No Really, Thank YOU!

So here I sit in a hotel room in Brooklyn.  I've been here since Tuesday at the annual Book Expo America where we booksellers and publishers get together and figure out how best so serve you.  The consensus this year seems to be that the upcoming fall season is mighty strong.  But the question is also how do we get books to you, our beloved customers.  Are eBooks all the rage, do you read what we write on twitter or facebook or this blog, or do you just want to come in to the store and talk to someone who knows about books?

In any case, these are some of the issues discussed, and I have to say, we're especially proud to talk up our customers.  It seems we might have the best ones around.  You guys are enthusiastic and knowledgeable, you come to events, you love books as much as we do, simply put, you're the best.  

Sure, this year in all industries has been worse than before, but thanks to you Book Soup continues to do well.  So seriously, from the bottom of our hearts, THANK YOU!

Happy Reading,

Julia

Sitting Shiva

So I'm going to dangle a little bait because this book doesn't come out until August 6th.  I want everyone to take note of it though because I can't get it out of my head.  

Jonathan Tropper's new book, This Is Where I Leave You, is an absolutely stunning achievement.  The premise is simple; a father dies and the family, who is only vaguely Jewish is made to sit shiva as per the father's dying request.  The hitch of course, is that, like most families, this family cannot stand each other for more than a few hours.  

Of course hilarity ensues.  But Tropper brings a tenderness to the Foxman family that permeates even the most humorous scenes.  The Foxman's have a past, they harbor grudges and hurts, they are petty and deep and beautiful.  Each character finds a way, even when they are at their most self-righteous, their most shallow, and their most spiteful there is an inherent lovability in each character.  The people that you should hate the most, rip at heartstrings in the end.

This Is Where I Leave You is an absolutely engrossing read.  Study that picture in the corner and remember it for August...I guess this is where I leave you.

Happy Reading,

Julia

Blue Pills

In celebration of Eisner Nominees coming out I thought I'd talk about one of my favorite nominated books.  The common misguided thought about comics is that they are men in tights, kids stuff that adults are meant to grow out of by the time they reach high school, if not then definitely college.  But more and more these amazing graphic narratives are being penned and inked, the pictures only providing deeper layers to the act of reading a moving story.  

Blue Pills by Frederik Peeters is exactly that.  About Peeters' relationship with an HIV-positive woman, Blue Pills is funny, heartwarming and realistic.  He brings a tenderness through the pictures, a sense of imminent loss looms even in the happiest of times.  But ultimately for Peeters, the relationship is a great one, and beautifully rendered on the page.  

Comics aren't just for kids.  In fact, they may just be the best thing to happen to "grown-up" literature.  

Happy Reading,

Julia

Wall of Inspiration

Well, the L.A. Times Festival of Books has come and gone.  Every year, as we descend on it, the team of organizers at Book Soup looks at one another with weary eyes and wonders if it's all worth it.  Then we get there, and we see everyone running around getting excited about books and we answer our own doubts...of course it's worth it.  Everyone who goes and gets excited about reading, whether you're reading Danielle Steel or David Foster Wallace, we do the work for you.  We love that you love books.  

I am definitely someone who has been guilty of bitching that no one reads in L.A. (which, according to statistics is very far from the truth).  And every year, the last weekend in April proves me so wrong, so so wrong, that I have a kind of revitalization in thought, a refreshing of my own personal web page. 

My favorite thing, by far, at the Festival this year was the graffiti wall of 'What Are You Reading?'  I found it poignant and inspiring and just amazing.  By the end of the weekend the wall was nearly black, writing over writing, a few huge titles protruded along the top.  The sheer volume and variety of books was overwhelming to say the least. Not shockingly, or maybe very shockingly, the most written title was Twilight (and/or any number of books in the series).  

So now, I have to say thank you to Stephenie Meyer.  We definitely felt the Twilight effect this weekend as every single young adult panel sold out (and we didn't skimp on books).  I might be giving her too much credit, but young people in Twilight shirts (and bags, and buttons, and necklaces, and wristbands) made quite a showing at the festival.  And I must say, I was glad to see them.  Say what you will about Twilight as a series, as a movie, as a philosophy (and believe me, I have my problems with it), but between Meyer and J.K. Rowling kids are reading, and we're happy to have them in the club.

Thanks to all who came and all who wished they would come.  We do it for you.  

Happy Reading,

Julia

Something To Write Home About

I discovered emo, or what I later found out was called emo during my senior year in high school. I had mellowed from my days of getting elbowed in the face and kicked in the head in the mosh pits of the Bay Area and embraced a sensitive side of myself that only I had known existed.

I distinctly remember listening to The Get Up Kids album Something to Write Home About approximately 47 million times as I contemplated leaving home and friends and comfort and going off to college where, presumably, everything would be different. I also distinctly remember asking a friend of mine, who was much better versed in this new (to me) genre of music, this emo, to take me to Streetlight Records and give me an emo tutorial. This was when we still didn't really know how to use the internet to look up every single thing we could possibly want to know so I had to rely on my friends for coveted information like this.

So, now nearly 10 years later, when I saw Leslie Simon's Wish You Were Here my first reaction was insane jealousy. People who randomly discovered what is now known as second wave emo, had this amazing source available to them. And a source that was not so dull as a wikipedia site, but that contained the local flavor of each of the indie/emo scenes that so influenced my young adult life.

Of course, I'm a grown-up (sometimes) and got over my jealousy pretty fast, cracked open the book and learned some stuff. Anything from which labels were born of which city, to the dos and don'ts of christian rock, quizzes on whether or not I'm alcholic enough to front a Twin Cities band, to what exactly a Freegan is (it's ridiculous, I'm warning you), Simon has managed to capture the flavor and give a surprisingly in depth history of this often mocked, but hugely popular scene.

From Chris Carrabba to The New Amsterdams, NOFX to The Replacements, 924 Gilman to The Cha Cha Lounge, anything you ever wanted to know is contained in these paper bound pages...plus there are some pretty awesome illustrations.

Happy Reading,
Julia

P.S. Click that little orange button and sign up for the podcast to listen to me interview Leslie. Click it. Right now. I mean it.

Columbine

I'll admit, I found it hard to open the first page of David Cullen's Columbine. I was a sophomore in High School the year those students were shot at their own high school. I was loathe to relive the shock we all felt, whether or not we as too cool high school students deigned to admit it at the time, loathe to relive the sadness, the fear. At the time, it was the single most earth-shattering moment of my relatively young life, and I absolutely did not want to read it. Still, it taunted me. The bleak grey cover with stark white lettering whispered from its place on my office shelf, 'read me.'

This morning it finally happened. Spurred on by a colleagues decision to read what is sure to be the definitive book on an American tragedy, I cracked the paperback proof that I had grabbed from our stacks of free galleys so many weeks ago. Much to my surprise, this wasn't the trying read that I had first envisioned it to be, but a gripping account of two boys and thirteen victims brutally cut down in the prime of their lives, not to mention the mourning and psychological effects on countless others.

Cullen shows us with utter grace and compassion that these boys were not the social outcasts they were made out to be; they were not advised by KMFDM to murder their fellow students, but two deeply troubled young men (Harris more so than Klebold) who committed the ultimate act of brutality against innocent and unsuspecting students.

Even as the book meanders toward the fateful day, giving in depth description and background on the town, the boys, the victims, the ammunitions suppliers, a dark cloud looms over the horizon of the narrative. Cullen somehow manages to make a suspenseful non-fiction out of a story we know too well. This book is absolutely astonishing in the attention to detail and the in depth journalistic reporting (how we miss you journalists). Even with the intense subject matter, I found myself unable to put the book down, and unwilling to be pried away.

Happy Reading,
Julia