Sending Books to Haiti

You can still get Creole/English medical dictionaries here. The Haitian (Creole) - English Pocket Medical Translator was put out by the International Medical Volunteers Association and is available to print on the Espresso Book Machine for $8. We recently took an order from an aid team about to head to Haiti.

From our bookseller, Terri: "On April 12th I took a call from a woman at a Seattle hospital. She was looking for several copies of a French/English medical dictionary and the Lonely Planet travel guide to Haiti. I asked her if she would be interested in a Haitian/English medical dictionary instead. She told me that a group of medical staff were leaving in three days for Haiti and would need the books as soon as possible. I let her know that we could have the books ready for her by that afternoon. She was "wowed" and very appreciative of our ability to make the exact book for their needs when they needed them."

- Tera, EBM Operator

84 Charing Cross Road

Homer, our Book Machine, is participating in his first Reading Aloud event! The bookstore is celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the publication of Helene Hanff’s classic, 84 Charing Cross Road with a reading, April 28, at 7PM. Hanff’s little book is a selection of her correspondence with the good London booksellers at Marks & Co., the used bookstore from which she ordered all her books. Homer is reprinting a selection of the out-of-print titles Hanff bought used copies of. Here then the list so far:

• Two elegant, slim volumes of essays by Belloc, Hillaire: On Something and First and Last, both from The Echo Library.

• Joseph Addison’s famous essays from “The Spectator,” of a country gentleman, The Sir Roger De Coverley Papers
  

• As Helene found all those years ago, there is still no inexpensive edition Donne, John Sermons. So we’re reprinting his Devotions, with Two Sermons.

• Our Latin New Testament, or Novum Testamentum Latine, is edited by Everhard Nestle, and at $15.00 is considerably more inexpensive than any currently available in print.

• Dictionary of The Vulgate New Testament, at only $10.00!

• Our Hazlitt, William. Selected Essays, is not the Nonesuch Press edition, but is still a good selection, edited by Frank Cass, inexpensive, but still better and more complete than the in-print edition from Oxford, in which some modern editor has meddled and altered a number of the most famous essays in English. Also reprinted, Hazlitt’s Table Talk.

• Hunt, Leigh. Essays.
  

• Johnson, Samuel, On Shakespeare, 1908, Intro by Walter Raleigh – ours is exactly this edition!

• Prose, from poet and playwright, Jonson, Ben. Timber: Or, Discoveries Made Upon Men and Matter, edited with an introduction and notes by Felix E. Schelling.
•  Lamb, Charles, Selected Essays of Charles Lamb

• Landor, Walter Savage, The Pentameron and Other Imaginary Conversations
  

• Newman, John Henry. Discourses on the Scope and Nature of University Education. Addressed to the Catholics of Dublin- "'Idea of a University"
  

• Quiller-Couch, Arthur, The Pilgrim's Way
  

• Stevenson, Robert Louis’s essays, Virginibus Puerisque (for boys and girls)

• Wyatt, Thomas. Poetical Works of Sir Thomas Wyatt with a Memoir and Critical Dissertation
  

• Walton, Izaak. The Lives of - John Donne - Sir Henry Wotton - Richard Hooker - George Herbert & Robert Sanderson

--Brad

In Remembrance

Yesterday a coworker set a New York Times Magazine article on my desk about the famed photographer Roman Vishniac and the impact he made with his camera in documenting the ‘vanishing world’ of Eastern European Jewish shtetls. The article in itself was fascinating—uncovering new evidence about where and how Vishniac took his photos, but where the article took me is what I want to talk about here. After reading about Vishniac’s photography, I went to the website for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and I found out that this week is Holocaust Remembrance week.

If there is one thing that I am sure Literature is good for, it is to immortalize moments of time through characters, plots and scenes we connect to. What better way to honor Holocaust Remembrance week than to share some of my favorite books that deal with this tragic moment in history?

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon may be more about the birth of comic books in the continuously modernizing United States, but at its core it is a Holocaust survivor novel. It is a novel about escape and rebirth. Remembering, forgetting, the American Dream, Immigration and American Judaism after WWII.

Any book by Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor himself, brings the haunting imagery of concentration camps alive. My favorite would have to be Night, which is also perhaps his most famous.

The moral dilemmas that unravel in Sophie’s Choice by William Styron give a female perspective to the Holocaust. Where is the line of right and wrong amidst such terror and dehumanization?

Finally, I would like to recommend W. G. Sebald’s The Emigrants, a portrait of four Jewish emigrants who live through exile, persecution and dislocation, all haunted by the impact of the Holocaust.

There are so many more Holocaust novels out there—are there particular ones that have touched you?

--Anna in Events

Insectopedia-Travel Essay and Field Guide

There is nothing better suited than a list of fears to get me thinking about childhood. On Thursday night I listened to author Hugh Raffles read this passage from his new book, Insectopedia:

“There is the nightmare of fecundity and the nightmare of the multitude. There is the nightmare of uncontrolled bodies and the nightmare of inside our bodies and all over our bodies. There is the nightmare of unguarded orifices and the nightmare of unguarded places. There is the nightmare of foreign bodies in our bloodstream and the nightmare of foreign bodies in our ears and our eyes and under the surface of our skin. There is the nightmare of swarming and the nightmare of crawling. There is the nightmare of burrowing and the nightmare of being seen in the dark. There is the nightmare of turning the overhead light on just as the carpet scatters. There is the nightmare of beings without reason and the nightmare of being unable to communicate. There is the nightmare of them being out to get us.”

The book falls into a sort of genre twilight zone—a combination of sociology, anthropology and entomology, organized into 26 chapters corresponding to the letters of the alphabet. This excerpt is, naturally, from the chapter, “My Nightmares.” Think of it as a book of short nonfiction; wildly diverse and populated with strange characters, human and insect alike.

Mr. Raffles' breadth of imagination is obvious, and the passages he selected made me realize how much my attitude toward insects has changed as I've aged. As I listened to the author read, I wondered, what forces this change in human beings? What transforms curiosity into fear? My summer vacations from elementary school were always full of interaction with the natural world: hunched over by the fence in my backyard, watching a spider gracefully kill whatever lower order of insect was trapped in its web, digging a deep hole to find earthworms, collecting potato bugs in jars, feeding them to the spiders. It seems as though this disgust I've acquired in adulthood is a terrible virus for which there is no cure. I believe there is something in that nightmare passage that rings true for everyone. I was so irrationally disturbed to find ants in the kitchen of my last apartment that searching for them became a paranoid obsession; every speck on the linoleum was an emergency.

But maybe I can separate my primal squeamishness from my detached scientific curiosity. Maybe a vicarious relationship to insects is enough. Many people at the event got up to ask questions, and those questions often turned into anecdotes. There was a beekeeper who spoke about the concept of individuality in bees, and an entomologist who told the story of the bug that flew into his ear and stayed there until it died. People were weirdly excited to talk about their insect experiences; almost like a roomful of kids trying to top each others stories.

Books like Insectopedia bridge an important literary gap; between the field guide and the travel essay there is a whole world of observation, of reawakened curiosity and memory waiting to be tapped into. And it seems like many authors are doing just that.

Seija, General Books

Come Visit Our New Cookbook Space

I have come to love the new Cookbook space. Love it! It feels like there’s room for all those delectable books to s-t-r-e-t-c-h out and sing the siren song of food. And it’s almost like I need to shelve those books closer to my break time because I keep getting hunger pangs … but if that’s the worst of it, then I won’t complain.

New Cookbooks of Note:

*I am still thrilled to continue to showcase the Ad Hoc at Home cookbook by Keller. I would like to see everything in that book reduced (yeah, like a sauce … ) to DVD format, because the images literally jump off the page.





*Recipes from an Italian Summer- sign me up! Can you imagine the thrill of spending a summer in Italy? I’d love it. But instead, still happily, I get to look at the beauteous cover art of this book.




*Trader Joe cookbooks- with one already as a staff pick, you can’t go wrong. Besides, with my two person household, TJ’s knows how to do
smaller-sized meals and keep them delicious and affordable.


*Plus there are some new entertainment books to consider
for spring and summer. What budget you ask? Well, a girl can dream of lavish entertainment for family & friends, right?! Just got in Lulu Powers Food to Flowers, lots of good ideas … including how to do manage your houseguests' breakfast.

So, come visit and stay a spell. There’s that comfy (what would you call it?) bench, and lots and lots of cool bargain books to ingest! And remember, even though I consider myself to be an apprentice in the culinary arts, I am ever eager to be here to help you find just that right cookbook.

Jan

Cookbooks, Calendars, Pet Gallery, etc.

Books for Kids with Big FEELINGS

Working in the kids' department has given me a sense of the power of picture books. I think they teach us life skills and I think they can be useful for grownups, too. Kids' books on feelings are a particular soft spot for me, and I think about them sometimes when I'm dealing with my (sort of) grown up emotions. I just found a new funny book about fighting, and it inspired me to make a list of my favorite dealing-with-feelings books, the ones I think about on a regular basis when I get Really, Really, Angry, or I suffer a big Hurt.


The Hurt

by Teddi Doleski

This is from 1983, and you can tell. But despite the simple, 80's-ish illustrations (which are actually great, just a little dated), this is one of my favorite children's books about dealing with emotions. Justin's friend calls him a name, and it makes him feel hurt. The Hurt becomes a physical thing, a round ball with a sad face, that he carries home with him. As he feels worse and worse, the hurt grows larger and larger, and he has to figure out how to get it to go away. I love the conversations he has with his dad, and the gloomy expression on The Hurt's face. And I can totally relate to the feeling of carrying around a big sad thing wherever you go.


When Two Are Angry At Each Other

by Tor Age Bringsvaerd, Illustrated by Tina Soli

I just found this on the shelf and it got this whole post rolling. Any book with underpants on the front has to be good (Henrietta There's No One Better is another example), and this doesn't disappoint. The narrator tells us that sometimes she and her mommy get angry at each other and then make up, and then goes on to talk about what happens when other things are angry at each other. “When two dragons are angry at each other... smoke comes out of their behinds.” Don't you want to know what happens when two raisins are angry at each other? Balloons? Angels?


When Sophie Gets Angry- Really, Really Angry...

By Molly Bang

This is a Caldecott honor book, and a classic. Bright illustrations show exactly what the title leads you to expect. So what happens, when Sophie gets so angry? Well, a lot of things. For example, “she kicks. She screams. She wants to smash the world to smithereens.” Later, “she runs and runs and runs until she can't run anymore. Then, for a little while, she cries.” Aww, Sophie. Me too.


Andrew's Angry Words

By Dorothea Lachner, Illustrated by Thé Tjong-Khing

As someone who works with people all day, I really understand how we can pass bad moods onto others. When someone says something rude to you, don't you sometimes, accidentally, pass it on to the next person? It's terrible, but I can't always shake off the icky feeling, and this book is all about Andrew's angry words getting passed on from his sister to the baker's son, from the baker's son to a poet, from the poet to a passing motorcyclist... and on and on and on. Poor Andrew tries to catch them, but they seem to take on a life of their own. I often imagine the illustrations from this when I'm trying to Be The Bigger Person. Be the person who puts all the words in a sack and throws them in the ocean, I think.



Big Rabbit's Bad Mood

By Ramona Bădescu, Illustrated by Delphine Durand

This is a newer title, and we all adore it. Rabbit's Bad Mood sits around his house all day, watching TV, picking his nose and piling boogers near the couch, bringing down the mood all over Rabbit's house. This is one where the illustrations are the best part, and they are not to be missed.


I hope I don't need to write up a review of it, but just take this moment to ask yourself, “When was the last time I read Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day?” If it's been awhile, then stop by some time to read it. It never goes out of style.


Anna

NORWESCON!!!

Hey y'all, just a reminder/heads up that Norwescon is this weekend. If you like this sort of thing then you probably know about it already, but just in case you don't, I thought I'd remind you. I am probably not the biggest nerd at the bookstore (that's why you love us, right? So many nerds to choose from?), but I am happy to nerd out on a certain author who'll be there this weekend. CORY DOCTOROW IS COMING! Since I work in the Kids & Teens department, I know him best for Little Brother, one of the neatest young adult novels to come out in the last few years, and one that I feel confident recommending to pretty much anyone, teen or adult, science fiction fan or not. But he's an amazing guy for many other reasons, including being a serious activist working for digital freedom and naming his daughter Poesy Emmeline Fibonacci Nautilus Taylor Doctorow. NERDS RULE!

If you can’t afford Norwescon or don’t have time—it's priced for tech nerds more than book nerds—that’s okay, because he’ll be in the bookstore on Monday. That’s right, this Monday, April 5^th, 7pm, 50 feet from my desk. I’m freaking out already. In fact, you should come just to see how lame I get around my author crushes (Sherman, that’s why I turn pink and run over to shelve in the stacks, not because I don’t love you). It’ll be a whole panel of authors, including Mark Henry, Jeanne Stein, and Jaye Wells. And Cory. Like, right inside our store. Ohmygosh.

And if you do stop by Norwescon, say hi to our science fiction buyer Duane if you see him. Shout out, tall guy!

-Anna

Beat the Machine

We really tried to do that with our first large publishing project of a 776 page book.


If you saw my head stuck in the machine last week that was because I had to climb in and assist the book in rotation, as the robot arm twirled it in preparation for cutting.

The folks at On Demand Books (who brought us the EBM) are making leaps and bounds with the Book Machine technology and they promise I will never again have to squeeze a book while the machine is in operation. We'll see.

University of Washington postdoctoral researcher, Stefan Baums, approached us a month ago to see if we could print his dissertation in book form before he left the country for Kyoto. He designed a simple cover to complement the rather weighty title: A Gandhari Commentary on Early Buddhist Verses: British Library Kharosthi fragments 7,9, 13 and 18.

I'm pleased to say we finished the job well before his plane left the runway.

- Tera, EBM Operator