all known the modern version of them!

(Please note that the special invitation to men does not extend to zombies...).

As part of the evening, you are asked to come prepared to admit to feeling a certain kinship with one of the book's characters. You are also welcome to come prepared to read the paragraph that made you feel that way, though nothing is required. It will be an unconventional and entertaining discussion of Pride and Prejudice sure to be enjoyed whether you are a hardcore Austen fan or have always wondered what the fuss was about.  Don't miss it!


Durham resident Katy Munger is the author of seven fabulous mystery novels--which certainly more than qualifies her as an "accomplished woman" in the view of Jane Austen.

Our Blast From the Past Reading Series meets at the bookshop every other month. For each meeting, a local literary luminary picks a favorite book published in the 20th century or before. The only further qualification is that the book be one that a reasonably well read person will have heard of, and perhaps read.

Amazing Librarian Tattoos

http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/141087

OK Durham County librarians, you have been challenged! Show us your 'toos!

Having trouble sleeping? Read a (real) book!

From the New York Times a few days ago. A research study published in the journal Applied Ergonomics found that two hours of exposure to a computer or tablet screen at night reduced melatonin levels by 22%. Melatonin is a hormone that regulates our internal clocks and plays a major role in our sleep cycles.

See the Times article here: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/10/really-using-a-computer-before-bed-can-disrupt-sleep/?pagewanted=print

Of course reading about this might keep you awake--you are currently reading on one of those sleep-killing screens! And I wrote this on one. And the Times article was not printed in the paper version of the newspaper, only in the on-line version....

For more, see:

http://www.thesleepjudge.com/different-ways-technology-affects-sleep-quality/

The bottom line? If you want to relax, read a real, printed on actual paper, book.

Junot Diaz--in the Times August 30th, in Durham September 20th

In case you missed it, the New York Times had a wonderful piece on Junot Diaz four days ago:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/02/books/review/junot-diaz-by-the-book.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

The article is all about his reading habits, which as you might imagine range all over the place, and all over the world.

Durham will be the center of Junot Diaz's world on Thursday, September 20th, when he reads from his new book, This is How You Lose Her, at Motorco Music Hall, 723 Rigsbee Avenue, starting at 7:30. Tickets are $5.00, available now at The Regulator, or at the door until we fill the place. The tickets may be used as a $5.00 credit for any Junot Diaz book, or as a store credit.

Don't pass up this opportunity to hear one of the best and most engaging writers of our time!

A few things from the Times article that especially caught my eye:

What’s the last truly great book you read?

Katherine Boo’s “Behind the Beautiful Forevers.” A book of extraordinary intelligence, humanity and (formalistic) cunning. Boo’s four years reporting on a single Mumbai slum, following a small group of garbage recyclers, have produced something beyond groundbreaking. She humanizes with all the force of literature the impossible lives of the people at bottom of our pharaonic global order, and details with a journalist’s unsparing exactitude the absolute suffering that undergirds India’s economic boom. The language is extraordinary, the portraits indelible, and then there are those lines at the end that just about freeze your heart: “The gates of the rich, occasionally rattled, remained unbreached. The politicians held forth on the middle class. The poor took down one another, and the world’s great, unequal cities soldiered on in relative peace.” 

What were your most cherished books as a child? Do you have a favorite character or hero from children’s literature?

I loved Encyclopedia Brown as a kid. Donald Sobol passed recently, and that really brought it all back to me, how important his books were to my little self. I didn’t learn to read until I was 7, so I missed out on the early stuff, jumped right to chapter books, right to Encyclopedia Brown. What I loved about Boy Detective Leroy Brown was that (1) he was unabashedly smart (smart was not cool when and where I grew up) and (2) his best friend was a girl, tough Sally Kimball, who was both Leroy’s bodyguard and his intellectual equal. Sobol did more to flip gender scripts in my head than almost anybody in my early years. 

Who are the best short story writers?

People who like to suffer or perhaps people tempted by perfectibility. For that is the short story’s great lure — that you can write a perfect one. With novels it’s quite the opposite — the lure of the novel is that you can never write a perfect one.

You can bring three books to a desert island. Which do you choose?

This is a question that always kills me. For a book lover this type of triage is never a record of what was brought along but a record of what was left behind. But if forced to choose by, say, a shipwreck or an evil Times editor...

A Trio for Tree Huggers

Tree Hugger? A compliment as far as I’m concerned. Some of my best friends are trees. Always been that way, as far as I can remember. So when new books about trees come into the store, I pay attention. Here are three that seem to me to grow taller and straighter than average:

The Man Who Planted Trees: Lost Groves, Champion Trees, and an Urgent Plan to Save the Planet by Jim Robbins.

This is the story of a man who is going around the world taking cuttings of “champion” trees--especially large, strong, tall, old, resilient specimens—in order to plant protected groves of these champion trees. The idea is that someday humanity might need “seed stock” to replant our forests, and the best stock would come from the best trees. A straightforward enough idea. Each chapter of the book is about a different species of tree, and as the story of finding the “champion” is told, we learn some about the trees.

But parts of this book are, marvelously, not so straightforward. The man who has undertaken this quest to clone champion trees is not a scientist, but rather a “redneck Northern Michigan farmer” named David Milarch. Formerly a hard drinker, Milrach’s liver pretty much shut down about twenty years ago, and he almost died. On regaining consciousness, he announced that beings “on the other side” had sent him back to earth with a mission—to create a kind of Noah’s ark of tree genetics. This book is his story as well as the story of the trees and his tree panting project.

A little bit out there, perhaps? Oh yes, but Milrach’s quest, his persistence (and success), and the amazing trees themselves make for quite a story.

American Canopy: Trees, Forests, and the Making of a Nation by Eric Rutkow.

The impact of our trees and forests on the history of our country--from economics to literature to our whole concept of ourselves as a nation. What we have done to our forests, and what that has done to and for us. A fascinating new lens through which the author looks afresh at American history. Who do you think was the first U.S. president to take action to preserve some of our forests? Why Abraham Lincoln, of course, with the “Yosemite and Big Tree Grant” of 1864.

Seeing Trees: Discover the Ordinary Secrets of Everyday Trees, by Nancy Ross Hugo.

The photographs here by Robert Llewellyn are just extraordinary. Many of them look like paintings. Do yourself a favor and look through this book next time you are in the bookshop. And if you don’t learn a whole lot you didn’t already know about trees from the text, you are a much more accomplished tree hugger than I am.

Tom Campbell

Ann Patchett on Independent Bookstores

Over the years I've heard many authors say heartfelt words of thanks and appreciation for independent bookstores. These tributes are always good to hear, but the fact remains that independent bookstores face long odds in the battles being played out in today's bookselling world. Less than 10% of the books sold in this country are sold through independent bookstores, and that percentage has certainly not been expanding.

One author who can especially relate to the underdog status of independent booksellers is the novelist Ann Patchett, who opened a bookstore of her own in Nashville, TN last November. So I was especially looking forward to hearing what Ann had to say when she stepped up to the microphone before about 500 independent booksellers to accept an award as "Most Engaging Author" at a Celebration of Bookselling luncheon in New York in early June.

And what Ann Patchett had to say was...well, you really need to hear it yourself, which you can do by clicking on the link below. Suffice it to say that it was incredibly inspiring-even to a cynic like me-and I was pretty much blown away. I told her this afterwards, for which I received a wonderful hug.

So here's Ann Patchett, writer and Shakespearean actress, on "We Band of Bookselling Brothers":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ85kCO5d-U&list=PLC811FC126A193283&index=5&feature=plpp_video

The Importance of Local Bookstores

Can't help but pass along this link to a Huffington Post article by Wendy Welch. Welch, whose book The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap: A Memoir of Friendship, Community, and the Uncommon Pleasure of a Good Book will be published by St. Martin's in October, is co-owner of Tales of the Lonesome Pine Used Books, Big Stone Gap, Va.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wendy-welch/the-importance-of-local-bookstores_b_1730964.html