Daily Thoughts 02/14/2015
Melville House Bookstore. 02/13/2015 2:30-5:00 p.m.
I went to the Melville House, http://www.mhpbooks.com presentation for libraries on Friday, February
13, 2015. The main reason was that they
had Lynne Truss, author of Eats, Shoots,
and Leaves which is actually a rather entertaining book on grammar. She was reading from her new book, Cat Out of Hell which is a mix of gothic,
humor, and mystery writing with a talking cat.
She credits H.H. Munro who is also called Saki as being one of the
inspirations for her book.
Before the event started,
I had a chance to look at some of the materials around the office. They had a variety of unusual sets. For example, Melville House sells a novella
series which they call The Art of the Novella which includes a variety of
novellas like The Narrative of Arthur
Gordon Pym by Edgar Allen Poe and the Death
of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy. In
addition, they have a series based on overlooked classics called the Neversink
library, one that caught my eye was The
Right To Do Wrong A Unique Collection of Writings by History's Greatest Escape Artist
by Harry Houdini.
I picked up two book posters and a few catalogs. During the event, they were giving out
posters for Cat Out of Hell and I took one.
The event itself had some titles of interest that our
patrons would like. One that would be of
interest to librarians is Patience and Fortitude, Power, Real Estate, and the
Fight to Save a Public Library by Scott Sherman. This is coming out on June 23, 2015. Another book that stood out is 33 Days A Memoir by Leon Werth with an
introduction by Antoine De Saint Exupery.
There were some very interesting novels bordering on
speculative fiction, modern fairytales, or magical realism. Novels that are literary but not quite
fantasy. One of them, The Deep Sea Diver's Syndrome by Serge
Brussolo reminded me a bit of the classic science fiction book, The Dreaming Jewels by Theodore
Sturgeon. Another, The Reflection by Hugo Wilcken was said to have touches of Philip
K. Dick.. Another novel that was
mentioned was The Visitors by Simon
Sylvester, it was supposed to have a bit about the selkies in it. This reminded me a bit of the writer,
Jonathan Carroll who has written modern fairytales. There were other
novels like Good on Paper by Rachel
Cantor which are solid literary fiction.
In additon among the
forgotten classics was a reprint of the unique soviet science fiction novel, Definitely
Maybe by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.
The book Rules for Werewolves A
Novel by Kirk Lynn which was described as being completely written in dialogue
reminded me of another book, Sharp Teeth:
A Novel by Toby Barlow which is an epic poem.
Among the nonfiction there were some books on modern
technology like The Dark Net Inside the
Digital Underworld by Jamie Bartlett as well as some political books like a
cleaned up version of the Senate
Intelligence Committee Report on Torture , Debt by David Graeber, and
The Establishment and How They Get Away With It by Owen Jones. The last interview series caught my attention. The library purchased The Last Interview, James Baldwin. The Last Interview Gabriel Garcia Marquez and
The Last Interview Jorge Luis Borges also look like they are excellent.
It was a very interesting afternoon presentation at Melville
House. It reminded me of when there was
still a Dixon Place Reading Series tied in with the New York Review of Science
Fiction. http://www.nyrsf.com/
The sense of having a group of editors and very literary
people at a reading with wine and snacks brought back some memories.
I still have not gotten to go to the KGB Bar's science fiction
readings. These are kind of a successor
to the Dixon Place readings in my mind. Being aware of these things can be helpful. http://www.kgbfantasticfiction.org/
