Lit by Mary Karr

Lit by Mary Karr

I haven't read The Liars Club or any of Karr's other books, but I had heard some good things about this one. Plus, I'm not that big of a nonfiction reader (the only biography I've ever read is Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton). Either way, I gave Karr's book a try.

As Amazon puts it, "Lit follows the self-professed blackbelt sinner's descent into the inferno of alcoholism and madness--and to her astonishing resurrection."

And it has to be said that Karr is a good writer - but you have to kind of be in the mood for her style. She doesn't use any quotation makrs - her story is written more like a stream of conciousness - and reads like a novel. It's not a quick read, though, and personally I didn't like it because I couldn't connect with it - on any level. And I didn't feel that Karr provided any great insight into the lives of alcoholics that we haven't already seen from other movies or books. That being said, it's worth a read if you're in the mood for it, but be warned - it can drag on in a couple of places. (I'd suggest a place somewhere in the middle of your to-read list)

News-wise

Festivity-wise, we're inviting everyone to our Holiday Party on Sunday, December 13th from 11-3. Food-wise, we'll have massive cheese trays (MCTs) and other special treats. Also keep your eye out for special holiday sales on gift items. We're prepared to suggest a book for any type of person who exists in your family (or "the whole catastrophe"). Here's a few examples of our favorite holiday books and the people who'd love to read them.

Creative types? Try WHAT IT IS by Lynda Barry, an inspiring collection of painting, collage and text.



THE SCRIBBLE BOOK by Herve Tullet is excellent for younger imaginations. Tullet's freewheeling sketches are meant to provoke children to elaborate and decorate what's on the page.



Historical fiction fans? If they're true history lovers, pick up WOLF HALL by Hilary Mantel, who describes the often written about Henry VIII in a truly original way. She won the Booker Prize for this novel.



Foodies? We've got a takeout menu organizer, a selection of cooking memoirs, and this season's most-anticipated cookbook, MOMOFUKU. Also check out our newly-expanded used cookbook section. For a limited time, these cookbooks are on sale: hardcovers cost $5.95, and paperbacks just $3.49! YUM!

Wellington Square Bookshop also specializes in rare and collectible books, and we have an astonishing collection of signed first edition treasures. Ask to peruse the rare book room or take a look at our contemporary collectibles in the back area of the store.

And remember-- we can order any book for you-- new or used! New books arrive in the shop every couple of days.

Upcoming Events!

A lot is happening this December. Here's a list of events to look forward to!

Philly Liars Club Event
Saturday, December 5th from 12-2pm
Start off your holiday season with this free Saturday afternoon party at Wellington Square Bookshop in Exton, PA! There will be free munchies, Truth or Lie Trivia games, and prizes including signed books and bookbags. Browse at this uber-cool bookshop and hang out with the following Philly Liar's Club members:

Bram Stoker Award-Winner Jonathan Maberry (PATIENT ZERO, St. Martin's)
Fantasy author Gregory Frost (SHADOWBRIDGE and LORD TOPHET, Del Rey/Random House)
Young adult author Marie Lamba (WHAT I MEANT..., Random House)
Debut crime novelist Dennis Tafoya (DOPE THIEF, St. Martin's)
novelist Kelly Simmons (Standing Still, Washington Square Press/Simon and Schuster)
Historical author Keith Strunk (Prallsville Mills and Stockton, Arcadia Publishing Images of America Series)
Mystery author Merry Jones (The Borrowed and Blue Murders, Minotaur Books)
Mystery author Jon McGoran who writes as D.H. Dublin (Freezer Burn, Berkley Books)
Social media marketing consultant, writer and lecturer Don Lafferty

Never been to Wellington Square Bookshop before? Then you are truly missing something, including a beautiful setting (fountain, tin ceilings, antique bookshelves), a wonderful coffee bar, a fun and smart staff, and an exceptional selection of new and rare books. Come to the bash on December 5th to check things out, meet a ton of zany authors, and to show that you support independent bookstores everywhere!

It's gonna be a blast...honest!

Holiday Party
Sunday, December 13th from 11am-3pm

Been meaning to check out our shop?
Want to meet other book lovers in the area?
Searching for some special holiday offers on new, best-selling, or eclectic titles?
Or do you just want to browse our shelves with a drink in your hand?

Come to our open house, held in partnership with the neighboring Wellington condominium, and discover Chester County's newest independent bookstore!

Wellington Square Book Club
Wednesday, December 16th at 2pm or
Thursday, December 17th at 7pm

Join us whenever your schedule permits. This month, both meetings are discussing two books about single motherhood: read either "Sweeping Up Glass" by Carolyn Wall or "Look Again" by Lisa Scottoline. We'll be selling both titles at 20% off!

Meet the Author: Cynthia Goch
Saturday, December 19th 11am-2pm
Cynthia Goch's cookbook, "Mama Mia Cucina," combines delicious recipes with touching and heartfelt family stories. She'll be here to talk sign books, and serve up sample dishes!

Acoustic Open Mic
Friday, January 15th 6-9pm
Grab your guitar and perform at our acoustic open mic event! Performers are also welcome to dazzle us with non-musical acts, so feel free to recite a favorite poem or your original work.



E-mail us at info[at]wellingtonsquarebooks.com or call at (610) 458-1144 for more info about any of these events.

You can also contact us if you'd like us to order a book you're interested in or to schedule a time for your bookclub to meet in our beautiful shop. We'll provide complimentary coffee and cookies!

New Shel Silverstein Biography

Here's an enticing review of a Shel Silverstein biography entitled "Silverstein and Me" by Marv Gold. Besides writing those big, amazing volumes of poetry for kids, he lived at the Playboy Mansion and penned "A Boy Named Sue" (Tomi Ungerer, another children's author, also drew cartoon erotica). According to Gold, Shel had no ambition but lots of lofty dreams, spent one stint in the army, three at colleges, and two years in jail for smuggling hash from Marrakesh.

Why do freaks make such good children's authors? Shel Silverstein's demented poems (extra-demented when he reads them aloud: take it from someone who owns "A Light in the Attic on cassette tape) really appeal to kids. But Silverstein did know the power of a book like "The Giving Tree" or a poem like this:

Listen to the MUSTN'TS


Listen to the MUSTN'TS, child,

Listen to the DON'TS

Listen to the SHOULDN'TS

The IMPOSSIBLES, the WON'TS

Listen to the NEVER HAVES

Then listen close to me--

Anything can happen, child,

ANYTHING can be.

THE WRONG MOTHER!

I picked up the Wrong Mother by Sophie Hannah hoping for something really satisfying, a violent demonstration of motherly problems often written about more quietly in novels. "Say something nasty about a child-- even if it's true, and even if it's your own child-- and there's hell to pay" (NY Times). There's plenty of punishment in the Wrong Mother, in which three women-- one dead, one missing, one narrating (sometimes)-- find themselves in maternal entrapment that goes unseen and unexperienced by their husbands. Enslaved by unreasonable and helplessly selfish children, these mothers are forbidden to strike back when wronged. Their private systems of martyrdom and punishment start to become real with the murder (or suicide?) of model mother Geraldine Bretherick and her daughter, Lucy. As the grisly mysteries are parsed, so is the grisly career of motherhood. Sophie Hannah's book is carried along by its light and nasty humor. Even though The Wrong Mother is extremely funny, it successfully disturbed me.

Kurt Vonnegut special

For Kurt Vonnegut, “the fantastic offers perception into the quotidian, rather than escape from it.” His tragi-comic novels have earned him a dedicated following and critical acclaim. Their highly imaginative plots—informed by, but not limited to, science fiction—describe a world forced to reenact an entire decade after a temporal disturbance (Timequake), a man who accidentally befriends Adolf Hitler (Deadeye Dick), and a substance that will instantaneously turn all the world’s water into ice (Cat’s Cradle). Although events occur on a worldwide scale, we never lose our intimate perspective into the daily life and personal reactions of Vonnegut’s characters. Their unpredictable presence makes it so that his apocalyptic stories, although grim, never stop being funny. As he said, “[l]aughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.”

Books by Kurt Vonnegut are 10% off this week. Come by and see him: he's nestled in the corner of our new books section.

Review of "Wolf Hall" by Hilary Mantel

We have all sat in lecture halls, discerning Shakespearean insight into history textbook drama. We have been seduced by the beautiful portrayals--the high collar lace and bodice of Hollywood--in The Other Boleyn Girl and Showtime’s The Tudors. Countless books have been written. And still our fascination with Henry VIII’s brutal, passionate reign over 16th century England lives on. We are enamored by the soap-like drama: desire, anguish, exultation, deals, spies, decapitations, and fabulous clothes (1). While we are captured and amused by Anne Boleyn’s seduction and Henry’s child-like temper, we forget the sociopolitical backdrop: England was in the midst of a religious upheaval. The man seated in the heavens, pulling the strings of his royal marionettes, was the infamous Thomas Cromwell.

Historically, Cromwell has been painted as a manipulative, power-hungry fiend, concerned only with the guise of pleasing His Majesty in order to climb the social latter into Court. For eight crucial years in the 1530s as the most powerful political figure in Henry VIII’s England, Cromwell orchestrated the King’s momentous break with Rome, the dissolution of the monasteries and the seizure of their wealth, and the execution for treason of Sir Thomas More, Bishop John Fisher, the Carthusian monks, and many, many others. And, as both The New Yorker and The New York Review have remarked: You cannot achieve total reformation without “breaking some eggs” (1,2).

Therefore, to undertake such a strongly disliked character and make him the subject of a five-hundred-and-thirty-two-page novel would be quite a feat. What’s more, is making him the protagonist, a wise minister and decent man. In Hilary Mantel’s Man Booker Prize-winning novel, Wolf Hall (Henry Holt, $27), she concedes to do just that.

Mantel does not negate to tell of the horrific happenings under Cromwell’s leaden hand, nor does she make excuses for his actions. What she so brilliantly does, is shift the historical paradigm and shed light from a different angle. The Cromwell of Wolf Hall has some of the qualities that his enemies feared and detested--toughness, wiliness, worldliness--but as Mantel depicts them, they are qualities in the service of survival, success, and even a measure of decency in a cruel and indecent world (2). Moreover, Mantel succeeds in lighting Cromwell so well by setting him against the perverse, dark religious fanatic, Thomas More. More, as Mantel depicts him, is so clouded by his Catholic duty that he is dangerous to Britain-- he is the only separation between Britain the medieval fiefdom and Britain the modern nation-state (3). Comparatively, in Mantel’s modern secular mindset, Cromwell makes the stronger leader.


In the most fully realized historical fiction, the historical figures are not merely shadows moving the background but engaging, colorful presences with thoughts and feelings and fears. Wolf Hall is written in a third person omniscient narrative, with Thomas Cromwell as its point of view. Readers are brought microscopically close to Cromwell; we are able feel with intensity the growing tension in Court or the pressure mounting in a sixteenth century mind. Mantel writes in a kind of credo:

Forget the coronations, the conclaves of cardinals, the pomp and processions. This is how the world changes: a counter pushed across a table, a pen stroke that alters the force of a phrase, a woman’s sigh as she passes and leaves on the air a trail of orange flower or rose water; her hand pulling close the bed curtain, the discreet sigh of flesh against flesh.

The historical novel is always, therefore, an act of conjuring: the illusion of reality, the ability to summon up ghosts (2).

Wolf Hall is moving like a freight train caught in Newtonian inertia-- barreling toward nationwide praise and readership and unable to stop. The New Yorker surmises that Mantel should be “congratulated for creating suspense about matter whose outcome we’ve known since high school”. I agree. However, what is more important is that we have an official voice to question our staid belief in the textbook, or more candidly persuade us that history--and reality for that matter-- is subjective.


(1) Taken from The New Yorker
(2) Taken from The New York Review of Books
(3) Taken from The Washington Post

The Monster Den! or: children in literature

All this Where Are the Wild Things stuff made me think of another book about wild things that, for better and for worse, doesn't have any of Sendak, Jonze, and Eggers' uplift. The Monster Den: or Look What Happened At My House-- and To It is a sick and nastily unchildlike collection of rhymes. At first, they're lessons in etiquette, Victorian-style, but that gives way to an account of three childrens' subsequent rebellion and escape from the household to a wild outdoor life. When they return a few years later, their parents flee and "never were heard of again."

Edward Gorey, Ciardi's former student at Harvard, illustrates the book. He does a good job of drawing monster heads, hair tangled into an elaborate pretzel, and other terrible things.

In response to parents appalled by the violence in his books for kids, Ciardi cited "intensities and losses" that made his childhood a time of "madness" and "disproportion." His own sons and daughter were the inspiration for the three characters in "The Monster Den," and Ciardi decided that the depiction would be good for them: "Children are savages. I think they need fairly strong stuff. As I recall and observe it, childhood is a time of enormous violence. It's emotional violence: everything is out of proportion. My feeling is that if we can take this sort of violence and convert it into play within formality-- make a little dance and rhythm of it-- I don't know what else that could be except theraputic." Although he betrays a pessimism about childhood in these lines, Ciardi also seems artistically taken by the "high-pitched" "imagination" and extravagence of children: their "language and natural metaphors are violent," but they are still just that: language and natural metaphors, a system of expression that behaves with extraordinary passion and a certain unwitting articulation.

As Ciardi says, "the children are a jury that can't be rigged." (But do they have good taste??) Even the author of such an unsentimental collection believes in children's preternatural ability to see clearly. However, it's this same innocent faculty that causes their anguish and incites them to violence. Children are magic. L-O-V-E!

The Daily Local (dailylocal.com), Serving Chester County, PA

Business

A book lover's delight

For expanded Wellington Square Bookshop in Uwchlan, rarer is better

Friday, October 9, 2009

By GRETCHEN METZ, Staff Writer

UWCHLAN — Wellington Square Bookshop may be located in northern Chester County, but its market is much bigger.

"We sell to the world," said shop owner Samuel Hankin. "We've sold to all 50 states many times over and to 50 countries. We know people from all over the world."

The original Wellington Square Bookshop, at 800 square feet, opened in early 2006 and featured an inventory of rare books, some valued at $20,000 or more.

In August, Hankin moved the enterprise two doors down to 543 Wellington Square, a location with 3,700 square feet of space.

"We thought we had years to expand (here) but it is already full and we're building new shelves," Hankin said.

The new store specializes in arcane, eclectic and obscure works, featuring rare, collectible and used books, many from Hankin's personal collection. On

the shelves are such classic writers as H.G. Wells, J.D. Salinger and Ernest Hemingway alongside collections of Italo Calvino and Primo Levi.

It also has a section for contemporary books that Hankin gets through a distributor.

Selling rare books and first editions to such far-flung places Russia, China, Iceland, South America and beyond is the key to competing with the national bookstore chains and online book discounters, Hankin said.

Books at tens of thousands of dollars are not bought locally.

"Lots and lots and lots of people are interested in this kind of book, people where money is no object," Hankin said, sitting in the shop's cozy, private rare book room.

It seems to be working. The 57-year-old Hankin said sales double each month.

Located in Eagleview, the bookshop gets its name from the community's Town Center, Wellington Square.

Sounding so British can throw some folks off, especially customers in England who mistakenly think they are dealing with a local company, said Hankin, who then has to explain he is not calling from Oxford, England.

Hankin is a member of the family that founded and continues to run The Hankin Group, developers of the mixed-use community Eagleview along with a number of other developments in the region. His father, Bernard Hankin, founded the company a half century ago.

Hankin believes the bookstore adds value to the Eagleview community, which has corporate and residential components surrounding a retail center. At Eagleview, the Town Center is home to a doctor, a dentist, a pharmacy, two restaurants and is fast becoming a destination location, he said.

In addition to being a bookstore owner and a partner in The Hankin Group, Hankin is a lawyer with a practice in Florida and Pennsylvania.

The new shop sports a cafe with sweets from Delightful Desserts of West Chester, a children's corner with story times for the little readers, author book signings, open mike night for readings and its own book club for adults, though other book clubs are welcome to meet there as well, Hankin said.

Hankin worked on the store expansion himself, furnishing it with antiques from his personal collection, building his own book shelves and installing the hardwood floor and tin ceiling, common in American stores of the 1890s. The sweat equity meant a considerable savings, bringing the store to completion shy of $50,000.

While the shop has a classic look and feel, its technology is 21st century. Wellington Square has its own Web site and links to its own pages on such social networking sites as FaceBook and Twitter. It also has its own blog to keep the shop's readers informed.

"Our customers really like books," Hankin said.

The Daily Local News : Serving Chester County

The Daily Local News : Serving Chester County

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The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker

I recommend the Anthologist. It's Baker's newest novel-- a typically low-key and rambling story about a man trying to write the introduction to a poetry anthology. There are so many flaws with the book: it constantly refuses significance, mentioning things like Project Runway and Subway; the resolution comes after no noticeable buildup; and, even though it's about poetry, nothing truly poetic happens. But Baker induces sublime acceptance in the reader, directing them to a world of smaller, more everyday pleasures and revelations.

The Windy Day

John and Faith Hubley recorded a rambling conversation between their daughters and animated the interaction in this video. The changing conversation is reflected in the fluid animation as their kids wander casually from one story to another. The Windy Day tries to capture the "real world of children rather than what children do that adults think is cute" (Charles Solomon). The Hubleys animated in watercolor and "threw dust on the cels... worked with grease so the paint would run" (Bill Littlejohn).



The Language and Lore of Schoolchildren, collected by another couple-- Iona Opie and Peter Opie-- in the 1940s treats children like anthropological subjects, “the greatest of savage tribes, and the only one which shows no signs of dying out.” (haha) They observed the non-parent-mandated activities of kids on the playground, and recorded their rhymes, games and songs, meticulously describing their meanings, purposes and rules of usage.

Our First Author Event- Jen Bryant

Tomorrow we're having Jen Bryant at the shop for a meet-the-author event. Jen's written seven children's books and won the Caldecott Medal for River of Words, her beautiful biography of William Carlos Williams. Her newest book, Kaleidoscope Eyes, is for young adults. Like all her young adult novels, it's written in verse:

We have hit a layer of shale

and some huge tree roots.

Before we dig any further, we bring

the metal detector with us

to the church, strap the battery pack

and headphones on Carolann,

and wait beside the hole. Tonight

the full moon glows like a piece of

pirate gold. We don't even need

our flashlights. And the sound coming

through the instrument is so loud,

we don't even need to ask her

what she hears.

Kaleidoscope Eyes is set in New Jersey in the 60s and besides touching on issues of that time-- like the Vietnam War-- it includes the discovery of an old map and the subsequent quest undertaken by three friends who find themselves involved with pirate legends.

Come by tomorrow to meet Jen-- she'll be in our shop from 11-2!

The Collector by John Fowles

I am close to finishing The Collector by John Fowles; I can barely pause to write this blog, I'm so engrossed in the story. Fowles is one of my favorite writers; not only does he have a Nabokovian flair for the twisted-but-slightly endearing antagonist, he weaves a gripping plot through eccentric and realistic characters. In fact, the story really unfolds from his characters: he creates, in this case, a seemingly asexual working-class recluse who collects butterflies and turns him loose on the world and the rest falls into place...

The back cover of a Laurel paperback edition reads:

THE POWER OF PASSION

THE POWER OF EVIL,

THE POWER OF THE MOST SPELLBINDING STORYTELLER OF OUR TIME, come together in this sensational, million-copy-selling triumph by John Fowles, author of A Maggot and The Magus.

The setting is a lonely cottage in the English countryside. The characters are a brutal, tormented man and the beautiful, aristocratic young woman he has taken captive. The story is the struggle of two wills, two wasy of being, two paths of desire-- a story that mounts to the most shattering climax in modern fiction!

Well, that's a bit dramatic. But it's a very good read and I suggest you pick up a copy... and we have a whole John Fowles collection available at Wellington Square Bookshop. So come down and get one!

Timbuktu by Paul Auster

I just had to post this image of the new cover when I saw it on the Book Design Review Blog (a great blog, by the way).

Timbuktu is a short novel following a homeless man, Willy G. Christmas, and his dog, Dr. Bones, who wonders about an afterlife his owner referred to as "Timbuktu." As usual, there are rogue written texts in Auster's book-- Christmas locks his manuscripts in a bus station locker where they remain after his death. We don't know what they say. But another author takes over-- Dr. Bones, the dog, whose story shouldn't even be available in written form. But here it is in Auster's unusual book. Christmas's writings might be more complex or more successful, and the story we get from Dr. Bones constantly refers back to the unavailable ideal manuscripts hidden in the Greyhound lockers. What remains is a humble and tragic novel.

Richard Matheson Readfest

So I was reading about all these new movies coming out based on books and one that caught my eye was the story of "The Box" which stars Cameron Diaz and James Marsden. It's a box such that if you push a button, you become instantly wealthy, but you kill someone that you don't know. I thought it was a pretty interesting premise, and when I googled the author Richard Matheson, I found out he had written I Am Legend as well AND Stephen King called him his greatest influence. How could you go wrong? Hence, my Richard Matheson readfest began.

Button, Button: Uncanny Stories by Richard Matheson

There are a lot of stories in here. But let me tell you, some of them are dissapointing. "Button, Button" didn't live up to the hype - I guess because it was a short story, and I expected the ending to be better (it's got a pleasant twist but I was looking for something more). The story probably would've been better if it was a very short/somewhat short novella, which means I'm looking forward to seeing the movie still.

I expected more of a philosophical approach to the short story than it was (and I think that's partly because of the ending which was ba-dum-da-dum blah). There was room for elaboration and, in my humble opinion, some deeper and more profound dialogue. Norma, the wife, really annoyed me by the end - but I thought that she and her husband, Arthur, could've had some pretty good banter before it was all over!

There are some stories that are pretty good - I especially enjoyed "No Such Thing as a Vampire". But others, like "Pattern For Survival" and "Dying Room Only" were just weird... partly because they didn't have the kind of weirdness I expected from Matheson. I thought that "Button, Button" was actually one of the stronger short stories in this collection, even though a lot of the reviewers on Amazon strongly disagreed with this opinion. All in all, the stories in this collection are just average - the title story is good, and readers will enjoy this if they're looking for a quick read, but it didn't have that sparkle you expect from Matheson.



I Am Legend

I must confess, I watched the movie a long time ago (it was scary!) and didn't read the book beforehand. However, I still enjoyed this story immensely and it was much better than the movie. I Am Legend the movie changed the ending a lot and the story line a little. Adding in the dog and Will Smith was a good call but the movie's new ending - not so much.

Anyway, I Am Legend has that special twist I really expected from Matheson. It's about a man named Robert Neville who, because he was bitten by a vampire bat (?), is immune to a germ that infects people and gives them vampire-like qualities. Furthermore, in shocking and disturbing news, the germ can also inhabit dead people to make them zombies. But it also infects living people, too - and Robert Neville's flaw is that he fails to see that the vampires are still inherently people on the inside.

Every day, Neville goes around building back up his house, then waiting out the storm of vampires who try and lure him out of his cave at night. And fairly, he's tired of living the way he is, and so he sets about finding a cure for vampirism. While walking in the daylight, he meets a woman who seems to be immune, just as he is, so he captures her for observation. And the story only gets better from there.

In conclusion, if you have a couple of hours to kill, skip the collection and go for I Am Legend.

Then, read "Button, Button" in November before the movie comes out. It'll take you 15 minutes.

The Rare Book Room Is Finished!

We have finally finished the rare book room! The chairs are plush, the shelves are dusted and settled in place, the mahogany tables are polished, AND the books are in order. I want to live in there; it's so cozy. I think the proprietor does as well, he fell asleep in there the other day. Once you close the french-style doors, it is relatively quiet.

We feature rare and collectible works-- some novels, some biographies, some children's books. A few notable pieces are:


A first printing, first edition of A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf

An illustrated, 1930s edition of 21 Delightful Ways of Committing Suicide by Jean Bruller

A signed, first edition/first printing of After Many A Summer by Aldous Huxley

A first edition, first British printing of Thackeray's Vanity Fair

A first edition, first British printing of Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. This is interesting because, due to the controversial content, it did not get published in the United States until three years after it was published in the UK and France.


Anyway, come visit us and our rare book room or drop in to www.wellingtonsquarebooks.com and check out our inventory listed online.

In Search of Memory by Eric R. kandel

Just to show you I am not a complete idiot, I read this book for you. The idea is take a bunch of genetically engineered lab mice, splice them together with poignant memories of Nazi Vienna and then come up with the answer to where memory resides.

Nobel Laureate Kandel, intertwines the intellectual history of the powerful new science of the mind--a combination of cognitive psychology, neuroscience and molecular biology--with his own personal quest to understand memory.

From Vienna to Laboratory, Kandel searches for the biological basis of memory.

I wish I could remember what his conclusions are. Take my day, move it from my hippocampus to my pre-frontal cortex and what do you get? Some weird-ass dreams.

Memory in my opinion, and I think I speak for Roger Penrose, who is known for his periodic tiling of the plane (he did my bathrooms) and his friendships and falling-outs with Steven Hawking, resides in quantum effect. We can't find the basis for it because we are looking for it. And what are we looking for it with? Our memory in good measure. Look-break a vase and then try to fix it with the broken vase (poor analogy). Can't be done. We look inside of our consciousness to see what is there, but we are stymied by the fact that the tool we use is the tool we are looking for.

Anyway, he seems like a nice guy, and he DID win the Nobel Prize and his quest, as all noble quests, is remarkable and courageous. Maybe he's right after all. I just can't remember. (OK. Enough of that!)

You Don't Love me Yet by Johnathan Lethem

Drugs, sex Rock'n Roll, and even a masturbation boutique (called No Shame). What's not to love? Lethem, author of Fortress of Solitude and The Wall of the Eye, The Wall of the Sky lampoons the alternative band scene in L.A.

With an emaciated lead singer who looks like the guy in The Dandy Warhols, an introspective geek of a lead guitarist who can only play sitting down, a bassist who falls in maniacal love with an overweight, shaggy haired diabolical genius (kinda like me) and a drummer who stiffens the band's resolve, this quintet of enigmatic folks, shoots to sudden almost-stardom and then falls precipitously into a pit that doesn't even exist. By the way, a good portion of the story is devoted to Matthew's (the singer) day job at the zoo, where he rescues a kangaroo from ennui and installs him in his bathtub where he (the kangaroo) defecates four times a day, each scatological batch the size and shape of a catcher's mitt.

Interested yet? I was. And I wasn't disappointed. Graphic sex is always fun, even without a Nona around and there are tons of cigarettes, loads of weed and an amazing amount of alcohol. So as I said earlier, what's not to like? Read it if you are not a Republican.

Minions of the Moon by William Gray Beyer

Published in 1950, the same year that Robert Heinlein wrote Sixth Column, which sold for $2.50, this early science fiction/fantasy tale, although 190 pages, can be read in about 20 minutes. Here's what it's about:

When Mark awoke after the experiment, he hardly expected his astounding discovery--he had been catapulted thousands of years into the future, where, incidentally he meets this incredible babe in hardly any clothes at all!!

This future world was like nothing one had ever predicted. Far from scientifically advanced, it was a semi-barbarous state in which the facts of science lay hidden in the cunning minds of a few. To meet the challenge of his new existence, Mark became a swashbuckling leader among the Neo-Vikings. And inspiring him in his valorous deeds was the beautiful, romantic Nona. (Did I mention that she was a semi-clothed Babe? And perhaps a nymphomaniac. She bedding Mark in just a few hours.)

Fortunately Mark had an important ally-- Omega, a Walter Brennan type, who used a lot of "you rascal" and "you young pup!" and whose home was the moon. Omega was a disembodied intellect, pure thought, he roamed the universe at will, as old and as wise as humanity itself. Kinda like me.

It was Omega who first revealed the presence of "the dangerous brains", the terrible force for evil which lurked in the world and threatened mankind with enslavement. And it was Mark who led the battle against them. They weren't that smart really but a lot smarter than George Bush.

This science fiction novel is a thrilling and swift adventure of the rebirth of civilization.

For enjoyable reading it is exceptional. And it has a semi-clothed babe named Nona who likes to have lots of sex with Mark. She is really spunky and feisty and probably a real pistol in bed. Probably real flexible as well. But I digress.

So if you are interested in 59 year old science fiction Neo-Viking books, this is for you, especially because of the extremely semi-unclothed Nona. Ah Nona.

Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen

Ok. This one is really really strange. First Rivka is writing this novel about her father Tzvi Gal-Chen, at least in part. He flits in and out of the book like a firefly and it is clear that Rivka loves and admires him, although he is fictionalized quite convincingly.

So any way, Dr. Leo Liebenstein arrives home one day to find that his wife has disappeared, leaving behind a woman who looks, talks and behaves exactly like her. Certain that Rema is still alive he commences a quixotic quest for her leading him to Patagonia among other venues. His Sancho Panza is one of his psychiatric patients, Harvey.

In any event, we all fail to see clearly the world around us, or in this case, the woman we love, but the journey to discover, or re-discover true meaning, qualitative or quantitative is always the most important thing.

This comic and picaresque novel is well worth reading and has chapter titles such as: 1. A method for Calculating Temperature, Pressure and Vertical Velocities from Doppler Radar Observations.

Just so you know, Rivka Galchen received her MD from Mount Sinai School of Medicine, having spent a year in South America working on public health issues, She recently completed her MFA at Columbia University, where she was a Robert Bingham Fellow. The recipient of a 2006 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers Award, Galchen lives in New York City.

All of this is depressing to me since she is 25 years younger than me!!

Apropos of nothing: As Yeats says in his Song of Wandering Aengus:

I WENT out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,	5
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.
When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,	10
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran	15
And faded through the brightening air.
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;	20
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

The Puttermesser Papers by Cynthia Ozick

The Puttermesser Papers is really strange. Not the strangest book I have ever read, don't get me wrong. It just comes at you all at once, and all at once means a tyrannical Golem, a tyrannical Russia emigre, a flaccid lover, an idyllic Paradisaical New York City, hoisted on its own petard or its catenary, which is a more painful thing to be hoisted upon, I would suspect. Then while catching, or trying to, my breath, the flighty, tragic, amazing and completely unhealthy life of Puttermesser comes to a ...., but dear reader, I have told too much, or too little. This book won the National Book Award (actually it was just a finalist). Read it if you like being stung by a small bee, while reading your own obituary.

Affinity by Sarah Waters

I chose Affinity to read on the plane during my vacation because so far, when I read Sarah Waters, the whole world falls away and I can't stop reading! Before this, I read The Little Stranger and Fingersmith, and I thought both of them were totally fun and almost pitch-perfect Victorian novels that include things that actual Victorian novels don't touch.

In Affinity, a wealthy young woman, Margaret Prior, begins volunteering at a women's prison as a "lady visitor." She's there, ostensibly, to provide an example to the criminals and to give them the chance to speak to someone: they aren't allowed to talk to each other and spend most of their days in silence. Margaret's motives and past are unclear from the start. What she doesn't tell us about herself emerges when she develops a fascination with one prisoner, a medium convicted of false spiritualism.

I was a little disappointed by Affinity-- in a lot of ways, it seemed like a version of Fingersmith written before the actual finished object, as though Waters was testing out ideas. This, plus awkwardly-included Foucaultian theory and a very lagging middle part narrated by an increasingly wimpy protagonist (same thing happened in the Little Stranger!), would have ruined the book for me, but the last 75 pages or so had amazing momentum.

Staff Picks This Week: Jolie

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

Narrated by two closet intellectuals - Renee, the 50-year old widowed concierge who tries to keep up the appearance of a concierge while secretly enjoying Tolstoy and fine cuisine - and Paloma, the precocious 12-year-old who's decided life's not worth living for insightful and hilarious reasons. They are finally brought together by M. Ozu, who recognises their talent and potential as no others do. Both narrators despise and mourn the class-concious inhabitants of the building and offer their takes on life. Despite the two narrators though, the book's spotlight is inevitably by Renee, who - after reading the book - really makes you turn around and look at people twice.

Barbery is a great writer, and as a professor of philosophy, she incorporates some really interesting stories and thoughts into her books. The staff all really loved this book, as did I - and I'm really looking forward to reading Barbery's newest, Gourmet Rhapsody.

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

Enzo the dog is the narrator of this story. He's picked out as a puppy by his loving owner, race car driver Denny Swift. This completely loveable dog likes watching the TV and Denny's old racing videos, and travels with Denny throughout his life through marriage, children, love and loss. Anyone with a dog can appreciate the loyalty Enzo shows, as well as his occasional hilarious outbursts of anger at not having opposable thumbs - lashing out in one chapter, for example, at monkeys, who are too stupid to have been given the joy of having thumbs. By the end of the book, I felt I had really gotten to know Enzo, and I never wanted the book to end. This is a great read.

The Glass Room by Simon Mawer

In 1930 Czechoslovakia, the new Mr and Mrs Landauer commission a man they meet on their honeymoon, Rainier van Abt, to build a modern house for them. His answer is the Landauer House, a house with a glass room that is the talk of the town, where they raise their two children and hold dinners and piano recitals, and where Mrs Liesel Landauer feels truly content. But when the Nazi regime begins to gain ground in Europe, the family has to find a way to escape, eventually leaving their beloved house, never to truly return. In their absence, the house becomes many things - a lover's paradise, a bartering centre, a place for research - always waiting for the return of its original inhabitants.

The Glass House is a beautifully written story, and while Mawer writes a great deal about what goes on the house itself, his main focus is on the Landauer family and Liesel's closest friend, Hana, through their extramarital affairs, trials and tribulations. This is a beautifully written novel, and is an extremely enjoyable novel. It's not a book for the beach, and it's a sad novel, but beautiful nonetheless.

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

I had previously read Fingersmith and immensely enjoyed it. Then Sarah Waters' newest book, The Little Stranger, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, so of course I had to read it. Waters is an amazing writer of historical novels, but this was a little bit different from her previous books. It's partly a ghost story, but mostly it's a novel about class in postwar Britain.

Dr Faraday is a quiet country doctor and the son of a maid; Mrs Ayres is the owner of Hundreds Hall, a once-grand manor now in shambles; her two children are Caroline and Roderick, whose leg was damaged in the war. Strange things start happening in the house, with no explanation, and Dr Faraday, the gallant narrator, relays the story to us through his eyes. He begins treating Roderick using induction coils, but quickly integrates himself into the Ayres household, and consequently shares in their various misfortunes.

Unfortunately, I was dissapointed with this novel. While it's gotten great reviews and it's certainly worth a read, I didn't think that it was up to the standards of or Waters' other novels. It may be that it's a little bit creepy, but I also felt that some of the suspense-building in the middle section was a little bit too much, and then when it did speed up near the end, the action seemed to be going too quickly and even wildly. The Little Stranger is by no means a long and tedious novel, but I felt it might have been better if the middle was made shorter and the last part made longer.

As said before, however, this novel is worth a read, especially if you liked Sarah Waters' writing style as seen in her Victorian trilogy. But I don't see it as Man Booker material, if only because I enjoyed Fingersmith so much more.

New Books Update!

We've got some cool new books in, some signed, some not, all in superb condition and ready to go! Plus, if you're looking for a gift, some relatively inexpensive signed copies of some great books priced from $20-$50 are here - including Zafon's The Angel's Game.

Also remember about signing up for our book clubs; you can find more information on our website - just click on the "Book Club" link:

http://www.wellingtonsquarebooks.com/announcements.php

And while you're at it, if you've got young kids, e-mail us for updates on the September Storytimes.

Finally, we're hard at work on the Man Booker Prize reading.
Less than two weeks to go!

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, quite strangely (and, as our proprietor suggested, distastefully) titled, is truly a remarkably original and intelligent debut novel from Canadian author Alan Bradley. Guided by an eleven-year-old protagonist--with a precocious vocabulary and a keen interest in poisons--readers are led hop-skip across the English countryside in order to unravel the mystery surrounding her father and his curious stamp collection.

Early one morning, young Flavia de Luce and her father find a dead Jack Snipe on the doorstep with a stamp pierced by the end of its bill. Colonel de Luce, as Flavia notices, reacts in an odd way: with fear. The next morning, Flavia discovers a man lying in the cucumber patch, and as she draws near, he breathes his last word to her ear: Vale.

Confused? I bet you are. But intrigued? I know I was.

Once I began this book, I couldn't put it down. I'm never one for any old mystery novel--especially those that ignore character development and depth in exchange for an engaging plot--but I must say The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie does not sacrifice a thing. It is both well-written and comical, with an original voice and a cast of characters overflowing with oddity and nuance. AND, I really enjoyed reading it: it had me laughing and it had me guessing.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is the first in a series of Flavia de Luce books by Alan Bradley. For his first novel, Bradley received the Crime Writers' Association Debut Dagger Award.

New Pastries in the Shop: A Poem

Amaretto biscotti, chocolate chip biscotti,

Coffee nut

Blueberry

Scones,

Bigger than ever before.

No-fat berry muffins, trenchant and luminous,

Cranberry nut

Pecan coffee praline.

Then, suddenly,

chocolate chip cookies,

oatmeal cookies,

mocha chip cookies.

Amaretto biscotti,

Chocolate chip biscotti.

Lemon

Lavender

Mini

Cookies

25cents each.

They wait together

With upturned eyes

Wanting to be chosen

And dipped in coffee.

Where the Wild Things Are

k

Kiss Painting by Sandra Jeppesen

A few summers ago, I found myself aimlessly wandering the streets of Montreal. I spent the day watching couples in Parc Lafontaine drink wine and smoke unfiltered cigarettes, French Canadian mothers unpack a lunch of Pepsi and moon pies for their children, and waiters specifically ignore the American patrons. As the day waned and the couples became drunker, I happened upon an obscure bookshop on Sherbrooke. And in this "eclectic" shop, I stumbled upon an unusually rare find: a great book.

Don't let the cover fool you; this is no politic-ridden manifest of punk-anarchist angst. Sandra Jeppesen's Kiss Painting (Toronto: Gutter Press), defies the constraints that anarchist literature usually bears. I know I know, I'm sick of their studded leather chaps and chains too... but, this book is about so much more. As reviewer, Sue McCluskey, put it: [Kiss Painting] is a tale of three friends; street kids, punk rock anarchist squatters, who meet, live together, move away and travel to the ends of the earth to find each other. It is a tale of loyalty and love, in which a ragtag tribe of society outcasts--or, rather, people who have rejected society--create a generous, compassionate community out of the squalor and chaos within and around them."

While Jeppesen's politics do show its neon-green head, it is with compassion for our lost humanity and a genuine want for community among people. Jeppesen utilizes stylistic choices akin to Mooly Bloom's Soliloquoy in Ulysses, creating with flowing prose-poetry, a cachophony of colors and sensations and thoughts. The language is so decandent it's almost edible; it reminds the reader just how beautiful the world can be.

It really is a shame that some brilliant authors, who push the conventions of the written word, can receive so little attention. Sandra Jeppesent is yet another one of those voices that drown in the deafening yells of the Dan Browns and Stephanie Meyers of our time. Kiss Painting has the opportunity to shift the paradigms of readers and I hope you give it the chance it deserves. I loved this book!

ABCs and 123s

I'm ordering some new stuff for the children's section. Some of my favorites are cool-looking ABC and counting books. Here's a few pictures:

Asterios Polyp

I liked Asterios Polyp too, but maybe all the hype had gotten to me-- I was expecting something bigger. The different fonts and colors assigned to different characters was a neat idea, but it seemed like such a basic conceptual use of the medium. All the reviewers are saying that Asterios Polyp is such a big deal because Mazzuchelli is taking advantage of what the graphic novel can do that a written novel can't, and it definitely had the feel of a book written for a set of ideas. In the end, I wanted more than that, and the story itself didn't really compel me.

But I loved the ending.

Books We've Read

Emma and I both read the raved-about Asterios Polyp, a graphic novel by David Mazzucchelli. It's a relatively quick read, and a good one - especially for first-time graphic novel readers like myself. The story line has some nice twists but the pictures are definitely the best part! All the characters have their own colours and font style, which makes it a lot easier to keep track of everything that's going on and adds a unique flair to the novel.

"Asterios Polyp, its arrogant, prickly protagonist, is an award-winning architect who's never built an actual building, and a pedant in the midst of a spiritual crisis. After the structure of his own life falls apart, he runs away to try to rebuild it into something new. " (Amazon)

Then there's The Help, by Kathryn Stockett. I was pretty excited to read this one since it had great reviews on Amazon and Indiebound. It's a wonderful, well-written book, but it didn't live up to my expectations (which, granted, were probably too high). If you're looking for a fun read, this is a book to consider! It's an uplifting novel, told from three perspectives in 1962: Eugenie Skeeter Phelan, an (unhappily) tall white woman with a bossy mother and married-with-children friends, Aibilene, a maid who's raised seventeen chidlren, and Minny, who's smart mouth has lost her more jobs than she can count. An aspiring journalist, Skeeter decides to anonymously publish a book about the lives of "The Help" in the South. An amazing debut novel!

The cafe

The Wellington Square Bookshop cafe is now open!!!!! Come by for a cappuccino, espresso, latte, Americano, French press or plain ol' coffee. We have pastries, too.

All our coffee is supplied by Terroir, a division of the famously delicious George Howell Coffee Company. Terrior produces sustainable single-origin coffees grown in partnership with coffee farmers.

More Photos

Our New Shop - A Life in Pictures

Here are some photos from our new shop - enjoy!

A seating area outside, featuring Cinzano umbrellas

A cafe area with good cappuccinos for good people made by good frothers
Featuring George Howell's coffee from Massachusetts

Our new Children's Corner, with new, used, and rare children's books
(plus young adult novels!)

You can even enjoy a romantic dinner with our ambient music
We're open 'till 7 on weekdays
And we wear our prom dresses to work every day (on occasion)

THE LOOK

Relaxing outside the bookshop
(Notice the lions in front of our doors!)

Enjoy a coffee in one of our comfy chairs

Come see us in Eagleview Town Centre!
We've got a fountain and lots of cool books!