Ok Folks, Here are some more books that I think that you will enjoy on your summer vacations or if on a "staycation" these books will transport you to another time and place!!

Murder of a Medici Princess by Caroline P. Murphy
"Like the Kennedys or Windsors, the Medicis are a dynasty brimming with biographical
gold, and this supple, smart account of a lesser-known daughter will engage modern
readers as it vivifies both Renaissance Florence and an extraordianary women who paid
ultimate price for flouting her era's traditional gender roles." --Publisher's Weekly

The Commoner by John Burnham Schwartz
" A unique literary adventure, intimate, exotic; wonderfully imagined and achieved.
The narrative impels the reader from first to last, immersing us in its flow of ancient
acceptances and new demands. Splendid."--Shirley Hazard, author of The Transit
of Venus and The Great Fire


The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston with Mario Spezi
"Douglas Preston fulfilled a lifelong dream when he moved with his family to a villa in
Florence. Upon meeting celebrated journalist Mario Spezi, Preston was stunned to
learn that the olive grove next to his home had been the scene of a horrific double
murder committed by one of the most infamous figures in Italian history. A serial
killer who ritually murdered fourteen young lovers, he has never been caught. He is
known as the Monster of Florence."
FYI: Thomas Harris based his character Hannibal Lector on
The Monster of Florence and the surrounding circumstances.

The Dummy Line by Bobby Cole
"Jake Crosby, a troubled stockbroker, has planned a weekend escape at his hunting
camp with his nine-year-old daughter, Katy. In the middle of the night, a gang of
redneck drug dealers attempts to break into the remote camp. The gang's display of
heinous intentions toward Jake and Katy causes Jake to make gut-wrenching
decisions."

The House at Riverton by Kate Morton
"The House of Riverton is a sweeping debut novel set in England between the
wars. It is the story of an aristocratic family, a house, a mysterious death and a
vanishing way of life, told by a woman who witnessed it all and kept a secret for a
lifetime."

Master of the Delta by Thomas Cook
"Cook writes powerful layered novels, with original heroes who choose to walk down
paths that quietly, inexorably, lead them to even darker places in the human heart,
and ultimately to breathtaking and revelatory surprises at their journey's end."
--Minneapolis Star Tribune

The Red Leather Diary--Lily Koppel
Lilly Koppel 'rescued' a red leather diary from the garbage dumpster in front of her
apartment building in New York. She took it home and after reading it realized she
must find this girl who wrote it. She hired an investigator and the rest is history!
"The young woman who emerged from the diary's pages had huge ambitions, even if
chasing them proved daunting. February 21, 1931. Went to the Museum of
Modern Art and almost passed out from sheer jealousy-I can't even paint an
apple yet-it's heartbreaking! January 16, 1932. I couldn't study today & went to
museum to pass a morning of agonizing beauty-Blown glass, jade and exquisite
embroideries. April 10, 1932. Wrote all day-and my story is still incomplete.
September 2, 1934. Planning a play on Wordsworth-possibilities are infinite.
October 12, 1934. How I love to inflict pain on my characters!
What she craved most was to be enveloped in a grand passion that would
transform her life. July 3, 1932. Five hours of tennis and glorious happiness-all I
want is someone to love-I feel incomplete."

This has been a common question since we had the first DotCom Sales last month and guess what you all have another opportunity to ask because we are doing it again! Come by the DotCom building Saturday, June 21, 2008 starting around 9:30. All the First Editions, signed and unsigned, are 10% off. This is a perfect time to finish up any collections that you are lacking a few titles or to start collecting a new author. There will also be what I'm calling the "bargain book box"--titles that are $1.00-$6.00. It is summer time and I know that some off you haven't been in to pick up your summer reading yet.

If you are interested in collecting books we would also love to explain to you how to get involved with the First Editions Club.

The sale is only going on in the DotCom building not in the main store so come by and see Caroline and me. Oh yeah, we will have $1.00 beer also!

I hope to see you at least on one of these Saturdays!!

June 21, 2008 July 19, 2008 August 23, 2008
June 28, 2008 July 26, 2008 August 30, 2008

This summer I am going to compile a list of the books that I am reading and suggest that you read for “Summer Reading”. I think that all books are “Beach Books” so there will something on the list for everyone. These are the books that I read in May…I will update the list at least twice a month from now on.

Oh, these books are in no particular order….

A Dangerous Age--Ellen Gilchrist
“The winner of the National Book Award returns with a moving story of a family of women drawn together by the terrors and trials of the times.”

American Eve: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White The Birth of the “It” Girl and the Crime of the Century--Paula Uruburu
“Paula Uruburu serves up an intriguing and meticulously researched slice of American history. Evelyn Nesbit typifies the glorious excesses of the Gilded Age, and this story has everything: sex, deception, drama, and a lurid love triangle, all culminating in the crime of the century.”
--Karen Abbott, author of Sin in the Second City

The Resurrectionist--Jack O’Connell
“The Resurrectionist-a brilliantly turned, mesmerizing labyrinth of a quasi-real world as only as master artist could draw it--will jazz you, floor you, grab you, shake you, and leave you hung out to dry. A brilliant breakthrough novel.”
---James Ellroy

The Billionaire’s Vinegar: The Mystery of the World’s Most Expensive Bottle of Wine--Benjamin Wallace
“It is the fine details--the bouquet, the body, the notes, the finish--that make this book such a lasting pleasure, to be savored and remembered long after the last page is turned. Ben Wallace has told a splendid story just wonderfully, his touch light and deft, his instinct pitch perfect. Of all the marvelous legends of the wine trade, this curiously unforgettable saga most amply deserves the appellation: a classic.”--Simon Winchester

The Somnambulist--Jonathan Barnes
“A comic extravaganza, deftly plotted, fiendishly clever, and wonderfully funny. Jonathan Barnes combines a love of Victorian absurdity worth of Edward Gorey with the surrealistic invention of a London-obsessed Garcia Marquez. This parody penny dreadful is one of the classiest entertainments I’ve read in a long, long time.”--Christopher Bram, author of Exiles in America

Child 44--Tom Rob Smith
“This is a truly remarkable debut novel. Child 44 is a rare blend of great insight, excellent writing, and a refreshingly original story. Favorable comparisons to Gorky Park are inevitable, but Child 44 is in a class of its own.” --Nelson DeMille

Ok, as I was compiling my list I realized that I might have read one or two of these in April but I want you all to know about them anyway!! So come on in and see me because we have a long hot summer ahead and there are lots of good books coming out.

I’m reading as fast as I can!!!!

This whole blog thing is really new to all of us that work at Lemuria. We have all written staff picks of books that we have read and put them on our website but this is the first time that our customers or people that just stumble on us can comment on what we have written. It is a little daunting because I don't consider myself a writer at all but I am willing to give this a try. I am inviting all of you out there who check out this blog to comment on anything that you read on it. If you don't agree with a review then let us know. If you comment on something that I have written you can be assured that I will respond. I would love to get some dialogue going and I know that more of my coworkers will too.

I am ready!!!

I really have enjoyed looking through this book, Campaigning for President. This book is full of Jordan M. Wright's personal collection of presidential election memorabilia, from posters, paper dresses, dolls, and buttons dating back to George Washington. This book really lets us know that money has always been important in campaigns and how candidates really came up with some creative ways to represent themselves to the American public.

Well things are really coming along at Miss Eudora Welty's house. The staff members have moved their offices to the Education and Visitors Center next door to the Welty House. The Visitors Center will be used to show the orientation film (which is currently being showed in the garage) and many interpretive exhibits are being planned also. Miss Welty was always a great friend to Lemuria and we hope that after you tour the house that you will come on up the highway and visit us! We have a great selection of Miss Welty's work along with some very nice signed first editions. Of course, when Miss Welty stopped by one could always find her perusing the Mystery section which I hope that she would still find up to her specifications!

If you are interested in making reservations to tour The Welty House, call 601.353.7762 and follow this link for a virtual tour.

We all have to shop whether we like it or not. There are things out there that we need and in some cases just plain want. I want to plant a seed in your head about shopping locally. Here are a few things to think about before you “hit the road”: first, our local business community reflects our unique culture; second, the staff at these stores knows you and knows what you want, and third, they will provide good service by listening to you and your needs. After all, you are our neighbors and our friends, and we want to continue to build relationships with our community. Fourth, trading with local businesses also helps the local economy by keeping those dollars in the community. Studies have shown that those dollars have three times the impact on your community as dollars spent in national chains. By shopping locally you are creating jobs, funding city and county services through sales tax, and investing in community development. Fifth, local businesses care about their community and in return make decisions and think about the community impact. We support local causes, charities, and support other local businesses.

Many of you know for the past 8 years I have worked at Lemuria, an independent bookstore so I am biased. John Evans opened the store in 1975, and we are currently in our third location in Banner Hall on I-55. We have been very lucky through the years because we are surrounded by a loving community, so we have survived the “big box stores” coming to town unlike many of our sister stores around the country. We would like to thank all of you who have supported us through the years and hope that you will continue to do so. For those of you who may not know much about Lemuria, I’m going to let you in on a couple of things.

Lemuria has been a part of this community for 33 years, and supports Jackson and the Metro as much as it supports us. We love for local authors to get their start with us by providing them a place to sell their books and have signings. Some of the more famous local authors to grace us with their presence have been Eudora Welty, John Grisham, Jill Connor Browne, Willie Morris, and Richard Ford. We have a great local section with books about Mississippi that you are not going to find in the chain stores. Not only do our buyers live here and know what you want, the fact that we are a locally owned bookstore allows us to have direct control over what we keep on our shelves. Although the chain stores’ managers may know about our Mississippi authors, they have less control over their inventory so they may not be able to keep up with the demands of our community and schools. The fact is the chain stores call Lemuria when they are out of a certain book. We have local artists hang their work in the store and local musicians play at our author events. We also have “not so local” authors come to entertain us by reading from their work. Lemuria also gives back to the community by donating gift certificates to local charities and schools for fundraisers. Furthermore, the staff at Lemuria is involved with our community and we always try through our website, www.lemuriabooks.com and new blog, lemuriabooks.blogspot.com to post various happenings around town. We have the most knowledgeable bookstore staff in town. Come by and test us!! You might not know the author or the title but you know what is on the cover of the book and little about the story. We will know the book or we will do our best to find it for you. We love books, we love to read, and we love our customers for giving us the opportunity to have a job that involves what we love! We know that without you we would not be here.

I try to shop locally whenever it is possible but sometimes I just have to go to the national chain because some items are less expensive at these “big” stores but if the price difference is very small it is in the long run less expensive to do the right thing. Support your neighbors! Support your friends! Support your community! Shop Local!

Joshilyn Jackson's new book, the girl who stopped swimming, is her best yet. I have really enjoyed her two previous novel, gods in Alabama and Between, Georgia and was excited to get my hands on this one. I found this great article in Publishers Weekly and I thought I would share it with you.

Everyday Ghosts

Joshilyn Jackson's suburban gothics are thrilling readers.

by Edward Nawotka -- Publishers Weekly, 1/21/2008

All Southerners believe in ghosts,” says Joshilyn Jackson, whose third novel, The Girl Who Stopped Swimming, out this March from Grand Central, opens with a middle-of-the-night visit from the ghost of a teenage girl. The novel's protagonist, Laurel Hamilton, is used to haunting (her dead uncle appears regularly), but this ghost is unfamiliar and leads Laurel to the dead body of Laurel's teenage daughter's friend, Molly, floating in the pool. The ensuing story could be called “Suburban Gothic,” filled with both real and spectral figures coming to haunt her gated community in Pensacola, Fla.

Jackson, 39, began her writing career after years of struggling as an actress in regional theater; both her previous novels, Gods in Alabama (Warner Books, 2005) and Between, Georgia (Warner Books, 2007), were #1 Book Sense picks, making Jackson the first author to have back-to-back top picks. Gods has more than 200,000 copies in print; Between, Georgia, 150,000.

Still, the Georgia author's renown as a novelist remains primarily Southern. Jackson lives in Powder Springs, Ga., with her husband and two children, 10-year-old Sam (named for Samuel Beckett) and five year-old Maisey (named for the Henry James novel What Maisie Knew). But Grand Central Publishing believes The Girl Who Stopped Swimming will be her breakout book, banking on the gated suburban setting resonating with readers across the country. The plan is a 75,000 first printing, with two more novels contracted for.

In person, Jackson exudes the charisma of a stage actress, with a speaking voice that won her a PW Listen Up award for the audiobook version of Between, Georgia. Acting also surfaces in the character of Thalia, Laurel's loose-cannon older sister in The Girl Who Stopped Swimming, who runs a black boxtheater in Birmingham, Ala. After Laurel finds the dead girl in her pool, she turns to Thalia for help.

“Laurel and Thalia is that virgin/whore thing that all Southern girls have,” she says, admitting that her “strong sense of decorum” was difficult to overcome early on. “Now I've learned to set a character on fire and see what happens.”

Though there are literal ghosts in Jackson's latest novel, she acknowedges that: “The real ghost in the book is poverty,” adding that it's a very personal topic to her.

Jackson's maternal grandmother grew up in a town very much like the fictional DeLop in Girl. “The book,” says Jackson, “was an effort to empathize with the grandmother with whom I have not spoken in 20 years. My grandmother was a sharecropper. I remember driving through the town with her when I was a child and her saying things like 'that's my corn, those are my trees, that's my house.' But none of it was hers—she just felt the way she did because of the work she put into that land.” Living in such grinding poverty left her grandmother obsessed with social propriety, but emotionally aloof.

In the novel, Laurel's mother—who is obsessed with propriety—is a stand-in for Jackson's grandmother. DeLop represents the shameful past Laurel is trying to outrun—she never lets her husband, Dave, or daughter, Shelby, visit it—but she inadvertently invites the past into her life in the form of Bet, an at-risk teenage girl from DeLop who starts as Shelby's pen pal and ends up as a house guest.

In the same way that her family's history has been injected into her fiction, Jackson has started taking elements from her fiction and turning them into reality. To mark the publication of Between, Georgia, Jackson took a totem that appears in the book—a statue of a little fox—and gave versions of it as gifts to bookstores where she toured. This time, she commissioned a quilt based on a design that Laurel, a fabric artist herself, is working on in The Girl Who Stopped Swimming. That quilt, called The Bride, will accompany Jackson when she sets off on her 17-city book tour, which for the first time will extend beyond the South to include cities from San Francisco to Albany, N.Y.

“I guess I always wished, as a little girl, that I could reach into books and pull things out of them,” says Jackson, “Now, I can.” The thing she couldn't conjure through her writing, though, was a real ghost. “I'm probably too much of a pragmatist to see ghosts,” she says. “But I do believe in quantum physics and the idea that there is not lost energy—just energy that reconfigures itself. Who hasn't walked into a room at one time or another and felt the hairs rise on the back of their neck?”

I must confess that I haven't read much Southern Fiction lately. I have been swimming in a sea of intrigue (I cannot get enough of Tudor England) and blood (I have taken over the mystery section)! That being said, I wasn't really sure that I was going to like Mudbound when Joe brought me an advanced copy and asked me to take a look at it. I took it home to read a few chapters over the weekend and came back to work on Monday having finished the book and let everyone know that I loved it!

The story takes place in the Mississippi Delta in 1946. It centers around two families, The McAllans and The Jacksons. The Jacksons are share tenants on the McAllan's recently purchased farm. Laura McAllan is trying to learn "the ropes" of country living and enlists the help of Florence Jackson to help her around the house. Both families have family members fighting in the war, Laura's bother-in-law, Jamie and Ronsel, the eldest Jackson son. Both men come home around the same time and develop a secret friendship that causes trouble for both families. "The men and women of each family relate their versions of events as they see them, and we are drawn into their lives as they become players in a tragedy on the grandest scale."

Hillary Jordan grew up in Texas and Oklahoma. Mudbound is her first novel and has been awarded the 2006 Bellwether Prize, founded by Barbara Kingslover to recognize literature of social responsibility. She will be signing and reading at Lemuria on Thursday, March 20, 2008 at 5:00. Please come by and congratulate her on this novel whose characters and storyline will stay with you long after you have finished this story of the Jim Crow South.

"This is storytelling at the height of its powers: the ache of wrongs not yet made right, the fierce attendance of history made as real as rain, as true as this minute. Hillary Jordan writes with the force of a Delta storm." --Barbara Kingsolver

Hello Jackson!!!

Thanks so much for voting Lemuria the best bookstore in town!!! Y'all keep coming in and we will keep working for you!

Check out the rest of the Best of Jackson winners in the Jackson Free Press or on their website, www.jacksonfreepress.com.

Happy Reading and see you at the Jackson Free Press-Best of Jackson party at the Mississippi Museum of Art on Sunday.

Valentine's Day is right around the corner. This day seems to conjure a myriad of feelings in people whether you are "floating on a cloud" in love, or sitting around thinking "love sucks" or out there looking for "love" we have some books that can help you.

Those of you looking for a gift for someone who loves to read should pick up a copy of My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead edited by Jeffrey Eugenides. "Love stories, nearly without exception, give love a bad name..." and this book is full of some great ones by some fantastic authors including Mississippians, William Faulkner & Richard Ford to Anoton Chekov and Alice Munroe. The proceeds will go to fund the free youth-writing programs offered by 826 Chicago, which is a non-profit that supports students (age 6-18) with their creative and expository writing skills and helps teachers inspire their students to write. The purchase of this book will help you "spread the love"!

Anthropology 101 True Love Stories by Dan Rodes is a group of stories that focus on "those fleeting, hallucinatory flights of perverse fantasy that all lovers, both male and female, are so desperately prone to entertain despite themselves". These are great stories and every once and while you can hear the staff reading them out loud to each other. (We do that when we really like something.)

What do Stephen Colbert, Nick Hornby, Andy Richter, Bob Odenkirk, Patton Oswalt and Adam Schlesinger all have in common? They have all been DUMPED!!! Ben Karlin has put together this collection, Things I've Learned from Women Who've Dumped Me. and it is full of "dump stories" by some of today's most impressive comedic and creative minds.

So don't worry guys, you aren't the only one out there and maybe you too will learn something from the experience. Then when you are ready to get back into "the game" you can pick up Neil Strauss' Rules of the Game I. The Style Life Challenge II. The Style Diaries.

Ladies, I haven't forgotten you. This is what you need to buy for your boyfriend so he will be everything that you know he can be!! A Practical Handbook for the Boyfriend For Every Guy who wants to Be One For Every Girl who wants to Build One! by Felicity Huffman and Patricia Wolff. This is your chance ladies to have the boyfriend you have always wanted!!!

Happy Valentine's Everybody!!

Ok, here I go....My first attempt at this Lemuria Blogging thing. You all know that I claim to be a reader and not a writer so please forgive any errors that are forthcoming.

Last night I finished Geraldine Brooks new book, People of the Book. I took it home with me last week because I came to work and we had sold 4 copies of the book and it was only 9:15! NPR had done an interview with Ms. Brooks that morning and people were pouring in the store to get the book. NPR said People of the Book is the best book of 2008! I was a little wary of that considering it was only January 4, 2008 but I knew there had to be something to it because Geraldine Brooks did win the Pulitzer Prize for her last novel, March.

Geraldine Brooks was inspired by a true story when she wrote People of the Book. During the bombing of Sarajevo, the librarians risked their lives and some lost them to try and save as many books as they could from the library in Sarajevo. The book at the center of this story is the Hebrew codex known as the Sarajevo Haggadah. It was in the collection of the National Museum of Bosnia which was "splattered with the shrapnel of frequent shelling" during the war. The fate of the Haggadah wasn't known until after war when it was revealed that a Muslim librarian, Enver Imamovic, saved the codex during the shelling and hidden it in a bank vault.

What makes this book so special is the fact that it is illuminated. It was discovered in 1894 when an indigent Jewish family needed to sell it the art historians where shocked because it made them rethink the belief "that figurative art had been suppressed among medieval Jews for religious reasons".

Many of the facts about the Haggadah are true to it's known history but the plot and characters in People of the Book are all from Geraldine Brooks imagination and what an imagination she has. We begin with an Australian rare book expert, Hanna, is offered the job of conserving the Haggadah and doing research on its history. While inspecting the book she discovers three artifacts in the books binding, a piece of an insect wing, a wine stain, and salt crystals. Using the information known to her and these things she begins to learn about the books mysterious past. From here we travel to Bosnia during WWII, to the salons of Vienna, to Venice in 1609, to Tarragona in 1492 and then to Seville in 1480. Hanna's investigation will introduce her to the world of art forgers and religious fanatics and will make her questions her decisions in her work life and her personal life.

Geraldine Brooks is a wonderful story teller and I know that if you read this book you will love it as much as I do. I read a lot of historical fiction but there was something really different about this one. So I can really only say "BELIEVE THE HYPE" this is a good book. Will it be the best book of 2008? It is way to early in the year for me to go that far but I do firmly believe it will be in my top 5 list for 2008.

If you would like a copy of People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks, give me a call at 800.366.7619 or order through our website, www.lemuriabooks.com.

Are we ever going to be tired of reading "grail" stories? I think that the answer is NO!!!!! This new book is a little different because it has two women as the main characters. Alice, in July 2005, makes a startling discovery of two crumbling skeletons at the archeological dig in France where she volunteers. She realizes too late that she has set in motion events that will affect destiny. In July 1209, Alais is given a ring and a curious book that her father tells her to guard with her life. The book contains the mysteries of the Grail and the ring will identify the true guardian. While the Church's army gathers outside of Carcassonne, Alias realizes that the ultimated sacrifice will have to be made if she is to protect the secret of the labyrinth. - Maggie Lowery