Category Archives: Book Column

Book Column, Book Talk, Books About Books, Recommendations

Week 2: Book Pairing #nonficnov

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This week’s host for Nonfiction November 2017 is Sarah over at Sarah’s Book Shelves. This week all of the participants are to “pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title”. As best as I can tell this is not limited to just books we’ve read in 2017.

So. . . we’re going to dig deep into the blacklists, blow the dust off some covers and recommend two reads that I think most any bibliophile would enjoy reading.

First up is my fiction pick with John Dunning’s BookedTo Die. This book hit store shelves in 1992 (so you can find a cheap paperback these days) and is a mystery read through-and-through. But it’s all about books and first editions and libraries. It’s hard to beat a good bibliomystery and Dunning’s book is a good one. It’s the first in his Cliff Janeway series. Janeway is a Book Scout and spends his days going through book stalls, stores, thrift stores, yard sales, and trash bins trying to find books he buy for a quarter and sell for $200. His eyes are always peeled for that “lost” first edition treasure while he’s appraising people’s private book collections. Lots of fun and solid (real world) facts about book collecting. So if you like Raymond Chandler-ish reads with a twist, you might want to check this one out.

A nice follow up to a bibliomystery about rare first editions is Nabokov’s Butterfly by Rick Gekoski. Gekoski is a real life bookman and makes his living in the world of rare manuscripts and antiquarian books. At under 250 pages, his book is an easy read. It shares some amazing stories about rare editions, publishing lore and backstories on a few famous authors. Many book collector’s and sales folks have written of their journeys, but where Gekoski’s excels is that he focuses more on the books and less on his career. Which is nice. So where Janeway is trying to track down old books, Gekoski has probably bought them, held them and sold them again. It’s a fun peek into a world many of us book lovers don’t get to participate in.

So that’s my pairing, one fiction and nonfiction read for folks who love to read about books.

I’m anxious to click around the blogs and see what other pairings people are putting out there this week.

Bibliophile Travels, Book Column, Bookstore Tourism, Bookstore Travels

The Booklegger -Huntsville, AL

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I found a fantastic used bookstore in Huntsville, AL while on a recent trip. My time at Booklegger Used Books (4001 Holmes Ave NW; Huntsville, Alabama 35816) was way too short. This small shop is worth visiting if you find yourself in the Rocket City.

As soon as you walk in, you can tell you have entered a book lover’s world. Most of the books I picked up were good-condition hardbacks and priced in the $5-$8 range. The shelves and bookcases all go 8-feet high and they are fully loaded. Even though they are stocked full, they are well tended to and organzied. It’s was fun to meander throughout the bookshelf-lined aisles.

Once you enter, the non-fiction is mostly in the room to your immediate left. Those topics run the gamut. It’s all there. If you’ve been in many bookstores then you know it’s a special thing when to find one with so many sub-categories clearly marked and stocked well.

But the non-fiction I was most interested in was straight ahead – “Books About Books”, plus shelves & shelves of Literary Critcism and Essays. It was amazing! I’ve found very few bookstores (new or used) that had essays like this, much less have them in hardback (plus, a whole other shelf over in the “paperback” room).

From the front door, fiction starts off to the right and runs on into the “paperback room” off to the right just past all of the new comics.

They must do a constant business at Booklegger Used Books. The phone was ringing throughout my visit and I bet a dozen folks were in and out during my all too short time there. All that to say, I think it’d be worth it to check the “Newly Arrived” wall (just inside the non-fiction room) every visit. One can tell that these shelves have yet to be picked through, but the turnover is quick.

After a quick conversation there it sounds like they only buy hardbacks for around $1 per book, depending on demand. They will buy paperback books but for store credit only and the do limit how many “Walmart bags” you can drop on his counter during a week. Which is a pretty great metric to use for a used bookstore.

My one complaint is the way they manage their $1 Discount Books. Every book available for $1 is marked with an marker across the top with an X or O or XO. I totally get why they do this. When you buy as many used-books from patrons as they do, it doesn’t work to keep buying the same books that don’t sell. Plus, it helps with inventory and so forth and so on. I get it. I really do. It’s just always better to have books without those permanent markings. But for $1 per book, they’ll never hear me complain. 😉

Days and times of operation change, so I’d recommend giving them a call as I can’t find a good online presence for them.

Book Column, Book Talk

Week 1: My Year in Nonfiction #nonficnov

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This week kicks off Nonfiction November 2017 and I’m excited to participate. Thank you to all the kind souls who have taken the time to coordinate and pull all the prompts and dates together.

This week is being hosted over at JulzRead, who is a new blogger to me, but after reading how she likes “books about books” and is working on a book spine staircase, I know we’d have tons of books to share and recommend. Anyway, here we go. . .

What was your favorite nonfiction read of the year?

This year I finally found a copy of Anatole Broyard’s Intoxicated By My Illness and was not disappointed. His writing, sense of self and the decision to tackle death head on with his eyes (and humor) wide open all tied together wonderfully for this book. Death is a tough topic but Broyard pulled no punches when remembering his life, those around him and his work as a literary critic.

What nonfiction book have you recommended the most?

I really have not recommended many books this year, but the nonfiction book I’ve talked about the most Robert Moor’s On Trails: An Exploration. Moor does a good job showing the impact of trails, maps and paths in our world. Everything from the historical (thinking about how today’s interstates follow ancient Native American paths) to the philosophical (the mindset that’s needed to walk a looooooooong way) to the future (big international groups still get together to debate the start/stop of the Appalachian Trail as it gains new land each year). It was a very specific and peculiar book. Fortunately, it was done very well.

What is one topic or type of nonfiction you haven’t read enough of yet?

I can never, ever, get enough ‘books about books’. It’s a passion. It’s never ending and it’s always hard to find other people taking the deep dive into bibliophilia. One of my faves this year was the coffee table book The Library Book by Thomas Schiff. Schiff takes these amazing 360 degree photos of libraries from around the world to give the reader a new perspective on the places, shelves and books. It’s a slow book. One where you want to study pages where massive ceiling frescoes warp and bend down to touch the tops of floor to ceiling bookshelves. It was a lot of fun.

What are you hoping to get out of participating in Nonfiction November?

Hands down, I want to discover new great books to read. But getting to meet all of the other book loving folks participating is certainly the icing on the cake.

If you’re interested in participating this year’s Nonfiction November, just check out any of the hosts’ blogs or follow along on all the socials by checking out the hashtag #nonficnov

Book Column, Book Talk, On the TV

H is for Hawk: A New Chapter

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Tonight, PBS will air the first episode of H is for Hawk: A New Chapter which could loosely be billed as a “follow up” to Helen McDonald’s best-selling book H is for Hawk. 

H is for Hawk is a book that’s been in the middle of my TBR pile since it came out in paperback. I’ve heard so many good things about this memoir, but I’ve just never gotten around to moving it to the “excited to read next” pile. I’m not 100% sure why that is, but I think I’m going to pick it up and read (that is after my current read Want Not by Miles) before I watch the show.

In the book, McDonald trains a goshawk as part of her coping with the death of her father. The show starts next week, which is about 10 years after the events in the book. And again she’s back to raising and training birds.

Here’s a 41-second preview to watch:
The movie rights to the book have also been sold. They were bought by Lena Headey who plays Cersei in HBO’s Game of Thrones.

The show has the potential to add some great visuals and color to what has already proven to be a great selling book. I’m looking forward to diving into both.