Get in the Halloween Spirit with "Ashes"

In the spirit of Halloween, I wanted to write a blog about Ilsa Bick's new YA horror novel Ashes. Liesl, who buys our children's and teen titles, has been going on about it for a month, so naturally I'm intrigued. Then, at our event with Laini Taylor (Daughter of Smoke & Bone) a few weeks ago, I met Katie, the wonderful reviewer behind Katie's Book Blog, and she told me how much she wanted to read Ashes, too. I've been wanting to partner more with local bloggers for some time, and this struck me as the perfect opportunity to feature a Guest Blogger. To my delight, Katie also thought this was a great idea, and has written an awesome review for a creepy book for us to feature this week. So, without further ado, I give you a Guest Blog, straight from Katie's Book Blog!:

Ashes is a dark and gritty tale of a world gone mad. Ilsa Bick does not shy away from anything and while at times it seems overwhelming, in the end it all adds up to one fabulous book.

Ashes packs a punch from the very beginning. It is full of action, suspense, and tons of terrifying revelations about what happens when there aren’t enough resources for everyone. It is full of death, destruction, and quite a few gory surprises. The scariest thing about Ashes is how realistic it is. It really makes you think that this could happen sometime in the very near future.

Every character, even the ones with the smallest roles, is three-dimensional and wonderfully well-rounded. Alex, the main character, is full of spunk, fight, and quite a few snarky comments. Ellie, one of the first characters we meet after Alex, is a breath of fresh air in the gloomy atmosphere of post-EMP United States. Even through the toughest times she lightens the moods and brings out Alex’s sweeter side. Tom is my favorite character because I think everyone can relate to him in some way. He is very real and steady. No matter what, I think everyone can find someone to relate to in Ashes.

Overall, Ashes is one of the most gripping stories that I have read in a long time. This trilogy is one to watch out for. It holds a lot of potential. If the following books are anything like this one, Ilsa Bick can expect to have a lot of engrossed fans. While it may be a little too gory and intense for some younger readers, I think older YA readers will really appreciate it.

Thanks, Katie! Here's to the start of a beautiful friendship.
Check out http://www.katiesbookblog.com/ for other great reviews of YA novels.

We the BBS Staff love "We the Animals"

One of the things I love about our staff here at BBS is our eclectic taste in books. Some of us are poetry nerds, others love sci-fi and fantasy, some are hard-core literary fiction fans. We've even got readers of romance, zombie novels, and the occasional zombie romance novel. With so many varied readers on staff, I always pay attention when I discover that half the staff are reading same book. A few years back, that book was The Hunger Games. Last year, it was Room. Now, it seems like everyone around here is reading We the Animals, a new novel from Justin Torres.

I asked around for some comments on the book from our booksellers, and here's what they said:

Justin Torres writes in images, emotions, and fragments of childhood disguised as prose. His manner is effortless yet heavy. His scenes are equal parts lovely and painful. And his stories hold a truth that sinks into your stomach and buries itself there. We the Animals is a beautiful, heart-wrenching recollection of hopeless poverty and youthful exuberance that can only be described as brilliant.
--Mari

We the Animals is a lyrical and captivating account of man's childhood, liberally seasoned with desperate nostalgia and universal appeal with a hint of urban tragedy. Torres delivers some of the most beautiful and heartfelt prose to grace a book cover in years. If you are looking for the next great American novella, this is it.
--Larry

A thought-provoking portrayal of the dysfunctional family, We the Animals by Justin Torres will pull you in with the poetry of its language and hold you in a world that is as uncomfortable as it is beautiful. It's the kind of novel we all should read and has left me questioning my own understandings of love, support, and family.
--Susan

The shock of Justin Torres' poetic novella about three young boys growing up in an impoverished family isn't the beatings, the abandonment, or the drunkenness, but the moments of tender love. It's the unbreakable bond between brothers that shines through the day-to-day horror of belonging to two people who became parents at fourteen. It's the stolen caress after the father's battering violence. It's the magnificent flow of Torres' language as he renders each painful scene in riveting detail. Finally, it's the sensitivity of a young boy living in home that has done everything to deaden tender feelings. This book is important as a testament of how love can endure in even the most impossible situations. Torres has captured the emotional heart of a wrung-out family in this jewel of a novella.
--Arsen

With deliberate style and delicate poetics, Torres invests a trio of young brothers with a worldliness steeling them against outside forces promising harm, yet leaving them ill-prepared against corruption from within. Sketching a complicated family trapped by heritage and class, Torres provides glimpses of the primal kind of love that binds them together and promises ultimate tragedy when it all falls apart.
--Kyle

Though it is marketed and sold as "fiction", Torres' story feels more like truth than the world outside the pages. In an observant and poetic voice, it is a telling of the classic story of three sons, narrated by the youngest. It's a book about brotherhood, coming of age, and the inevitable realization that our parents are people too. Lit by love and shadowed by pain, it is the true story of the human condition.

--Nicole

I think I know which book is next on my "to read" list...

What We're Reading

So I'm sitting at my desk, thinking about what to pick up this weekend (it's supposed to be pretty cold, so I plan on snuggling up indoors with a book and either apple cider or hot chocolate). I decided to use the best resources I have at my disposal -- coworkers. So I called around the store and asked booksellers, "What are you reading?"

Here's what they told me:

Patrick -- Lightning Rods by Helen DeWitt
What he likes about it - "I love the writing. It's probably the funniest book I've read in a couple of months. It's a satire of something I didn't think could be satirized: sexual harassment."
Brief Plot Synopsis - A man finds success in a creative solution to sexual harassment in the workplace.

Christian -- Sabbath's Theatre by Philip Roth
What he likes about it - "I love it. I like that [Roth] can take such difficult and scandalous subject matter and still keep literary and artistic integrity while writing about it."
Brief Plot Synopsis- "A guy named Sabbath who is a puppeteer on trial for obscenity. He's a disgusting, dirty old man, but he brings up a lot of philosophical questions about society."

Ashanti -- The Stand by Stephen King
What she likes about it - "It's awesome. It's a really realistic rendition of an apocalyptic kind of end-of-the-world scenario and there's some really interesting magical realism among the survivors. King always has such realistic characters, it's probably his best quality as a writer."
Brief Plot Synopsis - "Despite bans on German warfare, a government experiment of a superflu gets spread among the populous and wipes out 99% of the human race."

Nicole (our newbie!)-- Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
What she likes about it - "I really like the idea that the story is shaped around these pictures."
Brief Plot Synopsis - "A young boy discovers something strange about his grandfather's past."

Jorden -- Hark a Vagrant by Kate Beaton and Deer Hunting with Jesus by Joe Bageant
What she likes about them - [HV] "It's hilarious. It's both history and good social commentary" DHWJ - "It's really sad but also funny, and just really sobering, I guess."
Brief Plot Synopses - "HV is Kate Beaton's second collection of comics and DHWJ is about how America is poor and keeps screwing themselves by voting Republican."

Ria -- Poems by Elizabeth Bishop
What she likes about it - [Ria had some difficulty putting her feelings for Elizabeth Bishops poems into sentences that would do them literary justice] "They're beautiful and...they're just awesome. They're awesome and amazing and wonderful and she's incredible."
Brief summary of the poems as a whole - "They're mildly humorous and honest without being overly confessional."

Stephanie -- Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor (who will be here on Monday!)
What she likes about it - "There's a good lead character. It's intriguing, and leaves you with a bit of a cliffhanger. I don't like that I have to wait for the next one though."
Brief Plot Synopsis - "Mysterious teen artist in Prague leads a secret second life and discovers who she really is."

Tracy -- The Magic of Reality by Richard Dawkins and David McKean
What she likes about it - "The whole reason I picked it up was because of David McKean. He did The Sandman and his art is just really awesome. I love him. So far, the science is described in a way that is helpful for people like me who don't have science-y backgrounds."
Brief Plot Synopsis - "It's about evolution. Which, I know the basics of it, but the way they're describing some of the concepts are really interesting and different."

Arsen -- Contents May Have Shifted by Pam Houston and When She Woke by Hilary Jordan
What he likes about them - [CMHS] "The writing's good and she's telling her story in a very interesting, unique way." [WSW] "It’s kind of creepy. It makes me want to make sure that Rick Perry doesn’t get to be president. "
Brief Plot Synopsis - "Futuristic tale where a woman wakes up dyed red because she has been convicted of the murder of her unborn child."

Laina -- All Men of Genius by Lev AC Rosen
What she likes about it - "I picked it up because it’s written by someone I went to college with. It’s a little bit along the lines of Alana – it’s a twin story (though not for middle readers!) it’s gender-bending, it’s doing this ‘what is the right path for you despite social convention,’ thing, it’s science, it’s invention, and I’m finding it’s really different to read books by people you know.”
Brief Plot Synopsis - "It's a new Victorian steampunk novel. A scientifically-inclined girl goes to exclusive all boys educational institution without anyone knowing who she really is."

...and so that's what folks around the store. What are you reading?

Where All My Boys At?

As a veteran of the bookselling world, I keep up with industry news on a daily basis. I visit several worthy websites on my jaunt around the web, catching up on new books and old friends. Indie bookstores will often post photos of their staff arrayed around this or that visiting author. I'm consistently given pause by the rarity of men in these photos (unless, of course, it's a male author). Where have all my fellow male booksellers gone?

My father was a nurse when I was growing up. My mother dressed me as a nurse for my first three Halloweens. When queried by friends, I would insist on a qualifier: "My dad is a male nurse ..." He later became an anesthetist, at which time I would tell puzzled friends, "He puts people to sleep." Do my own children feel a similar reluctance to divulge that, "My dad is a male bookseller"?

We're grateful to the wonderfully capable women who fuel our indie bookstores across the country. I hold no grudge against them, nor against the traditionally female readers who buy most of the books from our stores. Without them, our industry would be in even more dire straits. It is reported that men don't read as much as women, although god knows I'm attempting to raise my own sons to buck that trend. During the fifteen years I worked at Grass Roots Books & Music in Corvallis, Oregon, there were only two other men who held positions there aside from the owner. One of them was a barrista for our sad little coffee shop. A male barrista, I suppose ... When I come across a fellow male bookseller at conventions or gatherings, I feel like we belong to a secret club, exchanging a covert nod of the head.

While at Grass Roots, I facilitated our official store reading group for several years. My lady friends and I would meet monthly to discuss our most recent selections. One of our recurring topics was whether a male author could effectively render the female voice and psyche. What did I know? I recently began half-jokingly telling friends of a plan to assemble an all-male reading group. We would call ourselves The Li-Bros ... It's not that we would read only male authors, not an Iron John thing, but we could discuss whether female writers could get us guys in all our complexity.

Possibly motivated by this idea, my reading of late has skewed decidedly dude. Think Cormac McCarthy, Tom Franklin, Barry Hannah. Writers who allow few women into their stories, and who even I would argue don't really represent them too accurately. Harry Crews, Larry Brown. I recently finished a stellar read by an author named Charles Willeford, Cockfighter. Note to self: A prime candidate for the next Li-Bros meeting.

As Floor Manager of Boulder Book Store, I've taken care to achieve some balance among our bookselling staff. Younger vs. older, student vs. graduate, female vs male. I feel good about this, perhaps making up for the time I spent with the fine ladies of Grass Roots. While the boys of BBS are not an especially gruff bunch, I feel we represent the male species well enough. My secret plan is to one day send the industry a photo of several of us gathered around a visiting author. Until then, I extend a hearty invitation to my fellow fellows in the greater Boulder area. Follow your wife or a female friend into Boulder Book Store and help realign the literary universe. No need to launch a takeover, just celebrate the manly art of reading.

An all male staff photo (though, not of all our male staff members). Pictured from Left to Right and Top to Bottom: Warren, Larry, Arsen, Patrick, Digs, and Scott.

Why Supergods by Grant Morrison is the most important book you’ll read in 2011

“We tell our children they’re trapped like rats on a doomed, bankrupt, gangster-haunted planet with dwindling resources, with nothing to look forward to but rising sea levels and imminent mass extinctions, then raise a disapproving eyebrow when, in response, they dress in black, cut themselves with razors, starve themselves, gorge themselves, or kill one another.”

– Grant Morrison, Introduction to Supergods

As important as logic and reason are to our rational, technological modern lives, one of the most egregious absences from the current worldview is that of myth. Politicians, rock stars, and reality television celebrity idiots have infiltrated most available slots in the mass consciousness set aside for admiration, mimetic representation, and plain old hero worship. This is not a good thing. Such cults of personality distract us from art, and therefore distance us from our own imaginations. When we fail to engage our imaginations, we neglect something crucial that allows us to repurpose and transcend our ordinary lives. We forget that an essential aspect of life is to seek always discovery and ultimate meaning.

Supergods is rather pointedly not the universal answer to all of humanity’s ills. It doesn’t really claim to be. It is an impassioned analysis and celebration of what one hyper-creative writer sees as a evolutionary step forward from the myths and legends that once enthralled and sustained a burgeoning human awareness. Superheroes are the latest step in the logical progression from gods and demi-gods and urban legends. They invigorate and augment the stories that feature them. They straddle the razor’s edge between being as flawed as us all and being everything we wish we were. They show us that there is a better path to choose that is seldom an easy one but one ultimately leading us all to a finer world. They inhabit a comic book world for now but they are infiltrating our culture through television and film, advertisements and online strips. They want only the best for us all, and they will strive against anything to ensure our survival.

Comic books and graphic novels may not be for everyone, but Grant Morrison isn’t looking to recruit only nerds and geeks to his way of thinking. Supergods is an argument toward embracing any art that makes you stand a little straighter, feel a little better, and smile more at everyone you pass. Readers who have forgotten how to dream of things larger than themselves and are hopeful about finding a new and more confident paradigm won’t merely find entertainment in Supergods. They’ll find inspiration.

Kyle Mares is a MFA student in Writing & Poetics at Naropa University. Born in Denver, he finds his return to Colorado (to attend school in Boulder) to be strangely invigorating after living in Chicago and outside Los Angeles. Having worked for three years in a southern California comic book store, being a bookseller at Boulder Book Store has proven to be a much quieter, less argumentative experience. He's not much for off-roading but he is considering bungee-jumping for the very first time.

Local and Loved #5

Cover Charge for Author Events


On April 25th of this year the Boulder Daily Camera released an article that partially explained why the Boulder Book Store started charging for events. They did an excellent job. The problem is, so much has happened since April.


June 21, 2011 the New York Times released an article that explained that the Boulder Book Store isn't the only one charging. All across the country independent bookstores are asking customers to open their wallets and shell out a little money for some cheap, intelectual entertainment. This isn't meant to be a slight to readers, it is intended to be a way to reward customers who pay for books at the bookstore (the tickets ALWAYS act as coupons for the featured book or anybook on the day of the event) and a message to those who look at the store and then buy online.


Is $5 too much to ask? The average evening movie costs between 8 and 10 dollars, that isn't counting the extra charge for 3D. In actuallity an author event is worth paying for. It is a great date or the ideal way to pass a lazy evening.


So show your love for the local and come out and support the Boulder Book Store at author events.





Who would you pay to see at the bookstore?

Local and Loved #4

These are the books that say something about the community, though most aren't about Boulder.

In my opinion one thing that makes the Boulder Book Store a true gem is it's support of local authors. 81% of American's say they want to write a book, that's not to say all of them do it but 81% want to. According to the US Census there are 311million people in the United States, that means that 251,910,000 people want to write a book. 190,000 people get published. That means that there are people writing (not all 251,910,000 because there are a lot of things people say they want to do and then don't) who aren't getting published. At the Boulder Book Store that is not the case for the locals who come in, looking for a break. Check out the lovely blue tagged books on Rec Case 3.