My Favorite Book of the Fall is Out this Week!

And, no it is not Freedom by Jonathan Franzen but good guess. Nothing against his new book, a fellow Boswellian, Conrad really liked it and had this to say:

No one writes about dysfunctional families and individuals better than Jonathan Franzen. The struggle to achieve personal independence and identity-battling the constraints of family, friends, lovers, society, and the unrealistic expectations (both our own and other people's for us) that map our lives- is explored with hilarious results in this splendid new novel. If you liked The Corrections, you'll love this!--Conrad

While Franzen blew me away with all the frenzy and media surrounding it for yesterday's release, I was eagerly anticipating Paul Murray's Skippy Dies, which happened to come out on the same day as Franzen.

Skippy Dies starts out a bit depressing, because, well, Skippy Dies by page four. Then, Paul Murray hits the rewind button on his novel and starts the story at the beginning of a school year at Seabrook College and follows the many characters that have a hand in leading to Skippy's demise. The story revolves around Skippy and his friends, as they move through the school year, attempting to use String Theory to open up portals or to evade the local bully Carl. The conversations these kids have are often quite hilarious, and partly because I remember having pointless conversations myself back in high school. Paul Murray nails these conversations with ease, as if he is overhearing them as he writes, fluidly following the disjointed logic of youth. They have nicknames for their teachers, for instance their history teacher is Howard the Coward. Which Howard assumes is just because it rhymes, but secretly he knows that he is hiding out from real life and other secrets that tie him to Seabrook College.

Skippy Dies has many, many plot threads running throughout, and I leave you to discover them. Let's just say that the book is funny, sad, exhilarating, and exhausting all at the same time. It is a journey you will never regret, full of shocks and surprises. And, did I mention that it was long listed for the Man Booker Prize?

Live at the Sugar Maple, June 10th, Cronin & Chaon

Attention!! Boswell Book Company has a spectacular event this Thursday at the Sugar Maple, with two authors who have published some of the best that fiction has to offer. It starts at 7pm!

And the first author brought to you by Jocelyn:

If you missed Await Your Reply in hardcover, now is your chance to get it in paperback. And missing it would be a crime, because this novel is one of the best pieces of writing to come out in the previous year. Chaon first showed his craft as a short story writer, in the riveting collection Among the Missing. Even in the novel format, Chaon keeps that crucial attention to detail, giving us stories within stories.

Await Your Reply is rhythmic in its pacing, interweaving the strands of three main characters whose lives intersect and ricochet off the others. Even within each chapter, the story is cut down into brief passages, each one faceted and honed to its own small resolution, like little gems that make up a necklace. The result is like the cycle of breathing; every inhalation demands an exhalation. And like breathing, you absolutely can't stop, because Chaon propels the story forward relentlessly, revealing details with a maddening deliberation. The story itself is an exploration of identity, and of the importance we attach to it. What makes us who we are? Can we change? Can we become someone else? Can someone else become us? Those are the questions the characters pursue. Miles ponders them as he follows the shifting trail of his schizophrenic brother. Ryan clings to those questions as he chases down the truth of his parentage. Lucy wonders about them even as she runs away with her older lover.

As each character pursues the answers to those questions, they draw closer to each other, and to the realization of just how easily identity can be tossed off, shifted, and created…and that within that truth lays a great danger.It's tempting to call Dan Chaon a "writer's writer." After all, the attention to the craft of writing is evident throughout the novel. But that description is misleading. Chaon is a reader's writer. This is a breathtaking story that is pure enjoyment, even while it's breaking your heart. Do not miss it.

And the second author brought to you by Jason:

Coming out tomorrow is easily the most hyped about book of the year so far, The Passage by Justin Cronin. You may remember him from either Mary & O'Neil or the Pen/Hemingway award winning novel The Summer Guest. If so, then you are still not prepared for this gem of speculative fiction, as this is all new ground that Cronin is putting down for himself. I am not going to tell you too much about the book, it is mammoth at over 600 pages. Cronin outdoes himself, he keeps to his storytelling, literary roots from his earlier works and melds it together with page-turning compulsiveness of an epic story a la old-school Stephen King.

The book has two parts to it. In the first part, we meet Amy, the girl 'who lived a thousand years' and a whole cast of characters working on Project Noah. All you have to know about Project Noah, is that it ends the world. It unleashes the virals, a kind of vampire that replicates like the plague. Amy is at the center of it, the heart of it, and the key to it all. But, she is not ready for it, she is whisked away as the world comes to a violent, bloody end. In the second part, Cronin entrenches us into a self sufficient commune-like town. Where the lights never go off and the cast of characters dream of what the stars look like. They also dream of what the virals would do to them should the lights ever go out. When Amy re-enters, a mystery to all (who could survive outside without any lights at night!), the story splinters again into a long journey, where a group goes off in search of the origins of Project Noah.

This is the epic novel you should read, this is the one that everybody is talking about. Do not miss it, and do not miss Dan Chaon and Justin Cronin live at The Sugar Maple!

Ode to Dan Simmons

Back in high school, in my Junior year English class, we read Canterbury Tales. The stories were amazing; and just to point out how much of a dork I was, I acquired a copy of the book and read more than the assigned five stories. Every Friday in my English class, five students would give a report on a book that they were reading for leisure. Most of the time it was stuff I was not interested in--again, in high school I was reading a lot of science fiction/fantasy, dork all the way. My friend stood up one Friday and started to talk about a book he described as a 'dark Canterbury Tales.' Yep, you guessed it - Hyperion by Dan Simmons. From that day forward I have been a devoted follower to all things Dan Simmons, which really boils down to just his books.

His new book, Black Hills is out this week, and just like his last two novels, he has ventured more into the land of historical fiction, with a tweak of science fiction. In his new novel, a ten year old Sioux named Paha Sapa (translated as Black Hills) finds himself in the middle of the Battle of Little Big Horn. He is weaponless, but he spies Custer just before he dies and touches him to prove his courage. Custer's soul jumps up and enters Paha Sapa, and resides there for the next 60 years. Simmons style is amazing, as he bounces the narrative from Paha Sapa as a young boy, to Paha Sapa as an old man setting dynamite at Mount Rushmore. You also hear a bit of Custer's story as he tries to ascertain where he is; as you quickly find out, he believes he can not see because of some injury, but he is certain he is alive. It is a glorious story of the transformation that took place in our country at the time. Actually, Dan Simmons introduction to his novel is fantastic, you will find it here.

Also out this last week by Dan Simmons in paperback is Drood. It is the story of the last years of Charles Dickens life, told by his friend Wilkie Collins. There are creepy sections in this book that will give you chills. The London underground is dipicted through opium dens and a maze of tunnels that boats seem to disappear in. Now, this won't happen to everyone, but I did feel the need to read Dickens and Collins after I finished. Daniel had the brilliant idea to form a lunch time bookclub to discuss these epic novels (I don't think either one of them could write a short book). The last time I was ever so enticed to read books related to the subject material of another book was the Crook Factory. Not surprisingly, also by Dan Simmons. That time he hooked me on Hemingway.

It seems that every time a Dan Simmons book comes out, I end up reading other books that I never really would have thought about, or at least thinking about something I never would have. Even with the new book I realized I had never really read any history on that era. While there was nothing extremely obvious for me to read, my Penguin rep Joe Cain comes through to sell his summer list, and there it is. The new Nathanial Philbrick novel about Custer, entitled The Last Stand, which doesn't come out until May. I have not finished this one yet, but I don't think I would have started it so quickly if it was not for the amazing reading experience I had with the Black Hills.

They’re Here! Zombies in Popular Fiction

If you’ve been to a book store lately (and shame on you if you haven’t) you have probably noticed that vampires are all the rage in popular fiction, including romance novels and books targeted at teens. Second to vampires are werewolves. A number of authors have featured creatures of the night as their protagonists (and antagonists) such as Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse series, Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series, and Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson series to name a few.

These are not the only night stalkers that are featured heavily in current fiction. If you look carefully you will notice a growing variety of books featuring zombies. “Zombies?” you say? Yes, Zombies! The dead that cannot die, but rather roam the earth as decaying, shambling ghouls propelled by a relentless hunger for living human flesh!

Admittedly, the sensual, romantic vampires and the tortured souls that bay at the moon are the girls’ favorites. The zombies are for the boys, as evidenced by the popularity of Max Brook’s books, The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z. There has also been Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith, in an attempt to get guys to read Jane Austen.

I can understand the popularity of vampires and werewolves. Vampires are cool and stylish; werewolves are wild, party animals. Zombies? What is so interesting about them? They’re crude, uncouth, messy, smelly, no sense of style. They roam around with their mouths open and their eyes rolled back in their heads, leaving a trail of fetid viscera wherever they go. Where’s the mystique? What’s the point of eating the flesh of the living? They can’t digest anything; their innards are putrefying by the hour.

In an attempt to learn more, I picked up a handy guide called The Zombie Handbook by Rob Sacchetto. This book will tell you all you need to know, along with illustrations so gruesome that it’s like homage to the EC Comics’ Vault of Horror.

As I perused this ghastly, nauseating tome, I came upon a section devoted to a special variety of zombie; namely, the ‘alien-possessed’. Now we’re talking! A human as host to an alien parasite, an alien-produced human replica, or even an artificial human. Certainly, a marauding, flesh-eating zombie is no trip to Disneyland (or maybe it is), but even more frightening is to be face to face with someone, something that you completely accept as a human being (and why would you think anything else?), but is really not human, or is no longer human. You would never know, or perhaps you have a sense or feeling that something is not quite right about the person in front of you, but you can’t quite put your finger on what is wrong with him or her. A rotting corpse meandering around is fairly easy to spot, but what if the ‘zombie’ appears to be just like everyone else?

Maybe you have just met someone, a new business acquaintance perhaps, and they seem normal enough, but suppose, just suppose that what they really are is a poor hapless drone that has been hijacked by a slug-like alien intelligence as in The Puppet Masters by Robert A. Heinlein, or The Host by Stephanie Meyer? You and your new ‘friend’ sit down to enjoy a latte and some scones, and you begin to become aware that there is something odd about this person, perhaps this person is not really a person, but rather a facsimile produced by an extraterrestrial seed pod like in Invasion of the Body Snatchers by Jack Finney, or an alien that has the ability to completely absorb another life form and produce an exact duplicate like in Who Goes There by John W. Campbell Jr.?

What if this person smiling pleasantly at you is just a synthetic construct made to duplicate human expression, like the characters in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick, or as in Solaris by Stanislaw Lem?

Of course this is all in fun, just fodder for popular pulp fiction. And yet, if we were being infiltrated by an alien life form such as suggested in these various works of fiction, how would we ever know, until it’s too late? Eventually we would be them. Look around you; perhaps you are the only one in the room that is still human. Maybe you should read the books that I mentioned. While you still have time.

Posted by Mark Paprocki

A Mystery Vacation with Anne

I recently traveled to a small Canadian town for the weekend--thanks to Louise Penny's new book Brutal Telling, which is due out September 22nd. Since an actual vacation was not in the cards this year, it was a wonderful time away. Her books always tell a good story, the sense of place is strong, and the characters who recur from book to book are becoming friends.

If I want to visit Paris for awhile, the mysteries by Cara Black are the perfect way to do it. Each book is set in a different neighborhood of the city. The descriptions are so vivid you can feel the cobblestones beneath your feet! The most recent book is Murder in the Latin Quarter, and a new one is due out in March of 2010.

One of the more exciting developments in the mystery field over the past few years, is the number of authors from other countries whose works are becoming more available here. It's possible to travel around the world without leaving your favorite place to read. Settle back with any of these authors and enjoy a marvelous mini-vacation:

Kjell Ericksson (Sweden)

Karin Fossum (Norway)

Arnaldur Indridason (Iceland)

Henning Mankell (Sweden)

Donna Leon (Italy)

Alexander Mcall Smith (Botswanna)

Matt Beynon Rees (Israel/Gaza)

Diane Wei Liang (China)

Anne McMahon hosts a Mystery Book Club at Boswell Book Company every fourth Monday of the month.

A Great Summer Staff Rec on The Magicians

The Magicians by Lev Grossman was released early this August due to some great reviews. In a month deluged in big name authors, from Pynchon, Conroy, and Russo, this was easily my favorite book coming out. Quite possibly for the year, though there is a new Vonnegut coming that I really, really like. I shamelessly pitched the book onto other employees looking for more readers, and I convinced two, Amie and Greg. Amie started reading the book, only to have it stolen by her daughter. I think this is proof that The Magicians has a good chance to sell well this year; while the book does have a darker edge to the story than Harry Potter and Twilight, it still has that cross over appeal to the teen market. If you have read either, I think this book might just be for you. This is what Greg Bruce had to say about it:

“I am reluctant to call The Magicians the "more adult version of Harry Potter," yet I do. This is because it is the closest parallel that can be drawn, despite the fact that Grossman's work is ahead of Rowling's by leaps and bounds. Nevertheless, fans of Rowling or C.S. Lewis will find themselves engrossed in The Magicians, staying awake until the wee hours of the morning just to discern the fates of the primary characters.

The Magicians is much like Harry Potter in the sense that the main character is a young man with remarkable magical abilities, but with a key difference. Harry Potter is the embodiment of absolute good - his morality never wavers and he always finds his way back to standing against Voldemort, the avatar of absolute evil. Quentin Coldwater, the main character of The Magicians, is different. He makes mistakes - real, human mistakes - and pays for them dearly. In this respect, The Magicians is grittier and more real than Harry Potter, and thus is set apart. In the real world, some mistakes aren't rectified, some problems aren't resolved, and death is absolute.”

There is also a great book review, one of many that had Penguin releasing the book before the actual on sale date, at the Washington Post. It is by Keith Donohue, the author of the The Stolen Child, another fantastic read.

If you are in need for a fantasy fix, if the new Harry Potter movie left you remorseful that there is nothing new to be published, then The Magicians will be a perfect way to end the summer.

Right now, the The Magicians is 20% off in our Boswell’s Best for the month of August.

New to Read Local--American Wildlife Art

Shortly after we first opened on April 3rd, a local author came in to ask if we would carry his book. We had been talking about it for sometime, however, I had been asking to carry it on consignment, since the publisher was small, and really only published his book. It is my standard form with all local authors coming into the shop. Once he showed me the book, American Wildlife Art by David J. Wagner, I was fascinated by it and decided to order it direct. He provided contact information and I was going to work on it. Fast forward to today, and we have just received the book in, it still looks gorgeous.

Why did it take so long to procure the book? Well, simply put, I am not the fastest with the e-mail. I let it pile up, and then I try to burn through it at a furious rate. Not a very good system. Anyway, I sent an e-mail, forgot that I sent it until a reply came back three weeks later, and then I replied again. During that time David Wagner came back in and asked about the progress. I had to sheepishly reply that I had only e-mailed to his publisher a couple of times but had yet to actually place an order. I placed the order about a month ago, and now this book is in our shops. It has been heralded as a both a beautiful and wonderful art book and as a great piece of art history. He has blended the two into a perfect symbiosis. There has always been a place in America where nature art has captured the minds of so many, and David Wagner takes us on a tour of the past four centuries of it. Come in and take a look at the book, it is in our Read Local section, I think you will agree that it is something special.