Whew, what a long month. Started out fast. I was gone the first two weeks, first at a book confab, then visiting family in California, but man, I tell you, coming back from a vacation is tough. It seems you work twice as hard as you did before you left just trying to catch back up. Not that I'm complaining, I'd take another two weeks off tomorrow if I could, just making a lazy man observation. The book confab was great. 500 booksellers, various publishers, and sixty authors of various genres talking books and the business of books for three days. Bumped into old friends, made some new ones, and came away reinvigorated and very happy with my career choice. Best thing about the whole thing, though, were the books. Here's a preview of a couple of titles that really stood out for me.

The first is by Brady Udall. Some of you out there might remember him for his first novel The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint which I really enjoyed. Nine years later he's back with The Lonely Polygamist and I can tell you that the wait has been worth it. Golden Richards has four wives, twenty-eight children, and one heck of a mid-life crisis. The trouble maker of the family is Rusty who only wants his fathers attention. Trish is the youngest wife and all she wants is her husbands love. All three feel so alone even while surrounded by so much family and it is with great skill and empathy that Mr. Udall explores this sense of alienation that threatens the Richards family. At first I didn't know what to expect from this big sprawling novel but soon the characters took me by the hand and led me into the Richards clan where I slowly got to know everyone and saw the complicated family dynamics and could understand how easy it is to feel alone while surrounded by so many. This is a generous, full-hearted, novel that will be coming out in April.

Next is a novel, also coming out in April, that took thirty years to write. After reading it I can understand why. Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes is a powerful novel set in Vietnam. It is the story of a callow marine Lieutenant named Waino Mellas who figures a tour of duty and a couple of medals will look good on the resume when he gets home and starts his political career. Over three months he goes from naive newbie to angry radical to cynical resignation as the pointlessness of war grinds him down. Nothing new there. But combine that short outline with the scenes in the jungle and back on base that had me sweating and drunk and dirty and you have the most realistic war novel I have ever read. Everything felt so real I was taken back to my childhood watching the news before crying myself to sleep because I was afraid my father was going to have to go to Vietnam and die. Powerful, powerful, powerful, is the best way to describe this book.

Until next time,
Pete

Wow, it's been awhile since I posted anything. Time sure can slip past fast when you're busy. And boy have I been busy reading, reading, and reading some more. Unfortunately I have to work, eat, sleep, and occasionally see family and friends, otherwise I'd read even more. Especially now. This is one of my favorite times of year because all our sales reps are coming by to take orders for the summer and they always bring lots of goodies like the new Ivan Doig, Craig Childs, and Lee Child among others. While those won't be out until the spring and summer, here are a few current titles that I think are particularly good.

As I said way back on my first post; I love mysteries. They're my television and I'm always looking for someone new who's willing to step away from the tried and true. With Gerald Elias and his book Devil's Trill I may have found that person. Yes, the plot is as formulaic as most mysteries. A rare Stradivarius violin is stolen and Daniel Jacobus, musical iconoclast, must solve the crime or be accused of it. What made this different is Daniel is blind. The scenes where he is listening to a recital or his students and can tell exactly where their hands are placed, how tight the tuning, and a myriad of other observations that us sighted folk miss because we aren't paying attention, are just brilliant. Plus, the musical history and the seamy dark side of the classical music world made this a very worthwhile read.

In my television room, where the television is rarely turned on, I have a table in front of the coach with stacks of books staring at me. One evening shortly before Christmas I was leafing through Time Magazine and its year-end best of lists. The last one was for books and I'm going "hmm", "hmm", "interesting", "what?", then at the very last a heavy "huh" because there in the middle of my stack was the last book on this particular critics list, The Financial Lives of the Poets by Jess Walter. I pulled it out of the pile and began to read and didn't stop. I loved this book! Matt Prior is an unemployed reporter about to lose his house, his wife, his father and everything else he has worked for unless he comes up with enough money in six days to stave off foreclosure. A late night visit to the local 7/11 gives him an idea. A crazy idea but an idea nonetheless. From this point on a very poignant, humorous, caring, and kind story evolves into a novel that is a perfect snapshot of the country we live in today. Let me say it again, I loved this book! What a great way to finish out the reading year.

As I ended the year with a bang, I begin the new with a big KABOOM. Another empathetic novel that actually had me tearing up in places. The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris is for the daring reader willing to go out on limb and trust that the author knows what he is doing. Tim Farrnsworth is a high powered lawyer with a wonderful family and an inexplicable need to walk, a need that strikes at the oddest moments and doesn't end until he lies exhausted miles from where he started. The medical community is baffled, declaring that it's all in his head. Slowly this need to walk ruins his job and destroys his family. This is where things get interesting and we see the resilience of the human spirit as he continues to walk and his family continues to care for him. Each watching over the other long distance even unto death. Joshua Ferris knows what he is doing and the daring reader will learn that if they decide to walk out on that limb with him.

So there you have it. Three good books to start the year off with. Hopefully I'll have more next week.
Until then,
Cheers!

Mysteries are my television. While others are watching CSI Whatever or some scripted reality show, I'm reclining with a good mystery and playing cops and robbers in my head all over the world. Lately I've been spending a fair amount of time in Scandinavia in the company of authors like Ake Edwardson, Jo Nesbo, and Karin Fossum among others. Soon I'll be visting Thailand again when the latest John Burdett comes out in January. The other night I took a trip back in time to 1583 and Oxford University for a bloody good time with Heresy by S.J. Parris. I'll definitely be talking more about this one the closer we get to its release date in February. Now though, it's time to share of my favorite mysteries of the year 'cause it's time for some Christmas buying and theses are all good picks for any mystery fanatic.

I think I'll start with the most pleasant surprise I had reading all year. Go With Me by Castle Freeman Jr. is a tiny book, only 160 pages long, but what a story those 160 pages tell. Set in small town Vermont, it is the step by step adventures of some good 'ol boys doing their chivalric best to help a young lady in distress. Great characters, awesome dialogue, humor, some violence but nothing worse than what's on TV, and, to me, a perfect ending (a rare thing) that eased me down and out of the story with no disappointment and a smile on my face.

This next one is perfect for any adrenaline junkies out there. This one starts fast and doesn't slow down. Bad Traffic by Simon Lewis is the story of Inspector Jian, a Chinese cop who can't speak a lick of English. One day he gets a phone call from his daughter at school in London. "Help me," are her only words before the connection is cut. Next thing you know, he's in London tracking down his daughter using his cop smarts to get around the language barrier. From one end of England to the other he caroms, wrecking cars, shooting up bars, and slowly, but surely,
moving ever closer to her until the explosive finale. I gotta tell you, I can't wait to see where Inspector Jian visits next.

Maybe he'll go to Gothenburg, Sweden and hang out with Chief Inspector Erik Winter, though I don't think they'd get along too well. Death Angels by Ake Edwardson finally introduces us to the Chief Inspector after four previous books already published here in the States. Why publishers do that, publish a foreign series out of order, I'll never understand but at least the wait in this instance was worthwhile. When we first meet the Chief Inspector he's mourning the death of a friend but is soon caught up in a series of bizarre murders that take him to London where all the clues lead to an old school chum. Out of all the Scandinavians I've read in the last couple of years I'd have to say that Ake Edwardson is the best stylist. Not a word is wasted, the plots are subtly devious in escalation, and the characters so well drawn, that you're not just reading the book but living it, the pages coming alive in your imagination in the way only the most gifted writers can make it. That is Ake Edwardson.

Speaking of stylists, my favorite mystery writer is James Lee Burke, one of the best writers in this country bar none. Year in and year out he amazes me with his brutally eloquent consistency. This year is no exception except, instead of brooding with Dave Robicheaux in Louisiana, we're in Texas chasing down human traffickers in Rain Gods, a modern western featuring a seventy something year old sheriff and a bad guy who goes by the name of Preacher Jack Collins. When the two finally meet is some of the best stuff Mr. Burke has ever done. Intense and morally ambivalent, Preacher Jack is the best bad guy since Legion Guidry in Jolie Blon's Bounce and HackberryHolland, the sheriff, is no slouch as a character either. The two complement each other so well that the rest of the story orbits around them without any disconnect in what is a pretty complicated plot that roils up plenty of Texas dust and makes for hours of good reading.

Finally we come to what I consider the most imaginative story I've read all year and that is Darling Jim by Christian Moerk. It is the story of a love triangle gone really, really, really bad. Jim is an itinerant storyteller rambling through the Irish countryside stealing womens hearts before literally robbing blind. Within the story is the story Jim shares as he wanders from town to town regalling people with an epic tale of love and honor that seduces listeners until he meets three sisters who see through his dangerous facade. The best word to describe this book that I've heard is 'mesmerizing'. How true. From page one Darling Jim doesn't let go, beguiling the reader like no other book I've read this year.

There you have it. My favorite mysteries of the year. May at least one entice you enough to come out and visit McIntyre's for a chat and maybe some other suggestions because, while these five may be my favorites, this is only the tip of the iceberg of others I could just as easily reccomend. People like Fred Vargas, Bryan Gruley, David Peace and Ann Cleeves, among others.

Until next week,
Cheers,

Pete

Well, it's that time of year, the holiday season, when everyone with an opinion creates an end of year best of list. I'm no different. So here they are, my favorite books of the year in no particular order, minus any mysteries because I'll be writing about those next week.



Blame by Michelle Huneven (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux)

This is a hard one to describe. My brother hated it, not enough action moving the plot along but that was fine with me because this is a book of consequences that had me thinking long after I finished. Patsy MacLemoore is a young wild child of a history professor who after a long night of drinking finds herself in jail accused of running over a mother and daughter, something she has no recollection of at all. She accepts the blame and goes to jail. The rest of the book is the morally ambivalent aftermath of that horrible event, how it shaped her life, and all the what if? questions that come with never really knowing the truth. A hard book to read but well worth the effort.

Selling Your Father's Bones: America's 140 Year War Against the Nez Perce Tribe by Brian Schofield (Simon & Schuster)

One of the first books I read and still one of the best. Brian Schofield is a British journalist who followed the 1700 mile flight of the Nez Perce from the U.S. Army in 1877. Part travelogue, part history lesson he tells the story of the conquering of the west, warts and all. Along the way he talks to descendants of the survivors who surrendered to the Army only forty miles from Canada and shares the bitterness over the lies, the broken treaties, and the ecological degradation, that still imbues their lives a century and a half later. An excellent addition to the library of anyone who cares about the history of the west.

Spooner by Pete Dexter (Grand Central Publishing)

For some reason all the novels I seemed to pick up this year were full of family angst. A suicide here, a dead brother there, a family sitting shiva, dysfunctional brouhahas everywhere. While Spooner isn't a walk in the park it at least moves forward at a positive pace which is something I need when when I read fiction. At it's heart the story is about relationships, specifically father/son relationships. It's also the semi-autobiographical story of Pete Dexter himself, one of my favorite authors, as he puts himself into the shoes of Warren Spooner who grows from teen reprobate to baseball phenom to newspaper columnist to successful author, all with the help and support of his step-father who was the only one to see hope in Spooner when he was a boy. Thank you Mr. Dexter for finally finishing this grand opus.

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall

This is my favorite book of the year! I came in work one day and saw it sitting on the counter, a single copy looking all lonely. Being the kind bookseller I am I took it home with me and boy am I glad I did. One night, that's all it took, for me to read it from cover to cover and I've been singing it's praises ever since (in fact someone is buying a copy as I type this). Ostensibly it's about running, ultra-marathons in particular, but it is also the story of an eccentric American and a reclusive Mexican Indian tribe considered some of the best long distance runners in the world and a race no one saw. Think John Krakauer (Into Thin Air, Under the Banner of Heaven) except without any tragedy and you'll have a good idea how good this book is. Reading, for me, doesn't get much better.

Well, there you go, a few of my favorites out of the many I've read over the year. Let me know what you think. Also, tell me what some of your favorites are. I'm always interested in suggestions. Next week, my favorite mysteries.

See ya,
Pete

Thanksgiving day. I'm working (which is a good thing both for me and my family because it means I won't undercook the turkey again or cook it upside down. I'm a reader not a cook.), thinking about books and what I'm going to read when I get home while I watch customers browse. Someone's looking at the new John Irving. Someone else is snorting at the new Sarah Palin. Conversations are flowing and I'm a happy man. I love books. I love reading books. I love talking about books. And most of all I love helping people find books they might enjoy. This is my job going on 25 years and I can honestly say I've never been bored. This is my attempt, after much encouragment, to can that exuberance for mass consumpution. In the future there will be more book talk but right now it's time for me to hit the lunchtime trail and join my family for a Thanksgiving feast with, hopefully, lots of leftovers.

See ya,
Pete