Girls Rock!

One constant that is almost always guaranteed to pull me into a book is a kick-a.. heroine. I love the portrayal of remarkable women in fiction. And to be a kick-a.. girl you don't have to be totally together all the time; in fact I find that the girls who figure things out as they go are much more interesting. Yeah, the messier the better! Remember tortured Temple in the Reapers are the Angels? (A book by Alden Bell that I gave a nod to in an earlier post). T-T rocks as a kick-a.. heroine! Because even as she can't give herself a break, she is still a force of good in the dystopian world that she inhabits.

So it probably won't surprise you to find that I have found a few new heroines to write about.

N.K. Jemisin's first novel, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, might never have been written if she had listened to the advice of others, and not entered into the seemingly male-dominated scifi/fantasy genre (according to a Kelly Link interview.) But now we have Yeine Darr, deemed barbarian and outcast by the court city of Sky. Yeine, daughter first, who is still grieving the loss of her mother, granddaughter second to a cold and calculating King who would make her his pawn.Yeine who quickly falls in with the childlike god Sieh, eventually ignites the passions of the brooding and dangerously mysterious nightlord Nahadoth, and then proves divisive to the rest of the gods. I nominate Yeine as an up-and-comer in the kick-a.. heroine category, and it appears that I am not alone in this nod because Ms. Jemisin received the 2011 Locus Award for Best First Novel! Hoorah! I am looking forward to reading great fictions by N.K. Jemisin.

Next on my reading list is Girls Kick Butt, a collection of short fiction from a variety of different female scifi/fantasy authors filled with kick-a.. characters. I like collections of this kind, centered around genre and theme: it is a really great way to get introduced to new writers, ones that you haven't read before, along with seeing what the oldies but goodies are up to these days.

Take Jenna Black's protagonist exorcist Morgan Kingsley, in Nine-Tenths of the Law, reluctant to take on a paying client who may want to terminate her own daughter using the excuse that a demon has taken possession of her, as a powerplay. How might Morgan be kick-a.. heroine? Well as I see it, she pushes past the lure of fast cash to try to get to the truth of the matter, holding the desire for the highest good for all in her heart even if that reality seems to be orchestrated by a demon possessed teenager. And then there's Red in  Elizabeth A. Vaugh's short story. Red rocks it as a fighter, a rebel with a cause, she is duty-bound to freeing all slaves, even the ones that walk on four feet. But that's enough of a spoiler.

Go on, read the rest of this collection with me and let me know what you think. Duane, our scifi/fantasy guru, told me that Jeanna Black's protagonist has walked the pages of fiction already, but I didn't know that. I am coming in with a beginner's mind and report to you in that way.

Namaste,

Jan

Dog Days of Summer!

August is here, and something not unlike Summer has come at last to Seattle.  Huzzah!  No one is suggesting that this glorious weather will last.  Can't count on scorchin' temperatures in the high seventies every day of the week, people.  But for now though, the flip-flops, the cargo-shorts, the general pale shirtlessness and or tanktops, to say nothing of the beery block-parties all over the city last night?  Totally justified by the glorious sunshine.

Enjoy!

And for our canine companions, please remember, summer need not be just the usual routine of Frisbee in the park, stagnant, standing water, and panting boredom on the hot sidewalk while someone gets a single serving of green tea gelato that will not be shared.  Oh no.

All this month, right here at the always-dog-friendly University Book Store, we will be hosting a new series of public readings for dogs and their grown up humans, every Saturday at 6PM.  Dog Days will feature classic and contemporary short stories on four-footed subjects, read by our own booksellers, right here in the store's event space on the second floor.  Dogs, of course will be welcome as always.

To get things started, this Saturday, the 6th, our own Usedbuyer2.0, Brad, will be reading a story from the great P. G. Wodehouse, and a classic reminiscence by the Scots essayist, physician, and lifelong friend to nearly all dogs, Dr. John Brown.   Rab & His Friends -- that's old Rab is pictured above -- is a remarkable, heartbreaking tale of perfect loyalty, endurance and love.  (Which explains, I think, the need for something from Wodehouse on the bill as well, for balance.)

Do please join us, and bring your human.  We don't mind, so long as they're quiet and well behaved.

Sit.  Stay.

We're the Geekiest

I don't know if, at this point in history, any credit could yet accrue to our own fantabulous Duane, but in the late '70s the bookstore was already a bastion of Sci-Fi goodness, according to Rainn Wilson, who haunted our aisles as a nerdy suburban youth. Although I'm biased, I have to say that the quality remains: a carefully curated, broad selection of the best of new and old (subject of course to the curse of out of print, which leaves vast gaps in classic science fiction that can only occasionally be filled).  Duane's love for his subject is never hard to see, and his section reflects it wonderfully.   Check it out!

--Jason

Hey You Readers...

The publication booksellers turn to for news on the book industry is now publishing a version for book lovers! Shelf Awareness: Enlightenment for Readers is a FREE emailed newsletter with reviews on the 25 best books publishing each week along with author interviews, book excerpts, giveaways and more. Right now they’re running a contest for new subscribers. Check out the widget on our website to sign up for the new publication and to be entered for a chance to win a great book!

A Test You Don't Want to Pass

Last night I was watching the movie “Being John Malkovitch” for maybe the 3rd time in my life, and found that my interpretation of it had been completely altered by a book I'm reading. If you have somehow missed this black gem of 1999, that's OK. It's not really a movie that one can spoil. In it, a character played by John Cusack discovers a portal in his office that grants access to the consciousness of John Malkovitch. Cusack teams up with a coworker, played by Catherine Keener, and they devise a scheme to sell tickets to Malkovitch. The last few times I've watched this film, I've experienced it as a dark comedy populated by pale characters who either ignore or screw up all the wonderful things around them (see: John Cusack and Cameron Diaz hoarding an apartment full of sad animals) This time, I was struck by a realization: Catherine Keener's character, Maxine, is a psychopath!

Let me just backtrack a little and say that if you read The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson, you will recognize psychopaths all over the place. It can be fun! But it also can be a little horrifying. Like Ronson, I'm beginning to notice items from the Bob Hare Checklist (the list used in prisons and psychiatric hospitals to diagnose inmates and patients), and movies are a rather harmless thing to practice on. For example, I've bolded the characteristics which Maxine demonstrates throughout the film:

1.Glibness/superficial charm
2.Grandiose sense of self-worth
3.Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
4.Pathological lying
5.Conning/manipulative
6.Lack of remorse or guilt
7.Shallow affect
8.Callous/lack of empathy
9.Parasitic lifestyle
10.Poor behavioral controls
11.Promiscuous sexual behavior
12.Early behavior problems
13.Lack of realistic long-term goals
14.Impulsivity
15.Irresponsibility
16.Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
17.Many short-term marital relationships
18.Juvenile delinquency
19.Revocation of conditional release
20.Criminal versatility

Needless to say, Maxine scores quite high.

I've been trying to think of an apt comparison to the relatively short history of psychopathology that Ronson investigates in his book. The best thing I can come up with is autism, in the sense that the two conditions share a unique cultural retroactivity. We often hear neuroscientists and psychologists speculate that with our current knowledge of the autism spectrum, famous people like Mozart, Newton and Jefferson likely place somewhere on it. And it's interesting to us because specialness is interesting, whether it results in extraordinary intellectualism or cold ruthlessness. I make the comparison because Ronson (The Men Who Stare at Goats; Them) is exactly the kind of author to launch such an intriguing concept into the pop culture lexicon. I suspect that the next trend to take off will be the labeling of various notorious figures as psychopaths. After all, the checklist is available for any armchair psychologist to find on the internet.

Psychopathy is not a diagnosis you want to receive, and as Ronson points out, if you are anxious that you might be a psychopath, you probably aren't one. The only sure way to find out about someone is to interview them at length, and then analyze not only their answers but their mannerisms and appearance. It's subjective until it isn't; recidivism rates among diagnosed and incarcerated psychopaths are much higher than non-psychopaths. The data suggests an ominous, Minority Report-esque course of action: longer sentences for high-scoring criminals.
The book is filled with Ronson's own nervous speculation, a sort of feedback loop of reacting to psychopaths and then assessing his reactions. His writing is self-effacing, but it is the sort of self-effacement that can only be achieved after one has become more confident and self-aware than one lets on, therefore undermining any real awkwardness. Do you see what he's done to me? All his bashful posturing about how he could never be a psychopath makes me suspicious...
To conclude this blog post that wants to turn into a research paper, I will just say that this is a great book for people who don't read much nonfiction, and for those interested in the history of psychology. It may not be a great, however, for those prone to paranoia.
--Seija

Thackeray Celebration!

As seen at last night's reading of "A Little Dinner at the Timmins's", featuring the bookstore's own Pam Cady and Brad Craft.  Though the actual anniversary doesn't come 'round until Monday, July 18th, we nevertheless wish a most Happy Two Hundredth Birthday, to the memory of the great author of Vanity Fair, etc., William Makepeace Thackeray!

For a Special Occasion

 

And here we have the special edition of a Google Book, The Sense and Sentiment of Thackeray, reprinted, with new covers, on the bookstore's own EBM.  The occasion is, of course our upcoming celebration of the great man's 200th birthday.  Our reading of "A Little Dinner at the Timmins's" will be the centerpiece of the festivities, but we thought it worth doing to offer something in the way of a take-away as well.  So, this little book, from 1909, offers quotes and brief selections from all the novelist's major and minor work.  Charming little book.  

Our own Anna -- Queen of the EBM -- designed the reissues cover, and our host for the reading, Usedbuyer2.0, aka Brad, did the pencil sketch of Thackeray on the front cover.

We're rather proud of the little thing, which is available now, for nine bucks, at the bookstore and of course, at the reading July 14th, at 7PM.  Do come and try a bit of William Makepeace Thackeray.

A Glimpse into the Inner Workings