We're having fun for Friday Reads, thanks to Rena Marthaler and her Chocolate Blog Tour. Check out her blog post here! This is a blog tour where we bring you book and chocolate recommendations. I've selected some easy summer reading that we can happily recommend to the young and the old alike. And of course, the cocoa goodness is all involved while you wile away the summer with good reading and good eating!
Without further ado . . .
Used and New Books
Showing posts with label #fridayreads. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #fridayreads. Show all posts
Thursday, July 24, 2014
Friday, May 23, 2014
Someone New Coming Into Town? Top 3 Required Reading
I'm not sure about the rest of you, but I can count on two hands the amount of people I know moving into Portland this summer.
In other words, the migration continues steady.
Of course, if you can, like me, remember when downtown smelled of hops, the buses used push-tape, and the Spring Water corridor at Oaks Bottom was just an old railroad line—you might feel entitled to lift your nose. And so you should. But a good question to ask (while lifting your head up high in a good Oregon snub) is: what makes us natives act like jerks?
One answer could be that in the wave of "newbies" the identity of being a Portlander, even being an Oregonian, is changing, and in our puritanical way we have anxiety to make sure the inherent values of Oregon stay the same.
For this, we need to help educate our new citizens on what it is to be an Oregonian, so they can be proud of our heritage, and so they can adapt.
So, I have some books for you to give to the new PDX'er in your life.
In other words, the migration continues steady.
Of course, if you can, like me, remember when downtown smelled of hops, the buses used push-tape, and the Spring Water corridor at Oaks Bottom was just an old railroad line—you might feel entitled to lift your nose. And so you should. But a good question to ask (while lifting your head up high in a good Oregon snub) is: what makes us natives act like jerks?
One answer could be that in the wave of "newbies" the identity of being a Portlander, even being an Oregonian, is changing, and in our puritanical way we have anxiety to make sure the inherent values of Oregon stay the same.
For this, we need to help educate our new citizens on what it is to be an Oregonian, so they can be proud of our heritage, and so they can adapt.
So, I have some books for you to give to the new PDX'er in your life.
Friday, May 9, 2014
Friday Reads: "The Silent Wife" is "Gone Girl" Meets Realism
In the summer of 2012 the craze was for Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl, just last month released in paperback, with a movie following hard on its heels.
And rightly so: a very fun thriller. It's opening paragraph alone, philandering husband Nick Dunne musing about the qualities of his wife's head, sets the tone for a taut thriller—half mystery, half suspense—that I think many of us were captivated by.
There were, however, a contingent of intelligent readers who disliked it on the merit that the characters were almost caricatures of psychology: "Gone Girl" might express a dark undercurrent of anxiety among the American married couple, but it does so with thick brushstrokes: we are as much liable to laugh nervously in the height of our thrill, because so much of what drives Flynn's thriller is darkly comic.
For these readers, and for readers who enjoy a more subtle thriller, the book for you is "The Silent Wife" by A.S.A. Harrison, a book that went largely unnoticed when it was released last June, but works at portrait painting compared to Flynn's Pollack-esque splashings.
And rightly so: a very fun thriller. It's opening paragraph alone, philandering husband Nick Dunne musing about the qualities of his wife's head, sets the tone for a taut thriller—half mystery, half suspense—that I think many of us were captivated by.
 |
| Harrison's psychological thriller, more real than "Gone Girl" |
There were, however, a contingent of intelligent readers who disliked it on the merit that the characters were almost caricatures of psychology: "Gone Girl" might express a dark undercurrent of anxiety among the American married couple, but it does so with thick brushstrokes: we are as much liable to laugh nervously in the height of our thrill, because so much of what drives Flynn's thriller is darkly comic.
For these readers, and for readers who enjoy a more subtle thriller, the book for you is "The Silent Wife" by A.S.A. Harrison, a book that went largely unnoticed when it was released last June, but works at portrait painting compared to Flynn's Pollack-esque splashings.
Friday, May 2, 2014
Friday Reads: Donna Tartt's "The Goldfinch"
As I've been reading Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch, this year's winner of the Pulitzer Prize, I cannot help but think about preservation in the face of decay. Certainly the theme is there in this coming-of-age tale of 13-year-old Theodore Decker, whose world is (literally) blown to pieces when a bomb explodes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Theo crawls out of the museum rubble, carrying a priceless painting of Carel Fabritius' "The Goldfinch," and the novel takes off from there. Theo, still dealing with the psychological and physical aftershocks, is moved from world to world—from Park Avenue high society, to West Village antique shops, to the desolate & foreclosed subdivisions outside Las Vegas.
Friday, April 18, 2014
Your Easter Bunny Solutions
Easter may be the holiday best known for gooey chocolate eggs, but at Wallace Books we've learned that our customers want something a little more lasting for their children. While much of our new stock has been bought up already (with a resupply of new stock due on Monday, a day too late), we thought we'd point out some lovely books that are sure to have a lasting impression on your child's Easter holiday.
1. BUNNIES!!
1. BUNNIES!!
Friday, March 21, 2014
5 Suggestions for Your Spring Break
HERE IT IS, SPRING BREAK! Time to relax for a spell. The kids are off school, the air is starting to warm up, and if you listen very closely, you'll begin to hear the eggs cracking in the nest. Time to clean out your garage. Time to take that cruise. Time to get that garden started. And after all that, you'll probably want a book to read.
Might we make a few suggestions?
Might we make a few suggestions?
Friday, February 28, 2014
Friday Reads: Maria Semple's "Where'd You Go, Bernadette?"
Satire has always been, to me, a proletarian endeavor. By which I mean that specific type of lampooning is best directed at the upper classes in order to bring the upper class down a notch. The fun made at the expense of the lower classes can usually be called (at best) clowning. When, in Shakepeare's Twelfth Night, the clowns, Sirs Toby and Andrew, make mockery the aspirations (and transgressions) of the play's malcontent, Malvolio, the satire is at Malvolio's belief he is more than a servant. Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal," as every college freshman knows, takes a bite (pun intended) at the rhetoric wealthy lawmakers of 17th century England expound on the solution to Irish poverty. P.G. Wodehouse and Evelyn Waugh (who share the same crate at Wallace Books) made a living mocking the upper classes; Wodehouse a little more lovingly than Waugh, who made sure to point out that the post-war British upper class had no more money than the lower. The idea is to make the upper class as foolish as us, perhaps (let's hope) even more.
Where'd You Go, Bernadette? follows in this tradition, with an irresistible twist. The novel is epistolary, with some small narration from Bee Branch, thirteen-year-old daughter of Elgie and Bernadette Branch. Emails, report cards, traffic incident reports, alerts, all go into telling the story of a mother who is at once fearless and intelligent, willful and broken.
What we gather from this (mostly electronic) ephemera, is the story of Bernadette Fox, a reclusive, antisocial mother, who twenty years ago was a brilliant and ambitious architect. A disaster, which has mostly to do with Bernadette's overconfidence (equal parts hilarious and maddening), leads her to leave the architectural life and move with her husband Elgie from L.A. to Seattle, buy a dilapidated mansion, and after several attempts get pregnant and have a daughter, before descending into an antisocial and bitter life. Surrounded by what Bernadette calls "gnats," native Seattle-ites whose outdoorsy, Subaru driving, nosy ways Bernadette cannot stand, her one consolation is her daughter, Balakrishna. Bee is a brilliant young girl waiting to hear from an acceptance to the boarding school her mother went to, a dream misinterpreted by the "gnats" as her mother's desire, not Bee's. Upon the very first page we learn that Bernadette has disappeared, and although her husband Elgie knows, he refuses to talk about it to Bee, who begins discerning why. The novel is that discernment. It is equal parts laugh out loud funny and bitterly sad.
The first ingredient for satire is that the satirized must be unaware of their absurdity, and if we are honest with ourselves (something the subject of satire can never be, in real life or in art), we will realize that an email is a great starting point. In an email, rhetorical structure and exposition make way for the Ego, and expose us to ridicule. In Where'd You Go, Bernadette, the characters are woefully unaware at how exposed they are, which is exactly where author Maria Semple (who wrote for, among other shows, Arrested Development) needs them to be. Perhaps the best subject is Bernadette's neighbor, Aubrey, a mother at the same private school Bee attends; her correspondences, emails between her friend, emails back and forth from her landscaper, even school notices after an "incident" with her foot and the wheel of Bernadette's car, are all marvelously biting just because Aubrey is so very unaware at how absurd her emails are to any reader other than the intended. But although Aubrey was my personal favorite, the other characters, Bernadette included, don't fare much better. The only correspondence that seems mostly bewildered at the indignity of the emails is Bernadette's agent, an obscure and capable woman who arranges all of Bernadette's appointments, travel itineraries, reserves tables for the Branch family at Thanksgiving, and (of course) lives in India.
At the shop, the used copies of this book have been trickling in, and I picked it up in a lull to get a sense of it. Eighty pages later, I realized I had read eighty delightful pages and thought I should get back to work. It is a trap at a bookstore -- "falling down a rabbit hole" is what I call it. I fell into the novel with great good humor and it was hard to pull myself back. Do yourself a favor: fall into it as well.
 |
| Accessories not included. |
Where'd You Go, Bernadette? follows in this tradition, with an irresistible twist. The novel is epistolary, with some small narration from Bee Branch, thirteen-year-old daughter of Elgie and Bernadette Branch. Emails, report cards, traffic incident reports, alerts, all go into telling the story of a mother who is at once fearless and intelligent, willful and broken.
What we gather from this (mostly electronic) ephemera, is the story of Bernadette Fox, a reclusive, antisocial mother, who twenty years ago was a brilliant and ambitious architect. A disaster, which has mostly to do with Bernadette's overconfidence (equal parts hilarious and maddening), leads her to leave the architectural life and move with her husband Elgie from L.A. to Seattle, buy a dilapidated mansion, and after several attempts get pregnant and have a daughter, before descending into an antisocial and bitter life. Surrounded by what Bernadette calls "gnats," native Seattle-ites whose outdoorsy, Subaru driving, nosy ways Bernadette cannot stand, her one consolation is her daughter, Balakrishna. Bee is a brilliant young girl waiting to hear from an acceptance to the boarding school her mother went to, a dream misinterpreted by the "gnats" as her mother's desire, not Bee's. Upon the very first page we learn that Bernadette has disappeared, and although her husband Elgie knows, he refuses to talk about it to Bee, who begins discerning why. The novel is that discernment. It is equal parts laugh out loud funny and bitterly sad.
The first ingredient for satire is that the satirized must be unaware of their absurdity, and if we are honest with ourselves (something the subject of satire can never be, in real life or in art), we will realize that an email is a great starting point. In an email, rhetorical structure and exposition make way for the Ego, and expose us to ridicule. In Where'd You Go, Bernadette, the characters are woefully unaware at how exposed they are, which is exactly where author Maria Semple (who wrote for, among other shows, Arrested Development) needs them to be. Perhaps the best subject is Bernadette's neighbor, Aubrey, a mother at the same private school Bee attends; her correspondences, emails between her friend, emails back and forth from her landscaper, even school notices after an "incident" with her foot and the wheel of Bernadette's car, are all marvelously biting just because Aubrey is so very unaware at how absurd her emails are to any reader other than the intended. But although Aubrey was my personal favorite, the other characters, Bernadette included, don't fare much better. The only correspondence that seems mostly bewildered at the indignity of the emails is Bernadette's agent, an obscure and capable woman who arranges all of Bernadette's appointments, travel itineraries, reserves tables for the Branch family at Thanksgiving, and (of course) lives in India.
At the shop, the used copies of this book have been trickling in, and I picked it up in a lull to get a sense of it. Eighty pages later, I realized I had read eighty delightful pages and thought I should get back to work. It is a trap at a bookstore -- "falling down a rabbit hole" is what I call it. I fell into the novel with great good humor and it was hard to pull myself back. Do yourself a favor: fall into it as well.
~ James, February 2014
Friday, February 7, 2014
Isle Of Youth - Stories
Perilous danger aside, I found these stories to make up a great and cohesive collection, setting up shop at a strange intersection between Munro, Chandler, and Murakami. Natalie Serber, who some of you might see around the shop now and then, wrote in The New York Times Book Review, "Wonder and mystery are recurring motifs. The women here are one step ahead of disaster or one step behind it, and either way they are eager to discover what’s next . . . Van den Berg, in this wonderful collection, never lets us turn away." This is 100% on the money.
In my favorite story in the collection, "Opa-Locka," two sisters start working as private detectives, trailing a man whose wife thinks he's cheating on him, boilerplate detective stuff but from there things take a odd, and then grim, turn. The Isle of Youth features, among other things, relationships that have faltered, mysteries gone unsolved, and in the end, magic that has been exposed for what it is: a cheap parlor trick to distract you while your pocket is picked, which is something we've all encountered in one form or another, a part of what it means to grow older.
Friday, January 31, 2014
Our Createspace Authors, Part 1
Createspace, an Amazon company, helps authors self-publish. If you are writing/marketing your book and are interested in consigning your book to our store, please inquire at jwallace@wallacebooks.net.
It seems not a week goes by we don't have customers mention they would love to consign their self-published book to us, and it is so hard to say no!
So, if you haven't noticed, to the right of the cash register are a number of books of local, self-published or small press authors. We are proud to have these authors on display, but we think perhaps not enough customers are taking the time to browse through this section. So we're going to tell you about a few. It is remarkable the talent and range of subjects you didn't even know was there!
1. Magic: The Crest ~ by Rena Marthaler
We'll use the old rule that youngest goes first. And Rena Marthaler beats our other authors by decades. Only in the 4th grade, Marthaler participated in the NaNoWriMo Young Writer's Program, and has written a fantastical first novel. This is a fast-paced adventure story of four friends who discover they have magical powers and follow a prophecy to Oregon, fighting all sorts of fantastical creatures along the way (their first encounter is with a dragon, and the stakes only go up from there).
Kids will fall under the spell much the way they have with Rick Riordan and J.K. Rowling; adults will sit back and enjoy how the childhood imagination can take off at cheetah-speed, basking in the nostalgia when they wrote their first fantasy novel (mine was about a twin boy & girl who ran away from their wealthy but oppressive father and fell into a band of noble thieves), and thoroughly enjoy how smart-aleky the main character, Rachel can be (e.g., "I'm starting to bore you, aren't I? Well, suck it up. It's about to get interesting.").
Hopefully Rena won't stop at just one. Let's wish that this writerly impulse will continue her whole life.
2. Without Boundaries: My Life During the Viet Nam War ~ by Dieu Bao
It's understandable why we, as consumers of books, are not so interested in the self-published word. Publishers and editors help us feel like what we're going to buy (and hopefully read, and hopefully enjoy) has passed a test of sorts. The self-published world, by stepping away from the publishers (not necessarily the editors), is seen as a little more raw, the consumer feels a little closer to bad writing. I think we fear the best we can say is, it's amateur.
For Bao's book, that sentiment is unfair. She has written a heartfelt memoir, and has worked in a second language to put into words the oftentimes inexpressible horrors of war. It is my sentiment, that Bao's testimony, although the style may not be to the caliber of Patchett's or Quindlin's, is powerful. It offers to us new insights to those affected by a war that very much affected our country and culture, because it is more than just about war, but about life. It has as much happiness in it as it does tragedy. Bao writes honestly, and for that I say she deserves patronage.
Just pick up Without Boundaries, and see how well its honesty can pull you in.
3. Bentari ~ by Timothy Brown
What we also need for this post is an adventure story. Bentari is just that story. Specifically, Nazi treasure hunters in the Belgian congo. Anyone? Yes. Bentari, the Swift Climber, our hero, is a resourceful young man fighting to defend his people against--who else?--Nazis.
But this is done deliberately and in control. Here's the first paragraph, to give you a sense of Brown's ability:
Brown moves to the allure of the jungle setting, and, after our title character Bentari experiences this calm, the tension rises, ending in murder. It propels forward from there, but always deliberately. This is the mature outcome of what Bao and Marthaler started. Whereas the other two authors write with a glibness that is nevertheless a compelling read, Brown's prose is more controlled. Still, the imagination is always at work. We move from deliberate writing to tensions and adventure. It's worth a read.
[We'll follow up next week with three more CreateSpace authors, including some nonfiction. If you have a book that you'd like to consign to Wallace Books, please contact us personally at jwallace@wallacebooks.net, or stop by the store.]
It seems not a week goes by we don't have customers mention they would love to consign their self-published book to us, and it is so hard to say no!
So, if you haven't noticed, to the right of the cash register are a number of books of local, self-published or small press authors. We are proud to have these authors on display, but we think perhaps not enough customers are taking the time to browse through this section. So we're going to tell you about a few. It is remarkable the talent and range of subjects you didn't even know was there!
1. Magic: The Crest ~ by Rena Marthaler
 |
| Magic: The Crest |
We'll use the old rule that youngest goes first. And Rena Marthaler beats our other authors by decades. Only in the 4th grade, Marthaler participated in the NaNoWriMo Young Writer's Program, and has written a fantastical first novel. This is a fast-paced adventure story of four friends who discover they have magical powers and follow a prophecy to Oregon, fighting all sorts of fantastical creatures along the way (their first encounter is with a dragon, and the stakes only go up from there).
Kids will fall under the spell much the way they have with Rick Riordan and J.K. Rowling; adults will sit back and enjoy how the childhood imagination can take off at cheetah-speed, basking in the nostalgia when they wrote their first fantasy novel (mine was about a twin boy & girl who ran away from their wealthy but oppressive father and fell into a band of noble thieves), and thoroughly enjoy how smart-aleky the main character, Rachel can be (e.g., "I'm starting to bore you, aren't I? Well, suck it up. It's about to get interesting.").
Hopefully Rena won't stop at just one. Let's wish that this writerly impulse will continue her whole life.
2. Without Boundaries: My Life During the Viet Nam War ~ by Dieu Bao
 |
| Dieu Bao's Memoir |
It's understandable why we, as consumers of books, are not so interested in the self-published word. Publishers and editors help us feel like what we're going to buy (and hopefully read, and hopefully enjoy) has passed a test of sorts. The self-published world, by stepping away from the publishers (not necessarily the editors), is seen as a little more raw, the consumer feels a little closer to bad writing. I think we fear the best we can say is, it's amateur.
For Bao's book, that sentiment is unfair. She has written a heartfelt memoir, and has worked in a second language to put into words the oftentimes inexpressible horrors of war. It is my sentiment, that Bao's testimony, although the style may not be to the caliber of Patchett's or Quindlin's, is powerful. It offers to us new insights to those affected by a war that very much affected our country and culture, because it is more than just about war, but about life. It has as much happiness in it as it does tragedy. Bao writes honestly, and for that I say she deserves patronage.
Just pick up Without Boundaries, and see how well its honesty can pull you in.
3. Bentari ~ by Timothy Brown
 |
| Bentari |
What we also need for this post is an adventure story. Bentari is just that story. Specifically, Nazi treasure hunters in the Belgian congo. Anyone? Yes. Bentari, the Swift Climber, our hero, is a resourceful young man fighting to defend his people against--who else?--Nazis.
But this is done deliberately and in control. Here's the first paragraph, to give you a sense of Brown's ability:
Sometimes the calm occurs as the sun first breaks across the eastern sky. Some days it happens after an hour or so when the sun's heat begins to scald the jungle air. The calm settles like coincidence and, for that still moment, all the birds and morning talkers hush together. The rising heat and humid air melt into an intoxicating perfume. Movements of the briefly silent fauna become majestic and graceful in the calm. The forest and its children paint the timeless and mystifying tableaux.
Brown moves to the allure of the jungle setting, and, after our title character Bentari experiences this calm, the tension rises, ending in murder. It propels forward from there, but always deliberately. This is the mature outcome of what Bao and Marthaler started. Whereas the other two authors write with a glibness that is nevertheless a compelling read, Brown's prose is more controlled. Still, the imagination is always at work. We move from deliberate writing to tensions and adventure. It's worth a read.
[We'll follow up next week with three more CreateSpace authors, including some nonfiction. If you have a book that you'd like to consign to Wallace Books, please contact us personally at jwallace@wallacebooks.net, or stop by the store.]
~ James Maynard, January 2014
Friday, January 17, 2014
Friday Reads ~ "Of Walking in Rain" by Matt Love
Nestucca Spit Press $19.95 USD
Let's let Newport author Matt Love get the first word:
For all you puddle-splashers, you rainy-day bicyclers, you who see umbrellas as eight-pronged instruments of hell: this is the book for you. Matt Love, a prolific self-published author (check out his website, Nestucca Spit Press, where you can order books and see where Matt Love will be reading, here), should be considered Oregon's minister of rain, which puts him in a holy caste.
Of Walking in Rain is firstly a record of three months in 2012 -- from October to the end of December. Plot and story arch take a back seat to what ends up to be a record of rain, the best way to describe a book that churns and skids along: on some days Love is lucid, political and anecdotal; other days he wants nothing to do with expository and sets off on diatribes like the one above. There are moments of love, moments of conflict -- characters are introduced and forgotten, old memories are revived and new memories created. For the reader this means movement--in time, in language, in rain--and if it is raining as you read this, it will be hard to put down.
I love this book. I keep it in my bag so it is now a banged up beautiful copy. I've left it out in the rain so its pages are puffy. I'm writing this today during an obscene dry spell in hopes that rain will hear my plea and come back. Every time we have those beautiful rains that last for days, and the clouds just keep coming and every body starts to feel miserable until they stop feeling miserable, I pick up this book and read it. You should do the same. It'll make you proud to be an Oregonian. And after summer I'm thinking I'll start my own rain journal, which is essentially what Love wants me -- wants us -- to do: join his Church of Rain by creating your own rain journal. And support self-published authors and local business.
Although I'm loath to send you over to Powell's Books' website, nonetheless there are some blog posts by Matt Love I think you should check out. Maybe he'll do a few blog posts for us as well.
 |
| Matt Love's newest self-published book. |
Let's let Newport author Matt Love get the first word:
Who would you rather hang out with? Someone playing hooky from work because of the sun or rain? Rain is a bindle, the sun carry-on luggage. You can slide in rain. You can smear rain, but never touch the sun. Rain sluices gold. Rain foments serenity. Rain launches sedition against conformity. Rain sends roots deep; the sun desiccates. The sun speaks in monologues while rain always dialogues. Rain is aural and visual and has body; the sun can't possibly compete with that Triple Crown. Only genuine awakening results during encounters with rain. The sun? Mostly relaxation or trying to forget. All my great notions manifest in rain. All my mediocre ones emerge with the sun. We can thank capitalism for making the word "acid" an obscene adjective of rain. The Hindu religion has a rain god. Noah's 40 days and 40 nights is a richer story than Joshua's sun standing still. What are the semiotics of rain? Is it a symbol for transparency or solidity? Earlier, I switched on Save Me Jesus Radio and a crooner crooned a maudlin "thank you " to God for taking him out of rain. The implication was that Satan lurked there. God I hope so! If I find him, we'll get right down to it.
For all you puddle-splashers, you rainy-day bicyclers, you who see umbrellas as eight-pronged instruments of hell: this is the book for you. Matt Love, a prolific self-published author (check out his website, Nestucca Spit Press, where you can order books and see where Matt Love will be reading, here), should be considered Oregon's minister of rain, which puts him in a holy caste.
Of Walking in Rain is firstly a record of three months in 2012 -- from October to the end of December. Plot and story arch take a back seat to what ends up to be a record of rain, the best way to describe a book that churns and skids along: on some days Love is lucid, political and anecdotal; other days he wants nothing to do with expository and sets off on diatribes like the one above. There are moments of love, moments of conflict -- characters are introduced and forgotten, old memories are revived and new memories created. For the reader this means movement--in time, in language, in rain--and if it is raining as you read this, it will be hard to put down.
I love this book. I keep it in my bag so it is now a banged up beautiful copy. I've left it out in the rain so its pages are puffy. I'm writing this today during an obscene dry spell in hopes that rain will hear my plea and come back. Every time we have those beautiful rains that last for days, and the clouds just keep coming and every body starts to feel miserable until they stop feeling miserable, I pick up this book and read it. You should do the same. It'll make you proud to be an Oregonian. And after summer I'm thinking I'll start my own rain journal, which is essentially what Love wants me -- wants us -- to do: join his Church of Rain by creating your own rain journal. And support self-published authors and local business.
Although I'm loath to send you over to Powell's Books' website, nonetheless there are some blog posts by Matt Love I think you should check out. Maybe he'll do a few blog posts for us as well.
~ James Maynard, January 2014
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