Shaman Drum

The Last Chapter

2009-06-09T14:43:00.001-07:00

On the advice of my accountant and my business manager, I am closing Shaman Drum Bookshop June 30. Despite a first rate staff, a fiercely loyal core of customers, a very decent landlord and my own commitment to the community of arts and letters in Ann Arbor, it is clear to me that the bookshop is not a sustainable business.

In spite of the downturn in the economy, Ann Arbor continues to be an excellent book town. There are wonderful independent stores here (Crazy Wisdom, Nicolas’s Books), fine specialty book stores (Vault of Midnight, Aunt Agatha’s) and great used bookshops (Dawn Treader, West Side Books, Motte & Bailey). They need your support.

Over a year ago we began a process to become a non-profit center for the literary arts. I am decoupling Shaman Drum Bookshop from the Great Lakes Literary Arts Center, which should simplify and streamline our IRS application. I will pursue this new venture after we close the store.

Shaman Drum Bookshop has been here for 29 years. We had 28 good years. Thank you for your support. I’m very grateful for the opportunity to be a bookseller in Ann Arbor.
-Karl Pohrt

Ysra Sigurdardóttir's "Last Rituals"

2009-06-05T08:03:00.000-07:00

For fans of Scandanavian mystery, let me introduce Ysra Sigurdardóttir and her debut novel Last Rituals. A cracking good mystery that delves into the witchcraft of Iceland’s past. Nothing is what it seems and no one can be trusted as the past makes itself all too present. The novel also introduces a smart and intriguing heroine in Thóra who returns in Sigurdardóttir’s follow-up My Soul to Take.

Dara Horn's "All Other Nights"

2009-05-22T08:20:00.000-07:00

A page-turner about Union and Confederate spies during the Civil War, All Other Nights brims with character, verve, and a great deal of panache. This tale about Jews during the war that further divided a nation might be any other historical novel if it weren’t for Horn’s ability to constantly thwart all expectations with truly surprising plot twists. Horn combines fact with fiction with the same assurance and liveliness that made The World to Come such a thrilling read.

Donna Leon's "The Girl of His Dreams" review

2009-04-29T08:38:00.000-07:00

"Leon's Commissario Guido Brunetti mysteries have won legions of fans for their evocative portraits of Venetian life. In her novels, food, family, art, history, and local politics play as central a role as an unsolved crime." - Powells

The Girl of His Dreams finds Brunetti in a particularly contemplative mood following the death of his mother. So, when the body of a young Gypsy girl floats to the surface of a canal, Brunetti cannot help but reflect upon his own maturing daughter. As the case becomes more complex and mired in the prejudices and short-sightedness of contemporary bureaucracy, Brunetti fears that nothing hopeful will ever happen. This outing from Leon offers the depth and sensitivity which make her a must-read.

Gonzalo Celorio's "And Let the Earth Tremble at Its Centers"

2009-04-21T07:26:00.000-07:00

Mexican author Gonzalo Celorio makes his English-language debut with this translation of his widely-recognized contemporary masterpiece. And Let the Earth Tremble at Its Centers is a ghost walk through the forgotten center of Mexico City. Harking back to the flanêurs of yore, Professor Juan Manuel tours the bars of the city center that are threatening to disappear before his eyes as Mexico City prepares for another millennial flux. This bawdy and boozy read should inspire your own nostalgia; don’t be caught without a drink.

Yoko Ogawa's "The Housekeeper and the Professor" Review

2009-04-17T12:51:00.000-07:00

I was actually astonished by the difference between The Housekeeper and the Professor and Yoko Ogawa’s English-language debut, The Diving Pool. Where the earlier work masterfully created a malevolent world out of a penetrating and precise vision of human discomfiture, Housekeeper displays an equally acute sense of human potential for love and connection in the face of remarkable odds. To describe this novel as sweet somehow seems to rob of it of its considerable tension, but it is certainly graceful.

- LaTissia

Ernesto Cardenal Visits The Drum!

2009-04-15T11:39:00.000-07:00

Javier Calvo's "Wonderful World" book review

2009-04-02T07:37:00.000-07:00

Spanish literary sensation Javier Calvo’s English-language debut Wonderful World ricochets between genres like a pinball machine: noir, horror movies, comic books and psychedelic rock. Citing Stephen King as an influence, Calvo possesses the same easy manner of storytelling and the same ability to keep the reader enthralled. Given the amount of El Topo-like violence, perhaps it’s better to think of Wonderful World as a midnight movie in book-form.

The Political Worlds of Slavery and Freedom

2009-03-31T07:17:00.000-07:00

Public talks at universities are vehicles to present gestating ideas and arguments, and in many ways Steven Hahn’s new book The Political Worlds of Slavery and Freedom, drawn from a lecture series at Harvard, is much the same. However, the kind of shift in the framing of American and African-American history that he calls for makes this collection well worth reading. Amongst many provocative suggestions, Hahn requests a study of the UNIA outside the long shadow of Garvey to understand the intellectual character and engagement of people who joined one of the largest black political movements. I look forward to work to that takes up Hahn’s charge.

Saving Shaman Drum

2009-03-13T12:31:00.000-07:00

Saving Shaman Drum:

A Call for a Campus-Community Alliance

One block from the University of Michigan's Institute for the Humanities, Ann Arbor's premier community humanities center is dying. Can we protect our local cultural landscape so that our civic ecology flourishes? Can we re-imagine Shaman Drum as a thriving independent bookstore, a sustainable center of learning, pleasure, and commerce?

At Shaman Drum, sales of trade books are up but textbook sales have plummeted catastrophically in the last six months. This reveals the contradictory effects of U-M's commitment to digital culture. Given the financial pressures on students and the absurdly high prices of textbooks, the university's policy that favors Internet shopping by students--implemented in Fall 2008--is entirely understandable. Owner Karl Pohrt wrote in his recent open letter to the community, "It is impossible for local textbook stores to compete under these circumstances."

Pohrt also said, "I don't think there are any villains here." Nor do we. We are writing in a pragmatic 'let's solve this problem together' spirit.

A Tradition of Commitment

We have a strong tradition of university commitment here in Ann Arbor. U-M's financial office has policies that favor local vendors. U-M's research office invests in regional economic development, seeding new knowledge enterprises.

We've got a university that supports its own 'public goods' and their contribution to the community at large: the arboretum, botanical gardens, museums, the University of Michigan Press, and the Michigan Quarterly Review. U-M partners significantly with a major arts presenter, the University Musical Society. The University Libraries help support the Ann Arbor Book Festival. And we have all of this at a time when we are facing a state cut on funding for the arts, making the university's public and community commitments more important than ever.

The University's public mission is also embodied in its academic programs. These include a renowned cluster of scholarly and creative programs, along with living-learning communities such as Lloyd Hall Scholars, which sponsors Festifools on April 1, the Residential College, which has launched the Semester in Detroit, and the Michigan Community Scholars Program.

So the University has a history of support for community enterprise and good models to build on.

The Ann Arbor News cared enough to put the news of Shaman Drum's imminent closing on the front page, with a supportive editorial. George Wild, Shaman Drum's landlord, has already stepped up to the plate, encouraging the bookstore to stay open and to consolidate its two-story operation on the ground floor.

We call on our university colleagues--administrators, faculty, and students--as well as our colleagues in the city--philanthropists, business people, and the local community of teachers, writers, and readers--to join in an ongoing, spirited effort on Shaman Drum's behalf.

We need a lively, strategic conversation that leads to realistic action. Here are some ideas that have surfaced so far:

· The U-M Institute for the Humanities makes space available for Great Lakes Literary Arts Center classes when the Institute's space is lightly used.

· U-M's textbook policy includes a statement on the benefits of the local purchase of books for course use.

· Individuals in the Ann Arbor community purchase shares or memberships in the Great Lakes Literary Center.

· U-M launches a center for the study of "the local" within an existing institute or program. With a joint board of advisors, drawing on leaders from higher ed and other sectors, this center could support research collaborations on communities of writing, reading, and publishing. It could also investigate other areas of community cultural development. Drawing on Professor Roy Strickland's model of the "city of learning" design and planning strategy used by cities around the country, the center could imagine Ann Arbor as a thriving "city of literacy."

· Shaman Drum, located around the corner from the new LSA North Quad, becomes a site for teaching and learning for U-M students. Students have few chances to reflect on their consumer behavior as purchasers of books or to weigh the effects of digital culture in a specific locality. Shaman Drum and U-M can provide that opportunity.

· Students and faculty in U-M's Nonprofit and Public Management Center and the School of Information work with Shaman Drum on developing a new business model and writing grants to support it.

Rebuilding the Commons

We know that there are other ideas that we have not yet thought of, and that is why we need a diversity of talents and perspectives. Indeed, we need a community-wide effort to rebuild the commons.

The 2008 election revealed American’s deep hunger for a restored commons--for a robust public life. Shaman Drum, along with a few other key locations in Ann Arbor—the Neutral Zone, Nicola's Books, the Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti District Libraries, and the Kerrytown Bookfest among them—is a humanities commons, a place where our public and personal stories can be written, told, read, and talked about. It is a place for making, studying, buying and selling the stuff of print culture. It is where we can test the civics of literacy.

In 2008, Geoff Eley, the Karl Pohrt Distinguished University Professor of Contemporary History, convened a national symposium on "Writing in Public." Speaking from deep personal experience, he summoned up the power of the cultural commons as embodied in Shaman Drum's project. This commons is defined by a belief in

the importance of...'deep literacy'...the necessity of finding the ways to sustain...conversations among scholars, writers of all kinds, booksellers, publishers and readers, if a culture is to retain not only its confidence, generosity, and vitality, but also its forms of optimism about the future.

Shaman Drum, Eley continued, has sponsored a

continuous conversation...about the possible ways in which the life of the mind and the exchange of ideas inside the University and the community can be helped to mutually enrich each other.

This effort forms part of a larger public mission that includes "all the arduous and inventive work that becomes necessary to bring the University and the community together."

Richard Howorth is the former mayor of Oxford, Mississippi and owner of Square Books, a famous independent bookstore. He spoke at a 2002 national conference at the University of Michigan about "Liberal Arts Communities." He addressed the role of independent bookstores, literary festivals, and partnerships with campus programs in fostering significant economic revival and cultural tourism in his university town.

"Obviously," Howorth said, "a university functions just as any industry does, by creating jobs." But then he went on to make a more specific argument about liberal arts communities. He was using 2002 data, but his argument, even with the current downturn in housing prices, is still compelling. He concluded that "universities that are strong in the arts and humanities"--here he cites U-M, the University of Mississippi, the University of North Carolina, and the University of Virginia-- "tend to create communities with lively cultural development and thus strong economic development."

Howorth joined economic logic to and to civic logic in imagining "an America I believe in because I have seen it happen, where it now exists, in my hometown." How do we get there? It takes a village, Howorth says.

Academic institutions need to work with economic developers to devise projects that are mutually beneficial, and the people employed by universities need to reach beyond the classroom to the public to promote the value of liberal arts.

It will need the ongoing and concerted efforts of campus and community to keep this ideal alive. It will take all of our talents to keep Shaman Drum and the Great Lakes Literary Arts Center among us. If, together, we can make this work, we will all have become partners in civic problem solving at a time of profound paradigm shifts in how knowledge is made, marketed, and debated.

Julie Ellison

Signers:

Robert Hass, Berkeley CA

Richard Howorth, Oxford MS

Thomas Lynch, Milford MI

Robert Pinsky, Boston, MA

For a complete list of signers, click here.

If you would like to add your name to this letter, please email us here.

"Far Bright Star" Book Review

2009-03-13T08:02:00.000-07:00

Far Bright Star, the forthcoming book by Robert Olmstead is another one of his masterpieces of historical fiction. Our main character Napoleon is courageous and proud, stoic and fierce, a warrior, a leader and a realist. The density of the suspense, the suffocating heat and dust leading up to the bloody standoff in the desert with Pancho Villa's gang of merry murderers is Faulkner-like in language and sensibility but almost pulpy in how quickly the reader is moved from page to page. Olmstead has a gift for objective violence. There is nothing romantic or surreal about it, it is what it is. At the end of the battle-chapter I had to put the book down for a day and digest all of the blood and lives lost on that afternoon, to reflect on the dichotomy of Napoleon experience and his men's innocence . . .only to pick it back up and be brought through one of the most brutal descriptions of torture and death I've ever encountered. Like Coal Black Horse, Far Bright Star is challenging, the story is arduous and emotional. The strength of Napoleon to survive is beyond comprehension. To say the reader "feels" this book is to be glib and forgiving. Far Bright Star left me worn-out, banged-up, and regretfully aware of all the things I am not. As far as I know, Algonquin Books publishes the finest new fiction available.

--Pete

Release date for the hardcover is May 26, 2009

Repost from the Ann Arbor Chronicle Article

2009-03-10T09:13:00.000-07:00

Open Letter 2: A Nicaraguan Interlude
"Faith begins when what you've given your life to betrays you."

In the midst of all the sturm und drang surrounding the future of Shaman Drum Bookshop, I went to Nicaragua.

Dianne, my wife, had been teaching for the last month in Catarina, a town in the mountains south of Managua. She volunteered under the auspices of the Episcopal Church of the Incarnation, a small congregation in Ann Arbor of which we are both members. ECI is collaborating with the Iglesia Bautista Remanente, a Baptist church in Catarina, on projects that “will bridge the divide between wealth and impoverished countries by providing capital, employment and opportunities for cultural exchange.”

Joe Summers, our minister, is an old friend of mine – we worked together in the bookshop years ago – and ECI is an openhearted, diverse community that is serious about creating a better world. Although I’ve been mostly engaged with Buddhism in my adult life, I was attracted to this church because of the willingness of Joe and the congregation to struggle together around difficult issues. And I still enjoy a good sermon.

I hadn’t had much of a chance to talk with Dianne about the state of the bookshop given that our telephone and internet connections were short and infrequent. The experience teaching in Catarina was transformative and very positive for her, but living conditions were difficult. She asked me to come. I traded my frequent flyer miles for a ticket to Nicaragua.

I traveled to Nicaragua with a delegation of eight members from the church. There were many moments during the trip when these good people made me feel that it might still be possible to fix (or at least patch up) this broken world. The delegation came to Catarina to celebrate the wedding anniversary and the ministry of Bayardo Lopez Garcia, Padre of the Church of the Remnant.

After Haiti, Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the western hemisphere, according to Joe. The U.S. State Department says it is “prone to a wide variety of natural disasters, including earthquakes, hurricanes, and volcanic eruptions.” The country, situated on two converging tectonic plates, is a “Belt of Fire.”

Nicaraguan history has been every bit as volatile as its geography. From 1853 until the Great Depression, the U.S. Marines landed there seven times and occupied the country for twenty one years. In 1937, General Anastasio Somoza seized control of Nicaragua. He and two subsequent Somozas robbed and thugged the country blind until 1979, when Tachito Somoza was overthrown by the FSLN (Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional), named after Augusto Sandino who led an armed insurrection against U.S. interests in 1937.

From 1981 to 1990, the C.I.A. ran a secret operation to topple the government, mining harbors and financing the Contras, who fought a vicious civil war against the Sandinistas.

The current government is led by Daniel Ortega and is a coalition of the Sandinistas and the Liberal Party. Ortega is widely believed to have stolen the last election, and his leftist posture is seen as a rhetorical cover to rob the country. I’m told he requires his staff to address him as El Commandante.

Catarina is a windy town of eight thousand souls perched on the lip of an extinct volcano, which is now a lake. During a recent earthquake, people reported that the water in the lake sloshed around like it was boiling. The town is paved with flagstones and you can still see men on small, fast horses galloping up the steep streets.

Just inside the cemetery at the edge of Catarina is the grave of Benjamin Zeledon, leader of a 1912 uprising against a puppet government installed by the United States. He was killed by government troops, who then dragged his body through town. Augusto Sandino, a teenager at the time, witnessed the desecration of Zeledon’s body, which led to his radicalization.

I stayed at the Hotel Jaaris. Rooms there rent for ten dollars a night. Water was only sporadically available, and there has been a serious shortage in the area, which set off a noisy protest demonstration in Catarina a week before I arrived. The hotel did not have hot water.
The walls in our room didn’t meet the corrugated metal ceiling, so you could hear what was going on in the other rooms. The metal roof created an almost perfect interior acoustic bounce. Some nights it was difficult to sleep.

No matter. The vibe was positive. The hotel had a pet bird and a barking dog. There were lots of clucking chickens and crowing roosters in the next building. And the people of Catarina were extraordinary. Near the end of our stay a number of them said they would pray for us. I’m not used to having people speak to me this way. I always felt it was my responsibility to cultivate Great Doubt – as the Buddhists say – around religious claims, but it became increasingly obvious to me during this trip that people living in such impermanent economic, political and geographical circumstances just might know some things I didn’t.

I replied gracias when people said they would keep me in their prayers.

I had the good luck during the trip to meet the poet-activist Ernesto Cardenal. One morning we drove to the Galeria casa de los Mundos in Managua to look at Nicaraguan folk paintings from the Primitive Painting School. The building is also Cardenal’s residence, and he was in his office. At eighty four he is still very active and spry. He greeted us warmly, signed autographs and posed for pictures.

Cardenal was Minister of Culture in the Sandinista government following the revolution, but he has dissociated himself from Daniel Ortega. Ortega has countered by freezing all of Cardenal’s assets. Although he is obviously beleaguered, he seems at peace with his situation.

Cardenal’s poetry is direct and accessible, and it is clear that North American Beat poets influenced him stylistically. His books have been widely translated and are available in the U.S. from City Lights Publishers, New Directions and Curbstone Press. He is the most important living poet in Nicaragua, which is a country that values its poets. The great Nicaraguan poet Ruben Dario’s picture graces the Nicaraguan currency.

Cardenal is also a Catholic priest and was a friend of the Trappist monk Thomas Merton. In the early 1970s he founded a lay religious community on one of the islands in the Solentiname archipelago in Lake Nicaragua. Among various other community projects, he read the Bible with a small group of campesinos. Cardenal asked them to respond from their own lived experience. He recorded the conversations and eventually published them as “The Gospel in Solentiname” in four volumes. They are among my favorite books. They were published in the U.S. by Orbis Books, and I’m afraid are now out of print.

At the Church of the Incarnation in Ann Arbor the congregation is invited to reflect on the sermon immediately after it is given. This is modeled on base communities like Cardenal’s that were developed by Latin American Liberation Theologians in the 1970s. They exemplify a radically democratic hermeneutic.

Joe told me, paraphrasing Martin Luther, that “the scriptures become the Word of God in the hearing of the believer. This is a wonderfully nuanced view; very different from saying the scriptures are the Word of God. It becomes an active, dynamic process – it’s what is meant when we say this is the living Word of God.”

Christianity offers its adherents a rich and vibrant set of symbols and stories – as do all the major religions – and it provides a context in which people can structure their experience and give meaning to their lives. At its best, it is a powerful force for social change, a counter-cultural critique of the dominant society. Cardenal represents this form of religious culture.

And politics are another context. We spent a remarkable evening talking with five Catarinians about local and national politics in Nicaragua. Four of them were former Sandinista companeros. (Joe told me he preferred companeros to comrades because its etymology implies “to break bread with.”) These men, now middle aged, had all been active in the 1979 revolution.

Near the end of the night I asked what it was like to participate in a revolution and then see its ideals eroded, compromised and betrayed. Perhaps it was impertinent of me to ask this question because it implied assumptions I had no right to make, but they welcomed the opportunity to reflect on their experience.

Ariel Perez Olivas, a former Sandinista political analyst, said, “It makes me homesick when I think of the ideals and goals of the revolution in the early days. All our resources were used up in the war with the Contras. Now we have to deal with the problem of an entrenched political class that is focused on its own interests.”

Sandy Iran Canales, who still carries fragments of a bullet in his chest from a wound he received in 1979, told us, “When I was young I was moved to fight against the National Guards. All the people were so excited by the revolution, but then lands were stolen and money was misused.”
One of the men said, “Our revolution has become a rob-olution.”

Erving Sanchez, the former mayor of Catarina, said, “The government wants to politicize everything. They show favoritism. When I was mayor, we sat down together to support the people who really needed it. We need to form a culture of resistance against the national leadership. To me, Sandinista means simply to find a way to help the poor.”

Joe ended the evening with a riff on Kierkegaard. “We begin in the land of the aesthetic, which is a place of endless choices. Then we grow into the ethical life. We make commitments. At a certain point we fail at them. This will lead you to the life of faith or you can chose to return to the aesthetic life. Faith begins when what you’ve given your life to betrays you.”
____________________________
On the drive back to Catarina following a visit to a Spanish School I start to nod off, but it is difficult because I’m sitting between Joe and Bayardo, who are having a spirited discussion in Spanish with Sandy, our driver. After a few minutes Joe translates.

He says Bayardo and Sandy are talking about the Sandinista Literacy Campaign in 1981 when High School seniors went into the countryside to teach the campesinos to read.

In two years illiteracy was cut in half in Nicaragua, despite the murder and rape of many students by the Contras.

Bayardo tells us he hid books underneath his poncho as he moved on horseback around the countryside.

“We carried lanterns with us so we could teach people at night. I was teaching in a relatively sparsely populated area filled with Contra soldiers. There were spies all around and I had to move from house to house fairly quickly or I would be betrayed.”

“I was very frightened,” he says and then laughs.

Then he and Sandy break into song. They sing the anthem of the Sandinista Literacy Campaign:

Avancemos brigadistas
Muchos siglos de incultura caerán
Levantemos barricadas
De cuadernos y pizarras
Vamos a la insurrección cultural.

-Jennifer Reyes Rosales translated the lyrics:Let's advance brigadistas

Many centuries of illiteracy will fall
Let's build up barricades
Of notebooks and blackboards
All the people to the Cultural Revolution.

-So there you have it. I’m riding down the road with two men who are laughing and singing together after they recall risking their lives thirty years ago to teach people to read.

These men speak about what happened with … a great lightness. To speak any other way about these things would not be appropriate, but what they are saying is simply so far outside of my own experience that it is unimaginable to me.

It strikes me that this is why I came to Nicaragua. I was meant to hear this shocking and moving testimony.

If these men were willing to risk their lives to teach people to read, the least I can do is to try to keep the bookshop going. Despite the downturn in the economy and all the trash talk about the “death of the book,” I intend to do just that.

Life is very strange. When I left Ann Arbor I felt it was the most inappropriate time in my life to leave town. By the end of the trip my opinion had changed. It was the perfect moment.

-Karl Pohrt

Who Will Watch the Watchmen?

2009-03-03T11:57:00.000-08:00

Alright. So Zack Snyder has brought the most famous graphic novel, Watchmen, to the big screen. It opens this coming Friday, March 6th.

Zack Snyder is the director who brought us the visually stunning (and substance lacking) epic 300 (which was based off the graphic novel by Frank Miller).

I first read the Watchmen when I was 18, after a friend gave it to me for my birthday. He told me, "You read comics, so you'll probably love this one. I heard it was one of the best graphic novels of all time."

That was quite the hype. Usually with an introduction like that, the subject at hand often has a hard time living up to it. And sometimes it hits the nail on the head. This, was Watchmen.

Most people view comic books as a child/adolescent/guy-who-doesn’t-see-sunlight thing. But those stereotypers need to read Watchmen. Alan Moore is a phenomenal writer, and Dave Gibbons can tell a very vivid story using only images. Put those two fellas together and you have comic book gold.

I don’t know if I can say the same thing for Zack Snyder and the cast of the movie version, but I will pay $9.25 to find out.

I can safely say Watchmen is the most complex and dynamic comic I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. It has multiple subplots which completely intertwine, incredibly panel lay out, it’s politically conscience, and has a climax I NEVER saw coming. Plus it could loosely be described as a super hero comic. But it would be more accurately described as the death of the super hero.

So, do me (and other comic readers) favor and read this graphic novel before you see the movie. This isn’t just some action packed blockbuster with cool special effects, regardless of what the trailers make it out to be. In fact, the comic has close to no action. And I heard they changed the ending even though that was the best part. So, as you can imagine, I’ll be going into the theater with low expectations on Friday (which is exactly how I felt when I went to see V for Vendetta, another Alan Moore comic adaptation).

But – I will definitely be there.

- Cristina
(Yes, I am a lady. Shocking I know.)

Joy of Melluci

2009-02-25T07:15:00.000-08:00

Maybe a week after I decided that what I really need is a good basic cookbook like The Joy of Cooking to round out my pretty vegan specific collection, I received in the mail a copy of I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti by Guilia Melucci from our good friends at Hachette.

What can I say? My cookbook had arrived! Pancakes (check!), Eggplant Parmigiana (check!), Basic Frittata for an easy weeknight meal (check!).

Not only are Ms. Melucci’s tales of dating in NYC amusing and pretty glamorous, she weaves the most amazing and simple recipes with the stories (similar to the wonderful movie “Waitress” where the main character makes different pies based on her life) explaining how the dish fits the (ahem) guest and her feelings toward him.

Her tales of dating and mating and then dating again succeed where so many less talented writers have failed. Her details are specific. She seems a realist, but a happy one. She isn’t (too) hung up about being 40 and still single. One of the most memorable moments has her wondering why God has given her such sound domestic skills and such a lovely home but no one to share them with.

I’m convinced this book will be a sensation when it comes out in April.

How could it not? After such a dismal winter in the worst economy most of us can recall, Melucci will seduce every reader with her wit, her warmth, and yes of course, the food glorious food.

--Cynthia

Repost from the Emerging Writer's Network Website

2009-02-24T07:29:00.000-08:00

February 23, 2009

Just back from . . .

. . . Shaman Drum Bookshop in Ann Arbor. There have been some recent posts about independent bookstores at various blogs and the need, or lack thereof, to support them. Personally, my own thoughts lend toward taking each case store by store. I've been to many fantastic indie stores over the past ten years. I've also been in stores where I was positive the person behind the counter couldn't wait until I got the hell out of the store so he/she could get back on the phone, or online, or back to the magazine they he/she was reading.

Shaman Drum is not doing well these days. There have been articles in the Ann Arbor papers recently and owner, Karl Pohrt, just sent out an open letter trying to explain, to those questioning the articles, just how the store has fallen into financial difficulties.

Having had the pleasure of getting to know Karl a bit over the past year and a half, I can say that his open letter didn't contain much surprising material - he's known where things were headed and has been trying to combat it in various ways. He, along with his lawyer, financial team, and others in the Ann Arbor area are pretty desperately trying to figure out the means to make the store still be a viable part of Ann Arbor's just off-campus business district.

If I follow my own thoughts above and go store by store? Shaman Drum would be near the top of my list for those to try to help. I wandered in there today, partially to do just that (which I hope I did by picking up Dan Chaon's novel, and Don Waters' story collection, Desert Gothic), and partially because there isn't a better store within my driving distance to browse for 30 to 60 minutes. The front shelf had an amazing NYRB display (they really are attractive books, especially when standing face out, side by side, over and across a six shelf bookshelf). The front table had a great selection of debut authors, books in translation and a couple of graphic novels.

It's a store that carries one or two copies of every book that Dzanc Books has published to date, because they both support independent publishers, but also because they support local publishing ventures. They've always stocked Hobart and Absinthe: New European Writing as well. When Orchid was coming out regularly, same deal for them.

The shelves had great selections from publishers like Dalkey Archive, Coffee House Press, Milkweed, probably more University of Iowa Press books outside of Prairie Lights, and the aforementioned wall of NYRB titles. They had a table displaying Open Letter Press titles. They had books in stock by Percival Everett, Steve Yarbrough, James Wilcox, and every Bolano that's been published. Full shelf of Cormac McCarthy (including the plays) and at least three Barry Hannah titles.

They also employ a great group of people. Ray McDaniel has no peer I've seen in regard to introducing authors that are reading in the store (plus he's a damn good poet himself). David McLendon, publisher of Unsaid, works in the store and is always great for a suggestion or two. At least one worker, Ryan, is a regular volunteer at 826Michigan. Today, even though I gave her the wrong title, AND the wrong publisher, the wonderful Emily figured out what book I was looking for, and even though it's not available, by the time I finished my browsing and returned to check out, she had taken the time to write out the title (correct version), author and publisher, along with the date I actually could purchase it. I'm embarassed to say that I only know Emily's name because she answered the phone while I was in the store today, even though I've seen her at countless readings and have chatted briefly at least a dozen times.

The store has readings this month alone by Jeff Kass, local poet (and soon to have a short story collection), translator Aliza Shevrin, Jesse Ball, Keith Taylor, Kyle Minor, Kathleen M. Rooney, Don Pollock, Karyna McGlynn, and Hillary Jordan. Each will be well attended as their Meagen Kujac does a fantastic job of garnering attention for their events (not to mention does a kick ass job of reading to kids one day a week or so around lunch time).

It's the type of store that the community (both local, AND literary) should have a vested interest in saving. Turns out that you can order books from them online. I don't think your shipping will be free, and you probably won't get that 20 to 40% discount you'll see at Amazon, but maybe, just maybe, you'll be keeping around this store, that is in the process of turning itself into a non-profit Literary Arts Center, that Karl is creating with the sole purpose of being able to leave something to the community when he is done, and helping it last long enough to figure out what steps to take to be able to continue thriving in these difficult times.

Repost from the Ann Arbor Chronicle Article Comment Section

2009-02-19T11:25:00.000-08:00

We saw this and wanted to thank Amber personally for writing such a touching letter. Reading some of the off-putting comments such as "I don't need Drums or Shamans" has been rough. But this one made us smile - so thanks again!!

By Amber Elle
February 19, 2009 at 12:36 am permalink

I can comment as a former UM student (late 90’s) and later as a textbook employee on the second floor.

While I was a first-year student, I grumbled at having to go to the Drum as there was always a long line. As years went on, I learned how to avoid the line. However, no one ever wasted my time on the text-book floor. One person could show me where my three classes were shelved, what classes were cross-referenced, they knew what titles were out and when the titles were expected in. Of course there were always better employees than others! But I was always astonished that anyone could keep all those books straight. If you have never seen it, imagine small oddly-sized rooms with textbooks stacked floor to ceiling, with more titles being shelved or re-stocked all the time. I was always quite impressed with the whole chaotic yet orderly vibe of the second floor maze. You really did need your own guide.

Which brings me to my employment at Shaman Drum on the textbook floor. I have never seen a store more committed to their customers. I’ve seen them take back books, at full-return price when the student has already started high-lighting sections when the prof. decided to change out the title. I have seen the managers be so kind and forgiving to prof’s who didn’t bother to place an order till after classes started (in winter semester the weather can delay deliveries for weeks) and then turn around and pay for express shipping. I admit they were not perfect and sometimes they made mistakes too, but usually it was the Drum who would pay in order for the customer to feel satisfied, prof. or student. I know there are more instances, but I remember clear astonishment at what the second floor would take in order to keep a customer satisfied.
I can tell you it is not every business that is so dedicated to customer service. Even in the years after I was an employee, I never felt uncomfortable reading a whole magazine on the first floor. The staff is chill, so as to give us freedom to browse uninterrupted. If people are feeling unwelcome in that store, it comes from within. The store is designed so you can find a little corner and browse the titles you are considering. Forgive them for not being in your face trying to pull questions out of your head. Get over yourselves and don’t blame the store for your own uneasiness.

Last comment is on the local impact this will have, not on the book-buying community, but on the students and locals who have worked there for whatever number of years. I was hired on during book rush, which is 3-5 weeks around the beginning of fall and winter semester. I can only estimate I would be working along side 12-15 people during any given day. I am sure that no less than 40 would be hired on at a fair hourly wage with almost unlimited hours to work in, as the store extended into 12 hour days to get as many people in and out as possible. In thinking back, I have many fond memories of how all the employees would ban together to serve as many people as efficiently as possible. Cleaning up after close and re-stocking books, eating the free bagels and we would all bring in coffee or tea to share.

People would come back into town just to work for a month at Shaman Drum, make bank, then go back to whatever it was they were doing before. The camaraderie was unique to the second floor. You really made some friends if you could make it through the rush. Then, based on your competence as an employee during the rush, and your willingness, they might ask you to stay on after the rush. I even remember getting a holiday bonus at the end of the year from Karl himself. I hadn’t even been working there for 3 months and he gave me the same as everyone else at my level.

I wouldn’t say Karl was my friend, or that I had more respect for him than any other human being, but no one can deny this fact: he helped a great many people by paying them a fair wage to work in his weird store. People shouldn’t be talking about his personal life or what he has done with his profits, they should look at the impact he has had on the local community, regardless of the future of books.

Books are better than the movie- or are they?

2009-02-19T08:28:00.000-08:00

--Our Lists--

Books better than the movie:
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Ghost World
All the Pretty Horses
War of the Worlds
Cold Mountain
The English Patient
Stardust
Cider House Rules
Revolutionary Road
The Virgin Suicides
Slaughterhouse Five
Memoirs of a Geisha
The Golden Compass
Atonement
The Reader
Beloved
Thank You for Smoking
About a Boy
Breakfast of Champions
Namesake
Choke
From Hell
The Punisher: Welcome Back Frank

Debatables (They were both equally good):
Fight Club
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Catch-22
Naked Lunch
Do Android's Dream of Electric Sheep?
Kite Runner
Grapes of Wrath
The Ring
Sin City
Harry Potter books

Movies better then the book:
No Country for Old Men (sorry Cormac!)
The Godfather books
Trainspotting
Requiem for a Dream
Minority Report (short story)

Books that will be made into movies soon:
The Road
Time Traveller's Wife
The Watchmen
The Hobbit (live action)
The Lovely Bones
Where the Wild Things Are
My Sister's Keeper
Invisible Monsters
Blood Meridian
Cities of the Plain

I am always interested in hearing what others think - and their picks!

Cormac McCarthy - Child of God

2009-02-18T08:20:00.000-08:00

As far as Cormac McCarthy goes, I’ve always found it odd that the man somehow stumbled onto Oprah’s coveted list of Live Your Best Life! endorsements. No knock against Her Majesty of course (“she’s picked some good books,” as Jonathan Frazen emphatically asserts) but I’ve never had my thumb in the middle of a McCarthy novel and, say, looked up to smile at someone on the street, or started whistling ‘What a Wonderful World.’ If anything, McCarthy’s work repeatedly reminds me of just how terrifying human beings can be to each other, our unsettling excellence at violence, at subjugation, at destroying everything until living your best life is next to impossible.

I mean, she caught the part with the de-limbed guy strapped onto a mattress, right? She knows why the cannibals were keeping him alive?

In other words, to read McCarthy is to be wide awake in the middle of a nightmare and when I went back to Child of God a few weeks ago, I was reminded at just how horrifically precise that nightmare can be with him.

Lester Ballard, the novel’s deviant and surprisingly young antagonist lurks aimlessly through the Smokey mountain foothills of Sevier County, Tennessee. As a marginalized member of the community, Ballard has little to show for himself; no folks, no house, no job or money. The closest he comes to friendship is with an incestuous junkyard owner. The only people that really pay any attention to him are the cops.

Each chapter gives us another glimpse at Ballard’s hopeless day-to-day struggles. None can be called ‘funny’ really, but there is a streak of dark comedy to those misadventures with bill collectors, carnival hucksters and general store managers – moments where Ballard gets dangerously close to resembling an everyman.

Which is a nauseating thought in hindsight. After all, Ballard is a sadistic killer. I know he’s a sadistic killer. Yet, what makes Child of God more than just two-dimensional slasher bilge, is Ballard’s nuanced transformation from petty criminal to sadistic killer, how he’s still compelling to watch even after he becomes so uniformly destructive. Part of this has to be chalked up to the sheer spectacle of his grotesque behavior. But there’s a genuine complexity to him as well. Something that, if not empathetic is still eerily familiar.

McCarthy refrains from offering us an answer to the deranged mind of his anti-hero. Which never seemed to be part of the plan, anyway. Instead, if the novel tells us anything it’s that the most frightening monster is a believable one as opposed to some fabulist creation. Hockey masks and machetes are one thing, but a depraved and inhuman fiend who I can vaguely recognize as someone I’ve seen before is an altogether new nightmare.

So, you know, kudos to McCarthy for tricking me into feeling for Leather-Face.

--Matt

Open Letter from a Distressed Bookseller

2009-02-17T07:03:00.000-08:00

By Karl Pohrt, owner of Shaman Drum:

This fall and winter Shaman Drum Bookshop went into a steep financial decline. Textbook sales declined $510K from last year. We managed to cut our payroll and other operating expenses by $80K, but that didn’t begin to cover our losses.

There was some good news. Our trade (general interest) book sales on the first floor were actually up in December from last year by 10%, which is extraordinary given what many other retailers were reporting. And trades sales in January were up 15%. Still, this hardly compensates for our losses in textbook sales.

The evaporation of our position has been astonishingly swift. We had been holding relatively even financially until September. Suddenly we’ve moved into the red.

I sort of saw this coming.

In July, 2004, the National Endowment for the Arts published “Reading At Risk,” a report detailing the decline of literary reading in America. This was followed by a second report in November, 2007, "To Read or Not to Read: A Question of National Consequence,” chronicling “recent declines in voluntary reading and test scores alike, exposing trends that have severe consequences for American society.”

Around the same time the NEA reports came out, I audited a University of Michigan course on the History of the Book in which I learned that every 500 years a major technological shift occurs. Five centuries ago Gutenberg invented (or perfected) moveable type. Now, with the digitization of print, we find ourselves in the middle of another sea change. I recall wondering what the new business model for bookstores would look like, and I worried that our industry would suffer from the same chaos roiling the music world.

And a few years ago the University Library held a conference on Digitization. I was invited to be a panelist and I defended the traditional book as still the most efficient technology for delivering information. I also said I was worried about collateral damage during our forward march into the joyous digitized future. I’m no Luddite, but everyone there seemed to me to be hypnotized by the new technology. Of course, it is dazzling.

In my own retail neighborhood I’ve watched the collapse of Schoolkids Records, an awesome independent record store, due largely to the impact of digitization, and it looks like I’ve got a front row seat on another sad decline. Borders Books, which I think at one time was the best general interest book chain in the English-speaking world, is a shadow of its former self and seems headed for oblivion.

Early this fall I told a group of booksellers that our industry (including the publishing sector) had a business model that didn’t work very well for any of us. A few of the booksellers said they didn’t think this was true, the others were silent.

Two weeks ago I met again with booksellers and publishers from around the country at the American Bookseller Association’s Winter Institute. Now everyone seems to agree that the book business is in trouble. The disintermediation resulting from customers migrating to the internet coupled with the frightening economic crisis makes it terribly difficult for us to see a way forward.

The crisis at Shaman Drum Bookshop is due to our loss of textbook sales. This fall the university introduced a program which allows professors to list their textbooks online, which effectively drives a significant number of students to the internet. It is impossible for local textbook stores to compete under these circumstances. I don’t think there are any villains here (well, maybe some greedy textbook publishers), but this is one of the consequences of the university’s policy.

The efficiencies of Amazon – even given the clever algorithms that bring us if you like this, you’ll like that – are no substitute for browsing in a bookshop.

In 1942 the economist Joseph A. Schumpeter said, “Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism. It is what capitalism consists in and what every capitalist concern has got to live in….” This is our system and Schumpeter is undoubtedly correct, but there is a countervailing fact that is equally true: Stability is essential for a civilized society. The second truth is what I’ve learned selling books in this community for forty years, being married for thirty-seven years and raising two children.

It also seems to me that if we are witnessing the collapse of Big Capitalism, the way to revitalize the economy is through supporting locally owned businesses. If you agree, please lend your good energy to Think Local First, the movement supporting locally-owned independent businesses in Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County (www.ThinkLocalFirst.net).

What Is To Be Done?

Shaman Drum Bookshop is around one hundred steps from the central campus of the University of Michigan, one of the top ten public universities in the world. I believe the university community and Ann Arbor citizens who love literature need a first-rate browsing store for books in the humanities in the university neighborhood. This is what we aspire to be.

However, as I mentioned earlier, it has been clear to me for a while now that the current model doesn’t work. In March 2008 I announced my wish to give the bookshop to the community. I hired Bob Hart, a recently retired Episcopal priest, to research the feasibility of forming a nonprofit bookshop. We wrote up a careful business plan, met with a good lawyer, filled out the IRS forms and submitted our papers in July. In November the IRS notified us that our application was still under consideration. The review is taking longer because a for-profit business is a component of the project.

The new entity is called the Great Lakes Literary Arts Center, whose mission is “to develop excellence in the literary arts by nurturing creative writing, providing quality literature and fostering a literate public.” We’re already hosting two classes in the store. If we do not survive this downturn, I hope the Great Lakes Literary Art Center will continue under other auspices. It is a good idea.

Last week I consulted a lawyer and a financial advisor. They both felt the store could manage the debt load with some temporary help from our friends and a bit of luck. My landlord, who is a decent man, will allow us to keep our first floor space, vacating only the second floor of the building.

The issue now is this: After we scale back the store, do we still have a viable business? I asked my business manager to crunch the numbers based on our projected sales for the next two years. He reported back that we do not have a sustainable business model. Given our current sales projections, we will continue to lose money.

This means very simply that we would need additional revenue sources/streams to make the store viable.

For many booksellers – certainly including me – this is our darkest hour. I know this sounds melodramatic, but that’s the way it feels to me in the middle of the night when I’m trying to figure out how I can possibly make this work.

If I can’t figure this out, the most realistic and responsible thing I can do is shut the store down and move on.

The question then becomes: What is the next version of a bookstore? This is something worth thinking about carefully. Like you, I want to live in a community that has many good bookshops. But then I’ve been spoiled living in Ann Arbor.

Whatever happens, I am filled with a sense of gratitude for having been able to sell books in this town for the past 29 years. It’s been absolutely wonderful.

Karl Pohrt is owner of Shaman Drum Bookshop in Ann Arbor, which opened in 1980. He is a former board member of the American Booksellers Association and a leader among the nation’s independent booksellers. The Karl Pohrt Distinguished University Professor of Contemporary History is named in his honor, recognizing his work in fostering relationships between the community and the University of Michigan.

Love & Rockets - Locas

2009-02-09T08:24:00.000-08:00

The Hernandez brothers have been around for quite some time now, but I was only recently introduced to them. The other day I finished the storyline Locas, which follows a group of latino friends from their teenage years into adulthood. The main focus is on two women who are best friends– Margarita Luisa "Maggie" Chascarrillo and Esperanza Leticia "Hopey" Glass.

Sounds like a pretty standard story right? Well let's also take into account when this series got started Jaime Hernandez started off with a very 1960's sci-fi theme, which involved Maggie as a rocket ship mechanic, in love with her coworker Rand Race. Couple that with stories about Hopey - a punk rocker/musician who happens to be in love with her best friend Maggie.

Ok. Sci-fi, punk rock, and an ambiguous love triangle. Fabulous.

Eventually, Jaime phased out a lot of the sci-fi aspects and dove deep into all of his characters. The end result was an intense on-again off-again romance between Maggie and Hopey, and a rich cultural backdrop of their hometown, Hoppers.

Not only is the story line amazing, the artwork is absolutely stunning. Line and ink work are as good as it gets. Not to mention Jaime's attention to the details; as the story progresses through the years, all the characters age accordingly (unlike almost every other comic I've read).

In short, this series is one of the most captivating comics I've ever had the pleasure of reading. His characters are so profound and distinct I feel like I know these ladies like my own friends. I highly recommend this series! The book Locas is a collection of stories that *only* involve Maggie and Hopey. However there are several collections that encompass the entire series.

--C

Cat's Eye book review

2009-02-04T07:34:00.000-08:00

Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye tells the tale of remembered adolescence from the perspective of Elaine Risley, a middle-aged artist on a return trip to her hometown of Toronto. This reflection doesn't come with rosy-hued nostalgia. Instead, Risely enacts an emotional dissection of her grade school tormentors, her high school reciprocity and the affect these phases of her life had on her adulthood and artistry. Atwood subtly links the chapters of Risley's contemporary life with those of her past through revisited locations and fleeting, reawakened memories of her childhood friend/enemy Cordelia, who, for better or worse, was the biggest influence in Risley's life. Remarkable for Atwood's spectacular prose and its uncompromisingly honest take on adolescent interaction and its lifelong ramifications, Cat's Eye should be required reading for everyone at least a decade away from their teens.

-A

True Love & Books

2009-02-03T14:13:00.000-08:00

Shaman Drum Bookshop hosted its best event ever—a marriage proposal! We were approached by a customer named Scott who asked if he could propose to his girlfriend, Amy, at the store, as we are her favorite bookstore. He placed the ring on a bookmark inside Jeffrey Eugenides’s collection My Mistresses’s Sparrow is Dead. He then put the book on display and waited patiently while she browsed the entire store. Finally, she came to the kiosk with the book and he pointed it out to her. She picked it up and looked confused until she opened it. Of course, she said yes! The bookseller at the desk was applauding, the bride-to-be was so surprised and delighted, and the groom-to-be could only thank himself for planning such a romantic moment.

The Shadow Factory

2009-02-03T08:34:00.000-08:00

Despite its title, James Bamford’s The Shadow Factory does everything it can to bring the most secretive of government agencies, the National Security Agency, out of the shadows and into the light. Bamford’s extensive research reveals for the first time what this powerful spy factory does. He carefully describes how the Bush administration allowed the NSA to bypass the traditional warrant requirements of wiretapping to effectively listen in on nearly every digital signal in the U.S. He uncovers the countless number of secret rooms in AT&T and Verizon buildings which house equipment that monitors all Internet traffic. He reveals what the NSA sees and hears: your email, your phone calls, the websites you visit, what you buy with a credit card. And what’s worse, he describes in detail the outsourcing of this massive wiretapping system to foreign companies such as Narus and Verint, whose founders are now on the run from charges of bribery and extortion. At times, it’s impossible to believe The Shadow Factory is anything more than a sci-fi, conspiracy theory thriller written decades ago. Bamford's book, however, is a very real account of very real events which affect every American citizen.

Tonight on PBS there will be a NOVA special dedicated to Bamford's studies - it airs Feb. 3rd at 8pm on PBS and streams online at PBS.org

Written by 10c7ccc7a4f0aff03c915c485565b9da

Read these before you see the movie...

2009-01-30T11:23:00.000-08:00

...because most of the time the book is better!

These are all nominated for the 2009 Academy Awards:

The Reader by Bernard Schlink

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald

What we're reading this week:

2009-01-29T08:20:00.000-08:00

Seeking Whom He May Devour - Fred Vargas

Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen

Child of God - Cormac McCarthy

The Shadow Factory - Paul West and Diane Ackerman

Mason and Dixon - Thomas Pynchon

Dream House - Valerie Laken

Pygmy - Chuck Palahniuk

Staff Top Reads

2009-01-26T15:50:00.000-08:00

Interviewing avid book readers about their favorite books is something to behold - mainly because everyone seems to get freak out when you ask on the spot about their favorite anything.

Well today I went around to all of the workers of Shaman Drum and asked them this question:

"What are your top favorite books of all time and/or top favorite reads now that you would recommend to someone"

And here is the list:

Sue:

Night – Elie Wiesel

Special Topics in Calamity Physics – Marisha Pessl

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close – Jonathan Safran Foer

Cynthia:

Then We Came to the End – Joshua Ferris

The Post-Birthday World – Lionel Shriver

A Moveable Feast – Ernest Hemingway

Matt:

The Erasers – Robbe Grillet

As I Lay Dying – William Faulkner

Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? – Joyce Carol Oates

LaTissia:

Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao – Junot Díaz

Platter of Figs – David Tanis and Alice Waters

The Devil of Nanking – Mo Hayder

Aaron:

The Crying Lot of 49 – Thomas Pynchon

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce

Coming Up for Air – George Orwell

Ryan:

Johnny Got His Gun – Dalton Trumbo

Le Petite Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Notes from the Underground – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Tom:

Moby Dick – Herman Melville

Franny and Zooey – J.D. Salinger

100 Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Pete:

Glare – A. R. Ammons

Grey Is Color of Hope – Irina Ratushinskaya

100 Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Rose:

Leaves of Grass – Walt Whitman

Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings – Abolqasem Ferdowsi

Midaq Alley – Naguib Mahfouz

Meagen:

The Sister – Poppy Adams

Something Wicked This Way Comes – Ray Bradbury

Ms. Hempel Chronicles – Sarah Shun-lien Bynum

David:
Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner
Plainwater - Anne Carson

Liz:
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Hercules - Jeannette Winterson
From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler - E.L. Konigsburg

Bob:

House of Rain – Craig Childs

Say You’re One of Them – Uwem Akpan

War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy

Tyler:

The Club Dumas – Arturo Perez-Reverte

Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert

The House of Mirth – Edith Wharton

Renee:

The Color Purple – Alice Walker

The Father – Sharon Olds

The Drowned Life – Jeffrey Ford

Chris:

Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

Persuasion – Jane Austen

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

Cristina:

Ubik – Philip K. Dick

Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut

American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis

Emily:

The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov

Stiff – Mary Roach

Brain Dead Megaphone – George Saunders

Pat:

The Castle – Franz Kafka

Lifting Belly – Gertrude Stein

The Abortion – Richard Brautigan

Karl:

Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind – Shunryu Suzuki

Mountains and Rivers Without End – Gary Snyder

Babar and Father Christmas – Jean De Brunhoff

Annie:

Ender's Game – Orson Scott Card

Jitterbug Perfume – Tom Robbins

Arcadia – Tom Stoppard

Tasha:

Women of Brewster Place – Gloria Naylor

Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest – Ken Kesey

Angel:

Sula - Toni Morrison
The Color Purple - Alice Walker
The Sea - John Banville

And the winners seem to be 100 Years of Solitude and Jane Eyre which were both mentioned twice.

I guess it's time I got some reading done....

Bill Ayers & Bernardine Dohrn Visit

2009-01-26T10:04:00.000-08:00

Channel 7 news goes up close.

Fox News interviewing some people in the "audience"

Said "audience"

Karl, Bill and Bernardine

Frank (from U of M News Service), Bill and Bernardine.

Karl and Alan

People crowding around to see the scene

Emily watching the events unfold on our cameras.

Window display

Fox News! Ahhhh!

Check out Karl's blog about today's events.

Slow Reading Vs. Fast Reading

2009-01-22T13:30:00.000-08:00

At a recent holiday party an old friend was going on about a hilarious drunken scene in The Great Gatsby and I called her out. No such scene. Clearly she had drunk too much of the special egg nog. She insisted and like any good former English major had her copy to hand in a matter of moments. I was humbled in good spirits.

This was not an isolated incident. Many times I’ve had the embarrassment of claiming to have read and enjoyed a book but am unable to recall any but the most primary characters or scenes.

I blame this on a skill I used to take pride in – being a “fast” reader.

Fast readers are heaped with rewards in school. I was praised for it from a very young age. Our entire system of formal education is based around cramming as many books (for enrichment!) as possible into every term while requiring only that the major ideas are picked out and discussed for 50 minutes. And so it was with Gatsby.

Now that I’m years past grades and reading is simply a pleasure, I’ve begun to wonder – does my ability to read quickly really just mean that I skim even when I don’t have to?

Karl Pohrt, owner of the Shaman Drum and himself a self-described “slow” reader, mentioned the other day a new movement of Slow Bloggers. These are writers who choose to carefully select topics to write about and so post only occasionally, randomly - whenever an idea comes and the writing is complete. Think Slow Food for the mind.

Doing anything slowly is an act of revolution in our culture. Slow Blogging, Slow Food, Slow-anything are movements that are stopping folks in their frantic tracks and asking them to pay attention to what is happening. Take pleasure in your leisure time already! Slowness asks that you focus on just one thing and that you care about it. Reading should do this as well.

So I tried a little experiment – I reread Gatsby (a slim volume that I probably could’ve polished off in a couple of hours previously) over the course of several days. It was very hard. I had to stop myself many times and put down my metaphorical fork between bites.

But it was like reading it for the first time.

You can see where this is heading – another Slow movement. In 2009 I’m challenging myself to begin rereading all of my favorite books, slowly. I’m going to ration myself to maybe 50 pages per day. Yes! – going back and rereading. I’m going to waste hours and hours reading and reading books I’ve already passed my eyes across. Amazing!

-CJR

Cristina's Currently Reading...

2009-01-22T11:48:00.000-08:00

An Anthropologist On Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales by Oliver Sacks

First off, I realize this is an older book (published in 1996) but I've only recently been introduced to the works of Oliver Sacks, A Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center. He's written Awakenings (yes, the movie was based off this book), The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and most recently Musicophilia (which is currently on the NYTimes bestseller list).

I've only read the first chapter and it's already drawn me in. It's in the same vein as Man Who Mistook His Wife in the way it's a series of neurological case studies he's encountered. The first chapter is about a relatively well known abstract painter who is in a car accident - and afterwards he has lost the ability to see color. It's like he's watching a black and white TV set all the time. Even if he tries to remember what things look like (or even his dreams), in his mind they are all in black and white. Since his whole life has been about color usage in his paintings, he is devastated by this loss. He stops eating foods of color, and opts to eat rice, coffee or other black and white foods. He attempts to keep painting but has to completely adapt to a new way of approaching his art.

If you are interested in bizarre neurological case studies, this book is definitely the way to go. The writing is not dense, and easy to read. The foot notes are equally interesting - did you know Anton's Syndrome is a form of brain damage that causes blindness, but the person fails to recognize or admit that they are in fact blind?

Read it.

"Myspace is sooo last year"

2009-01-22T11:42:00.000-08:00

Myspace seems to be a dying fad. Unfortunately, that was the only location for our intensely stimulating blogs about books and all things literary.

So, Shaman Drum introduces to the interwebs our new and improved blog space.