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!

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!)