Summertime and the Reading Is Easy II

Here is a delightful book to read this summer:  The Marriage Bureau for Rich People by Farahad Zama, now in trade paperback.  The Kirkus Reviews likens the enjoyment of protagonist Mr Ali to that of Precious Ramotswe of Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series.  I can see where the comparisons come in: the pleasantly foreign cadence of a traditional but everyday culture thriving in a hot, dusty place (India versus Botswana); the continuous introduction of quirky characters in the vehicle of new clientele (marriage-seeking vs investigation-seeking souls), with details down to like how Mr Ali bargains for the price of a half papaya and then, insists the vendor freshly cut a whole papaya, which should delight readers interested in the finely drawn minutiae of living in Vizag, a South Indian town (I dare not describe it as "small" although a town of 3.5 million inhabitants in India might well be considered "small..")

I find Zama's writing style and the approach to this book very interesting.  He is writing mainly to non-Indians, but one could see that he is also appealing to Indians who may not be Muslim or may not be Brahmin or may not be South Indian.  He is ready to educate, entertain and engage the reader about Vizag of today.  After the main story, he adds a charming appendix, entitled "Extracts from Mrs. Ali's English Essays."  This is his opportunity to comment on language and custom, as well as give us more information on Vizag, Urdu, Telugu and even a recipe for halwa.

Dixon Girl Does Phenomenally

Gina Venier, whom we have seen grow up to be a lovely young woman, both inside and out, and who has played live at Books on First, is one of five finalists (FIVE!!! out of goodness knows how many hundreds) in the Nike Field Reporter competition.  Gina is scheduled to play again (unless otherwise engaged with Nike) at Books on First on 31 July.

Great going, Gina, you are already a winner!  Good luck for the final stretch!

Consensus on Electronic Paper?

Wondering why independent booksellers have to stay on the sidelines?

The Wall Street Journal Online has a great video on explaining the current drawbacks of e-books.

Graham Beattie shares an interesting reporting of e-books. I like the quote, "e-books are good for those who prefer technology to reading.  'It’s in a format that appeals to them.'"

My boss Joe Wein has a schizophrenic time of it, as he loves both technology and books.  The ipod for reading Kindle-app enabled books and the Wall Street Journal was difficult and he preferred the paper versions.  However, having now gotten an ipad, he is happier, because the screen is larger and the app must be more adapted.  I still see him sitting back reading with the large newspaper spread in his two hands.  Electronic books are probably good for those like he who buy and read books recommended by others.  However, when he finishes something he wants to keep for reference or pride of ownership or sentimentality or other reasons, he would prefer a hardcopy, meaning a printed bound book.  He has said, as have others, that amazon.com should offer a discount to those who have bought a Kindle book and then, return to buy a paper version.  In fact, he thought the discount should be the entire price of the Kindle book, thus making the Kindle book purchase more of a free preview or a deposit on a printed bound book.

I echo the following sentiments:

Nevena Nikolic, book buyer of the independent store Time Out, says digital books are inevitable and she is “ready to jump on the bandwagon”...“We’re excited about e-books, we’re not afraid of technology.”

Books on First is unafraid, willing, ready, but not able.  Kindle is proprietary to amazon.com and as noted in the linked video above, there is no standard and thus, how can we even begin to figure out what bandwagon to jump on?

Someone out there must be thinking outside the box for us readers!! (I hope)  And, as it has been said, hope is not reality.  I do beg to point out, though, that in the case of most independent booksellers, our hope is not a denial of reality, just fingers crossed that we can hang on until we figure out what the new reality is going to be.

Second Saturdays Going Strong in Downtown Dixon

Today, 12 June, is another Second Saturday of the month.  Here in Downtown Dixon tonight, we have a Frequent Flyer contest going on.  With a map of downtown venues, visitors are encouraged to flit from one site to another, collecting stamps.  At 8:30pm, at The Crystal Cork, there will be drawings for the beautiful planters sitting right this moment in front of each venue.  These planters were created and donated to Second Saturdays in Downtown Dixon by Distinctive Gardens on Lowell Park Road in Dixon.  This is a great opportunity to join in the fun, check out all the happenings and maybe win a lovely planter filled (really filled) with petunias, coleus, daisies and ageratum.

Speaking of planters by Distinctive Gardens, next when you are standing in front of Trein's Jewelry and about to cross the street to visit Books on First, look up and see our really gorgeous window boxes, filled with sweet potato, petunias, geraniums, and more.

If you're wondering, what's with the petunias?, you should know, of course, that Dixon is the City of Petunias.  During the week before Independence Day, we have our Petunia Festival (29 June - 4 July).  To kick it off, Books on First will host "Tea with the Queen," on Friday, 26 June, with the Petunia Festival Queen, that is.  She will be here with her court to hold two Drawing Rooms, one at 10:30am and one at 11am.  There will be refreshments served, stories read by the Queen and 20% off all children's books and toys! Sign up in-store or send us an e-message (put "Tea with the Queen" in the Subject line and indicate whether you'll be here at 10:30am or 11am).  Space is limited and you don't want to have Brenda biting her nails in despair on not knowing if anyone will show, so please do pay attention and plan to come enjoy a great time with the Petunia Fest Queen.

Summertime and the Reading is Easy

There have been a lot of wonderful Young Adult books coming out lately.  "Wonderful" does not always translate to "popular among teen readers" or even about vampires.  One, The Half-Life of Planets, stands out.  It is even a Summer 2010 IndieNext pick.  Written in alternate voices by Emily Franklin and Brendan Halpin, this is a boy-meets-girl story at the beginning of one summer in the beachside town of Melville.  What are the twists?

While cleaning it out on the last day of school, the girl finds an anonymous one-word hate note slipped into her locker .  Can an aspiring planetary research scientist really be called a "slut" for enjoying kissing?  Well, in high school, anything is possible, I guess, especially when one is known for such confusingly contradictory activities as study planets and kiss a lot of boys. I recall school as being a very painful time.  Liane Planet ("pronounced 'pluh-net'" -- pun but no pun? what's that all about, authors?) seems to be having a better time of it than I did, although she's really bothered by that note.

And the boy in this boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-gets-girl-back has Asperger's Syndrome.  This is key.  The book spends a lot of time on showing how usual Hank's point of view, not to mention his behaviour, is compared with regular or even geeky guys, obsessed with guitars, music (maybe not for today's youth, but in my day, everyone aspired to be in a garage band) and getting a girl to kiss.  I think that's the point -- to lull everyone into thinking, Hank's just like any other boy at an awkward age.

And, then comes the boy-loses-girl incident, which is supposed to slap us (with an upholstered bolster, soft but hard enough to hurt) up the side of the head with the realization that people with Asperger's Syndrome think differently in social situations than "normal" people.

And, just to get my Long Island Girl moment in, I'd like to think this story takes place in Melville, NY, except Melville, NY is not anywhere near the beach.  It quite possibly is Melville, Rhode Island.  Regardless, if you've lived in a small town or suburb anywhere near a beach, this will feel like home.

Chica! Chica! Man! Man!

As Books on First had shortened hours for the holiday weekend and it rained yesterday (although certainly not in buckets-full, like in Elwood, IL, where US President Barack Obama went to speak), we were able to enjoy some reading time.  So, I was able to start and finish the English version of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.  As I was looking for the image within Ingram Books's B-to-B website, I saw all these great covers.  Here's the full set in Spanish:

The titles, if my 6.5 years of school Spanish counts for anything, are Men Who Did Not Love Women, The Girl Who Slept with a Match and a Gallon of Gasoline and Queen in the Palace of Air Currents.  I have to admit I was never satisfied with my translations; they have never been elegant enough.  I wonder why they could not have a straight Spanish translation of the Swedish titles.  I am not sure about the second and third books, but the first book is definitely called Man som Hatar Kvinnor

Speaking of translations, I would like to give Steve Murray aka Reg Keelund much credit for making the English translations of the Millenium Series as interesting as they are.  The slow, oft-plodding narrative with strangely hit-or-miss detailed descriptions of clothing (sometimes including colors, sometimes not and sometimes including unsatisfying adjectives like "thin") that the characters don and of the food they prepare (toast with cheese and marmalade?) or buy or order in a restaurant and eat add to the suspensefulness, and the "Swedishness" of the writing.  I often think of films by Ingmar Bergman, like The Seventh Seal, to complete the scenery backdrop for the countryside scenes.  For modern-day Stockholm, I am sure I have seen films picturing the vast concrete streets and sidewalks with curbs with steel barriers, Saabs, Renaults and Hondas as well as exhaust-belching carrier trucks driving over huge zebra crossings past massive government buildings, and scooters with helmeted riders tooting down narrow lanes lined with gabled homes fronted by wrought iron fences, although I can't remember any such films by name   In the third book, I suspect Larsson tossed in some English, forcing the translator to write that the character "said in English" ...  That makes translation flow extremely awkwardly.  I am thinking maybe they should have just italicized it as if it were foreign ("Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt").  I wonder if it's simply written in English in the Spanish or the Chinese version.  (Yes, there are Chinese versions of this series. Behold, the cover of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo:

)

And, I am glad there's a photograph of Stieg Larsson on the book jackets.  What a cutie!  And, his reputation as a serious journalist and a fighter of neo-Nazism and right-wing extremism...be still my heart!  In my mind's eye, he is Mikael Blomkvist, no doubt about it. A biography is coming out (it had been anticipated for about a year now), called The Man Who Left Too Soon, which has the same photo on the cover.

What is all this fuss about?  I found a great blurb that says it all:  "Maureen Corrigan labels it 'super-smart noir with a feminist jolt'."  Sorry, I don't even know who Maureen Corrigan is, but thank her for this.  My personal favorite is the second one, The Girl Who Played with Fire, which some would say sums up the key to the phenomenal success of this trilogy -- resilient and resourceful Lisbeth who refuses to be a victim, appealing to women and suspensefully paced action and violence appealing to men. The first book was more about the wonders of research and trend analysis, which is not everyone's cup of tea. The final book in the trilogy delivered to his publisher before Larsson's death of a heart attack in 2004 (rumors of foul play by right-wing extremists aside) is certainly more mainstream, except for the introduction of intriguing historical facts on women warriors like the "Amazons." All three books are different, but have the common strands of Larsson's writing style, Murray's translation style, the backdrop of modern-day Sweden and those fascinating characters.