Rhythm and Books

John Grisham, Coming Soon

We've received word from John Grisham that he'll stop in Greenwood on his backroom book-signing tour for a new thriller, The Associate, due for release January 27.  We're lucky to be on his short list of stores where he signs each new book, ever since The Innocent Man.

Fans of Grisham's novels have eagerly awaited The Associate, which promises a return to the slowly constricting legal tension that made his second novel, The Firm, such a hit and launched him to stardom.  In the new novel, Kyle McAvoy, a promising young attorney, fresh out of law school, takes a job with a huge law firm and quickly ascends to an associate position.  It sounds like a perfect assignment, but the idealistic grad is working undercover at the behest of blackmailers, who know his dark secret from college.  While preparing his first case, Kyle begins to understand the depth of corruption and danger that awaits him.  For those who can't wait, chapter one is available to preview at Grisham's website.

Unfortunately, there won't be enough time to host a public event for Grisham, but we'll be glad to reserve signed copies of The Associate for you. 

What Billie Read '08

Brooks has been sick all year and just showed up to work after a bout with upper respiratory infection, a popular Delta ailment.  (It may be all the farming chemicals in the air.)  She was bummed that she missed out on the staff's year-end favorites and belatedly offered her top picks of '08.  The last great novel she'd read was Wally Lamb's The Hour I First Believed, but ultimately chose Mr. White's Confession, a post-Depression psychological thriller by Robert Clark that Picador reissued this year.  (For the Ron Rash record, she also enjoyed Serena but preferred his first novel, One Foot in Eden.)  Her top literary moment was when Donna Tartt, author of her favorite novel, The Secret History, dropped in Turnrow before Christmas for some holiday shopping.  (Brooks, and perhaps many of our readers, never guessed that the best-selling author was born in Greenwood.)

But more than our picks, we know our readers really want to know Billie's favorite novel of 2008.  Billie Ainsworth, as you'll recall from our profile last year, is our most fervent and discerning customer whose particular tastes keep us on our toes.  When last we wrote about her reading choices, we were lamenting that we'd made little progress convincing her to read our long literary sagas with loads of description and character development.  But by year's end, we're proud to announce that we've made some headway. 

Billie (pictured at left with author Rick Bragg) was decidedly less than excited to name her three favorite books of the year.  Nothing blew her away, like two of her all-time favorites, Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler and The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher.  Nevertheless, we noticed a literary slant to her selections:

#3, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows - Despite early reluctance (she doesn't do period fiction and wasn't hooked by the first page), an aggressive recommendation by Kelly convinced her to take the book home.  She gave it a rave "pretty good."

#2, Tomato Girl by Jayne Pupek - Billie found this one on our own, searching, as she often does, for overlooked stories of family dysfunction.  This debut novel is told from the perspective of an 11-year-old girl, who witnesses her mother's slide into insanity and her father's obsession with a teen-aged vegetable grower.  There's enough dysfunction here to serve several other novels, she assured us.

#1, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski - Despite its size and literary heft, Billie eagerly awaited this novel's release.  Effusive praise by Stephen King and the subject of dogs initially sparked her interest, and a wonderful reading by Wroblewski at Turnrow in July sealed the deal.  It could have been slimmer, she conceded, but ultimately it provided her the year's best reading.  (Though she normally doesn't care if a book is signed or not, Billie is proud of her valuable signed first editions, of which we still have a few copies for sale.)

What Year Is It Again?

Please excuse our long absence from the blog.  Around the time of our last entry, the holidays arrived and we entered a kind of creative inertia.  Our days were consumed with selling, selling, selling, and we were very fortunate to have been doing as much in the current and troubled economy.

But we came through it just fine, and, after a week or so underground, we've emerged, our chocolate-stained and Wii-ravaged fingers grasping for words, to post our modest opinions of the year in books, 2008.

We asked the bookstore staff for the new books they most enjoyed reading this year.  And while many and varied titles emerged, the clear winner for staff favorite seemed to be Serena by Ron Rash.  Tad and LeAnne both chose it as their top pick, and nearly everyone else gave it an honorable mention.  We were proud to have sent so many fiction readers home with this hefty novel, predicting they'd be back for more Rash.  From our vantage, he seems to be one of the fastest rising Southern writers at work today.

Perhaps the second most-admired book was David Benioff's City of Thieves.  We've yet to blog about the brilliance of this novel, but all who read it were thoroughly entertained by the two main characters in this story, set during the siege of Leningrad during World War II.  One is a Red Army deserter, the other a young intellectual caught looting a dead German paratrooper.  They are taken to the local colonel, who spares their life if they can return with a dozen eggs for his daughter's wedding.  It's no easy task in this besieged city, but we rooted for the mismatched duo and read every page of their comical, harrowing and poignant adventure with great enthusiasm.  Jamie, who tends to favor cold Russian novels, gave it his top pick, alongside such runners-up as Jonathan Miles' Dear American Airlines, Jack Pendarvis' Awesome, and Adam Leith Gollner's The Fruit Hunters.

Kelly's runners-up were Dennis Lehane's The Given Day and Leif Enger's So Brave, Young and Handsome, but when all was read and done, she couldn't deny that Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows' The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society provided the most enduring reading experience of the year, and the dozens of readers she has recommended this book to have returned with similar praise.

Page cast her vote for The Garden of Last Days by Andre Dubus III, a long and treacherous journey that inspired a gamut of emotions.  It didn't hurt that she developed a crush on the author when he visited us in July.

Our curmudgeon-in-training Ben reads little contemporary fiction but had a particularly fondness for Beth Ann Fennelly's poetry collection Unmentionables, while Becky fell in love with Jhumpa Lahiri's latest story collection, Unaccustomed Earth.

It's all very subjective, of course, but we just wanted to take one last opportunity to tell you about some great reading books.  There are plenty of other great cookbooks and art books this year, two of our very favorites finishing in the top five best-sellers of the year at Turnrow.  We proudly share with you this list:

1. Screen Doors and Sweet Tea by Martha Foose (signed first editions!)

2. The Appeal by John Grisham (signed first editions!)

3. Feasting on Asphalt by Alton Brown

4. Delta Deep Down by Jane Rule Burdine (signed first editions!)

5. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski (signed first editions!)