The Upstart Crow: A Pioneering Bookstore

Yesterday I wrote to recommend Lewis Buzbee's book, "The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop." In that book, Buzbee writes about the first bookstore where he worked many years ago, in San Jose, California. When I saw the bookstore's name, I gave a start of recognition; it brought back memories from 30 years ago. Soon after I moved to San Francisco from Michigan, my parents moved to Fresno, California, also from Michigan. On one of my first visits to Fresno, they took me to a bookstore they had discovered there, one that included a cafe, of all things: Upstart Crow! It was a member of a small chain of bookstores. (The source of the name, according to Buzbee, was an envious contemporary of Shakespeare, who scornfully dubbed him an "upstart crow"). As Buzbee tells it, "Decades ahead of other book retailers," Upstart Crow created bookstores with "foreign periodicals, chessboards, plenty of big tables and comfy chairs" and a cafe. Now, of course, all of these features are old hat, but at the time we were amazed and impressed by the combination of a bookstore and a cafe: What a very clever idea!

A Must-Read for Bookstore Lovers

Please put "The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop: A Memoir, A History" (Graywolf Press, 2006), by Lewis Buzbee, on your to-read list! I recently came across this book when I was chatting with a bookseller at The Depot, an independent bookstore near where I live in Marin County; when I told her how much I loved bookstores, she pressed this book on me and told me I absolutely had to read it. She was right! Buzbee writes vividly and engagingly of his lifelong love affair with books and bookstores. He worked in bookstores and later as a book sales representative for many years, and is a published fiction writer himself, so he knows this world very well. As the title suggests, the book includes Buzbee's own very well-told stories, interleaved with (just enough, not too much) historical background about books and bookstores. For me, the book's interest is enhanced even further by the fact that Buzbee lives in San Francisco, and writes about bookstores that I know as well. And, coincidentally, I found out after I finished the book that he teaches creative writing at the university where I teach too. "The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop" begins as follows: "When I walk into a bookstore, any bookstore...I am flooded with a sense of hushed excitement." How could you not want to continue reading?

On NOT Reading "Wolf Hall"

I've decided NOT to read the novel "Wolf Hall" (Henry Holt, 2009), by Hilary Mantel. Yes, it is about an important and interesting topic (the time of, and interactions among, Henry VIII, Thomas Cromwell, Thomas More, and Anne Boleyn). Yes, it is by an esteemed, award-winning author. Yes, it has been well-reviewed. Yes, it is one of the "big" and important books of the past year. And yes, it is a bestseller (the latter not necessarily a point in its favor!). I put it on my request list at the library. But when I got the message that it was ready for me to pick up, a curious unwillingness came over me. "Do I really have to read this?" I asked myself. And soon found myself -- with a sense of relief -- giving myself permission not to read it. I hate to admit it, but it was partly because the novel was so dauntingly long (560 pages). But that doesn't stop me when I really want to read a book. Maybe it was because I don't generally read a lot of historical fiction. Or maybe because this is a topic I have often read about before. In any case, the commitment was too much for what I anticipated the rewards to be. I am sure it is a wonderful novel, and I do not want to discourage others from reading it...not at all. But it won't be on the pile on my bedside table.

"Kafka's Soup"

"Kafka's Soup: A Complete History of World Literature in 14 Recipes" (Harcourt, 2005), written and illustrated by Mark Crick, is a lovely little souffle of a book for those of us who love both literature and food. Each recipe is written in the style of a different author. The recipes include "Tarragon Eggs a la Jane Austen"; "Tiramisu a la Marcel Proust"; "Clafoutis Grandmere a la Virginia Woolf"; and "Onion Tart a la Geoffrey Chaucer." Each "recipe" is really a miniature (about three pages long) story. Let me quote from the Virginia Woolf recipe: "She placed the cherries in a buttered dish and looked out of the window...the cherries...would not be pitted, red polka dots on white, so bright and jolly, their little core of hardness invisible...Gently she melted the butter, transparent and smooth, oleaginous and clear, clarified and golden...Should she have made something traditionally English? (Involuntarily, piles of cake rose before her eyes.)...With great serenity she added an egg...whose yellow sphere, falling into the domed bowl, broke and poured, like Vesuvius erupting into the mixture, like the sun setting into a butter sea." This is a small, airy, light, whimsical and witty book, and I promise that you will smile when you read it.

On "Perfectly Fine" Books

Since I read so much, you might wonder why I don't more often post recommendations of specific books I have just read. The answer is that I only want to recommend books that I am really excited about, and are especially well written, or perhaps intriguing for some other reason. The truth is that although I read reviews before I select books, I still read a lot of books that -- in my humble opinion -- are either not particularly good, or -- more often -- are fine but not exceptional. After all, by definition, outstanding books can only be so against the background of all the "OK" or "perfectly fine" books. Also, of course deciding which books are outstanding is at least partially subjective; some of the examples I list below have been well reviewed. I fully admit that my opinions are only my own, and are perhaps sometimes idiosyncratic. And I often enjoy and learn from these "less than outstanding" books; I am not sorry that I have read them. Today's post is a recognition of books that -- for me -- fall into the "absolutely fine, even quite good, but nothing to post a glowing blog entry about" category. Some such books that I have read in the past few weeks are Louise Erdrich's "Shadow Tag"; Ursula Hegi's "The Worst Thing I Have Done"; Jonathan Tropper's "This Is Where I Leave You"; Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's "One Amazing Thing"; and Marisha Chamberlain's "The Rose Variations." Now you know why I haven't posted about any of these.

The New Yorker and I

What would we do without the New Yorker? When my copy arrives every week, with its beautiful cover, I know I have a treat in store. The magazine is a source of truly good prose on so many topics: politics, art, current events, and much more. Often its compelling prose draws me into reading about a topic I didn't even know I was interested in until I began the article. One of the magazine's great contributions is that it has always published, and still publishes, fiction, at a time when many other mainstream magazines have stopped doing so. I know that some feel that the stories published by the New Yorker are too much alike, all in "the New Yorker style." I disagree, and am most grateful for the magazine.

I can't resist adding a New Yorker-related personal note here. A photograph of my daughter and me appeared in the May 17, 1999 issue. Why was that, you may well ask! It came about because my friend B, a professional, gifted, and well-exhibited photographer who specializes in photographing people in their homes, had in 1995 taken a posed picture of my young daughter doing a dance pose on our dining room table, with me sitting nearby, my face obscured by the newspaper I was reading. This photograph was in her portfolio and was chosen by the New Yorker to accompany a short story titled "How Was It, Really?" by the late great John Updike. I was happy for B. that her photograph was published in such a venue; I must say I was also tickled that my daughter and I had even this small connection with a writer whose work has given me much pleasure over the years.

Author Interviews and Readings "Live"

Yesterday I wrote about the serendipitous pleasure of turning on one's radio and hearing Fresh Air's Terry Gross interview an author. A related and even greater pleasure, albeit one that takes more planning, time, and - sometimes - money, is hearing a favorite author interviewed in person. Here in San Francisco, for example, we are fortunate to have the City Arts and Lectures series, which is held in the small, ornate Herbst Theater in the Civic Center. Authors (and others) are interviewed for abut 45 minutes by a sometimes equally well-known local luminary. They sit on a bare stage and talk, and usually read excerpts from their work; afterward, there is time for questions and comments from the audience. We in the audience sit quite close to the stage (there are no bad or faraway seats) listening; we can almost imagine we are participating in one of the fabled literary salons of yore. A couple of years ago, within the space of a few weeks, I had the privilege and pleasure of seeing and hearing Amy Tan, Sandra Cisneros, and Jhumpa Lahiri speak and read in this series. Soon after, I was able to hear the great poet Sharon Olds read her work at another San Francisco venue. For those who cannot attend "live," the City Arts and Lectures events are broadcast on a local public radio station (KQED-FM) a few weeks later. Besides attending such series as City Arts and Lectures, readers can find many author appearances at local bookstores.