In the Land of (almost) No Bookstores

My town has no bookstores. Okay, so there is the one, but it's tiny and has a major focus on science fiction and fantasy which are two genres that I like to enjoy on occasion, but not usually the focus of my reading. I have purchased books there in the interest of keeping a bookstore around since all the others have been steadily dying off. I appreciate its presence even if it's not the bookstore I'd prefer. I also appreciate that it's a store that has a section dedicated exclusively to Vampires. I mean, that's just awesome, but I digress.

I'm sure you don't live under a rock, therefore you might have heard something about Borders and bankruptcy and a third of their stores closing. The two Borders stores that really mean anything to me personally, meaning the one I used to work at in my pre-blogging days and the one that is closest to my town (at a staggering 45 minutes away) survived the closings, and I'm pleased about that, but the whole situation plus that whole "45 minutes away" thing got me to reflecting on and generally being melancholy about the bookstore situation in my town.

I don't live very near a major city, but I also don't live in the backwoods middle of nowhere, either. Okay, relative to the surrounding area, I might, but in the grand scheme of things not so much. I don't live in the center of a barren, frozen tundra nor do I live out on the prairie or in the mountains or somewhere where you can drive for miles and miles without even seeing another town, let alone a bookstore. I live in central/northeastern Pennsylvania sandwiched almost equidistantly between Philadelphia and New York City. My town is host to a medium-sized state university, and they have their bookstore, but the bookstore scenario for the town at large is dismal.


Photo Credit

It's practically a weekly thing for me to bemoan the fact that my immediate surroundings seem to be a bookstore deadzone. It wasn't always like this here, and it saddens me to think that with the upcoming Borders closings, others might join my ranks of the nearly bookstore-less. Now, lest you feel too badly for me, we are are not totally book deprived here. We have several local library branches that serve our small towns well, and their high quality used book sales keep me in far more cost-effective reading than I can probably hope to devour in the decades that might well remain of my life span. Alas, I am of the segment of the population that is not really wildly in love with the whole library thing but for the sales. I like owning books.

I miss bookstores. I miss them so much. I envy all you book bloggers who even have the opportunity to somehow affiliate yourselves with a local bookstore for mutual benefit, who can wile away portions of your days sipping coffee and perusing novels in bookstore cafes, who can attend author readings and signings without driving the better part of an hour (or more!). I actively resent that sometimes I feel like my only option when I need to buy a book is to throw a few more dollars into Amazon's already fairly bursting coffers. I took it for granted when I had it, but now I long for the pleasure of wandering the aisles of a bookstore perusing books that I can hold in my hands. Getting books in the mail might be a total high but it can't replace the potential for actually interacting face to face with people who are looking for or can recommend a good book. It can't replace being able to go to a store where if you say something as vague as, "I'm thinking of a book with a white cover that I read about in the Saturday Review of Books a week and a half ago," and somebody will actually be able to find you that book. I'm already tired of the cold, utilitarian book buying options that the internet has to offer now that my alternatives are so limited.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't be like us, the book lovers in my town. Don't let the continued existence of your local bookstore be a forgone conclusion. Don't always buy your books on the internet when you can just as easily buy them from a store, because if you like bookstores at all, like I do, you'll miss them terribly when they're gone even though you were happily sending off your dollars to Amazon up until the moment the reality of it all caught up with you. I understand now more than ever that bookstores are a treasure, and one that I am loathe to go without.

How about you? What's the bookstore situation in your town? Do you have them? Would you miss them if you didn't or are you satisfied buying your books from online outlets?

"Waiting On" Wednesday: The Watery Part of the World

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.



The Watery Part of the World by Michael Parker
Algonquin, April 26, 2011

Synopsis:

Michael Parker has created a wholly original world from two known facts: (1) Theodosia Burr Alston, daughter of the controversial vice president Aaron Burr, disappeared in 1813 while en route by schooner from South Carolina to New York; and (2) in 1970, two elderly white women and one black man were the last townspeople to leave a small barrier island off the coast of North Carolina.

In this fiction based on historical fact, Parker weaves a tale of adventure and longing as he charts one hundred and fifty years in the life and death of an island and its inhabitants- the descendants of Theodosia Burr Alston and those of the freed man whose family would be forever tethered to hers.

It's a tale of pirates and slaves, treason and treasures, madness and devotion, that takes place on a tiny island battered by storms, infested with mosquitoes, and cut off from the world-as difficult to get to as it is impossible to leave for those who call it home. From Theodosia's capture at sea to the passionate lives of her great-great-great-granddaughters to the tender story of the black man who cares for them all his days, this is an inspired novel about love, trust, and the often tortuous bonds of family and community.

What are you "waiting on" this Wednesday?

The Death Instinct by Jed Rubenfeld

Let me give you a tour through bizarre thought processes for notorious book acquirers (using myself as a case study, of course). Once upon a time, I put Jed Rubenfeld's other book, The Interpretation of Murder, on my big bookish wish list, and there it stayed and stayed and stays still along with my intention to read it "someday." Years later, here I am a book blogger and into my e-mail box comes an offer of a review copy for Jed Rubenfeld's new book, The Death Instinct. Why do I say yes? Not just because the premise sounds good, though it does. I say yes because I have the author's other book on my wish list, as if having a book on my wish list is as good a testament to my enjoyment of an authors's work as actually having read a book by them, just like I occasionally buy books on the grounds of having other unread books by the same author on my shelf at home, and "of course, I'll love that author, right?" This may perhaps be why I have such a freakish amount of unread books. Maybe. It's definitely the reason that I recently enjoyed my first taste of Jed Rubenfeld's historical mysteries.


It's a beautiful day in September 1920 when old friends Detective Jimmy Littlemore of the New York Police Department and Dr. Stratham Younger reunite in Madison Square. Their purpose for meeting again is a girl who left a cryptic note and a tooth for Younger's friend Colette, a French radiochemist who studied under Marie Curie. At the same time, a terrible thing is about to happen on Wall Street. Just as the bells ring noon and hundreds of financial district employees swarm onto the street for their lunch breaks, a horse-drawn wagon turned bomb explodes through Wall Street killing and injuring hundreds of people. Soon, Younger, Littlemore, and Colette are wrapped up in a far-reaching web of mystery that will find all three dodging death in the solving.

The Death Instinct is jam packed full of interrelated mysteries and rife with rich historical detail. In Rubenfeld's hands we are transported from Prohibition era New York where vets returning from the war struggle to find jobs to a Washington D.C. where modern-day politics have already taken shape even though the city seems incomplete, to ravaged post-war Vienna where Sigmund Freud is still learning new lessions about psychoanalysis in the aftermath of the conflict. Impressive are the variety of storylines Rubenfeld successfully manages to weave into his story, with a mystery or two per main character.

Rubenfeld's characters aren't so lovable as they are downright admirable. Littlemore's integrity is steadfast and his amazing feats of deductive reasoning downright sherlockian as he navigates the backward politics of both Washington and New York in pursuit of the truth about the Wall Street bombing and its implications for the U.S. Treasury and U.S. banks. Dr. Younger's courage and heroism follow him from his career at Harvard to the battlefield and to Europe again in pursuit of Colette and her unfinished business. He might have a short fuse and have a history as a bit of a lady's man, but Rubenfeld makes his Younger's heart of gold shine through. In Colette, Rubenfeld marries strength and determination with a stunning naivete to create a character who is determined to defeat her past before it can catch up with her.

Rubenfeld covers a lot of ground in The Death Instinct between the historical scene setting, the fleshing out of his main characters, his employing of real historical figures, and the many mysteries both current to the time period of the book and left over from each character's recent past. My one complaint, then, is that sometimes it seems as if Rubenfeld is tackling too much and all the moving parts occasionally get in the way of the story itself. While the historical detail and Rubenfeld's successful efforts to render historical figures with accuracy create an incredible sense of that moment in history, sometimes the detail and the tangents get in the way of what would be a pageturner of a mystery.

Overall, though, I found The Death Instinct to be an ambitious romp through the post-World War I world. Readers will be torn between wanting to savor all the history Rubenfeld has thoroughly re-created and wanting to rush to the end to discover the solutions to The Death Instinct's many intriguing mysteries.

(Many thanks to Lydia at Riverhead Books for providing me with a copy for review.)

"Waiting On" Wednesday: Touch

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.



Touch by Alexi Zentner
W.W. Norton and Co, April 4, 2011

Synopsis:

In Sawgamet, a north woods boomtown gone bust, the cold of winter breaks the glass of the schoolhouse thermometer, and the dangers of working in the cuts are overshadowed by the mysteries and magic lurking in the woods. Stephen, a pastor, is at home on the eve of his mother's funeral, thirty years after the mythic summer his grandfather returned to the town in search of his beloved but long-dead wife. And like his grandfather, Stephen is forced to confront the losses of his past.

Touch introduces you to a world where monsters and witches oppose singing dogs and golden caribou, where the living and the dead part and meet again in the crippling beauty of winter and the surreal haze of summer.

What are you "waiting on" this Wednesday?

Saying Goodbye, Turning Over a New Leaf, and Other Bookish Randomness

It's Sunday, and I've been stocking up on some bookish randomness all week long. A blogger who, you know, stays home once in a while and writes some posts would perhaps divide this all up and write lots of little posts, but you know me, and I'm going to combine it all into one big one. You get a lot of bang for your buck here at Leafing Through Life. It's okay, you can thank me later.

First off, I was really saddened to hear of Brian Jacques' passing this week. Oftentimes when an author passes, their name is familiar to me, but their work is not, but I grew up with Jacques' Redwall series. They were among the first books I ever tried to get my parents to read because I was so taken with the stories of Redwall Abbey and it's characters. These books are brimful of action, adventure, love, valor, and a treasure trove of unforgettable animal characters not to mention epic feasts of the most delicious-sounding foods. Thankfully I fell behind in the series, so I've got a good many still left to read, but the world has lost a great storyteller in Brian Jacques. Matt London says it way better than I can in his Personal Reflection on Brian Jacques on Tor.com.


Consider yourself duly forewarned. I've done a goofy thing that I'm pretty sure I don't regret. I accepted a children's picture book for review. I wasn't going to. I didn't even mean to. I intended to politely refuse, but when I took a look at the cover photo of Peachtree Publishing's Three Hens and a Peacock I got all mushy inside and began whining to myself, "Aw, but I like picture books. I miss them, and it looks really pretty, and it will probably be all kinds of nostalgic fun even though people that read my blog will probably be all like wha??" So I took Emily from Peachtree up on her generous offer of a review copy and will (probably temporarily) be turning over a new leaf (a new leaf? Get it? LOL!) and reviewing it here. I'll post the review other places, too, so that it'll get more mileage than my likely limited children's book reading following here. But come on, look at it. Who could refuse a face like this?





Last but not least in my treasure chest of bookish randomness, are you using Edelweiss? If not and you're the kind of blogger/reader who's interested in finding out what's forthcoming from your favorite publishers, whyever not? A few weeks ago after a serendipitous moment on Twitter, I requested a demo of this online collection of publisher's catalogs. Joe Foster spent a half an hour or so showing me the ins and outs of using the site's many features to scope out forthcoming books, tag them for later reference, filtering the ones of interest, and so on (Thanks again, Joe!). Ever since, I've been gleefully perusing many publishers' spring/summer offerings, tagging books for Waiting on Wednesday posts, adding to my unwieldy wishlist, and using it as a reference point whenever I hear any stirrings of a new book by an author I like. I'm sure that's just the tip of the iceberg, though. If you're interested in what's upcoming, you should definitely be checking out Edelweiss. Need a little help figuring out how to use it? Check out Joe's excellent guest post at The Book Lady's Blog for the nuts and bolts and you'll be ogling exciting new books in no time.

That's all in bookish randomness for today. Hope your week is full of great books and many hours of great reading!