Boston Book Bums

Well, the B3 crew is gathering for a night of revelry to celebrate the end of the year and the kick start of 2011. So, we’ve found a few book stories to wrap the week.

• What kind of self-help books are our Montreal friends recommending (via Montreal Gazette)
• A favorite of ours, bookstore spotlights (via LA Times)
• The Brits rustle up the five best lines from books of 2010 (via The Guardian)
• Paper prices putting the pinch on Kenyan publishing (via The Standard)
• Return to L.A. for some thoughts about the pluses of both print and e-books (via LA Times)

In the middle of the month, Boston Book Bums mentioned Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O’Nan as a sweet and sour pick for the holidays.  It reminded us what a nice quick read the book was and we pulled off the shelf and dusted off for another look.

O’Nan gives the reader a minute by minute look at Manny’s last night at the local Red Lobster.  Manny is the manager and this branch is closing on a snowy night in the midst of the holiday season.  Manny has been demoted to an Olive Garden after the last shift tonight and his employees will either follow him or find new work.  His ex-girlfriend is one of his employees and tonight will be the last time they work together.  Manny struggles with the demise of this relationship, even though both of them have moved on, and in fact, Manny’s new girlfriend is pregnant.

O’Nan illustrates Manny’s desperation through his continued eagerness to work hard for the corporation that is selling him and struggle to provide his employees some closure, although all them just want to go home.  A snowy New England working class town serves as the backdrop to Manny’s story.  He puts one foot in front of another through out the novel, knowing he is not happy but refusing to change course.

Stewart O’Nan has a knack for the mundane, making minutia not only interesting but essential.  O’Nan will be publishing his latest book, Emily, Alone in March of this coming year and we are looking forward to his deliberate writing and his empathetic portrayal of an elderly woman alone in this sequel to Wish You Were Here.

Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O’Nan was purchased by the Boston book Bums

• Canadian e-reader maker Kobo found that Christmas was a boom for its device, as well as  busting its servers (via Toronto Star)
• Back in the day, a subway token got you a ride on the subway. Same deal for the book token (via Guardian)
• Taxes on e-books, yup they might be coming (via MyFox)
• Teachers and students come together to create a book (via Colorado Springs Gazette)
• Been lucky enough to see the best movie of the year, The King’s Speech? Then you might be interested in a book on the topic (via Telegraph)

The Book of Fires by Jane Borodale- Being poor, seventeen and pregnant is a problem in today’s society but Borodale introduces the problem in late 18th century England in her debut novel.  Looking forward to being introduced to a new author, especially one exploring social issues in the eighteenth century.

The Still Point by Amy Sackville- Another debut novel coming out on New Year’s day holds promise for a good year of reading.  This novel jumps from the past of Arctic Explorer and his wife to the present, a woman struggling in her own marriage and a distant relative.  The Still Point, long listed for the Orange Prize seems like a nice way to the start the new year.

Eye of the Raven by Eliot Pattison- We’ve been interested in the recent surge in Revolutionary War era books focusing on little known battles or even using the War for Independence as a surreal setting. Eye of the Raven follows a Scotsman and Nipmuc tribesman as they uncover a ritualistic murder. Intrigued we be.

Three Empires on the Nile by Dominic Green- Established many times over, the lead Boston Book Bum is a student of Middle Eastern history. While this new book on British General Charles ‘Chinese’ Gordon, the Sudanese Mahdi and Egypt’s Khedive Ismail might be familiar to the book bums, but we’re still fascinated by this story and can’t wait to read this history little known to a majority of Americans.

It is truly a rare and special non-fiction book that grabs you emotionally. As avid reader of books on Middle Eastern history and current affairs, the idea of a work on the Muslim flight West intrigued us. However, upon reading Behzad Yaghmaian’s Embracing the Infidel we found an emotionally engrossing chronicle that ranks, easily, as one of our all time favorite works.

Embracing the Infidel follows Muslim immigrants from their homes in the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa, through the transitory stations and places of Europe. In nine parts, Embracing the Infidel transports the reader to stops from Istanbul to New York. Expecting something dry, more of a workman chronicle of immigration in the 21st century, Embracing the Infidel is a deeply emotional work defying the trite non-fiction reputation for habitually dull.

We read this book upon release in hardcover a few years ago and remember sitting on the subway here in Boston and gasping at the psychological complexity and depth. Each immigrants story was different, but had similar strands of hope in foregin lands and unwavering faith. Not radical. Just honest, deep and steeling.

Embracing the Infidel was unblinkingly honest.The perils and unyielding persistence of these immigrants from Iraq to Afghanistan, those who were beaten, cheated and abused is startling. Immigrant stories, especially here in an increasingly xenophobic America, are vital to our understanding of ourselves and our neighbors. And especially for Americans, who’s knowledge of the Middle East and Islam extends little further than sound bites from talking heads, laughable thrillers and bad action TV shows, Embracing the Infidel is important at educating and humanizing those seeking a better life.

Easily one of the best, if not the best, non-fiction book we’ve ever read.

So now that you’ve received bookstore gift cards and certificates for the holidays, we encourage you to go to your local bookseller or hop online and find a copy of Embracing the Infidel. For if you read this book, it will change your outlook on life, faith and the world.

Embracing the Infidel by Behzad Yaghmaian was purchased by the Boston Book Bums.

Even with the holiday’s fully upon us, the Boston Book Bums team has rounded up a diversity of book news from around the world. Please enjoy today’s installment of the Bookish Intelligence Report.

• Looking back at two centuries of lending at a Pennsylvania library (via The Morning Call)
• Prisoners at Rikers get to read to their children from afar (via NYT)
• A nice Op-Ed that encourages readers to connect with the world and books through all formats (via Wassau Daily Herald)
• Kids win at the 16th annual Delhi Book Fair (via Times of India)
• Publishers gatekeeprs no more? (via LA Times)
• Last week British funding of free books seemed doomed. Now, they banged a ‘u-ee’ and that pleases author Phillip Pullman (via BBC)
• What does a custodian of Boston history read (via Boston Globe)

MERRY CHRISTMAS dear Boston Book Bums reader! If you are alone on this special day we hope there is a book, a warm drink and knowing we are thinking of you. Or if you are awaiting the arrival of beloved ones in your life, we hope that you read up on all things bookish for the week that was and enjoy Christmas Day.

Monday: We commemorate the anniversary of the death of great American author John Steinbeck and provide an early week round-up of book news in a BIR.

Tuesday: As the B3 team prepares for an early week, we review backlist books this week. New to the blog, a review of The Last Cato.

Wednesday: With Jack fetching some last minute holiday gifts, Jill has a pair of books coming out this week that piqued her interest. And of course we rustle up some fresh book news from around the world in BIR.

Thursday: Sometimes you happen upon a book, self-published, that would break big. We re-read Still Alive and review it.

Friday: After six weeks, the Boston Book Bums 2010 Best Book Tournament rolls on. As usual, Friday means a Christmas Eve round-up of news in BIR.

• A library in Queens turns to patrons to help fill its budget thinned shelves (via NY Daily News)
• Govt funding in the UK for children’s literacy efforts sees cuts (via BBC)
• Holiday booksales and bookstore health from Down Under (via Sydney Morning Herald)
• A new German publisher will focus on books by women and for women (via Deutsche Welle)
• The soul of bookselling (via WaPo)
• What does a pundit in Seattle think of e-books and the future of brick and mortar stores (via Seattle Post Intelligencer)

By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham v. Molly Fox’s Birthday by Deirdre Madden is our second to last book bout for the year. We had some odd categories, but this is one of the most mainstream, literary fiction. So, let’s ring the bell and throw down.

By Nightfall made it to the Literary Fiction smackdown because Cunningham has what may be the two most important characteristics any author can possess; keen observation skills and a vocabulary that rivals Merriam-Webster.  By Nightfall is a an introspective story of a middle-aged man at a crossroads but it makes the list for Cunningham’s mastery of the English language.

Facing off against Cunningham, Dierdre Madden creates an engrossing narrative of a playwright in the midst of writer’s block, instead of writing her next play, she thinks of her good friend Molly.  Madden defies convention in structure of her novel and also allows the reader a glimpse of what it might take for an writer to create characters.

We know, Cunningham has some serious literary graavitas and if it was another Cunningham book, we would say this challenge would have been no contest. However, with Molly Fox’s Birthday, we were treated to something wonderful and unexpected.

And so, the best piece of literary fiction for 2010, as read by the Boston Book Bums, Molly Fox’s Birthday.

Next Friday, the final bout of the year and it pits the two over-all favorite books against each other. The winner will be the officially crowned best book read by the Boston Book Bums for 2010!

On 12/31 we have The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe up against The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry.