30 More Days Book Challenge: Day 28

We are so close to the end.  What are we going to do with our time after the extra-special extended book challenge is over?  Gianna probably will go back to, uh, working the streets.  I will spend an unseemly amount of time pondering Zorro's thoughts and whims.  Any suggestions for our little blog?  I mean, other than more pictures of my cat?

Day 28: Places We're Inspired to Visit Because of Books We've Read

Gianna:

I don’t think my answer to this question will come as a surprise to anyone who knows me or reads our blog on a regular basis.  For me the town that just danced, that absolutely came alive on the page, that to this day I have fantasies about moving there...my choice is gorgeous Eldorado, Texas which some refer to as the “Vienna of Texas."  I recently drove out West and passed this hidden gem – just 20 miles from Sonora, Texas (Sonora seems like a futuristic city compared to Eldorado by the way), but alas I didn’t have time to stop. Had I been lucky enough to build in an extra day or two into my travel plans and stopped by picturesque Eldorado, I am sure I would have found the hot bed of polygamy that Jon Krakauer describes in Under the Banner of Heaven. I just can’t imagine another town where I would be accepted for exactly who I am!

My second choice is Prague.  About a year ago I was shopping in a bookstore in Florida and I happened upon a book of essays by Ivan Klima called The Spirit of Prague and Other Essays. I don’t know why, but I have always been fascinated by and wanted to visit the Czech Republic; it's always been on my top five destinations list (before Alaska and after Eldorado). The highlights of the book are the opening essays about Klima’s childhood in a Nazi concentration camp and then an interview with Phillip Roth (he expresses his feelings about Vaclav Havel and Milan Kundera). There is a interesting essay about 1989’s Velvet Revolution. This is a really good primer for the Czech Republic, though I do think too much is packed into a few pages ( I mean, a non-violent overthrow of Communism…you really do want more). [Like some violence?]  If you want to be inspired, read about the Velvet Revolution.

So there it is, Prague and with any luck I hope to be there this year. 

Liz:

I have a long list of destinations for travel, but for the sake of this blog post I'm going to rule out places I wanted to visit before reading about them.  My fascination with Russia is related to St. Basil's Cathedral pictures and an ongoing obsession with totalitarian regimes (Hello Mr. Stalin).  I love Canada in part because of artist Emily Carr's paintings.  Alaska?  The bears.  And the birds.  And the snow.  And Levi Johnston.  

As for book-inspired travel spots, I never really considered going to Niagara Falls until I read Joyce Carol Oates's The Falls.  A groom throws himself over the falls while on his honeymoon within the first few pages of the book?  I'm there.  It's no secret that I love Joyce Carol Oates, and one of the reasons for my super-fan worship is that her writing is so vivid that it makes me interested in topics.  The history of Niagara Falls (and for that matter, scenic Love Canal) is woven throughout the story of the bride whose hubby jumped moments after consummating their marriage.  It may be the ultimate tourist trap, and I doubt Gianna will take me or my sister wives there on our honeymoon, but dammit I want to go there.

My second choice is Beirut.  Really.  Read The Hakawati and ponder those pigeon wars and fantastic tales.

30 Day Book Challenge: Day 27

Day 27: Favorite Fiction Book

Gianna:

In my quest not to repeat, I won’t pick O’Connor or Toni Morrison here (but forced to pick I would have to say that Beloved is my favorite novel; we will stretch the meaning of this question as always). Too many great books to really pick, so I again thought of something I couldn’t let go of in recent memory.  I came up with Dan Chaon’s Await Your Reply. I still get a bit giddy when I get to talk about this book. It is so delicious, beginning to end, that it makes me sad that I will never get to read it again for the first time. It is a book that at the end you say “son of a bitch!” and then if you are anything like me, you start backtracking. In a word, the novel is about identity, but it is oh so…chilling. Here are the first few lines, and if you can move on with your life without wanting to read more…well…I don’t know if Liz wants to be friends with you.  [In general I probably don't want to be friends with you, but I do love this book too.]

We are on our way to the hospital, Ryan’s father says.

Listen to me, Son:

You are not going to bleed to death.

Ryan is still aware enough that his father’s words come in through the edges, like sunlight on the borders of a window shade. His eyes are shut tight and his body is shaking and he is trying to hold up his left arm, to keep it elevated. We are on our way to the hospital, his father says, and Ryan’s teeth are chattering, he clenches and unclenches them, and a series of wavering colored lights – greens, indigos – plays along the surface of his closed eyelids.

On he seat beside him, in between him and his father, Ryan’s severed hand is resting on a bed of ice in an eight-quart Styrofoam cooler.

The hand weighs less than a pound. The nails are trimmed and there are calluses on the tips of the fingers from guitar playing. The skin is now bluish in color.

This is about three A.M. on a Thursday morning in May in rural Michigan. Ryan doesn’t have any idea how far away the hospital might be but he repeats with his father we are on the way to the hospital we are on the way to the hospital and he wants to believe so badly that it’s true, that it’s not just one of those things that you tell people to keep them calm. But he’s not sure. Gazing out all he can see is the night trees leaning over the road, the car pursuing its pool of headlight, and darkness, no towns, no buildings ahead, darkness, road, moon.

So yeah….Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon is my favorite fiction book of 2009 and certainly makes the list of all time.

Liz:

Listen. Allow me to be your god.  Let me take you on a journey beyond imagining.  Let me tell you a story.

As I read the opening lines of The Hakawati by Rabih Alameddine I knew I would be in the assured hands of a master storyteller, and I knew that this novel would hold a special spot among the many great books I've read.  "Hakawati" means storyteller, the traditional storyteller who, like Scheherazade, spins stories ending with a cliff hanger each day to lure back listeners, and Alameddine's book is a splendid weaving together of multiple tales and the history of a modern Lebanese family.  Here are tales of the Arabian Nights and genies and great warriors and cunning princesses given a modern flavor as they relate to the story of a young man returning to his native Beirut to help with his dying father.  Here are stories of the wars in Lebanon and the great pigeon wars that take place over the buildings of Beirut and of princes and demons and magic carpets.  I was mesmerized.

I had really just started at Random House when I read The Hakawati, with the company only about a year.  I had stumbled across Rabih Alameddine's earlier novel, I, the Divine years earlier when I was a bookseller and loved it (that book is the story of a woman's life told through her multiple attempts to write her autobiography but she only ever writes the first chapter), so when I learned that Knopf would publish his new novel I dove right in.  The Hakawati was my favorite book I read that year, one of my desert island book picks, and the book that helped me realize what the most rewarding part of my job of a sales rep is.  I have the power to discover incredible books and then spread that love to the right booksellers.  The pleasure of working with the books I most love makes my job, for all of the frustration I sometimes feel, magical.  Booksellers at BookPeople in Austin, Brazos Bookstore in Houston, and Lemuria Books in Jackson, Mississippi, in particular, all shared my passion for The Hakawati, and through their efforts numerous readers across my territory discovered themselves the genius of The Hakawati.