We're in the Money

Feeling stimulated? You might be if you work in the arts. The National Endowment for the Arts has announced direct grants under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The grants have been given to "nonprofit arts organizations are receiving grants to support the preservation of jobs that are threatened by declines in philanthropic and other support during the current economic downturn."

Minnesota made out pretty well. Better than, say, LA, says the LA Times' Jacket Copy blog. The full list of Minnesota recipients is here.

The grants are good news for local literary organizations including Coffee House Press, Graywolf Press, Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Milkweed Editions, and Springboard for the Arts. They're not so good for folks outside the metro area. The only recipient who's even close to being in greater Minnesota is the Franconia Sculpture Park--and they're an easy drive from the Cities, in Schafer.--David E

Roasting on an Open Fire

The New Yorker's Book Bench blog was keen-eyed enough to spot this forthcoming gem. General Sherman's Christmas will be the perfect gift for anyone who wants to combine warm holiday sentiments with a ruthless scorched earth policy of military dominance.

That sounds like a few people on my Christmas list.--David E

Over Before It Began

I just learned that Laura Esquivel--author of Like Water for Chocolate--lost her race to represent Mexico City in the Mexican congress. I hadn't even realized she was running.

Details are here. Thanks to Galley Cat for the tip.--David E

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

Sadly, Superheroes Decadance--a new book in which the Italian cartoonist Donald Soffritti imagines how time will ravage Superman, Batman, et al--is not available in the US. Happily, the UK's Telegraph newspaper has posted a slideshow of images.

Thanks to ABEbook.com's "Reading Copy" blog for the tip.--David E

Peeling the Onion

As a child and teenager, Nathan Rabin viewed pop culture as a life-affirming form of escape. Today, pop culture is his life. For more than a decade, he's served as head writer for A.V. Club, the entertainment section of The Onion. In The Big Rewind, Rabin shares his too-strange-for-fiction life story. From a psilocybin-addled trip to the Anne Frank House to having focus groups for his movie-review panel show opine that all the male critics seemed "gay" and that the show as a whole was "too gay," Rabin discusses his personal evolution in prose as hilarious as it is unexpectedly poignant.

You can hear more when Nathan Rabin reads from his book The Big Rewind at Magers & Quinn Booksellers,Saturday, July 18, at 7:00pm. Details are here.--David E

Coconut (Grove) Samoa

This just in from the Miami Herald: The public library in Coconut Grove, Florida, is now on the Miami Register of Historic Places. As such, the exterior must remain largely unchanged, although major renovations are planned within.

I wasn't aware of the library, but now that I've seen it, I'm glad they're preserving it. That's a groovy, South Pacific-style building.--David E

Rumblings

The Hennepin County Library system is holding two public meetings about the future of Uptown's Walker branch library. The agenda is a bit vague: "These are beginning discussions to gather community input on a new Walker Library before a request for proposal (RFP) is issued. We are looking for ideas about the kind of library the community wants."

There will be two sessions: Saturday, July 11, from 2:00-3:30pm, and Thursday, July 16 from 6:30-8:00pm. Presumably, the meetings will be at the Walker library, but the item doesn't specifically say so. The full item is here.--David E

Literary Drama

The on again, off again saga of Vladimir Nabokov's unfinished final manuscript has taken yet another unexpected turn. An excerpt of 5,000 words will be published in Playboy magazine this fall.

To recap the whole story: Nabokov instructed that his incomplete novella The Original of Laura should not be published. According the the New York Times, it was hardly finished: "Vladimir Nabokov wrote the work on 138 index cards, which have been stored for the past 30 years in a bank vault in Switzerland, where Nabokov died in 1977." But last spring his son and heir Dmitri started shopping the manuscript around to publishers anyway. Random House sealed the deal, and the resulting book will be available in mid-November. Much debate and furor ensued. (See here and here, for example.)

Meanwhile, magazines were vying for serial rights, and Playboy was in the thick of things. According to the New York Observer, "When Amy Grace Loyd, Playboy’s literary editor since 2005, heard the news, she began an intense courtship process. “I did it with orchids, mostly,” Ms. Loyd said."

The details of the seduction and ultimate conquest are worth a read. The NYO article is here.--David E

Rock Out

I can't wait for this event. Jessica Hopper reads from Girls’ Guide to Rocking on Thursday, July 16, 7:30pm, at Magers & Quinn Booksellers.

The book is everything a rocking girl needs to know: How to choose the right instrument for you. Where to shop for instruments and where to avoid. How to get your band together and keep it together--tips on playing in a band with your friends and staying friends. How to turn your bedroom into a soundproof practice space. Giving your band the right name, plus a cautionary glossary of overused words (Wolf, Star, Crystal, Earth, etc.). How to set-up and promote your own shows. The freedom of going solo, and how to handle performing alone in the spotlight. Songwriting tips, with eight prompts to get the lyrics flowing. The ins and outs of recording, whether at home or in a studio. Taking care of business: publicizing your band, making T-shirts, legalese and the creative personality, and the four signs that say "time to hire a manager"--in other words, you've arrived.

Jessica will be introduced by local author and musician Laurie Lindeen.

Details are here.--David E

History, Days of Yore, Bygone Eras, Etc

Word nerds can't wait for summer to end, because this October the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary With Additional Material from a Thesaurus of Old English will at long last be published. The two-volume set has been 44 years in the making. The OEDHT not only groups words of similar meaning, but it arranges them chronologically, so readers can trace the development of English words through history. The BBC posted an example here, if you'd like to see how synonyms for the word trousers have come in the the language.

At a whopping 4448 pages, this useful etymological tool doesn't come cheap. the lists at $395.00. You can preorder a copy here. For more casual readers, details are here; there's even a sample page (.pdf).--David E

Help Yourself

Confused about how to find a particular book in our store? Scott Muskin has made this helpful instructional video just for you. (Or you can ask our helpful staff.) Scott will be back at Magers & Quinn on Sunday, July 12, at 7:00pm, to read from his novel The Annunciations of Hank Meyerson, Mama's Boy and Scholar. Details are on our events page.--David E

Fiction and Non-fiction

Scott Muskin and Nicole Johns read from recent works, Sunday, July 12, 7:00pm, at Magers & Quinn Booksellers.

Inaugural winner of the Parthenon Prize for Fiction, The Annunciations of Hank Meyerson, Mama’s Boy and Scholar establishes Scott Muskin as a truly original and exciting new voice in contemporary fiction. Hank Meyerson isn’t the whiny sort of mama’s boy. He’s more the wry, shaggy, chubby sort--an over-thinker, a ranter, and sometimes a crier. He adores Emily Dickinson. He kibitzes. He has the audacity to fall in love with his sister-in-law.

Purge by Nicole Johns is a beautifully crafted memoir that has a Girl, Interrupted feel. In this raw and engaging account of her months in rehab, Nicole Johns documents her stay in a residential treatment facility for eating disorders. Her prose is lucid and vivid, as she seamlessly switches verb tenses and moves through time. She unearths several important themes: body image and sexuality, sexual assault and relationships, and the struggle to piece together one's path in life.

Details are here.--David E

A Book and a Beer Chaser

The next meeting of the Twin Cities' most unusual and interesting book club is Tuesday, July 14. Books & Bars meets at Bryant-Lake Bowl, 810 W Lake Street, in Minneapolis. Doors open at 6:00pm; the discussion begins at 7:00pm.

July's book is Atmospheric Disturbances by first-time author Rivka Galchen. The novel tells of the travails of a man who mistakes his wife for an impostor. The New York Times loved the book and called Galchen a "cerebral, demanding, original new writer."

Books & Bars is not your typical book club. We provide a unique atmosphere for a lively discussion of interesting authors, fun people, good food and drinks. You're welcome even if you haven't read the book.

Cheap Ticket to Paradise

Lucinda Fleeson discusses her new book "Waking Up In Eden" at Magers & Quinn Booksellers, Saturday, July 11, at 6:00pm.

Like so many of us, Lucinda Fleeson wanted to escape what had become a routine life. So, she quit her big-city job, sold her suburban house, and moved halfway across the world to the island of Kauai to work at the National Tropical Botanical Garden. Imagine a one-hundred-acre garden estate nestled amid ocean cliffs, rain forests, and secluded coves. Exotic and beautiful, yes, but as Fleeson awakens to this sensual world, exploring the island's food, beaches, and history, she encounters an endangered paradise--the Hawaii we don't see in the tourist brochures.

Details on this and all our events are here.--David E

Don't Forget to Water Your Books

Honbachi--book pots--are available from a website called Tokyo Pistol. More than that I cannot tell you, as my Japanese is quite rusty.

Thanks to the Bibliophile Bullpen for the tip.--David E

Judging a Book

Seth Godin, marketing maven and author of Small is the New Big, posted an interesting item on his blog today. He wrote, "Tactically, the [front] cover sells the back cover, the back cover sells the flap and by then you've sold the book."

Do you agree? I really do think that a lot of books are sold by marketing rather than by their covers. That is, you read about the book in a magazine/heard the author on the radio/saw it on your friend's shelf, and that's why you want it. I'd agree that a poor cover can prevent a casual browser from picking up an unknown book and learning more, however.

What do you think? Weigh in in the comments, please.

Thanks to the Book Cover Archive Blog for the tip.--David E

A Whole Lotta Led

The blog Largehearted Boy has a recurring series called "Book Notes," in which authors compile playlists of music related to their books. Never has this been more appropriate than his recent list from Jessica Hopper, author of The Girls' Guide to Rocking: How to Start a Band, Book Gigs, and Get Rolling to Rock Stardom. Hopper had to power through the writing of her book--in order to meet her contractual deadline--and she turned to Led Zeppelin to get her through.

Was it worth it? I'll say. You can learn more about Hopper's book at girlsguidetorocking.com. And meet the author herself when she's in Magers & Quinn on hursday, July 16, at 7:30pm. Details are on our events page.--David E

Two Poets for the Price of One--Free!

Wayne Miller and Dobby Gibson read from their new poetry, Thursday, July 9, 7:30pm, at Magers & Quinn Booksellers.

The Book of Props is an artistic and philosophical endeavor to place oneself in the world. What emerges is a whole-hearted embrace of being, where technique and subject match. With its fluid combination of personal lyric and formal innovation, The Book of Props engages readers with its fundamentally humanistic perspective.

Dobby Gibson’s Skirmish puts into conflict the private and public self, civil disobedience and civic engagement, fortunes told and fortunes made. These poems imaginatively, sometimes manically, move from perception to perception with the speed of a mind forced moment to moment to make sense of distant war and local unrest, global misjudgment and suspicious next-door neighbors, the splice-cuts of the media and the gliding leaves on the Mississippi River.

Details are here.--David E

Logrolling in Our Time

Here's a news item (via The Bookseller) that bears repeating: "Reed Elsevier officials have admitted that it was a mistake for the STM publisher's marketing division to offer $25 (£15) Amazon gift cards to anyone who would give a new textbook five stars in a review posted on Amazon or Barnes & Noble."

That's right, a publisher paid people to review its books favorably at online vendors. The article is unclear whether RE thinks its scheme was a mistake because it was eventually exposed or because it simply cost too much. The whole story is here.

We at Magers & Quinn are happy to recommend books. And, no, we don't get kickbacks. We do it out of love.--David E

Prove It

Rick Nelles will be at Magers & Quinn Booksellers on Wednesday, July 8, 7:30pm to lead a mini-seminar for job hunters and to discuss his book Proof of Performance.

Where’s your proof of performance? That’s the question employers increasingly ask job candidates in today’s highly competitive job market. While you may have a terrific resume that gets you to the job interview, you now need more than prepared answers to interview questions to get the job offer. Indeed, savvy employers want to see the proof behind your resume claims of performance.That proof is best provided in a specific type of portfolio you bring to the interview and present to the employer. The book describes a novel strategy that has turned job interviews into commanding performances for hundreds of job seekers who have quickly gotten job offers: develop and present a performance portfolio at the job interview.

Rick Nelles lives in the Twin Cities area. He is the President of Career Directions, Inc. Details on next week's event are here.--David E