To Read or Not To Read

Harper Collins sent me a galley of this book months ago. I started it, got distracted, put it down, and never returned. Until yesterday. Suddenly, The Story of Edgar Sawtell is turning up everywhere...trade journals, The New York Times, websites, and today, it was reviewed on GMA as a wonderful, literary summer read. I dug into it again over the weekend, and this time I think I will conquer the 500+ pages although, I will say that the first 78 of those have been profoundly sad. The book is consistently compared to Hamlet, which falls near the top of my "Shakespeare Plays to Read Again" list.

Of course, that got me thinking about how many other novels and plays have been influenced by the Bard - some in big ways, other, with a simple, but provocative title or line allusion. "The Mousetrap," a play based on an Agatha Christie novel, comes directly from Hamlet, "The Mousetrap", being the title of the play Hamlet enlists a troupe of itinerant players to perform to make his uncle Claudius squirm, and perhaps even confess to murdering Hamlet's father. The play, by the way, is the longest running production in London's East End theatre district.

Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres draws upon King Lear, and Faye Kellermann borrowed her title, The Quality of Mercy, from The Merchant of Venice. Shakespeare has even worked his way into some unlikely, contemporary movies. Remember Big Business, starring Lily Tomlin and Bette Midler? Each actor played her own twin, leading to all sorts of mistaken identity complications. That's A Comedy of Errors. 10 Things I Hate About You, a teen angst flick borrows so heavily from The Taming of the Shrew that many character's names have gone unchanged. There's Bianca, Kat, and the suitor, aptly named Patrick Verona, after the city where "Shrew" is set. A few years ago, I saw a crazy little movie called Scotland, PA, starring Christopher Walken. It is a totally bizarre interpretation of Macbeth, but it works on a few levels.

When I was till teaching high school, Oedipus (Rex, The King...depends on which translation you read) was one play that always got the kids' attention. It was the first meaty piece we tackled after all the basic theatre components had been conquered. Oedipus raised the bar for them, and it was satisfying to watch them dig around, speculate, make discoveries, and then put it all together. As odd as the story seems on the surface...son unknowingly kills his father, unknowingly marries his mother and has four children by her, but manages to save the city of Thebes in the process...it generally stuck with my class long after we had moved on to jollier plots.

Quite spontaneously, the kids began playing a connection game similar to "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon." They could relate anything we read back to Oedipus. I'd hear comments like, "Oh, oh, that guy's a little too close to his mom," or "Looks like we have another case of someone who's too stubborn to budge." By the end of the semester, they had me quite convinced that there was only one universal plot in all of dramatic literature, and that, you guessed, was Oed...it became too tedious for them to spit out to entire title, so they condensed! They began bringing in outside references including a mini- musical they found on-line, and a cheeky little song recorded by a singing satirist.

One year, we put Oed on trial for murder. An attorney came in and went through basic courtroom procedure with my classes. He covered strategy, making motions, opening and closing statements. He discussed jury psychology. Oed was cleared of all charges in the end. The jury leaned heavily on the defense's arguement that Oed was controlled by fate. The prosecution made a stong case based on hubris and emotional blindness. To this day, the student who acted as the lead prosecutor remains bitter. Although he is now an adult, he never passes up an opportunity to scream at me between cars in parking lots, over the shelves in a crowded store, through the stacks at the library, and even at fancy-pants social gathering... "Oedipus was guilty."

There was always one linear student in each class who could not work past the fact that Oed had children with his mother. Despite my valiant, aggressive, and continued efforts to instill the value of suspending disbelief when reading drama, the inevitable query concerning the children arose. The question was always the same...

"Hey, Ms. D., weren't his kids goofy? I mean, didn't Antigone end up with three eyes, or something?"

My reply, too, was always the same. "No, Antigone only has one eye." Once, a student actually chuckled at that! Just once, though.

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A few minutes ago, I received a call from, Mary, a former co-worker, and cherished friend. She has long been a Tasha Tudor fan, and wanted to tell me that Tasha had died on June, 18, at age 92. Tasha Tudor is best known for her delicate artwork gracing many children's books, and her old-world lifestyle surrounded by little goats, and huge flowers in New England. I wish I had a little picture of Mary to share with you. If you could see her gentle smile and dancing eyes, you would know why she was drawn to Tudor's work .

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I'm thinking about reading this when I finish the Story of Edgar Sawtell. Obviously, the title is intriguing and pulls no punches. What is even more intriguing, is that the national TV news/chat shows that are generally the first to dig into any type of asserted controversy, have (so far) elected to distance themselves from this book.

Vincent Bugliosi is the author of Helter Skelter, the copiously researched account of the Manson murders. He is the top homicide prosecutor in Manhattan's D.A.'s office. The inside flap states "...presents a tight, meticulously researched legal case puts George W. Bush on trial in an American courtroom for the murder of nearly 4,000 American soldiers fighting in Iraq." I am curious to see how he balances courtroom theatrics, emotion, and logic to support his thesis.

Rediscovered Treasures

The saga of the soggy basement continues! In watching news reports covering the recent onslaught of tornadoes and floods, I am always struck by the strength of people who were so hard hit. Many expressed their frustration over not knowing what to grab first. I wonder how one can make a monumental decision like that knowing there is no turning back

I had enough foresight to get as much off the basement floor as possible before the dam broke, so to speak. This past weekend, I began the task of mold seeking, and determining what to toss and what to keep. I started with the books. I am by no means a book collector, but the approximate 200 books shelved there all have special connections to people and events in my life. It was fun sifting through the piles and remembering.

Some books, like the one above, were tag sales purchases. I love the quirky covers and contents of these vintage pieces. For example, this book on charm contains copious notes on bowel movements, immediately followed by advice about foods to fuel the body. I am happy to report that Marianne Meade considered chocolate of major food fuel! In the same pile, there was a book called How to Improve your Personality by Reading with recommended novels specifically for the "Catholic reader."

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I also came across several books with Manitowoc connections. Inside the front covers hide beautiful inscriptions from gifter to recipient. In 1921, Bernice Benedict, longtime principal of Franklin Elementary School, received a copy of Bright Ideas for Entertaining by Mrs. Herbert B. Linscott. Ormand Benedict gave Bernice the book. On page 109, the author suggests spending a literary evening with friends. "In the note of invitation, each one should be requested to wear something suggestive of a book title. Upon arrival, each guest should be furnished with a card bearing the names of the entire company. When one fancies he has discovered a title, he should say nothing about it, but write the title opposite the name of the impersonator. At the end of the evening, a victor is declared based on the number of correct identifications."

The Complete Cheerful Cherub had once been owned by another Manitowoc educator, Lillian Marsh. Throughout the book, adorable little cupids recite tiny poems about a myriad of subjects, beginning with "Abandon" and ending with "Youth."

The bio of Chicago born author, Rebecca McCann, was unique in many respects. First, it was in the front of the book. Second, it was six pages long. Third, it was written as though each reader had been personally connected with this author/illustrator. The story of her life ends like this -"Her last year was a joyous one and it pointed ahead to happiness. She married Harvey Fergusson, the novelist...They were going to spend Christmas with Harvey's family in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She went to San Francisco to buy some clothes for the expected holiday gaities, for she loved pretty clothes....a slight cold turned into a heavy one as feverishly she gaily danced at a fancy dress party. She was ill for only a few days. And then -. For the last time she went to Chicago."

A bit water stained, but still very much intact, was a copy of John and Rose, written and published in 1914 by John Schuette. The front piece offers the lengthy subtitle seen below. The pages are filled with pictures of Manitowoc in the 1900's, and of the Schuettes' grand home. The book focuses on the family finances, including balance sheets, and even once called "Rose's Expenditures and Income."

Written in third person, the book carefully chronicles, each year of John and Rose's marriage. "The third year was the most interesting in their lives, by reason of the arrival of their firstborn, a son, whom they named Adam. Though this was an increased tax on their finances, they were glad to bear it, and as a consequence Rose got an extra $60 a year allowance (bringing that total to $660.00), while John got a $100.00 raise in his salary.

Most of the books I rediscovered in the aftermath, have little or no monetary value. That wasn't a consideration when I bought them. I am a sucker for derivative books - especially those inspired by the fine youth serials that ran on the original Mickey Mouse Club. My "Annette" and "Spin and Marty" books came out unscathed, as did my copy of Up the Down Staircase...a book I read religiously each year while I was still teaching. The Bobbsey Twins are fine, as are Donna Parker, Cherry Adams, and that cute little Honey Bunch.

Best of all, I found, safe and dry, my copy of The Story of the Trapp Family Singers by Maria Augusta Trapp...autographed by the entire family! Believe it or not, I picked that one up at a yard sale in Manitowoc for a quarter. When I discovered it was signed, I returned and spoke with the gentlemen who sold it to me, and tried to explain the potential value. I distinctly recall him saying "I put a quarter on it, a quarter it is." I also have a scary recolection of singing an emotional, albeit sour, rendition of "Climb Every Mountain" to get him to understand just who Maria Von Trapp was. I think he was happy to see me and my twenty-five cent book leave!

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What am I reading? The Name of the Rose meets The DaVinci Code in this fast-paced thriller set in modern Barcelona. Antonio Gaudi, the revered architect, was entrusted with the responsibility of guarding a sacred relic belonging to a secret, ancient brotherhood. Pledging to forever keep the relic from evil hands, Gaudi hides it within his most precious work, entrusting its fate to a young apprenctice who will succeed him. When the apprentice dies, he leaves the duty of guarding the relic to his grand-daughter. She knows nothing about the relic's history or its whereabouts, and only has a cryptic note from her grandfather to guide her.

Hopefully, these shelves will soon be filled agian!

Heart-A-Rama Rocks!

The totals are in, and boy...did the Lakeshore do a great job this year. We raised $126,500.00 for the American Heart Association of Wisconsin! Not bad, huh? 10% stays right here in Manitowoc to furnish schools and other places where large groups gather with AED's, Automatic Expernal Defibrillators. The rest stays in Wisconsin and is earmarked for education and research. Our little communities have proudly contributed over a million dollars to this cause, and we are ever so near to closing the door on the second million. If the fund-raising dollars remain consistent, we will reach that goal within the next two years.

If you're reading this and are new to the HAR experience, I'll just say that this wing-ding began 39 years ago - the brainchild of several local volunteers. The concept wasn't warmly received that first year, and the founders literally went bar to bar, trying to sell the $2.00 tickets. Just look what they created!

The above photo was snapped from the upper deck of our new home, the Community House in Two Rivers. I wonder if any of those folks were in the first audience?

Plans for HAR 2009 are well underway. We picked a theme last night, and now the writing begins.

Rainy Days and Friendships

The rainy weekend provided the perfect excuse to savor some short, but impressive tween/young adult novels. My other option was to watch the rain wash away the veggies that were beginning to peek though the ground. Last year the rabbits got at everything before I did, which was OK. Those bunnies find me less than threatening. They got so comfortable at my salad bar that waited for me to take the dog out for her morning emptying. Then, they would leisurely bounce past me, hop the small fence, smile and wave as they dined on the carrots and lettuce.

Back to the books....Buddha's Diamonds is a gentle coming of age story. Every day, Tinh heads out to sea with his father to catch fish for their family and for the market. Their new bamboo boat shines like gold against the turquoise waters of his village, and while he may at times miss his simple life with other children on the beach, Tinh is proud to work alongside Ba.

When a fierce storm breaks, Tinh earns the task of securing the family vessel, but he panics and runs away. It will take courage and faith to salvage the precious bamboo boat, win back Ba's confidence, and return once more to the sea. Thay Phap Niem's childhood experiences form the basis of the book. A year after the storm depicted in the story, he escaped the hardships of postwar Vietnam, leaving in a small fishing boat at the complete mercy of the sea. He eventually became a Buddhist monk.

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The Willoughbys is a funny new novel by two-time Newberry Medal winner Lois Lowry. "Shouldn't we be orphans?" one of the Willoughby children suggests one day. The four are part of an old-fashioned family, but their parents are not quite what most readers would expect. Recalling literary characters such as Anne of Green Gables, Pollyanna, and James and his giant peach, the Willoughbys concoct a devious plot to turn themselves into worthy and winsome orphans. Little do they know that their parents have their own despicable plan inspired by their favorite bedtime story..."Hansel and Gretel"!

These two books couldn't be more different, and they pleasantly filled my rainy Sunday afternoon. I am happy to see so many established writers turning their attention to youth readers, writing books with contemporary story lines, and with characters closer in age to their readering audience. No more counting on Louisa May Alcott to provide kids with family life dramas. Classics are classics for a reason, I respect that. I have always felt that, given the chance, young readers will discover the works of Steinbeck, Hemingway, Alcott and others, on their own, or with a bit of clandestine prodding by parents, teachers, or librarians. But why not let kids develop a taste for fine writing in well constructed stories about characters who look and sound more like themselves?

If you're a parent reading this, let your kids see you reading. Let them page through the books you bring home; tell them the stories found between those covers. But, as you know, turnabout is fair play. Pick up their books. Read what they are reading. You may be surprised at how well-crafted and sophisticated books for 9-16 year olds have become.

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Summer vacation has begun! My teacher friends came by this morning, with kids in tow, for drinks and a long overdue visit. It was great to see everyone.

These are a few shots from this morning's festivities!

Homegrown Critics

by guest blogger Thomas Maltman
author of The Night Birds

Last year newspapers crowed when the Atlanta Journal Constitution, one of the nation’s biggest newspapers, laid off their longtime book critic. It was just the beginning of bad times for the professional critics. The LA Times folded their separate Sunday book section into the back pages of “Entertainment” and other newspaper slimmed down articles and reviews on books or did away with them all together.

What was happening? Was this all part of another dire trend in declining literacy? Did this have something to do with statistics showing less and less people read novels every year? Was this foreshadowing the end of books all together, some alarmists wondered, as books were replaced by video games, DVDs, and other forms of cheap and easy entertainment?

No. While it’s true that are less readers out there today, with over a quarter of Americans not having cracked open a single book last year, the truth is book sales are up. The humble book is here to stay. Ask any passionate reader out there if a movie can match the experience of a good novel. Books transport us to far world, take us into the minds of fascinating people, and conjure adventures for our ordinary lives. Books are irreplaceable.

What it does signal is a diminished role of the professional critic. If newspapers are cutting back, how does an author get the word out there about the book they just spent three years writing? How do readers find out information about books before they shell out their dollars for the latest hardcover?

Fellow readers of Bev’s blog, I submit the future of networking for booklovers. There are three major sites online that connect likeminded readers and provide insightful commentary about the latest publication. Each of these sites brings us information about books while also allowing the viewer to peruse the shelves of strangers. You get a peek into what other people are reading and their innermost thoughts about the books of their lives.

Let’s start with http://www.goodreads.com/

This is my favorite of the online review sites. It’s often called “Facebook” for booklovers. It’s a way to find out what normal muggles are reading out there, the very best in books. The format is visually appealing and very easy to use.

http://www.librarything.com/

Library thing advertises 27 million books catalogued by its readers. Purists favor this site, but I find it a little snooty for my own tastes. Professional librarians tend to use this site, since it provides excellent organizational and cataloguing tools.

Lastly, there’s http://www.shelfari.com/

Shelfari is cool and hip, but has far less users than Goodreads and Librarything. What it has that the others don’t is a visual flair and a snazzy format. It’s a good site, but not the preferred choice by book bloggers.

Please don’t get me wrong. None of these sites can ever fully replace a professional critic. None of these sites can replace the wicked delight of opening The New York Times to read the latest acid-tinged book review from Michiko Kakutani. (I hope never to be on the receiving end of one of these reviews!) Authors need book critics. It’s one of the best ways we earn our street cred! Had The Night Birds not been reviewed in places like The Boston Globe or Denver Post it’s likely it would never have won any of the national awards it did. That newspapers are cutting back coverage of books should concern us. (See a recent article in Salon about this subject: http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2008/05/22/critics/) What I’m saying here is don’t be alarmed. Even in an age of vanishing professional critics the books will survive. Blogging and sites like the above give the power where the power should rest—to the reader.

Or, you could always ask Bev! She knows her readers and can always find a book to help you wile away the dog days of summer. One the best resources to find out about books is right on New York Avenue at a place called LaDeDa. Stop in for an iced chai and chat about books with a person in the know!



That's all from The Night Birds!

Wacky Bits of Sedaris, Trask, and Maltman

Today is Tuesday, and, to my surprise, I have gotten numerous semi-threatening notes asking what happened to the Monday blog. Look at my checkout counter! I have been playing crazy bookseller the past week. We started a small project, but it turned out to be one of those kneebone's connected to the hipbone deals, but in this case, it's more like the fiction case is connected to the biography case. So, books are piled everywhere, but mostly in inconvenient places, and I am a bit overwhelmed with the prospect of restoring them to their logical locations.

**********I am still slowly turning the pages of When You are Engulfed in Flames, the new David Sedaris essay collection. Slowly...only because I never want his books to end. He can't publish fast enough for me; it feels so good to laugh to the point of embarrassment. I had the chance to see David Sedaris in "concert" last fall. He read for about two hours at the performing arts center in Appleton. The theatre was packed. A podium and a few green plants were the only stage adornments - nothing the focus on when bored. My only experience hearing Sedaris read had been short takes on "The David Letterman Show" and "This American Life" on public radio. I couldn't imagine him commanding attention for two hours, but that's exactly what the slight man with the funny little voice did. The general consensus was that two hours wasn't nearly enough.

**********His first book, Barrel Fever, was released about the same time we opened the store. Not being an avid reader of The New Yorker, where many of his early essays were published, I had never heard of him, but the cover was disturbing, in a capricious way, so I dug in. I just didn't get it, so I gave up somewhere after a seething rant about his angry break-up with Charlton Heston. Nope, I just didn't get it! A few years later, while looking for a holiday play to direct, I ran across his name again and discovered an hysterical offering called The Santaland Diaries. I was a convert. I became a fan. I could easily be a stalker if he didn't spend much of his time in Paris. I'm going back to Barrel Fever sometime this summer...time to give it a second chance.

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Since opening the store, I have had the privilege of meeting, working with a befriending some outstanding people. Tom Maltman (Left) and Kerry Trask (right) are two of them. Both are award winning writers, and both are making exciting life changes.

Kerry Trask is retiring from the University of Wisconsin-Manitowoc, where he has taught History to many fortunate students. He is also the author of The Fire Within, and Black Hawk, books that have garnered national attention and praise. Trask's credentials could have taken him anywhere, but he chose to stay here, making a commitment to our two-year campus and to Manitowoc. The legacy he leaves is strong and permanent.

**********I first met Kerry when his daughter, Emily, auditioned for a part in a Masquer play I was co-directing with my friend, Rick. The play had a small professor role, and we asked Kerry to play that part. He indicated that the small Act I part would be all he could do, since he was swamped at work. Before long, he offered to sing in the church choir scene in Act II, and then said, "As long as I'm in this deep, what can I do in Act III?" He worked himself into the whole show! He had some fun with the parts, and it was heartwarming to observe him in the wings watching Emily .

**********It goes without saying that Kerry will be missed at the campus. For the time being, he is staying in Manitowoc. Lucky for us. Congratulations on a fine career, Dr. Trask!

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Tom Maltman has been instrumental in developing a Creative Writing major at Silver Lake College. His first novel, The Night Birds, earned a starred review in Publishers Weekly. It had been awarded several national honors. Tom has made quite an impact in the short time he has been in Manitowoc. He dove into the community full force, lending his name and expertise to a number of college and community projects. He is respected by his students and his colleagues. Tom will be returning to Minnesota, where he will continue teaching at the college level. He will also be closer to his family who will be on hand to enjoy watching the Maltmans' two young daughters grow.

**********Tom is currently at work on his second novel, a mystery, and he promises to make it back here for a reading and signing when it is published. I will hold him to that promise.