The Best Books We Read in 2011

As we did last year, we'll be running a series of posts featuring our staff members' selections of their favorite books read in 2011. Forgive our presumption, but we're booksellers: most of us can't limit ourselves to just one book.

First up, Pete, who selected books in four categories.

Fiction

"Our May Book of the Month. It's a well-paced novel of the gold rush days, two messed up brothers, a fair amount of violence, and an undercurrent of dark humor. A fun read from start to finish."

Nonfiction

"This is the riveting story of Jim Jones and the People's Temple. Scheeres (Jesus Land) took advantage of newly released documents and weaves well the tale of an idealist preacher, the accumulation of his followers, his devolution through drugs into paranoia, and how he leads nearly a thousand souls to mass suicide. I started this book wondering just how any parent could poison their own child, and left with that hole in my heart filled with caution instead of curiosity."

Cooking

"This is a collection of healthy and vegetarian recipes that are perfect for weekday meals. Nothing too complicated, but everything more surprisingly yummy than you think it'll be. For those who want to cook quickly and healthily, this is a gem of a cookbook by a local author."

Kids

"It's hard to say what I (and my 5YO twins) love about this one. It's funny and quirky, and I like the drawings. I know I sound like a five-year-old, but, well, I know you are but what am I?"

[This is a book several Green Applers really, really enjoy.]

the Tuesday Interview: Peter Orner

[thanks, as always, to royalquietdeluxe for this]

I used to carry my copy of Peter Orner's Esther Stories around with me in case I ever got stuck somewhere without something to read. I could open it up to any page and just fall in. Then I heard he was going to read at Dog Eared Books, so I packed in with a bunch of other people and followed along with my book in my lap. Now he has this amazing new book, but he still feels like our own neighborhood storyteller.

RQD: What are you working on? What interests you about these characters?

Peter Orner: I have a new novel out, so I wish I could say I was working at the moment. I think I'm in the process of saying goodbye to characters I've spent so much time with. They are slowly fading away to me and having lives of their own as they get read (or not read) by other people...What interested me for so many years (the book took about seven) was how my people seemed constitutionally incapable of learning from the past.

RQD: What art or artists interest you?
PO: The South African artist William Kentridge I find him amazing; his huge imagination, the way he uses history and politics in his work.

RQD: What book, story or poem do you return to over and over?
PO: A novel by great Nebraskan novelist Wright Morris called Plains Song, I re-read it every year. This and Moby Dick. And also the sea stories of Alvaro Mutis.

RQD: What are you reading now?
PO: Right now I am reading The Book of Ebenzer Le Page, one of the strangest novels I've ever come across, and loving it. Its about a guy on an island off the UK who remembers nearly every single detail about his life. I can't get enough of it.

RQD: What did you read as a kid? What is its impact on your work now?
PO: The Phantom Tollbooth. I often think about it at least every day, how easy it seemed in that book to pass from one reality to another. When we're a kid and we read a book like this, we almost take it for granted. These days it's like I'm wandering around looking for that weird and wonderful tollbooth. Where did it go?

Drawing: William Kentridge via Duckrabbit Speaks

December's Book of the Month: Moby-Dick in Pictures

There are as many interpretations of Moby-Dick as there are splintered harpoons in the white whale's scarred skin, all of which tell a different story, none of which tell quite the whole story. Matt Kish's interpretation takes the form of an illustration for every page (all 552 of 'em) and is both a singular reading of Melville's epic and a piece of monumental art in itself. Like all imaginative readers, Kish creates from his voyages in search of the whale his own vision, referring back to the original, but full of its own mythology and the cultural influences of the 150 years since the publication of the original. As such, Moby-Dick in Pictures provides us with a fresh way of viewing a classic (and is likely to become a classic in its own right), reminding us that great literature both acts upon the present and is reimagined by it.

As ever, our Book of the Month is guaranteed.

The Future of the Bookstore

There has been a bit of a buzz amongst booksellers about this recent Dan Clowes New Yorker cover. It would seem to disparage bookstores not only for carrying all sorts of knick knacks and gewgaws aside from books, but for pushing the books farther to the back of the store.

Now, it is a nearly universal fact that bookstores are carrying all sorts of "sidelines" that you wouldn't have seen in a "bookstore" 10 years ago. Even City Lights is selling onesies (very cute). At Green Apple, we've added all sorts of toys and games and puzzles to the mix over the last few years. When Raymond Carver lived in the neighborhood in the 1970's, he didn't ponder whether to add a refrigerator magnet or some finger tentacles to his purchases. But a business has to do what a business has to do to stay in business, and if finger tentacles help keep the lights on, then bring on the finger tentacles.

But Mr. Clowes does have a point, I believe. With the advent of e-books, there is much discussion (see here and here) about the future of books and bookstores. As more and more people read their books digitally, which is inevitable, then whither the bookstore. I'm not going to make an argument for the many positive things a bookstore brings to a community. I just want to stick to the reality that they are endangered. Every single person doesn't have to buy a Kindle to make the neighborhood bookstore go the way of the typewriter shop, just enough of them so that it no longer becomes a viable business to sell books for a living.

Which brings us to my answer to the question, what will become of the bookstore? As digital reading slowly (or quickly) replaces the reading of paper books, those sidelines will continue to expand and multiply, until what we consider a "bookstore" will actually be a gift shop or a clothing store or some other type of general merchandise emporium that also happens to have a good selection of books. How long this will take is anybody's guess. My personal guess is that it will be much slower than some people think, as readers generally have a strong attachment to the physical book. The analogy would be to vinyl records compared to compact discs. Audiophiles still love their vinyl, and at Green Apple we are selling more vinyl now than we did ten years ago. Compact discs, nobody has an emotional attachment to, and apparently there is talk that production of compact discs will cease all together in the next year of two. I think it will be a long slow transition from bookstore to store with books.