Why you should read Special Topics in Calamity Physics

I've said it before and I'll say it again, don't let the title intimidate you. We're getting closer to our instore Book club, so I wanted to say a few things on Special Topics to get your engines running and those pages turning.








First off, I think I'm a litte jealous of Marisha Pessl. I'm jealous because she's amazing. She's a fantastic writer, she's not that much older than I am and she's pretty too. If you don't believe me I'm attaching a visual.


Marisha looks like the kind of girl you don't like because you think she's really cool. Maybe that's just how I feel about her, but don't let her picture keep you from reading this book.


In all seriousness though I loved 'Special Topics'. I was excited that there was a table of contents set up like a college course. I was excited that the narrator sites all of her references like it's a term paper. It's strange and quirky, and unbelievable. When I was done with the book I made my friends read it because I enjoyed it so much. If you're thinking about reading it you should. When you're done reading it you can come talk to us about it on September 18th. We'll be in the bookstore the third Tuesday of this month at 7:00pm dying to talk about 'Special Topics' with you!



I can't wait to talk to people about this book. It's one of those books that I think will get better the more it is discussed.


Here are some clues to get you started in your reading:


1. THE FLYING DEMOISELLE: An archaic means of hanging someone, popular in the American South between the years of 1829 to 1860. It is also, in all likelihood, how Hannah Schneider died.


2. THE IRON GRIP: An unfinished tour de force.

3. LION SEX: Something that happens in Room 222 of The Dynasty Motel.

4. VALERIO: A clue


MORE RESEARCH is available at: http://www.calamityphysics.com/



If you still need convincing I will leave you with one last push to get you to pick up the book:



Yes that is Tom Hanks, and yes that is a copy of Special Topics in Calamity Physics, so come pick up your copy and start reading.



Hope to see you Tuesday, September 18th in the store! (7:00pm)


Happy Reading!

Kristiana

Sena Jeter Naslund!

Last night we had the pleasure and privilege of having Sena Jeter Naslund, the acclaimed author, in Laguna Beach Books for a reading and signing!

Everyone was charmed by her eloquence and insight into both the history of France and Marie Antoinette the human being. Sena told the story of Stefan Zweig's earlier biography, Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman, which not only portays the French queen as dim-witted and self-absorbed, but insinuates that this is what the "average woman" is. Average woman?? In a way, Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette, she said, is a response to that. In it, Naslund gives Marie Antoinette her most full, human, sympathic and nuanced rendering, drawing deeply from historical sources but giving her life as only a novelist can.

Many in the audience were intrigued to hear Sena talk about writing Four Spirits, set in Birmingham, Alabama during the Civil Rights era -- a time and place that she experienced first-hand. And she assured everyone: you don't have to have read Moby Dick to appreciate her female retelling of that story in Ahab's Wife!

I'll admit, this is my only experience with the great white whale:

We'd like to thank Ms. Naslund and Julie Brickman for their time, and everyone who attended for making the evening such a wondeful experience.

And yes, we still have some signed copies if you missed the good time!

Things I Did at Work Today - a haiku

i put in orders

i opened bills to be paid

damaged books called on

by Kristiana

Simon Van Booy Event!

Simon Van Booy joined us Tuesday night at the Mandarin Fine Art gallery, and besides being a gentleman and a scholar (of course), his earnest demeanor and genuine interest in all of the attendees was wonderful to see.

He began the evening reading from ancient Chinese poetry. The aspect of their art he kept referring back to was how readers at the time were trained to read for the metaphor first, and then to savor the actual, physical, realistic minutiae secondly. We tend to go the opposite way: the dying flower is a dying flower first, a reminder of death second.

To close the evening, Simon read "Little Birds" from his collection The Secret Lives of People in Love. It's the story of a fifteen year old Chinese boy and his adopted French father, and it's a tender and elegant portrayal. In addition to the fine language that pervades the story is a genuine-ness and level of empathy for characters that is hard to come by. Most short stories, especially with "literary" aims, lean so heavily on irony, on mocking anything that resembles sentiment. We talked a little about this, how irony is easy but trying to be beautiful is difficult and a brave, vulnerable step to make. Simon's modesty might prevent him from saying so, but I think his book takes that step confidently and successfully.

Thanks again to Simon, and to Kim and John at Mandarin, and to everyone who turned out and made the evening such a pleasure!

-Patrick

(and we have signed copies in the store!)

Joseph Cornell, John Taylor, and Poetry

In honor of the Festival of Arts closing up shop, I want to single out a particular artist there that blew my mind.

Not that the other fine artists didn't -- some of the childrens' art was breathtaking -- but in John Taylor, there is something so contrary to the other pieces on display. Wildly detailed and even quietly fanciful ships and submarines made of scraps of refuse that he lovingly collects and then shapes into something like this:

Out of who knows what junk, he crafts these rusted remains of battleships and submarines that are simultaneuously hyper-realistic and ever-so subtly skewed into the fantastic. They tap into multiple layers of child and adult fantasy: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea wonder, World War heroism and destruction, Little Mermaid romanticism and the unrelenting progress of death and time in the body of an unreasonably large shark in Jaws. They cause a sort of associative disorientation, bringing out (in this viewer) childlike wonder and the chill awareness of inevitable decay.

And then there's the added level of these wondrous things being made from other peoples' cast-off and disposables. Upon closer inspection, the deck is a bit of CD jewel case. Over there is a fan cover from a computer. Look beneath the rust:

It's these qualities in Taylor's work that remind me of Joseph Cornell's shadowboxes. Cornell has been discussed and explicated (and envied and admired and...) to an overwhelming degree. But they're still fantastic, I don't care. And if you want a new way to approch Cornell, you should check out Dime-Store Alchemy, by our new Poet Laureate Charles Simic. It's Simic's dark, powerful poetry being driven by Cornell's whimsey and history, and it's a real treat.

And if you're the type that is sick to death of Cornell, sick to death of poets taking inspiration from that scumbag Cornell, then take a gander at this fine and funny essay by Naem Murr: http://www.poetrymagazine.org/magazine/0707/comment_179843.html

-Patrick

From Where You Dream

Some of you might know Robert Olen Butler: Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, and the how-to writing book, From Where You Dream. Others might as a distinguished professor at the University of Florida MFA in Fiction program. And now, reaching the widest audience of his career, Robert Olen Butler (of all people) is a Lohan-esque gossip column superstar.

Yes, I know this probably the first time Mr. Olen Butler has been described as "Lohan-esque," and, one hopes, the last.

For the details, you can look here:

http://gawker.com/news/robert-olen-butler/

But the basic run is: wait, what? Who left who for whom? Huh? Butler's wife left him for Ted Turner, he's fine with that. She did it because Ted reminds her of her abusive grandfather, and he's fine with that, too. Ted unabashedly keeps a stable of women on the ready at all times; Butler says groovy. Her real reason for leaving is that she (as a writer herself) can't get out of the shadow of Butler's Pulitzer, and he's downright eager to tell the world about that. Somehow he's turned a breakup into an ego massage with a happy ending.

I consider myself an open-minded person. People are entitled to live their lives as they see fit, as long as they're not hurting anyone else. (Unless that's part of a pre-arranged bargain, of course.) Reading Butler's email is a fun challenge to that sort of relativism. Is this kind of thing really all right? Is it healthy? Add in the Russian Doll situation of voyeurism -- the masses getting off on the gossip rags getting off on an egotistical writer getting off on an ex-wife getting off on the founder of CNN who, through his wealth and media power, gets off on all the rest of us, bringing everything full circle -- and I think I just had a mental freakout.

In a more bookish-related item, if you want a strange, funky look at a similar type thing, take a look at Donald Barthelme's Paradise. For those of you not familiar Barthelme, he writes hyper-intelligent, incredibly witty and funny stories and novels that, not to sound too academic, really launched post-modern fiction as we know it now. He wrote a retelling of Snow White that is hilarious and his stories, most well-know being The School (which you can check out over at NPR: http://www.npr.org/programs/death/readings/stories/bart.html), are fantastic.

Dalkey Archive Press reprinted some of his lesser-embraced novels. I read The Dead Father and wasn't too impressed. The King was a riotous retelling of the Morte D'Artur story. I'm only half-way through Paradise but already it has some energy the other didn't. The story's center is on a man whose wife leaves him. He happens to meet three models in need of a place to stay, they all move in and suddenly it's the Three's Company episode you always wished they'd made: he's in Pleasure Town. But he's not happy. That's the kicker. He's living the non-monogamous fantasy life and it's not satisfying.

I haven't figured out why yet. Any ideas?

-Patrick

Welcome!

You know what's funny about a first blog post? You have to write like someone's reading it, but of course no one's reading it. But you're hoping someone's going to read it. Except now, even what I'm writing seems aware of some imaginary audience. And by imaginary, I mean audience of zero.

So let's play make-believe:

Welcome to Laguna Beach Books' official blog! We'll be posting reviews of new books we've loved (or marginally liked, or in the case of Laura possibly just lusted after), old books we still love, news from the bookselling trenches (yeah, we have it so rough), and funny things that happen in the store. Like that one time that Freddy Kruger came in because he's a Lagunan (Laguna-ian? Lagun-ite? Lagunese?), which is actually really creepy. Don't fall asleep, Laguna.

Actually, we'd rather tell you about something very dear to our hearts: Laura Silver. Some of you may know her as Dr. Laura, radio personality extraordinaire, or others call her Ms. Silver. What ever you call her, just don't call her late for work! (Da-dum.) Speaking of da-dum, she's learning to play drums. And she's really excited. She might give up teaching to play professionally. Keep an eye out for this female John Bonham, unless--in a rock-induced rage--she sets fire to the kit and, therefore, would have nothing left to play.

Which would be fine, because then she could stay at LBB, where she reads more and knows more about children's book than any child. And she's friendly. And she knows everyone in Laguna Beach. And if you ask her for a quarter, she'll give it to you. Honestly. Come in and try it.

So thanks for reading, pretend imaginary audience. Check back, tell all your imaginary friends, and come meet Laura (and the rest of us) in the store!

That's all for this one. Stay tuned for more serious posts, and more ridiculous ones, too. Until then, remember Laguna Beach: you're good enough, you're smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like you. Except the misanthropes. Misanthropes don't like anyone.