My Persephone Shawl and the Books that Inspired it. . .

I've written before about my love of Persephone Books (see here and here for example), so when I thought about matching the patterns from Karie Westermann's This Thing of Paper with inspiration from my own bookshelves, this was the first project that came to mind.  I have been collecting Persephones for over ten years and they are the most elegant and beautifully produced books that I own.  I knew I had some cream and grey yarn in stash (Titus 4ply and Lichen & Lace 4ply) but had to have a real think about how to convey the unexpected and colourful endpapers that are a real design feature of Persephone books.

The solution was a skein of Ripples Craft 4ply Assynt yarn which has just about every colour in it!

The Psalter Shawl was the perfect design to combine all three skeins. I love how the mosaic middle section mimics a patterned print between the solid grey and white. Mosaic knitting, which is essentially slip stitch knitting, is also a lot of fun to do.  I was a bit worried about running out of the grey (I only had one skein), and so I did shorten the border by a few rows.

However the shawl has come out in a lovely size and is very cozy around the neck. These are not colours that I usually wear, but I think it's a very gentle, wintry type of palette and I am enjoying wearing this.

As for Persephone Books - do check out their list and website. They publish the most interesting, forgotten gems - not exclusively by women - from all over the world and in many different genres. Their books are also lovely to hold and read - beautiful paper, nice fonts and those endpapers! If you get on their mailing list, you'll receive their biannual magazine, always filled with interesting articles and short stories, and their website is a treasure trove of letters and posts about interesting exhibits, articles, and reviews relative to their books, authors, history, literature and London life.  You can easily get lost for hours on it and that's even before you get to the books!  And if you are ever in London, do visit their gorgeous little shop on Lamb's Conduit Street. It's not too far a walk from the British Museum and Bloomsbury and just a few streets away, if you are visiting the Dickens Museum, you can also pass the blue plaque showing where Vera Brittain and Winifred Holtby lived (Persephone Book #76 is Holtby's The Crowded Street).

If you are new to Persephone or are pondering one of their books for a gift, I have two excellent suggestions to get you started.  Their 100th celebratory book - The Persephone Book of Short Stories - is the perfect taster for some of the more obscure writers that they've championed, alongside well known authors such as Katherine Mansfield, Edith Wharton, Penelope Fitzgerald and Dorothy Parker to name just a few.  And then as a primer to why so much of what they publish is important and, more importantly, just great writing, pick up a copy of #78 A Very Great Profession by Nicola Beauman, the founder and brains behind Persephone Books.  I read this years ago when it was published by Virago, drawn in by its cover, a film still from Brief Encounter (one of my favourite films).  It's a fascinating study of women's writing between the two world wars and will have you itching to discover many of the novels mentioned - no surprise that several have now been brought back into print by Persephone. There is a particular fondness for Dorothy Whipple.

While they have just published their 125th book, I have lagged behind a little in my reading.
I probably own about one hundred and have only read around thirty. Nevertheless, I have never been disappointed by any of their books and really applaud the fact that they are committed to keeping all titles in print.

For what it's worth, here are my favourite top 10 (in no particular order):

#1 William - an Englishman by Cicely Hamiliton.  The first Persephone I bought and read and still so powerful. It fed into my interest in both suffrage and literature by women about the first world war.
#16 Saplings by Noel Streatfeild.  Several novels published by Persephone deal so well with trauma faced by children and this is one of them. Heartbreaking.
#28 Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski.  Ditto.
#7 The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher. A fascinating novel about a married couple - she really wants a career and he really wants to stay at home with the children, but they don't realize it until circumstances force them to confront society expectations.  This was published in 1924.
#5 An Interrupted Life: The Diaries and Letters of Etty Hillesum 1941-43. I went on a pilgrimage to see her house when I visited Amsterdam, so moved was I after reading this diary of a courageous and spirited woman in the darkest of times.
#30 Kitchen Essays by Agnes Jekyll.  While many Persephones will make you cry, some will make you laugh, including this delightful collection of essays on food and etiquette in the 1920s.
#56 They Were Sisters by Dorothy Whipple.  Another heartbreaker but a page-turning one. The film version, while very different in some ways, is definitely worth a viewing too. James Mason in all his best sneering charm.
#92 Midsummer Night in the Workhouse by Diana Athill.  One of the few books they've published by a living author, albeit one who just celebrated her 100th birthday. She's still writing!  This is a very enjoyable collection of short stories and I love that the endpapers were taken from the author's own curtain fabric.
#42 The Blank Wall by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding.  A great psychological thriller. I have yet to see the film version titled The Reckless Moment. It also stars James Mason.
#98 A Writer's Diary by Virginia Woolf.  Yes, I already owned a much-thumbed copy but how could I resist a Persephone edition?  The endpapers are taken from the original jacket cover designed by Vanessa Bell.


Currently reading (to celebrate 100 years of some UK women getting the vote): #94, the suffrage novel No Surrender by Constance Maud.

Goodbyes and Hello. . .

I'm always sad when a bookstore disappears.  Earlier this month I read that the Annex location of Book City in Toronto was closing; I spent so many years browsing and buying books there when I lived in the area, mostly during my university years. It was open late and it was a favourite place to head to if I needed a break from studying. I could always find a interesting book that I'd not come across and they had great remainders.  Fortunately their other locations in the city are staying open, but the Annex branch was really special and I don't think that strip of Bloor St. West will ever be the same.

 

I'm not a huge fan of chain bookstores, but I've always had a soft spot for Waterstones and I'm crushed that the Bold Street branch in Liverpool is also closing at the end of this month. There are two Waterstones in Liverpool and this was definitely my favourite even if it was smaller than the Liverpool One main store. The building is gorgeous, the staff recommendations were a little more quirky here, and the Costa coffee shop on the first floor (second floor for North Americans) was a great place to read or knit sitting at one of the tables by the windows overlooking the busy street below and with great views of the architectural details of other local buildings. There was also a very nice cozy space around the corner from the till, tucked under a sloping opaque glass roof. I am really going to miss it. Like so many other bookstores, it's fallen victim to rising rents.

 

 

I had made a resolution not to buy any wool, clothes or books this year (so far I'm holding fast to the first two), but news of these stores' closures depressed me. I just wanted that lovely feeling you get after wandering around the aisles and tables with no purpose and picking up whatever captures your mood and imagination at the time. So I cracked and bought a lovely selection of books:  Longbourn by Jo Baker, Instructions For a Heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell, The Light Years: Cazalet Chronicles Book 1 by Elizabeth Jane Howard (a series I've wanted to read for a long time), The Library of Unrequited Love by Sophie Divry, translated by Sian Reynolds (the French are always so good at writing about the importance of books) and Train Songs, an anthology of poetry edited by Sean O'Brien and Don Paterson.

 

On a happier note, I'm eagerly anticipating the re-opening of the Everyman Theatre which kicks off its new season in March with Twelfth Night. This famous building has been undergoing renovations ever since I arrived in Liverpool and I can't wait to get inside and see a production.

 



In conjunction with the Playhouse Theatre, the spring/summer programme is looking very promising. I would liken the two (in Torontonian terms) to a nice blending of Soulpepper and the Tarragon; a nice sprinkling of classic and contemporary plays but a commitment to new work as well. Following the Shakespeare will be Arthur Miller's A View From the Bridge, the world premiere of Hope Place by Michael Wynne (the Everyman is located on Hope Street), Dead Dog in a Suitcase (and other love songs) which is a modern update by Carl Grose of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera (really looking forward to that one), and finally Betty Blue Eyes by Ron Cowan and Daniel Lipman, based on a short story (later adapted into a film) by Alan Bennett.  Now you can't get better than that! There are also several touring productions coming as well.

One of the nice things about following a company is getting to know the actors and seeing them pop up in different roles, so I'm very much looking forward to acquainting myself with the Everyman ensemble. And I theatre is one of the few things that is far cheaper in the U.K than in Canada (I think they are more highly subsidized).  The cost of an entire season was less than the two tickets I bought for my Mum and I to see Soulpepper's Parfumerie last month. I thought when I moved here that I'd miss the theatre scene in Toronto terribly, but it's very alive and well in Liverpool.

On The Road - With Books. . .

What a lovely little gem of a book. A sweet and funny middle-aged romance hitched to an exuberant ode to bookselling

Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley was first published in 1917; the edition I read is part of Melville House's Classic Novellas Series and was the perfect choice for my bus rides this week. The author's bio on the jacket flap was also fascinating. This was the first of Morley's books, but he wrote over 100 of them, including Kitty Foyle. He also founded the Baker Street Irregulars literary club and edited editions of Bartlett's Familar Quotations.

Helen McGill is a 39 year old woman who has baked too many loaves of bread in her time and devoted the last fifteen years to taking care of her ungrateful brother Andrew, himself a successful author of books containing reflections on man's relationship to nature. As such he's always leaving home for long periods of time to find literary inspiration, leaving Helen to do all the work on the farm.

When the devilish Roger Mifflin shows up with his Parnassus, a type of caravan that doubles as a travelling bookshop which he is hoping to sell to Andrew, Helen decides to buy it on a whim and have a few adventures herself. The two hit the road discussing the art of bookselling, the woes of creating an "anthology" of baked goods, and generally enjoying each other's company. Until an angry and disbelieving Andrew appears, determined to put a stop to the nonsense.

The tale is told from Helen's point of view and her gumption and growing excitement over the possibilities of her new life are inspiring and infectious. And you'll smile a lot at her self-reflections and Mifflin's philosophical and literary musings. My favourite is his idea for "Chloroform Classics" - books all written by authors over the age of forty. It's very much a reminder not to be too complacent about life; it's never too late to make a change. I have the sequel - The Haunted Bookshop - on my shelves, bought at a used bookstore many years ago. I'm eager to see what these two get up to next.

What's In A Name?. . .

I finally got around to checking out this cool, secondhand scholarly bookstore that opened up last month just blocks away from the University of Toronto campus. It does have a name that's hard to remember - Of Swallows, Their Deeds and The Winter Below, which partially explains the delay. I'd seen a newspaper article announcing its opening and made a mental note, but then promptly forgot the name. Then it was featured in the latest issue of Toronto Life magazine as one of the "50 Reasons to Love Toronto Now". So I jotted down the address and popped over there with a friend this afternoon. It's located on the second floor of a nondescript building. The walls are painted dark grey and one's eyes are immediately drawn to a striking red velvet couch against one wall. The books are still being unpacked but there were enough on the shelves to warrant a good browse. Literary criticism, philosophy, film, classics and religion seem to be the main categories of focus. And yes, of course I couldn't resist picking up these two books:

I was born in Hull but left when I was still a baby and almost anything you read about the city has to do with Philip Larkin which is just fine with me as I quite like his poetry. Philip Larkin, The Marvell Press and Me by Jean Hartley promises not only to detail Larkin's early years in Hull and his relationship with a small press (I always love reading publishing memoirs) but also to describe the Hull of the 1950s and 1960s which hopefully will give me a sense of what my birthplace was like just prior to my arrival. Plus I was completely drawn to the cover - it's a photo of Larkin in front of a new library site in 1958. As to the second book, I have a number of titles in The German Library Series, mostly collections by German playwrights, but I was enticed to buy this anthology because it contains an excerpt from After Midnight by Irmgard Keun. I've read and enjoyed The Artificial Silk Girl and Child of All Nations and want more! There are also pieces by other German writers I'm interested in, including Ernst Junger and Gregor Von Rezzori.

With university bookstores carrying fewer books and certainly not offering the range from university presses that they used to - preferring to concentrate on t-shirts and electronics instead - it's really exciting to have this new used bookstore in the city. There's a good interview with the proprietor Jason Rovito in NOW Magazine which you can read here. I really like his philosophy - that a bookshop should be the centre of an academic community. Absolutely! But it takes skilled staff who actually love books, do the research needed to buy and stock intelligently, and who can foster good working relationships with faculty and students. As Rovito says in the NOW article, “Our gamble was that there was something that can’t be translated into electronic space in terms of bookselling. There’s a physical component that’s essential to the act. Part of that is the book itself as an actual object[...]but also talking about books, and the act of writing itself.”

"Just call it 283 College St, " said Rovito as I was leaving with my purchases, after having commented on the long name. I wish him luck and hope he can make a go of it - I'll certainly be returning.

Some Books I'm Lusting After. . .

Ah, this beautiful spring weather we're having - I'm just aching to wander the streets of Toronto, go out and buy books, and find a park bench in the sunlight. Here are some recent ones I've earmarked as must-reads.

The Letters of Sylvia Beach edited by Keri Walsh
Bookseller extraordinaire, founder of Shakespeare & Company - how can I resist? Plus, if you can't get to Paris. . .

A Crisis of Brilliance: Five Young British Artists and the Great War by David Boyd Haycock

I'm a fan of all of the artists profiled in this book - Dora Carrington, Mark Gertler, CRW Nevinson, Paul Nash and Stanley Spencer - and have read bits of each of their lives. This collective biography sounds fascinating. Many thanks to Hannah Stoneham and her blog review for alerting me to this book.

Jane's Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World by Claire Harman

I love book history and this tracing of the popularity of Austen's work over the last two centuries has gotten very good reviews. Certainly is my kind of book.

Virginia Woolf's Bloomsbury Volume 1: Aesthetic Theory and Literary Practice

Virginia Woolf's Bloomsbury Volume 2: International Influence and Politics

Edited by Gina Potts and Lisa Shahriari

News of this new anthology of scholarly essays went out on the Woolf listserv and the two volumes look terrific but I will probably have to wait until they come out in paperback before adding them to the Woolf shelf - bit pricey in hardcover.

What Becomes by A.L. Kennedy

A new collection of short stories from one of my favourite contempory writers. I love her edgy prose, always on the knife-edge between despair, danger and delight.

A Short History of Cahiers du Cinema by Emilie Bickerton

I subscribe to this magazine to improve my French even though I know it's not as cutting edge as it used to be. Which is why I want to read this book.

Yet another reason why independents rock!

Just love this post from Conversational Reading about a great event hosted by San Francisco's The Booksmith that combines a bookswap with a meet and greet and three hours of bookish talk!
I would love to see a proliferation of literary salons springing up in bookstores everywhere - as much as I love to read blogs, nothing beats face to face literary chat with passionate readers.

The struggling independents. . .

If you ever visit Chicago, a trip to the Seminary Co-op Bookstore near the University of Chicago is a must. You can seriously and deliriously get lost in its labyrinth-like underground corridors of books. (You can see some photos at this blog post). They also have a terrific website with its Front Table feature that replicates a physical display of new books and staff picks (you click on the thumbnail of the book and you can read more about it) and they are always posting interesting staff reviews and interviews. And in this day and age when so many university bookstores have reduced their trade sections in favour of installing cell-phone outlets and expanding their t-shirt lines, I use their website as a major source of information on new books published by university presses. In short it's everything an independent bookstore should be - a browsing paradise for its local community with knowledgeable staff , and savvy enough to reach out to booklovers on the internet (it's been years since I've visited - I used to go as a bookseller when Book Expo America was held in the city).

But like all independents they are feeling the financial pinch in the wake of competition from amazon (whose latest hijinks in removing Macmillan books from their site over a battle with e-book pricing has made me boycott them forever - I don't care that they later changed their mind), and now threats from google. Jeff Waxman a bookseller at the Seminary Co-op, posts a thoughtful piece at the Three Percent blog - essential reading for all of us who love the culture of independent bookstores. Read it here. And buy locally and support your independents!

On starting a new decade and NOT making New Year's Reading Resolutions. . .

A new year, a new decade. I can't help but look back to the beginning of the "oughts" and think about how bookselling and the industry has changed over the last ten years. Back in 2000 I was working in an independent bookstore and we'd survived the arrival of the chains (the bookstore still exists but is sadly so unrecognizable to me now that I can barely bring myself to visit; it certainly doesn't have the focus on books that it used to and very few of my former colleagues still work there). Online selling and e-books are gaining greater market share; publishers are looking towards embedding books or e-texts with all sorts of multi-media videos etc; and independent bookstores are still in trouble and closing. What's the future for them? I think it can only lie in becoming really specialized or being a boutique type of bookstore with a very dedicated, knowledgeable staff. Pages on Queen St. in Toronto which closed last year due to high rents, was such a store. Even though it carried a wide variety of books, it was the go-to store for small press, cultural studies, art books, graphic novels and small artsy magazines. I loved browsing there - I was always stumbling on something interesting that no other bookstore had. Cinematheque Ontario will be opening their new Bell Light centre next year - it will have more theatres and be the hub of the Toronto Film Festival. I'm sure there will be a cafe in the building but wouldn't it be awesome if there was also a bookstore that not only focused on film books, but had a terrific fiction section featuring international literature to complement their year-long programs of international films? They could also use the theatres for author events or lectures on literature.

The last decade saw the rise of blogging and a great way of quickly reading international book news and connecting with like-minded readers. Only now there are so many millions of blogs out there with each one leading to another and another. It's so overwhelming and time-consuming, not only to read them, but to blog oneself, as rewarding as the process can be. I've certainly cut down - I still have my favourites, but I don't check them daily anymore, preferring to have catch-up days and limit my online reading time.

I'm embracing SLOW this decade. Slow reading. Slow blogging (no pressure, just when I have the time and inclination). Slow cooking - trying to eat more organic, cut down on the red meat and use my slow cooker more often. Slow weekending - it's okay to take afternoon naps and leave some of the chores until later. I need to get out and walk more - without necessarily any destination.

I was a bit too ambitious last year with reading challenges and while I really enjoyed most of what I read, I kept compiling unreasonable lists and making crazy promises, and then not following up on them, and feeling bad about it and the whole thing just became an unending cycle . . .

So nothing too specific this year. In general terms, I'd like to read more poetry (and try to memorize some of it) and art books (I have a pile of artist biographies and books on various art movements - I need to do more than just look at the pretty pictures). I always like to tackle one of the really huge, monumental classics and this year it will be Robert Musil's The Man Without Qualities (I've already finished Part One and am really enjoying it so far, so this at least seems entirely possible).

I'm also inspired by Susan Hill's latest book, Howard's End Is On the Landing which I picked up after a flurry of blog recommendations. She decided to take a year away from the Internet, blogging, and from buying new books, to concentrate on re-reading the many books already on her shelves. An excellent idea and I'm going to extend it to my DVD watching as well - goodness knows I own enough films, both those I haven't even watched along with many that I would like to see again.

And I desperately need to declutter this year. Clothes, books, DVDs, endless piles of paper that need to be filed or shredded. So these are my mantras: Slow down. Breathe. Turn the computer off. Walk. Bicycle. Live in the moment. Have face to face conversations with real friends, not electronic ones. Keep going to the theatre. Read slowly and think. Re-read. And repeat.

Cool German reading campaign. . .

Reading and walking (but not at the same time) are two of my favourite activities so I love this German campaign that combines the two, and uses the legs of famous authors to publicize it. Read more about it here in English at the blog love german books, or if your German is a lot better than mine, lesen gehen here.

Celebrating My Favourite Publishers of 2008. . .

The internet and blogworld are buzzing with year end lists of top books and favourite reads - all of which I enjoy browsing as I inevitably end up noting down a new title or two. I've kept a reading journal for years and will blog about my top 10 favourite reads of 2008, but not until January 1st. I get a lot of reading done over the holidays - to pick now would just be premature.

So instead, to inspire all those shoppers planning to give books as gifts, I'm going to list my 10 favourite publishers of 2008. I've bought and read books from all of them this year but they get my vote not only for their interesting and unique lists, but also the care and attention they take in terms of covers and design, editing, websites and blogs - they all have a distinctive and eye-catching look. Not surprisingly they are small and independent presses. Do spend some time exploring their websites - there is some amazing publishing going on here. In my fantasy store, they'd all be well represented. In my private library, they are.

My Top 10 Favourite Publishers of 2008 (in alphabetical order)

Coach House Press. Lots of great Canadian writers got their start with this press and I still discover new talent every year. One of my favourites is Sean Dixon's The Girls Who Saw Everything, about a very unusual type of bookclub. The books always have a savvy design and they use beautiful paper.

Dalkey Archive Press. A publisher that keeps classics alive and introduces all sorts of interesting international literature and literary criticism. They publish one of my favourite contemporary novels of all time - Janice Galloway's Foreign Parts. This year on a trip to Seattle, I picked up one of their newer books that was calling out to me from the tables at the famous Elliot Bay Book Company - Olivier Rollin's Hotel Crystal. And started reading it (where else) but in my hotel room.

Europa Editions. I love the bold covers and French flaps of these trade paperbacks and they have a quirky selection of interesting European crime novels sprinkled among their literature. They had a big hit this year with The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, translated by Alison Anderson. It's on my to-be-read pile.

Gaspereau Press. This tiny press in Kentville, Nova Scotia designs the most beautiful books. They are works of art. Their mission statement says it all:

At the core of our philosophy is a commitment to making books that reinstate the importance of the book as a physical object, reuniting publishing and the book arts. Many of our covers are letterpress-printed, feature original artwork by artists like Wesley Bates and George Walker, and are printed on fine paper, in some cases even handmade. Most of our books are smyth-sewn & bound into card covers and are then enfolded in letterpress-printed jackets. Our house paper is Rolland’s Zephyr Antique Laid, a creamy, sensual book paper. Overall, the result is strong, flexible, attractive books that are comfortable, attractive and durable.

My favourite Gaspereau book is The Logogryph by Thomas Wharton. And I'm definitely going to pick up one of their newest - Eva's Threepenny Theatre by Andrew Steinmetz.

Melville House Publishing. A small press that combines all the best of what I love - literature in translation, the classics and interesting, current non-fiction. They have a wonderful Art of the Novella series that republishes classic shorter works, sometimes for the first time in English as with this fall's The Lemoine Affair by Marcel Proust, translated by Charlotte Mandell. A companion series is The Contemporary Art of the Novella which celebrates current international writers. I recommend Customer Service by Benoît Duteurtre as a prime example. And the book I am most excited about is coming out next spring - Hans Fallada's Every Man Dies Alone, which Primo Levi called, "The greatest book ever written about German resistance to the Nazis. " It'll be part of a Fallada revival as his previous work, The Drinker and Little Man, What Now? will also be reissued. Their famous blog MobyLives was also resurrected this year after quite a hiatus.

New Directions. I'm always excited to see what is coming next from this publisher. They consistently discover new and long-forgotten innovative writers from around the world and their book jackets are always edgy and cool - especially their black and white covers. This year I bought The Way It Wasn't - an autobiography (of sorts) by the founder James Laughlin. I also have many books by Javier Marias sitting on my shelves that I just haven't found the time to read yet. I do have one tiny beef with them - they have a great website for alerting readers to new books and events, but their online backlist catalogue gives no descriptions of the books and since many of their authors are not recognizable names, I think they are losing a lot of potential sales here.

New York Review of Books. Just a perennial favourite. I've enjoyed several of their new books this year, most notably Unforgiving Years by Victor Serge, The Queue by Vladimir Sorokin, The Summer Book by Tove Jansson and The Post-Office Girl by Stefan Zweig. I can honestly say that I've never picked up an NYRB classic and regretted the time I spent reading it. Impeccable editorial eye. Plus they also re-released one of the funniest children's books ever - The 13 Clocks by James Thurber.

Open Letter. This is a fairly new publisher out of the University of Rochester devoted to literature in translation and I love that their books are boldly designed hardcovers with no dust jackets. One of their unique marketing ideas is to offer a monthly subscription so that you can receive a new book in the mail each month. You can choose between a six or twelve month subscription and start with any book you like. The website only allows for U.S. orders, but if you e-mail them directly, they will set up an account for you to ship anywhere in the world (they will re-calculate shipping costs). A great idea and I'm rooting for this press big-time. One of their new releases this month is Marguerite Duras's The Sailor From Gibraltar, translated by Barbara Bray. Do also check out their terrific blog Three Percent.

Other Press. This press is great at publishing contemporary international fiction and two of my favourite reads of 2008 came courtesy of their editorial eye. The Open Door by Elizabeth Maguire is a fictional account of the life of bestselling American author Constance Fenimore Woolson, including an interesting take on her relationship with Henry James that becomes more fascinating if you've also read (as I have), Colm Toibin's The Master and David Lodge's Author, Author. I was also introduced this year to Chilean writer Elizabeth Subercaseaux with her moving novel A Week In October.

Persephone Books. Another favourite and a press that I collect . I'm always intrigued by what gem they will discover next. And they publish the most beautiful catalogues and newsletters - collectibles on their own. I feel my bookcases straightening their spines and holding themselves just a little more proudly whenever I add a new Persephone to their shelves. This year I was thrilled that they republished The Crowded Street by Winifred Holtby and A Very Great Profession by founder Nicola Beauman.

There's been a lot of doom and gloom about the publishing industry lately and the economic downturn is definitely going to affect the larger publishers and chain stores. But readers needn't feel depressed - there are still a lot of exciting new authors to discover. Buy lots of books this season for your loved ones and support your independent bookstores!

In which I wrongly predict the Booker Prize yet again. . .

And in the end, Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger took the Booker prize. Darn. Just scanning the newspaper coverage in Britian and the blog world however, it seems to have been quite a surprise upset with various reviewers calling it the weakest book on the list. I will eventually get around to reading it - it's quite the coup for a first-time novelist in his early thirties. God, I'm jealous.

In my dream bookstore I would have an exceptions section (have to think up a more interesting name) where I would sell the shortlisted books of major prizes and of course the winners but I'd love to put a spin on the displays. For example, I'd showcase the Booker Prize shortlisted titles on a table along with 5 shortlisted books I'd nominate myself from a time that fit the mandate of my store before the Booker Prize was established, say, 1908. Which was a pretty good year for fiction. So how about Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery, The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton, A Room With a View by E.M. Forster, The Old Wives' Tale by Arnold Bennett and a possible sleeper, Lady Athlyne by Bram Stoker (hey, it's still in print). Will White Tiger still be read in 100 years, I wonder?

Bookstores Around the World - Spadina Road Books, in my own back yard. . .

While I try to support independent brick and mortar stores when buying new books, there' s nothing like the internet for finding rare and out of print books. Still, it's nice to occasionally browse a new (to me, that is) used bookstore. I had received an online catalogue via e-mail from Spadina Road Books and phoned them up to inquire about a book that intrigued me. Since I was in the area, I dropped by today during my lunch hour. They have a very nice fiction section and a whole bookcase devoted to books about publishing - many of them from the period of this blog's focus. I have a small collection of these and am always looking to add to it. The books have been well taken care of; protective covers envelope most of the dust jackets. I also love a bookseller with a sense of humour. Here's how the store describes a 1957 edition of George Moore's letters to Lady Cunard in very poor condition. I love the final selling line.

Ex-library copy. Boards and endpapers have extensive adhesive stains from where the dustjacket had been taped down. Library stamp on the copyright page, circulation card on rear free endpaper, circulation pocket on rear pastedown. The dustjacket has complementary adhesive stains along the flap edges, rear flap is mostly missing, dustjacket is rubbed and edgeworn and there is a location label on spine. In spite of the wear to the dustjacket and boards, the text is clean and intact, of course, since according to the date due slip, this book was never once taken out of the library. Worth owning as an exemplar of the librarian's destructive craft and the lack of interest on the part of the reading public.

Nope, wasn't tempted. But you can't blame them for trying. And it did give me the best laugh of the day.

Of course the sign of a good bookstore is when one goes in with the intention of picking up one specific book and comes out with five instead. My target book was a tiny collection of letters from the publisher Martin Secker to D. H. Lawrence from 1911-1929. But I also picked up Publishers on Publishing, a 1961 anthology edited by Gerald Gross; a reprint of John Middleton Murray's 1936 collection of essays on Shakespeare; a Modern Library edition of e.e. cumming's amazing WWI novel The Enormous Room; and The Lost Library: The Autobiography of a Culture by Walter Mehring which looks to be a fascinating read. From the jacket flap copy:

The Lost Library of the title is that body of books which bade fair, up to the fatal year of 1914, to stand as the bulwark of a permanent, ever-growing tradition of enlightenment and progress. . . Mr. Mehring has built the tragic history of Western culture upon a semi-narrative framework, as the refugee narrator reassembles the books of his father's library after receiving them in exile. . .as book after book is unpacked and re-examined, it seems as though the story of the last hundred years in Europe, as revealed in its literary history, were retelling itself.

Bookstores around the World - Idlewild Books

One of the things I want to do on this blog is showcase innovative, interesting and just plain beautiful bookstores around the world. Three Percent tipped me to a New York bookstore that I will definately visit next time I'm in the city. Idlewild Books calls itself a "bookstore about places" and specializes in travel and international literature. They organize their sections by country. What a terrific and inspiring idea; I love reading the literature of a place before visiting - it completely enhances the experience.