Rhythm and Books

Our Favorites, 2011

So far we've spent 2012 culling and reducing old stock (have you been by to see our sale tables and shelves?), taking inventory, cleaning out the embarrassingly cluttered stockroom and we even found a few days to rest along the way. Thus explains our delinquency in presenting the Turnrow staff's traditional year-end favorites post, a list given considerable attention and soul-searching.

When queried about their favorite books of the year, the title most mentioned by the staff was John Jeremiah Sullivan's Pulphead, a superb collection of non-fiction pieces that surprised us with its depth and freshness. Even customers are coming back to thank us for pointing out this paperback original, which they would never have found, they say, without the discriminating tastes of independent booksellers. The book's exposure was heightened by Sullivan's excellent reading here back in November, and it remains our best-selling Turnrow 20 title of 2011.

By the way, thanks for all the comments regarding our first Turnrow 20 list, which featured our most recommended titles of the fall (look for a winter 2012 list coming soon). Second most-mentioned among the staff remarked was another Turnrow 20 title, the #2 best-selling T20 title Destiny of the Republic, the gripping true story of James Garfield's ascendancy to the White House and his subsequent assassination, masterfully told by Candice Millard. 

This year every staff member also mentioned one old favorite they read or re-read in 2011. Great books, they understand, perhaps better than the blog editor, shouldn't be relegated to one year.

Becky's reading tastes run the gamut, which will explain her two favorites of the year, On China by Henry Kissinger and Blueprints for Building Better Girls by Elisse Schappell. She also enjoyed an unconventional romantic literary novel, The Story of Beautiful Girl by Rachel Simon. Her favorite pre-2011 book was Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese.

Kelly was an ardent proponent of two big memoirs, The House of Prayer No. 2 by Mark Richard and Every Day by the Sun by Dean Faulkner Wells, who sadly passed away this year. The debut novel Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown also made Kelly's list of favorites, and she made special mention of Steve Yarbrough's 1999 novel The Oxygen Man, which she declared "the best novel about the Mississippi Delta that I've read."

Jamie seized on a late-year paperback original, Crazy River, Richard Grant's account of traveling through modern East Africa, a uniquely modern travel tale that stands up with some of the genre's best. He also was an early proponent of The Sisters Brothers, a Western novel and Booker Prize finalist by Patrick DeWitt, who, we're proud to say, will be signing and reading from the paperback edition here on February 28.

Ben, a die-hard fiction lover, made Turnrow 20 title Ready Player One a hit here, and he surprised us with a couple of other top choices — Katherine Battersby's illustrated children's book Squish Rabbit and Neil MacGregor's The History of the World in 100 Objects, a fascinating patchwork history of the world told through man-made artifacts. He and Jamie both discovered John Williams' 1965 novel Stoner for the first time this year and proclaimed it their favorite reading experience of the year.

Tad named Chad Harbach's debut novel The Art of Fielding, another Turnrow 20 title, his top read of the year, and made special mention of Jack Hitt's 2005 book Off the Road, describing the author's hike from France to Spain along the famous Christian pilgrimage.

Hank made a pitch for Andre Dubus III excellent memoir Townie, from which the author read here last winter (photo at left), and this summer, he was knocked out by his first reading of Cormac McCarthy's Suttree.

There were plenty of other favorites throughout 2011 ... just peruse the blog and you'll find more books that we've championed. Already we've found plenty more due ahead in 2012. We'll mention our favorites here as the year progresses.

Among our best-selling books of the year were The Delta Magazine Cookbook, Mississippi chef Whitney Miller's Modern Hospitality, local chef Martha Foose's A Southerly Course, John Grisham's The Litigators, local writer Robin O'Bryant's Ketchup is a Vegetable, and the scrappy stalwart by Kathryn Stockett, The Help, a Turnrow bestseller in hard back, deluxe edition, paperback and DVD.

Turnrow 20 ... Boomerang

You've put off buying that gift for Dad or that strange aunt or uncle or the sibling who loves to ruminate on world events. One of our favorite books of the season is a brilliant burst of pop economics that will appeal to the thinker, the traveler, the mover and shaker — Michael Lewis's new book, Boomerang.

Lewis — one of our great chroniclers of the modern deal (see also Moneyball) — picks up where he ended his best-selling explanation of the Wall Street economic meltdown, The Big Short. In the new book's introduction, he retrieves from discarded research an interview with a colorful Dallas hedge fund manager who looked beyond the fractured domestic economic landscape to the disaster forming overseas. Entire countries were threatening to collapse, and this shrewd market player was trying to stay ahead and determining where to move his chips. The situation was perilous, he assured, not the end of the world but bad enough that when Lewis asked him about the safest place to invest his money, the hedge fund manager told him, "Guns and gold."

A curious layman reading about the folly of big western capitalism might be tempted to throw down this book in fear and disgust if Lewis wasn't so damned funny and sympathetically wide-eyed. In the following pages, he scuttles over the globe from one house of cards to the next — Iceland, Greece, Ireland, Germany — describing the crisis in each country and explaining how it all happened. Along the way we meet colorful locals, interesting traditions, bits of lore and history, all of which illuminate the distinctive ways in which each culture has wrought its own ruin.

Of course, the great similarity in each imperiled country is how their misfortune can be traced back to the United States' influence, the forebearer of modern financial folly ... hence the title. This is no America-bashing book, for those who can't stomach self-criticism, but instead a wide-eyed, reasoned and refreshingly casual piece of investigative journalism. Lewis manages to encapsulate complex and intriguing ideas into palatable commentary, replete with hilarious anecdotes and memorable characters.

By the end of Boomerang, you may not know whether to laugh or cry, but you'll be tempted to read it again so you can relay it all back to friends.

Turnrow 20 ... Ready Player One

Like the unassuming hero of Ernest Cline's debut novel, Ready Player One is discretely climbing our Turnrow 20 best seller list as the season wears on and the hunt for unique gifts reaches fever pitch.

Wade Watts lives in a world that is akin to Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Luckily his hero, the eccentric billionaire and game designer James Halliday, has created the perfect video game to help ease the depression of the natural world. Halliday is the creator of the OASIS, the ultimate gaming experience in which players can exist in a virtual world where anything imaginable is possible.

When Halliday unexpectedly dies, he leaves his fortune and game rights to anyone who can successfully find the hidden Easter egg within the game. For Wade, this is a chance to change his dismal life for the better. Having spent much of his life obsessed with Halliday, he quickly begins to decipher the challenge, which is couched in 1980s trivia.

Ready Player One is a fast-paced ride that is part The Wizard (that's right, Fred Savage fans), part Breakfast Club and part Buckaroo Banzai. Steeped in 1980s nostalgia, this book is a blast for those with a similar hankering for that simpler, geekier time. (The author wrote the screenplay for the indie flick Fanboys and owns a DeLorean he has retro-fitted to resemble the time-traveling car in Back to the Future.) It's the perfect Christmas gift for teens who have tired of vampire literature, or any other rad dudes and dudettes on your list.

Turnrow 20 ... The Stranger You Seek

Okay, so we admitted in the previous Turnrow 20 post that truth was stranger and often more frightening than fiction. Still, who doesn't love a good creepy novel now and then? For more serial killer reading, this time fictional, we recommend The Stranger You Seek by debut novelist Amanda Kyle Williams.

We've been handing this novel to impatient Greg Iles fans who are dismayed to learn that his new novel has been delayed again, this time until late next year. Like Greg, newcomer Williams knows how to keep readers up past their bedtime with plot-driven suspense and a knack for shock and twists. 

We were instantly captivated by the heroine in The Stranger You Seek, Keye Street, a Southern-raised Asian-American and recovering alcoholic who does private investigator work after being asked to leave the FBI. A detective at the Atlanta police department sometimes seeks her help for particularly twisted murders — Street's speciality — and thus she becomes involved in the case of a serial killer terrorizing Atlanta. 

More than just clever plotting, this novel's true allure is its ability to create doubt within the reader, to make us suspect the people in our lives who seem the least harmless or maybe those we simply ignore ... at our peril. There's something sinister and believable about her killer that made us jump up to check the locks — even during the daytime — and reminded us of another great Southern suspense writer, Thomas Harris of Hannibal Lecter fame.

It's a fun scare, the kind you'll read two dozen mystery novels to find. We look forward to seeing what Williams will come up with in at least two more follow-up Street novels, one due next fall.

Turnrow 20 ... Death in the City of Light

Among our current best-selling Turnrow 20 titles -- including John Sullivan's Pulphead, Candice Millard's Destiny of the Republic, Rick Gavin's Ranchero and The Happy Table of Eugene Walter  is a surprise customer favorite, Death in the City of Light by David King.

If you're looking for a gift for the doctor or lawyer who has everything, the mystery and history lover who has probably already read the new bestsellers, you may startle and surprise them with this riveting true-crime account that looks back on a shocking series of crimes most Americans know nothing about.

We discovered this fascinating book on the quest for more information on Nazis following Erik Larson's In the Garden of Beasts from the summer. We were still curious to find stories of ordinary people surviving under the Nazi's oppressive reign, and what we found in this story of a Parisian serial killer during World War II was an equally intriguing form of evil.

In 1994, Paris police discover the gruesome remains of dozens of murder victims in an apartment owned by Dr. Marcel Petiot. The doctor has gone missing, and a cool Parisian detective, Commissaire Massu, scours the city for clues to the suspect's whereabouts, uncovering a litany of captivating stories that shed light on the killer. The culprit is clear, but the motive is the mystery. As a more stunning and complex portrait of the suspect unfolds and the extent of his crimes emerge, the reader is treated to a jaw-dropping tale of a first-rate sociopath, a case that ends in a dizzying courtroom spectacle. 

King's book combines all the best traits of robust narrative history and a murder mystery, pitting a genius criminal against a shrewd lawman. The backdrop of 1940s Paris, especially its underground societies of criminals and artists, adds an extra layer of interest to a story already teeming with drama. We've enjoyed listening to our customers talk it up among each other after following our recommendation. There's plenty to discuss at the end, and plenty more trails to follow. Consider David McCullough's The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris, another customer favorite here. 

Chicken Bog & Hoppin' John

By popular demand we've restarted our Sunday brunch ... but, alas, only for the month leading up to Christmas. In the interest of venturing from our daily cafe menu, we've taken inspiration from Hugh Acheson's charming cookbook, A New Turn in the South.

Acheson is a native Canadian who has been cooking most of his life. He also spent many of his formative years in the South and remains devoted to using local ingredients in his dressed-up dishes. Like Birmingham's Frank Stitt and many other star cooks popping up around the region, this long-view of local food has produced an intriguing and eclectic new Southern cuisine. Acheson's singular mix of Southern ingredients with European style is exhibited in several restaurants in Athens (Five & Ten, The National) and Atlanta (Empire State South), Georgia. The recipient of numerous cooking honors, Acheson may be most familiar to viewers of Bravo's Top Chef, including a recent stint as guest judge and a contestant in Top Chef Masters season 3.

We began studying A New Turn in the South in preparation for Acheson's visit to Greenwood this Wednesday, December 7, and discovered several impressive variations on old favorites that we adapted in our small, ovenless kitchen where we prepare lunch throughout the week.

Our first week's feature was Chicken Bog, a delicious chicken concoction ladled over rice. Some diners looked askew at the name until they smelled the essence of concentrated poultry wafting up from this dish, which is like a comforting mix of chicken stew and gumbo. It's a real crowd-pleaser that we've already made several times.

We also tried Acheson's spinach salad with pecans toasted in butter, salt and sugar and cayenne pepper. These spicy pecans were amazing, and we popped so many samples that we had to cook more to keep from depleting the stock for the salads, which were rounded out with blue cheese and pear slices. Toss it in a nice shallot-thyme vinaigrette or really any of the great dressings he features in the book.

The recipes were such a success that for this past weekend's brunch, looking ahead to New Year's, we made a batch of Hugh's zesty Hoppin' John, the basmati rice worked in with the black-eyed peas and poblano and pepper vinegar. The results were a real uplifter on a dreary day.

We're still working out of this book and will dish out a few new samples for Acheson's appearance here at Turnrow on Wednesday. Make a point to be here anytime from 5 to 6:30 p.m. to meet Chef Acheson, and please consider signing up for the Viking Cooking Class to follow. If you can't be here and would like a signed copy of A New Turn in the South (one of the season's top cookbooks), reserve a signed copy at our website.

And by all means, stop in one of the next two Sundays and enjoy brunch with us, a rare treat in a town starved of Sunday restaurant-eating options.

Turnrow 20 ... Destiny of the Republic

I am trying to do two things: dare to be a radical and not a fool, which is a matter of no small difficulty. –James A. Garfield

The extraordinary story of President James Garfield is told beautifully by Candice Millard (The River of Doubt) in her latest work of narrative history, Destiny of the Republic. It’s probably not a stretch to assume that most people know very little about President Garfield. He was the 20th president of the United States, hailing from what one Turnrow associate considers to be the greatest state in the union, Ohio, a place "known for brilliant men," we're told, including many U.S. presidents. Most would remember Garfield as the second U.S. president who was assassinated. (And let’s be honest, if you remember the assassin's name, Charles J. Guiteau, it's because of this.)

It was refreshing to read such an enthralling account of one of our lesser known presidents. Millard brilliantly recounts Garfield’s early days as a congressman and his unique rise to the presidency — unique because, in an act unheard of today, Garfield was elected to the presidency not because of wild ambition or influence or that he spent loads of money but because he was actually the best man for the job, and the people anointed him.

Garfield’s short presidency resonates because he faced many of the same problems affecting our country today. During his presidency he encountered mass political corruption and public discontent. Amazingly, in the short time he was president, he was able to rectify many of these issues with common sense and a high moral standing. 

The most fascinating part of Destiny of the Republic focuses on the aftermath of President Garfield’s assassination, only 16 years after Lincoln's murder and just four months into his presidency. Garfield did not immediately die as a result of his gunshot wounds and suffered for 80 days after. His wounds were not fatal and his injuries today would have likely detained him for only a couple of weeks. Even in his time, his wounds would not have been fatal had it not been for the ignorance of his doctors. (And you think you have problems with healthcare!)

This book is perfect for history readers but it is so well written that even the most casual non-fiction reader will find it fascinating. It is a fast-paced thrilling account of Garfield’s life which includes many accessory, yet equally fascinating characters like Robert Todd Lincoln and Alexander Graham Bell. Moreover, with the hope of not sounding trite, it is an inspiring reminder of how great America can be and how important the struggle for democracy is for our country.

Turnrow 20 ... Blueprints for Building Better Girls

We love a good story collection, something to savor, maybe one story a night when things get quiet, like a good sipping whiskey. Occasionally we'll find a book of stories that we can't help but gulp down, one story after the next in a frenzy. Such is the laidback, easy appeal of Elissa Schappell's Blueprints for Building Better Girls.

This collection was recommended to us by a friend/author/customer. It had come second- or third-hand already, each reader getting lost in these simply told tales of young women from varying walks of life and times, from the 1970s onward. Schappell's women aren't caught up in outrageous situations but instead are put in the position to discuss their everyday problems and concerns without being dull. She tells their lives with familiar ease, like a shared confidence between close friends. She has a wry comic gift, even in the bleakest of situations. Here's a sample from "A Dog Story," in which a couple adopt a dog after their miscarriage. They're eating in their favorite restaurant, where they'd celebrated news of their conception months earlier:

I know neither of us imagined we'd see that waiter — the one who'd toasted our future, who'd shown us his kids — again. Douglas was poring over the wine list when I saw him across the room, waiting on another table. He recognized us. His face lit up, and he waved. Perhaps, his expression said, we had pictures? He mimed rocking a baby. I shook my head no. He was perplexed. Perhaps we'd left the baby at home? I made an exaggerated frowny face. He looked at me blankly. I gave him the thumbs-down. He still didn't get it. I drew my finger across my throat. This time I saw it reigster in his eyes just before he turned away.

Another waiter came to take our order...

The collection is filled with characters, lines of dialogue and gestures that glow with authenticity and truth. There is humor and sadness, awkwardness and bliss. It's a special kind of book you'll love passing to a friend as much as reading it yourself.

Turnrow 20 ... The Happy Table of Eugene Walter

Much of this week will be spent in the kitchen, and if you haven't planned your menu and want to throw a twist into your Thanksgiving festivities, take a look at The Happy Table of Eugene Walter, a collection of stories and recipes edited by Don Goodman and Thomas Head that showcases the talent and wit of a great, overlooked Southern bon vivant. 

For those who are unfamiliar, Eugene Water hailed from Mobile, Alabama. Like fictional Alabamian Forrest Gump, he was always in the right place at the right time, touring the world, befriending the famous and influential, and in turn leaving his mark on everyone he met. He was a boyhood friend of Truman Capote and after moving away from the South was a neighbor to Andy Warhol in Greenwich Village. He moved to France and had a short story published in first issue of The Paris Review and later became an assistant to Federico Fellini, even appearing in a couple of his films. No matter how far he traveled and how glamorous the company he kept, Walter retained a love for the food and culture of his native South and years later, after returning home to Alabama, published the best-selling American Cooking: Southern Style, a volume in the Time-Life series on regional cooking. 

After the writer's death in 1998, Walter's literary executor, Donald Goodman (in foreground at right), found a large collection of notes, recipes, drawings and various creations. Among the trove was a manuscript entitled "Dixie Drinks: And Sometimes We're Right Moderate. A History of Southern Beverages, and How to Prepare Such, with Forgotten Formulas for Home-Made Wines and Cordials and a Grand Selection of Southern Dishes Employing Spiritous Flavorings." With the help of travel and food writer Thomas Head, Goodman set about reconstructing this book. The result is The Happy Table of Eugene Walter, a collection of stories, illustrations and colorful recipes that Walter gathered from small towns all over Alabama, many of them pre-Prohibition, which accounts for the well-stocked liquor cabinet required to attempt these delights.  

We delved into the book in earnest about a month ago when Goodman and Head stopped by for a book signing. We like to prepare a few recipes when we host cookbook events, and we had no trouble selecting several dishes for this reception. 

In honor of the book's theme — "Southern spirits in food and drink" — we first selected a beverage, the delightful Summer Punch ("a good punch to serve to a crowd that needs livening up") which suffered none being served in October. A selection of cocktail snacks were set out: an olive-based Mock Caviar (vodka), a nice old-style Cheese Spread (sherry and cognac), and most outrageous, Goober Bread, which involved toasting buttered whole wheat bread smeared with Dijon mustard and peanut butter, then adorned with ice-cold dill slices right out of the oven. If it sounds like a vile conflagration, something Walter would toss together when he lived in Rome, just try it and you'll be as surprised and delighted as we all were.

While featuring many of the cornerstones of Southern cuisine, this book is distinguished by the plethora of unique and rare dishes (Nip and Snip Soup, Porcupine Pudding, Chicken Custard, English Monkey), and the convivial nature of Walter's prose makes these recipes uncommonly fun to prepare. It's as if he is there with you in the kitchen, offering anecdotes, memorable turns of phrase and hilarious asides while you cook. (The recipe for Monkey Pudding advises to bake spiced, wine- and milk-soaked stale bread "in the oven with a slow fire until it looks like an old monkey.")

A reader is left wanting to know more, and we'll point you to his currently out-of-print memoir, Milking the Moon, or, for a short taste, try this sample of his poetry, featured on the CD Rare Bird and read by the author in his unmistakable voice:

SocratesMonkey

 

 

 

Turnrow 20 ... Those Across the River

Welcome to Whitbrow!

Whitbrow is a beautiful place for a young couple to begin a family. A couple such as Frank and Eudora Nichols. They had a run of trouble back in Chicago. It could happen to anyone, you know. Their scandalous love affair forced them to flee the academic life and seek refuge down South in this quiet hamlet. Frank returned from World War I with scars deeper than those marking his body and decided his recently inherited Georgia homestead would be the ideal place for him and his wife to begin their life together. It is also the perfect place for him to write a book about his family. 

Frank’s not-so distant relatives were interesting. During another time and another war, Frank's relatives ran into a little trouble. It seems not all was genteel on the Savoyard Plantation. Some horrible atrocities occurred here and ... well, that was another time. Frank believes the story would make a good book. His wife is not so sure it's worth digging into the past. The people of Whitbrow are happy to let the horrors of the past be forgotten. Although, some of them still send their pigs off into the woods….

We should warn you, if you choose to spend time in Whitbrow, the woods across the river are best left unexplored. No resident dares enter them and frankly there’s no need. We bet Frank will have a hard time staying out of the woods though. The Savoyard Plantation used to be situated in those woods. Of course, we hear tell of other, much darker things in those woods.

But never mind all that! Welcome to Whitbrow, a quiet, unusual little place, deep in the Georgia pines.

If you get the itch to know more about Whitbrow or the Nichols or Savoyard, check out Those Across the River by Christopher Buehlman. Don't forget to lock up the pigs.