Vlashka picks out customer tip No.2.

To add a little drama to my reading plan, here's how the choosing process worked. I picked out a bunch of dog biscuits, nominally gave them each a book title from those suggested by customers and lined them up on the floor in the lounge while Mr B kept hold of Vlashka in the next room. I called her through and after some initial hesitation, presumably not believing her eyes, she went straight for the one on the end first...which was...."Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter" by Tom Franklin. Will let you now how I get on. Looks like should be a good literary crime novel. I love the first page which explains the strange title...."M,I crooked letter, crooked letter, I, crooked letter, crooked letter, I, humpback, humpback, I. - How southern children are taught to spell Mississippi."

Thanks for the recommendations. Keep adding to them please and I will continue to collate them and add them to the biscuit pile.

I have a train ride to London today and back tomorrow am so excited as it means some precious reading time without any interruptions, although I suppose I may occasionally have to chat to my husband sitting opposite me!

Mrs B

Customer tip No.1 "All My Friends are Superheroes" by Andrew Kaufman

So, thank you Mr R for your fantastic recommendation. I loved it. It made me smile. A lot. More of a novella at just over 100 pages, this is a quirky, funny, bonkers little book - perfect for a (shortish) train ride or a (longish) bath. An off-the-wall, uplifting (but not remotely slushy) tale of love. All of non-superhero Tom's friends are superheros, but not in the way you might think......you have "The Stress Bunny" "The Blue Outcast" "The Shadowless Man" "The Couch Surfer" to name a few, all with hilarious powers linked to their personality traits. He marries "The Perfectionist" but on their wedding night, her ex (Hypno) hypnotizes her into believing that Tom is invisible - to her, he has simply disappeared. Despondent after months of waiting for him to "return", we see The Perfectionist taking a one way flight to Canada to start a new life with an invisible Tom by her side, desperately trying to find a way for her to see him again.

The story jumps back and forth which I felt rather added to the quirky nature of the book. The snapshot descriptions of his superhero friends were, for me, the highlight of the book really. Here's a taster, talking about Mistress Cleanasyougo "..the most powerful superhero of all, the one everyone wishes they were...At the end of the day, she folds her clothes. She never leaves scissors on the table, pens with no ink are thrown in the trash, wet towels are always hung up, dishes are washed directly after dinner and nothing is left unsaid".

So if you want to cheer up a rainy January and you're not afraid to try something a little bit different, treat yourself to this little pick-me-up. And if you like it, share it with someone you know who you'd like to make smile!

I've collated my customer recommendations for my next read (including from Snow Geese, The Long Song, The Handmaid's Tale, And the Land Lay Still, Under Fishbone Clouds, Three Cups of Tea, The File and a few others), and, as suggested by Susanne on my last post, I am going to give our dog Vlashka a choice of biscuits each allocated to a particular book and whichever biscuit she eats first will be my next read. Watch this Bonio!

Mrs B. x

Libby's Reading Challenge: Book One

Well, it looks like its time for me to start blogging. This is very exciting for me, a so far blogging novice! Here is the first of many many blogs reviewing books from my reading year.

I have decided to start what I like to call my reading digression. I’m intending on reading books that are related in some small way, whether it be a theme, setting or writing style; basically anything that particularly interests me in the book I am reading I will learn more about in my next. I’m hoping this journey will take me to all the different sections of Mr B’s and stop me comfort reading solely in the fiction section. Saying that, I hope you will all forgive me for easing myself in gently with a novel that I plucked from our shelves more or less randomly in the section of authors beginning with ‘A’.
And my first book of 2011 is…(drum roll)

The Yacoubian Building by Alaa al Aswany

This novel is set in Cairo during the first Gulf War in a once grand apartment block. The large cast of characters range from an aristocratic womanizer to a homosexual magazine editor and a Muslim extremist. The intricately woven plot jumps from character to character, describing episodes in their lives and giving a multi layered insight into modern day Egypt. It is essentially a portrait of the ambitious Egyptian people; each of the characters seems to sacrifice important things in order to move up the social ladder.

I can see why this book was such a massive bestseller in Egypt and also why it was so controversial when it was released in 2002. It shows a darker, grittier side to Cairo that I have never really encountered before. It is definitely worth keeping track of the multiple characters and their stories, (luckily there are character descriptions in the first few pages!) I found this book rewarding, funny, poignant and very insightful.

For my next book I will be delving into the, more or less unexplored, depths of the Mr B’s basement with The House by the Thames, and the people who lived there by Gillian Tindall which is about a building in a very different setting. Having browsed the British History section for this one I’m hoping, that in my next blog, I’ll be able to wow everyone with my knowledge of London through the ages. I had better keep my notebook handy!

Well if everyone else has a 2011 Reading Challenge....here's Nic's

As many of my regular customers know (and anyone else could figure out from the rather sporadic 2010 blog entries) my bid to read classics that everyone would have assumed a bookshop owner had already read lost all its momentum in mid-March at the hands of Wuthering Heights. Suffice to say, I was not a fan.

This year I've gone for a reading challenge that has more flexibility in terms of book type, so I'll be able to keep on top of lots of new writing as well as digging out lost gems.

I'm going to gradually read my way around the world starting in Louisiana

- the setting for the book that I've just finished and which I blogged about yesterday Tim Gautreaux's "The Missing". Not too many fixed rules but I'll try and move from one country to the next (and state-to-state in the U.S.) without leapfrogging any. The books should either be about a given country, set there or by an author from there.

Here's my first chunk of reading map.

I'll fill the states in as I go. I might pootle around in the U.S. a bit to begin with because "small-town American" fiction and travel writing is my big thing and I have spent the last few years purposefully diversifying ... and I'm in the mood to go back to it. I might also throw in a few broader travelogues in between specific locations...to inspire me on my reading trip.

I'm headed West..any great Texan recommendations?

Kate's Reading Challenge 2011: Books one, two and three

This year all of the Mr B’s Team have taken on different reading challenges, so here’s my plan. For every four books that I read I will make sure that one is a non-fiction book, in a bid to address my deep-seated fear of factual reading.

So without any hesitation here are my first three reads of the year…

1. The Concert Ticket by Olga Grushin (Penguin, 2010)

If you missed Mr B’s gorgeous 2010 Christmas Catalogue then you may not have spotted Olga Grushin’s fabulous novel about a never-ending queue, which quickly forms at a mysterious booth in chilly Russia.

When the queue begins, its members have no idea what they are queuing for, but nevertheless Anna, a schoolteacher, takes a place and waits… At last it is announced that tickets for a one-off concert by a famous exiled composer will be sold and each of Anna’s small family takes their turn in line minding the family’s place. But the wait is far from over and as time goes on the queue operates later and later into the night and each of the family begin to develop their own obsessions and plans for the lone ticket.

I loved the way that Grushin gradually wound the stories of each member of the family closer and closer together creating a really claustrophobic and cleverly interlaced plot. An absolutely fantastic start to my reading year.

2. Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human by Richard Wrangham (Profile Books, 2010)

My first non-fiction read of the year. I’ve had my eye on this for some time but I’ve been distracted by so many great novels I’ve only just got round to it. Wrangham puts forward a really fascinating and well-argued theory that suggests consuming cooked food has played a vital role in our evolution.

He looks at the evidence from raw-foodists who live predominantly on a diet of raw or slightly heated meals and notes how this kind of extreme eating pattern affects our bodies. Time and time aga

in research finds that the amount of energy that our bodies can take from raw food is significantly lower than that acquired from cooked foods. Wrangham then considers the cook’s body and analyses how some of the key changes that evolution has brought about (smaller blunter teeth, a smaller gut, a larger brain) can be explained by the introduction of cooked food into the diet. He also finds evidence from changes in our social behaviour that supports his theory.

But perhaps the most interesting aspect of Wrangham’s theory is his chapters on the way that cooked food has shaped our social behaviour and defined the roles of the sexes in such an enduring manner that these gender-specific behaviours are still evident in most homes today.

This book made my new journey into the world of non-fiction seem easy, it really was incredibly interesting and the arguments were so logically described that I found it an easy and rewarding theory to follow.

3. Caroline: A Mystery by Cornelius Medvei (Harvill Secker, 2011)

It may sound bonkers but here it is… a middle aged man finds a donkey, is taken in by her doe-eyes and calm demeanour, walks her the many miles back to his inner city home, installs her in his garden, takes her to work and teaches her to play chess!

This crazy little novel really made me laugh, the description of Mr Shaw’s relationship with Caroline (the donkey) is so cleverly presented, and Caroline is brilliantly portrayed as a graceful, intelligent and hugely enigmatic character. The story is studded throughout with photographs, character reports and articles from Mr Shaw’s collection, which chart his research and growing obsession with donkeys, lending further authority to this surreal and yet entirely conceivable story.

A genuinely hilarious and wonderfully told story.

Kate’s Reading Challenge 2010: The Result

Somewhere in the blur of bookselling summer I stopped blogging… but I didn’t stop reading, so here in a few of sentences are the rest of my reads from 2010:

No.23. City of Thieves by David Benioff (Sceptre, 2009)

This book sat on the shelves of Mr B’s for some time before I decided (based on rave reviews from some friends and family) that it might be worth a look. The story throws together a naïve young Jewish boy and a charismatic chancer who must find a dozen eggs in depraved Russia during the siege of Leningrad. This book really gripped me in a completely unexpected way, it’s a fast paced adventure story with really memorable and well-drawn characters and I think it would be difficult to find a customer who I couldn’t happily recommend this book to!

No.24. Fists by Pietro Grossi (Pushkin Press, 2010)

Three coming-of-age short stories, written in a style that oozes Hemingway. My favourite is the central story in the collection, which follows two brothers, who are each given a horse as a gift from their father. The animals send the two men on completely different paths: one brother rides into the town, escaping his family and his usual day-to-day life in favour of freedom. The other brother works hard at a local stable to give his horse the best care possible. Grossi’s male characters are underpinned by some wonderfully sensitive writing that makes this book a standout set of short stories.

No. 25. The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint (Vintage 2002)

Dark, tough and in places very funny – this novel about a boy who survives having his head run over by a mail van (in the first few pages) reminded me of John Irving’s, “A Prayer for Owen Meany”. After the accident, Edgar finds himself the adored centre of attention in a hospital ward of grumpy old men, but life outside the walls of hospital proves much trickier…

No. 26. Omon Ra by Victor Pelevin (Faber & Faber, 2002)

I read this novel in preparation for Russian Night at Mr B’s and I’ve got to say it’s not really the kind of book that I would choose myself. Set in the era of the great space race in Russia, the story is narrated by a boy who dreams of being an astronaut. Omon successfully enrols in an air force academy where he is trained for space exploration. What ultimately comes across is how the Soviets exploited the dreams of young men in order to present “heroes” to the rest of the world. Political, edgy and dark.

No. 27. Hand Me Down World by Lloyd Jones (John Murray, 2010)

I was really excited about this new novel, which I read a proof of in October last year. The story of an African lady who we come to know as “Ines” is at initially pieced together from various accounts of passers by and acquaintances who encounter the young woman at differing points during her tale. The story is thus coloured by the array of personalities and how their relationship with Ines effects their telling of her narrative. In the second and third parts of the book narration falls more reliably to only two people. At times I found the structure of the book enigmatic and clever, but for me it did teeter on seeming contrived. This is a really fascinating story but I wasn’t ultimately convinced by the way it was told.

No. 28. Wildtrack and Other Stories by Rose Tremain (Full Circle Editions, 2010)

For me, this book boasts a winning combination: Rose Tremain’s smooth, dark prose coupled with some great albeit rather creepy paintings by Jeffrey Fisher, a fantastic Independent publisher and a setting of East Anglia (my homeland!) The stories in this collection are wonderfully unnerving and sparse feeling, following on perfectly from Tremain’s eerie thriller “Trespass”. The title story “Wildtrack”, which appears last in the collection is my favourite. It follows a boy who grows up unable to hear, before an operation repairs his ears. He then becomes fascinated by a rich world of sound, recording noises for radio plays. This is a beautifully produced book in every possible sense.

No.29. The Elephant’s Journey by Jose Saramago (Harvill Secker, 2010)

Set in 15^th century Portugal an elephant must travel by foot (how else would you transport an elephant in 15^th century Portugal?!) from Lisbon to Vienna to be received as gift bythe Archduke Maximilian from the King of Portugal. Solomon (the elephant) takes with him a convoy of carers and protectors, a particularly opinionated bunch of travellers, all of whom seem to want to have a say in they way that their pack should travel. I love Jose Saramago’s witty and reflective style of comedy and this (based on a true story) is really exceptional.

No. 30. The Paris Wife by Paula McLain (Little Brown, 2011)

Due to be published in March this year, I can’t wait to start selling this fictional biography of Ernest Hemingway told from the perspective of his first wife Hadley. From the opening pages describing smoky, jazz era Paris, where the Hemingways set up house I was totally enthralled by McLain’s wonderfully evocative writing and ability to portray such a well-known literary figure with both poise and originality. “The Paris Wife” is an unashamedly romantic tale of a woman who devoted herself to her husband and his career, despite the strain this placed on her own desires. Rich with travel and literati, the Hemingways flee to Spain to watch bullfights, ski in Austria and mingle with the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ezra Pound. This is undoubtedly one of the best books that I read last year.

No. 31. Tepper Isn’t Going Out by Calvin Trillin

The quirky story of Tepper, a man who delights in finding a fantastic parking space in New York and then enjoys sitting in that space and reading his paper, much to the outrage of the numerous drivers passing by in desperate search for a prime car parking spot! A very strange novel to end my reading year on, but a very funny one!

So… 31 books, which means I failed… quite epically in fact! Oh dear!

So moving on swiftly… next year’s reading challenge will be…

Lucinda's Reading Challenge: Book One

OK, so 2011 is going to be a basement odyssey for me:
I'm working my way clockwise round the lower ground
floor shelves of the shop, section by section.
First up is The Case For God author Karen Armstrong's
new offering Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life.
This probably knocks most New Year's Resolutions
into a cocked hat, given that it is a global call to er....
whatever the opposite of 'arms' is. The premise is
simple: individuals have the power to bring the world
back from its current 'dangerously polarised' state,
by overriding their instinctive aggressive, protectionist
tendencies and adopting a compassionate stance. For
such a mammoth aim, the prose is very easy to read.
Karen Armstrong's use of 'we' throughout the book is
both coaxing and beguiling. She is also very good at
casually dropping in some pretty big statements
about the development of world religion. Bearing in mind
this is my first foray into the Religion and Spirituality shelf,
I feel as though I've learnt some key aspects of religious
history (and am even inclined to read more in this area at
some stage). The daily mind exercises and suggestions
for group activities are perhaps a step too far for sceptical
readers - but I guess the proof will be in whether
colleagues and customers can discern a change in my attitude!
The big test for my post-Armstrong rosy outlook has probably
arrived in the shape of my Philosophy shelf choice: John Gray's
Black Mass, arguing why we are misplaced in thinking we can
make the world a better place...here goes...

And now Mr B gets off the mark for 2011

Just finished my first book of the year but commenting on it is a tough task. The book is "The Missing" by Tim Gautreaux which has become a "Mr B's legend" over the last 12 months despite not being on the bestseller lists elsewhere.

My colleague Ed read "The Missing" this time last year and began recommending it like mad. It was his favourite book of the year and various other members of Team B have since joined the bandwagon. As a result we've sold several hundred copies with an astonishingly high rate of positive feedback from customers. It's been No.1 in our fiction chart for 20 weeks. It's the Bryan Adams of our chart.

And so I finally got round to reading it and am very glad that I have done so. The novel is set in 1920s Louisiana and Mississippi and tells the story of a New Orleans shop security guard, Sam Simoneaux, who loses his job when a little girl goes missing on his shift. Sam takes a job on a colossal paddle steamer pleasure boat heading up-river for the season to give himself the chance of tracking down the girl's abductors. His quest to find the girl is just part of what keeps the reader turning the pages though - the various nagging demons of Sam's past are the other draw.

For me what is particularly brilliant about Gautreaux's book is the sense of place he creates. He paints a vivid picture of the South in the early 20th century and of life on and around the Mississippi river.

And I'll say no more, as anyone who's been in Mr B's at any point in the last year may have heard it all before from Ed. BUT if you're reading this and are involved in selling books rather than just reading them, then I urge you to stock, read and recommend "The Missing" because it really does deserve championing.

Your Bookseller Needs You! Mrs B's 2011 Reading Plan

Everyone at Mr B's has an exciting new reading plan for the year and I'm going to join in, even if I am at home looking after Baby B most of the time.

My first day back in the New Year and a customer (Mr R) came in to collect a book he had ordered, a wee little book called "All My Friends are Superheros" by Andrew Kaufman. It had just arrived in a big delivery which we hadn't yet unpacked and as sod's law would have it, it was at the very bottom of the very last box I opened (5 years as a bookseller should have taught me to always open the bottom box first!). The name and cover of the book looked entertaining and as I handed it over to Mr R he said "You really should read this, it's fantastic. This is the nth copy I have bought for friends and everybody just loves it". Not only is it immensely frustrating being surrounded by fabulous looking books all day, knowing I will never have the time to read everything I want to read, but double that frustration by adding to that the number of times I am told by a customer that I really MUST read something. So this year, I will make a dent in my recommendations list and read mostly customer suggestions, starting with Mr R's and will let you know how I get on.

I am in the shop most Wednesdays and will be on the listen out for some more tips on what customers think should be my next read. I've already been given a tip on twitter by @LaurenJJones called Under Fishbone Clouds which may well be next on my list - I will collate "must-reads" and flip a coin. So do let me know about any book you think I should be reading.

And to return the favour at the end of each book I will add a recommendation of my own. Today's is the grotesquely, darkly funny "Gould's Book of Fish" set in Tasmania at the time when we were sending all our convicts over there. Fantastic. (not for the convicts).

Kamchatka by Marcelo Figueras. A random read by Mrs B over Christmas

We WILL all be better at blogging this year. We really will. And to kick start the year here are a few words on a thoughtful (and very well translated) novel I read over Christmas this year.

Set in 1970’s Argentina, a young boy is whisked out of school by his parents fleeing to a safe house to escape the new military ruling power. I was expecting a high octane, suspense-filled novel and was at first disappointed by the lack of pace. However, I found it ultimately much more fulfilling as a look at where we look to escape to when reality becomes too painful - all through the eyes of a boardgame-loving, Houdini-obsessed young lad trying to make sense of a world closing in on his family.