Abi Maxwell answers our Top Five

Abi Maxwell is the author of the debut novel Lake People (Knopf). Library Journal writes:  "Maxwell's writing has a whispery, brooding, atmospheric feel that conveys Alice's fragility while capturing both the lushness of the region and its claustrophobic effect on Alice. Literary fiction readers will be moved by this quiet yet compelling work." Maxwell is reading and signing at the bookstore on Tuesday, March 5th at 7pm. To get a signed copy, click here.

Q: What's on your nightstand right now?

A: Vampires in the Lemon Grove, by Karen Russell. I just love it--and all of her fiction--so much.

Q: How do you write? 

A: I write pretty much full time--I begin in the morning, and go for as long as I can. I like silence, and I always write the first draft with paper and pen in order to get the story out. After that I move to the computer and start looking at structure and sound and all of that other stuff. 

Q: Name the first time or moment you realized you were a writer.

A: That was the first time I wrote a short story--instead of a children's storybook. I was fourteen, and I could not stop. I worked on it on the school bus, in my bed at night-- everywhere, for every moment I could until it was finished. I was enthralled by every part of the process--I wrote it on lined notebook paper with a cheap Bic pen that I had to press really hard into the paper, and I remember that I just loved the feel of all those indented pages. 

Q: What are you working on now?

A: Another book set in a small NH town--this one about two sisters, a barn, old secrets ... we'll see where it goes!

Q: Favorite recent find?

A: I think that would be snowshoes. Winter is my favorite season, and I have finally realized that snowshoeing is such an easy way to just be in the woods in winter. 

Stef's Favorite Books of 2012

Of course, I am only human (also I watch a lot of TV and have a job and stuff), so many, many awesome books went unread this year-- including but not limited to the following: Dear Life by Alice Munro, Arcadia by Lauren Groff (I'm reading it now and it is amazing), Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures by Emma Straub, The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo, plus all those wonderful lesser-known books that must be discovered but which I did not happen to discover this year. Regardless, here are my favorites:

Big wonderful novels:

Shine, Shine, Shine by Lydia Netzer
Netzer's writing is so fresh it just snaps; it’s funny, poignant, and just unusual and lovely: pondering and pushing in a style like Annie Dillard’s. But the most impressive part is the way the story is unfolded; it grows to an emotional pitch that’s profound and clear, with nothing spilled before its perfect moment. She's a writer to watch.

Where'd You Go Bernadette? by Maria Semple
I loooooove this book. It is wonderful and hilarious. Do not put it down, I repeat: do not put it down. What if you lose it? What if someone steals it? What if it spontaneously combusts? Trust me, you will be devastated. Keep it close.

The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis 
Mathis has a fantastic voice--reminiscent at times of Toni Morrison, at times Marilynne Robinson--both quiet & nuanced and fiercely powerful at the same time. Each chapter tells the story of one of Hattie's children, each affected by their family’s participation in the Great Migration and all shaped, for good or bad, by their mother's mistakes and her deep, tough love. The first chapter is one of the most powerful, unforgettable pieces of writing I've ever read. The whole thing is just remarkable.


Under the radar books totally worth the read:

We Sinners by Hanna Pylvainen
This is the story of Warren & Pirjo Rovaniemi and their 9 children, a family of Finnish fundamental Christians living in the Midwest. They don’t watch TV, go to movies, drink, or dance. They spend time together and go to church. This is their whole world. Each chapter is told from a different family member’s point of view, giving you a clear portrait of this family as they grow up and grow apart. I happen to have a particular interest in stories about fundamental Christians; but even if you don’t, this book is so well written, you’ll find yourself falling in love with the characters, and possibly, the author too. 

Girlchild by Tupelo Hassman
This is a very special book, starting with the cover (which is why I bought the book in the first place-- I can't stress enough that good design matters!). R.D. Hendrix is a young girl growing up in a trailer park in Reno. She checks out the Girl Scout Handbook out of the library, and though she doesn't have a troop, she uses the Handbook to guide her. She's like a sweet little flower growing out of a garbage heap-- a bit stunted, with not very good odds, and startling in her beauty and bravery. Hassman's writing is electric. The way Rory's mother's doomed back story is threaded in, hints dropped like a bread crumb trail, actually reminded me of Faulkner-- that weight of secrets and baggage, how it always noses its way to the surface. Sad but triumphant.

Heft by Liz Moore (now out in paperback)
This is a wonderful novel about two people who could not be any more different: a high school boy named Kel, a killer baseball player with a hopeless, falling-apart mother, and Arthur Opp, a man who once befriended Kel’s mother and who now weighs 550 pounds and never leaves his home. As both of their lives change dramatically, their stories slowly begin to spin towards each other, until they touch. This is a lovely story from a gifted writer. Perfectly appropriate for an older teen too, this novel fascinated me from beginning to end and really stayed with me. 

Insanely good short story collections:

The News From Spain by Joan Wickersham
Each of these stories of love gone wrong or just gone is simply exquisite. The stories progress in intensity and complexity until the last one, which is so intense that the narrator, speaking of her stale marriage and improbable infidelity, has to drop out of her story and tell another love story, just to make it through.

Birds of a Lesser Paradise by Megan Mayhew Bergman
This is a beautiful collection of stories by a talented new writer. Her writing is crisp and indelible, like Laurie Moore's: "My heart was subterraneous, a root crop, damp, hiding from the sun in shame."

Awesome novels with crossover YA appeal:

The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker
Such a fantastic coming of age story about Julia, a girl growing up in a world where each day on earth is a few minutes longer than the day before. The concept is interesting enough, but Walker's writing is just inspired, the story handled with such a light touch. I loved Julia. I wanted to protect her, save her. 



The Year of the Gadfly by Jennifer Miller
If you read the jacket copy, you might think this sounds crazy. And it is, a little bit, but the truth is that it all works. Miller juggles it all like a circus performer— you can’t stop watching, and you have no idea how she does it. Here’s one thing that is crazy: Miller’s writing. It’s crazy good. I just love main character Iris. Her dogged pursuit of the truth is the only thing that's keeping her hanging on as loneliness and confusion swirl around her. That pursuit is something in Iris that I really latched on to (and is something that I think a lot of young or not-so-young-anymore girls would, too). At times, Iris is floundering, treading water, just trying to keep her head above the waves. That she solves the mysteries of Mariana Academy in the end is almost beside the point; as a former young girl myself, I understand the chief importance of solving your own mysteries, and Iris does too by the end of this lovely debut novel.

Deservedly hyped:

The Round House by Louise Erdrich
This book is fantastic. I love all of Erdrich's books, but for the first time I felt a layer of suspense in the story that I hadn't in any of her other books. It's so cool to me that an amazing, accomplished writer like Louise Erdrich is still growing and evolving her writing style. While I turned the pages quickly to find out what would happen, I still found myself re-reading sentences and whole paragraphs, the way you do with a truly talented writer. 

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain (now out in paperback)
In his Iraq War novel (among several this year), Fountain poignantly shows the way the American public alternately glorifies and ignores the military, to its detriment. He has created such vivid characters, managing to create a group of men that are emblematic without being cliché. You will love Billy. He is a sweetheart and a philosopher, sometimes a naïve 19 year old, sometimes a battle-weary cynic. This is a truly impressive novel, and important.

Nonfiction:

The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee's, Farm Fields, and the Dinner Table  by Tracie McMillan
If you are a fan of Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed, and you care about where the food on your plate comes from and the fact that not everyone in this country is able to buy healthy food, then this book is for you. McMillan, a journalist covering issues of poverty in NYC, became inspired after writing about a cooking class for the underprivileged. She went  undercover, as a farm worker in CA, in the produce section of a Walmart in MI, and in the kitchen of an NYC Applebees. Her discoveries, about the conditions of farm workers and Walmart employees and issues surrounding food pricing, safety, and accessibility were simply fascinating. An important, well-written book.

Tiny Beautiful Things/Wild by Cheryl Strayed

Most people know how amazing Wild is, but if you haven't picked up TBT you're missing out. This is an amazing collection of advice columns from a website called The Rumpus. They were originally anonymously written by someone who called herself Sugar—Sugar ended up being Cheryl Strayed. Which is just awesome, because if you read Wild and want more, here is more. If you haven’t read Wild, and just want to be dazzled by the most wonderful, practical, compassionate, lovely advice columns (which are, honestly, just these fabulous love letters to humanity—the good, the bad, and the ugly), then this is your book. It’s the perfect     pick-me-up kind of book—you pick it up, read a few pages (or seriously even a few lines), and it’ll pick you up and bring you to a better, happier, more fair and loving world. Sugar is the best.

When Women Were Birds: 54 Variations on Voice by Terry Tempest Williams
The cover image to the right absolutely does not do this book justice. It's gorgeous. The endpapers are stunning, too. If you buy books as objects, like I do, you'll appreciate the care taken with this one. On top of that, the book is wonderful of course. In many ways this reminded me of Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking--she's working through her mother's journals left to her after her death, journals that Williams found to be blank. It's meditative and profound.

Older stuff:

Use Me: Stories by Elissa Schappell
This is an astonishing collection of linked stories about two women, Evelyn and Mary Beth (but mostly Evelyn, who feels to me like she's Schappell's favorite character, just like Evelyn is her father's favorite daughter). I can't imagine Schappell writing these stories without having just lost her own father-- they're too raw and fresh and messy-- in a way that just has to be based on life. She writes about love, sex, desire, and regret, and the way life just seems to circle around those things when you're a young woman.
This Dark World (new title Higher Ground) by Carolyn Briggs
The movie Higher Ground is based on this memoir-- both the book and film totally knocked my socks off-- so powerful. Briggs' discoveries and the journey she took to becoming herself are told so well, pulled out of her little by little until she discovers that she is a completely different person from the one she was told to be. 
The Words of Every Song by Liz Moore
If you liked the connected story quality of A Visit From the Goon Squad, try this. I got totally sucked into each chapter's new characters, and when the chapter ended, I was always psyched to see where Moore would take the story next. So well done.

Our bestsellers of the year

Water Street Bookstore's Bestselling Books of 2012 (so far)

(It's a miracle! Our top selling book of the year ISN'T Fifty Shades! I mean, sure, it's number two, but small victories, people.) 

1. The Art of Hearing Hearbeats by Jan-Phillip Sendker

2. Fifty Shades of Grey by EL James

3. Fifty Shades Darker by EL James

4. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

5. Fifty Shades Freed by EL James

6. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

7. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

8. Divergent by Veronica Roth

9. Following Atticus by Tom Ryan

10. Diary of a Wimpy Kid #7 The Third Wheel by Jeff Kinney

Fiction:

1. The Art of Hearing Hearbeats by Jan-Phillip Sendker

2. Fifty Shades of Grey by EL James

3. Fifty Shades Darker by EL James

4. Fifty Shades Freed by EL James

5. A Friend of the Family by Lauren Grodstein

6. The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling

7. The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

8. Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks

9. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

10. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Non-fiction (also known as books with colons in their titles):

1. Following Atticus: Forty Eight High Peaks, One Little Dog, and an Extraordinary Friendship by Tom Ryan

2. God Believes in Love: Straight Talk about Gay Marriage by Bishop Gene Robinson

3. The New Feminist Agenda: Defining the Next Revolution for Women, Work and Family by Madeleine Kunin

4. A God in the House: Poets Talk About Faith edited by Ilya Kaminsky & Katherine Towler

5. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain

6. Bossypants by Tina Fey

7. The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published: How to Write It, Market It, and Sell it...Successfully by Arielle Eckstut & David Henry Sterry

8. The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance by Edmund de Waal

9. Unbroken: A WWII Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

10. Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet by Bill McKibben

Children's:

1. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

2. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

3. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

4. Divergent by Veronica Roth

5. Diary of a Wimpy Kid #7 The Third Wheel by Jeff Kinney

6. The Maze Runner by James Dashner

7. The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan 

8. Middleworld by J & P Voelkel

9. The Books of Elsewhere #1 The Shadows by Jacqueline West

10. When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

Gorgeous Fall Covers

I'm a book lover, so I'm all about the words on the page, but I'm also an object lover, a collector (my husband might say hoarder, but he would be wrong, obviously). That's why I care so deeply about cover art. Some people think it doesn't matter, and some publishers clearly (or apparently) don't think it matters as much as it does. But it does! The cover of a book sets the tone for the whole damn thing. It's very often people's first impression of the book, and sometimes only impression. Cover art that is beautiful, interesting, unique, and well executed makes the book a piece of art, a possession to be possessed. Here are a few of my favorites from this fall.

     

  

Too Good Tuesday: 8/21/12

Newwwww books!

New in hardcover:
Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend by Matthew Dicks
One Last Thing Before I Go by Jonathan Tropper
We Sinners by Hanna Pylvainen (post coming soon--I looooved this book)
Lionel Asbo: State of England by Martin Amis
The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin
Visiting Tom: A Man, a Highway, and the Road to Roughneck Grace by Michael Perry
The Absent One by Jussi Adler-Olsen
Winter Journal by Paul Auster


Now in paperback:
The Talk Funny Girl by Roland Merullo
A Partial History of Lost Causes by Jennifer Dubois
The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food by Adam Gopnik

summer reading when you read for a living

I like to say that I read for a living, because it sounds better than "I sell things for a living." And it is basically true. As a bookseller, I get advanced review copies of books 3-6 months before they come out, and if I don't read them, I feel kind of like a fraud trying to sell them. "Here's this book! Some people say it's the next great American novel! They might be right!" Just not my style. So I am basically always reading ARCs, constantly reading months ahead in a way that makes me sometimes forget what month it actually is. Add to that friendly and helpful sales reps who are always pressing books into my hands, saying that I simply must read this, and oh by the way, can I send them a quick write-up when I'm done? It sounds a bit like homework, but if it is, it's the fun kind of homework that I always liked having to do anyway (like sheets and sheets of long division and vocabulary words, which I swear, I actually loved). But once a year, I like to stop running in place with ARCs, and read a few books I've always meant to read. I plan these books out all year, and have them packed and ready for my week at the lake. 

Last year I read The Secret History by Donna Tartt, My Life in France by Julia Child, and the story collection The Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro. I loved that I finally understood why people are obsessed with The Secret History (and with Julia Child). And the Alice Munro just validated my belief that she's our greatest living short story writer, and a treasure. 

This year I have a growing list: The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal, The Perks of Being a Wallflower (I know! I never read it!) by Stephen Chbosky, Prodigal Summer and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, something by Jane Gardam, and Anna Karenina. 

I know, I know. Reading Anna Karenina in a week is a stretch. But I hope to get to a few of them. The rest I'll just have to roll on to next year's list.

Too Good Tuesday: 6/5/12

I know I say this every time, but there are really a lot of good books out today. No joke.

New Hardcovers

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (so many great reviews)
The Watch by Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya
Equal of the Sun by Anita Amirrezvani 
The Mansion of Happiness: A History of Life and Death by Jill Lepore
Confront and Conceal: Obama's Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power by David E. Sanger
Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats by Kristen Iverson

Now in Paperback

The Map of Time by Felix Palma (three of our booksellers totally LOVE this book)
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War by Andrew Roberts
The Eighty Dollar Champion: Snowman, the Horse That Inspired a Nation by Elizabeth Letts