My three favorite books under ten dollars right now have to do with farm animals. Know Your Cows, Know Your Chickens, and Know Your Pigs are great little, full-color guides to several dozen breeds per critter. Being part owner of nine hens and one rooster, I know all I care to about our birds. Feed them, let them out, collect the eggs. If you are one of those people (and there are many) who want to know a little bit more, say as much as you can fit in your pocket or purse, Know Your Chickens is for you. The bovine version has sold even better than the poultry while the pigs have kind of wallowed. Coming soon: Know Your Donkeys and Mules.

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we delivered this built in bench about a week and half ago, and though it looks pretty simple now that it’s done, there were a lot of things to think about and consider as we put it together …
we had an inspiration photo and overall dimensions, but no angles which, since you can’t tell much by sitting on a drawing, encourage us to make a full size mdf mockup, complete with foam and batting.it took an hour or two, but was well worth it and allowed us to debate the incline of both the seat and the back cushions …
from there it was on to the cad drawings, which gave us dimensions and an actual plan to work from. the little recessed base was interesting and gave the piece a little more of a ‘furniture’ look but added a few complications to the construction process start up … lots of little offsets and surface plane differences to create shadows …

plywood carcase designbut once the structure was defined by the plywood carcase, it was a little more straightforward as we added the layers.moving along here, about to add the ends and top rail …
a little oil primer and paint ..

a test fit on the cushions by local upholsterer, isaiah mccauliffe, and we were out the door. in the top picture above, the carpenters will cut the baseboard and fit the bench top to the wall when the clients’ table arrives, for the complete built in look .. nice house …

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Estimates varied, but consensus seems to be around 800 people… The line went through kids, down through the cafe, through the middle level, down through the old part of the store and out the door. Here is a picture of the end of the line around 6:30…  Many happy kids and many new faces!

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…and her recommendations rock.

Listen here to find out why this book was an ‘instant hit’ with her.

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Even a man who is pure of heart and says his prayers at night
Can become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the moon is full and bright.

The eyes should be blue. Like Paul Newman's.

Except in The Wolf Gift.

There were a lot of things that I didn’t like about Anne Rice’s new novel. What I particularly disliked was her chronic disregard for the rules and regulations of wolf lore. I know that Ms. Rice is a justly celebrated author, but that doesn’t mean she can completely jettison the guidelines that existed in the Sacred Werewolf Handbook long before Lon Chaney, Jr. was born. Rice may have given vampires a new lease on life, but her spin on lycanthropes is more loony than lupus.

Imagine, rendering the moon impotent! Pronouncing that shining orb in the night sky irrelevant in a story about a werewolf is like saying that Russia was inconsequential to Doctor Zhivago.

The main character in the novel is a golden boy aptly named Reuben Golding. He is one of those people whom God has smiled upon, like Mitt Romney’s sons. His brother, Jim, is a priest, his mother is a surgeon, and his girlfriend is an ambitious lawyer with the district attorney’s office. Reuben’s father is a professor, whose retiring demeanor acts as a counterbalance to the commanding personalities of the rest of the clan. Dad writes a new poem to  be read on Thanksgiving every year when all the family gathers at the house in San Francisco, where the view from every window is — need I state this? — breathtaking.

Reuben drives a — need I state this? — Porche. He has a job as a journalist with a major newspaper in the city and his writing promises to cast a shadow over Tom Wolfe’s career. He is criminally attractive to women, but doesn’t think that his handsome features are all that important. The belief, of course, is a tacit admission that he is quite aware of his matinee idol good looks. The “aw shucks” modesty is only admirable in a disingenuous sort of way.

He wears Brooks Brothers, watches Joseph Losey films, and uses words like “sanguine” in casual conversations. Need I state that I hated him?

On a trip up the coast to an isolated estate, Reuben is attacked by some kind of animal and begins to experience alarming changes in his physiognomy and a distinct heightening of his sensory perceptions. Ms. Rice coyly avoids using the word “werewolf” until page 72 and one constantly gets the impression that she would really rather be writing about cultured, aristocratic vampires in New Orleans, whose lust for blood is far more civilized.

Whereas poor Larry Talbot was a slave to his lycanthropic tendencies, Reuben learns to master them. Given the fact that the transformation is like an extended orgasm, that probably takes a lot of self-discipline. In order to further differentiate her hero from the salivating creatures that prowled through the old Universal horror movies, Rice dubs him “Man Wolf,” a subtle riff on “wolf man” that she must feel imparts more dignity to the character, I’m not sure why. It is also sadly indicative of the bargain basement level of originality at work here.

Reuben is essentially good in both of his incarnations. He’s a crime-busting Superman with hair instead of tights. It might be a unique take on the traditional werewolf story, but it requires sacrifices that render Reuben nearly as boring after his transformations as he was before. The author is placed in the uncomfortable position of sanitizing all of his kills with the rather pedestrian excuse that the victims deserved it and only Jim’s priestly voice to caution his brother that tearing people limb from limb considerably lessens their capacity for self-redemption. (Murky beams from the author’s Jesus period pierce the coastal fog.)

Ms. Rice asks a lot of her reader. We have to try and suppress a laugh imagining Reuben the Werewolf driving his Porche with the obvious problem of grasping the steering wheel with those slippery claws (I’m not  making this up). Most fantastically, however, we are asked to imagine that a smart and sophisticated woman finds the beast so damn attractive that she immediately allows him to carry her off to bed where they can pant over and under each other for hours. She is less impressed with Reuben the Hunk, but who could really blame her?

If I sound too much the rigid purist, I don’t really mean to. Stephen King’s wolf in Silver Bullet became more ferocious as the moon grew fuller. That was an acceptable deviation. An author is always free to tinker with conventions, but Ms. Rice fairly tramples them to accommodate a convoluted plot that is hardly ever worth the effort.

The Wolf Gift is strictly for die hard fans of the author. Anyone else with a hankering to spend some time with a nice monster should probably opt for watching An American Werewolf in London.

The Wolf Gift will be published in February, 2012 by Knopf.

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Back at Christmas, I wrote about a favorite Christmas title by Linda Sue Park. Recently I found her latest novel, Long Walk to Water. Based on a true story, Park follows Nya in 2008 and Salva in 1985. While they come from warring tribes they have one thing in common. They walk. This may not seem like an unusual thing, but it is the why they walk that is important. Park tells the story of the Sudan with the words of two children, close in age but very different, in parallel stories.

Salva is what will become known as a “Lost Boy” of the Sudan. During school one day, the gunfire is heard. His teacher, trying to protect the boys, tells them to hide in the brush, do not go back to the village. This starts his journey of many different, but all equal treacherous and dangerous “walks.” He walks away from the fighting of the rebels of the south and government of the north. He walks away from hunger, pain and suffering only to find himself in refugee camps. Only to realize there is little here for him as well.   It is not until his name is placed on the list of boys to go to America does his life change.  It is here that he finally realizes how he can help his war torn nation.

Nya goes to the pond to fetch water. She walked eight hours a day. She sees her little sister deathly ill from that dirty water. The only way to help her is to walk many miles in hopes that the doctor at the clinic can help. But how can this change? It is not until a man comes to their village that Nya starts to see change. The man tells them he is here to dig wells. He is there to help them get clean water near their home.  The promise of the clean water means that a permanent a settlement can be created and along with it, a school. A school that even a girl like Nya can attend.

The man who came to her village was Salva. Starting with his own Dinka people and their villages, Salva (along with many people in his new home of Rochester, New York and others) figures out ways to raise money to help build wells. He now has to talk to many people. And he has to relive the bullets, crocodiles, and death once again. He has to tell these people how something as simple as a well can bring hope to people who have not had it for a very long time. And adding to that, the hopes he has that these wells will not only keep his people healthy, but help heal the scars of many different wars and conflicts. Salva then reaches out to the Nuer tribal community. Surprisingly since as both narratives mention, the Dinka and Nuer people have fought amongst themselves for centuries.

Park’s sparse text effortlessly shows how Nya’s and Salva’s stories are parallel, even if they happened years apart. She shows how with courage and determination a young boy can survive the desert, war and refugee camps to help his family and give hope to a young girl and her family. She shows the story of how walking, believing and water can play monumental roles in people’s lives.

So walk, run, drive a car (truck or bus) on down to the Northshire Bookstore where you can pick up your copy of A Long Walk to Water or other stories about people overcoming unbelievable odds…just ask your friendly bookseller for some other books.

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Yes, January ends today. But, don’t let that stop you from checking out the January Staff Picks. Warning: these books could carry you right through to spring.

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I ordered one tropical drink.

Well that was fun.

It’s been a week since Chris and I returned from Winter Institute, the American Booksellers Association’s annual education-oriented, non-trade show event. I’ll say this. New Orleans is about as unlike Vermont as you can get and still be in this country. I went to a club that played only 80’s music while projecting an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie on a screen as two people of indeterminate gender danced on either side of the stage. I experienced the sublime pleasure of hearing Ellis Marsalis’s quartet at the legendary Snug Harbor. I rode a trolley. I ate po’ boys, boudin balls, and Krispy Kreme bread pudding from a truck.  And on my last morning there, comfortable in a short-sleeved shirt, I dined outside on beignets and coffee. Only to return that same night to a frigid and windy welcome home. Somehow I was glad to be here.

Surprisingly, my time in New Orleans wasn’t all about music and eating. There were hundreds of booksellers there with the common purpose of trying to learn how to be better booksellers. In these tumultuous times, the mood was hopeful, if not positive, if not downright buoyant.  Across the country bookstores of all sizes, serving all kinds of markets reported having great holiday seasons. Smart and creative people abound in the world of independent bookselling and if you don’t learn something of value while spending three or four days in their midst, well, you have to be really hung over.

In addition to our bookselling peers, publishers and authors were at Winter Institute in force. There was tremendous buzz about Adam Johnson’s The Orphan Master’s Son which is now available and getting stellar reviews. If this novel piques your interest in fiction about North Korea, author and Winter Institute attendee  Brandon Jones will publish All Woman and Springtime this May. Of Jones’s first novel, Alice Walker says, “One of the most absorbing, chilling, beautifully written, and important novels I’ve read in many years.”   I continue to carry the flag for Buzz Bissinger’s Father’s Day, the amazing story about his remarkable son due in May. It was a pleasure meeting Richard Ford whose Canada (June) Alden reviewed here last week. Since leaving Louisiana, I have immersed myself in this long-awaited new novel from the Pulitzer-Prize winning author whose last book, The Lay of the Land, was a favorite of mine in 2006. I’m also excited about Capital, by John Lanchester (also due in June) whose The Debt to Pleasure made a literary splash in 1996.

Next year’s Winter Institute is in Kansas City. It’s not the Big Easy but I’m told they have good food and jazz there as well. In our ceaseless efforts to be the best booksellers we can be (and eat barbecue and hear good music)  the Northshire says emphatically, “Kansas City here we come.”

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