BOOKMARKS is excited to host Charlie Lovett at
Summit School in Winston-Salem
Monday, June 3
Event begins at 7:00 PM
Book sales before and after the program
FREE and open to the public!

Barnes & Noble announced that Charlie Lovett’s novel, The Bookman’s Tale (on sale May 28, 2013) is the latest selection in the Barnes & Noble Recommends program.

“Titles selected for the B&N Recommends program are the books our booksellers can’t stop talking about. Thought-provoking and uniquely engaging, B&N Recommends selections are chosen for sheer reading pleasure and their appeal as book club picks.”

The press release continues:”The Bookman’s Tale is a book for people who are passionate about books. Cutting back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean and across time, this unforgettable and highly entertaining story of a quiet man’s search for truth (and the real William Shakespeare) is part mystery, part love story, a saga of families and feuds, and a rumination on the nature of art.”

Praise for The Bookman’s Tale:

Library Journal STARRED Review: Peter Byerly cut himself off from the world to recover from the loss of his wife, Amanda, who died nine months ago. An American antiquarian bookseller now living in England, Peter returns to work and discovers, in an 18th-century book about Shakespeare forgeries, a Victorian miniature portrait of a woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to his late wife. His research to identify the watercolor’s origins uncovers what could be the holy grail of Shakespeare studies—a book annotated by the Bard at the time he was writing A Winter’s Tale—and leads Peter on a dangerous quest to prove the book’s authenticity. Interwoven throughout are flashbacks to Peter’s early relationship with Amanda and chapters on the book’s travels through many hands since 1592. Drawing on debates about the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays as well his own experience in the cutthroat world of antiquarian books, debut author Lovett has crafted a gripping literary mystery that is compulsively readable until the thrilling end. Recommended for fans of Geraldine Brooks’s People of the Book, Shakespeare aficionados, and bibliophiles. —Katie Lawrence, Chicago

“I don’t read much fiction. I’m picky. But I loved racing through Charlie Lovett’s The Bookman’s Tale, a richly rewarding thriller filled with real-world details about the discovery of a rare book that may or may not be a priceless Shakespearean artifact. Fun for everyone who’s ever fondled a soft leather binding!” —Daniel Rover Singer, co-author of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)

“With The Bookman’s Tale, Charlie Lovett tells us a terrific story — there’s mystery and suspense, murder and seduction — but more importantly, he shows us how it’s all connected, all of this: the reading and the keeping and the sharing of books. It forms a chain long and strange enough to tie a heartbroken young scholar from North Carolina back to the Bard himself, who might or might not have been William Shakespeare. Every link along the way is a bookman’s tale all its own, and Lovett tells them all, except the very last, of course: because that’s you, about to read this book right now.” —Robin Sloan, author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore

 

Join us on 4th Street in downtown Winston-Salem as we hand out free books and share with each other the books that have made an impact in our lives.

BOOKMARKS will be outside Camino Bakery from 4:30-6:30 PM so come by, bring your favorite book, and share with other readers in our community!

With the exception of the delightful Ang Lee, no acceptance speech at the Oscars included a much-deserved “thank you” to the authors who were responsible for creating these stories in the first place. Thank you, Mr. Lee, for acknowledging Yann Martel. And shame on you, everyone else, for not doing the same.

Am I being harsh? Probably. My husband would say I have a tendency to over-dramatize situations, but even in this (being a writer himself) I feel he would have to agree. I have learned over the years to accept film versions of books as a fact of life. Gas prices will rise, grass is green, and movie adaptations will be made. And I’m ok with that. I’m not sure anything could make me happier than seeing Mr. Darcy brought to life by the gorgeous Matthew Macfadyen. I’ve seen film adaptations I’ve enjoyed, some even more than the book (heresy!). If you’ve ever tried to read The Last of the Mohicans, you know what I’m talking about.

For me, what it all comes down to is a defensive feeling toward books. Why is it that movies get all the glory? HOW did everyone not know that Life of Pi was based on a novel?

All I’m saying is, give books and their authors their due respect. Out of 24 Oscars given on Sunday, 16 were from movies based on books. 6 of the 9 nominees for Best Picture were based on books or plays.

Here’s a list of the winners and who they should have really thanked –

Best Picture — winner Argo based on the book by Tony Mendez
Film Editing
Writing- Adapted Screenplay

Actor in a Leading Role — winner Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln is based on Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Production Design 

Actress in a Leading Role — winner Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook is based on the novel by Matthew Quick

Actress in a Supporting Role — winner Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables is based on the novel by Victor Hug
Make up and Hairstyling
Sound Mixing

Director – winner Ang Lee for Life of Pi – though he is exempt for being the only person to credit the writer
Music Original Score
Cinematography
Visual Effects

Costume Design — winner Anna Karenina based on the novel by Leo Tolstoy

Music Original Song — winner “Skyfall” based on Ian Fleming’s James Bond
Sound Editing 

SciWorks is hosting a special Sunday afternoon Science Storybook with prolific and acclaimed children’s author Megan Bryant. Megan will read from her books and be available for a book signing. Megan’s concept-based, dinosaur-shaped board books help kids learn dinosaur names for every letter of the alphabet, identify bold shapes, practice counting skills, and discover the bright colors in the dinosaur world.

Join BOOKMARKS on Sunday, December 16, 2:00PM at SciWorks. Call 336-767-6730 for more information. The event is free with admission to the museum and books will be available for purchase.

Anna Karenina. Those two words carry such weight. Whether you’ve read the Russian tome or not, you know that name. Long hailed as one of the greatest works of literature, Leo Tolstoy’s breathtaking masterpiece takes new hold in our hearts as it makes its way to the big screen this December.

For me, it has always been a book I’ve feared and respected. I’ve read countless “great novels”, even War & Peace. So why have I put off reading Anna Karenina for so long? As an English major in college, I was not assigned this book. Maybe because my professors thought it a book to discover and cherish outside the classroom…or more likely they knew college students were in no way going to finish the book and would rather opt for cliffs notes.

When the excellent translating team of Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky published a new edition, I bought it. And it has sat on my shelf ever since. Until today, when I pick it up and make that decision — I am finally going to read Anna Karenina. 

A note about Pevear & Volokhonsky and why you should trust their translations: Pevear is a native of Boston who studied Russian as his second language. Volokhonsky is a native of St. Petersburg and studied English as her second language. They have translated the works of Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Gogol, Tolstoy, and Bulgakov together and they made War & Peace so readable for me. They also happen to be married.

817 pages…that’s how long Anna is. Let’s do a little comparative math:

• The Millennium Trilogy – Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – by Stieg Larsson is 1,531 pages long
• A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin has 835 pages, just for the first book! The whole series has almost 5,000 pages!
• Wolf Hall and Bringing Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel have over 1,000 pages

Not so daunting now, is it?

Here’s my main motivating factor for finally reading this book — the film. Quite simply, it is going to be gorgeous. I loved Joe Wright’s depiction of Pride and Prejudice, also starring Kiera Knightley. Her portrayal of Elizabeth Bennett was just as I imagined her to be. I think she will make an amazing Anna. Check out the trailer and tell me you’re not excited.

Will anyone out there undertake the challenge with me? How much longer are you going to put off reading this? Buy it today. 

Don’t miss Anna in theaters, and please join us for Lit/Flix whether you’ve read it or not. The first 50 attendees will receive a free Anna K. bookmark! Join us on Thursday, Dec. 13 at 5:30pm at a/perture cinema in downtown Winston-Salem.

This summer, I’ve had the wonderful—and often exhausting, exhilarating, nail-biting, but at the end of the day, completely fulfilling—experience of taking over as director of a summer writing camp for rising fourth-graders through rising college freshmen at N.C. State University. We call it the Young and Teen Writers’ Workshops, and while we do work hard, but we try not to take ourselves too seriously. There’s a danger in that, I think. I see that when I wear my other hat, as a teacher of college freshmen. Too many kids grow up thinking they’re just not good writers. Sure, we might not all be born novelists. For one thing, good writing comes from perseverance through wonky first drafts (and second, third, fourth, and so on). But often half my battle with students is getting them to trust themselves. They haven’t been slapped with the label of “good writer,” and so they think they aren’t.

More children should be allowed the freedom for their imaginations to roam with words. More kids should write because it’s fun—just like finger painting is fun and messing around clay is fun—not just because they’ve been assigned a paper, are practicing for standardized tests, or fretting about their college application essays.

That’s why I am so delighted that the Story Hatchery will be at BookMarks this Sept. 8. Or really, that the Story Hatchery exists at all. BOOKMARKS celebrates published writers as well as aspiring ones, too. What founder and director Melissa Bickey MacLeod calls “an imaginative arts school,” the Story Hatchery holds year-round classes, summer camp (aw, Melissa, I think we’re kin!), and private sessions, primarily in creative writing, but there are also activities in the visual arts, songwriting, guitar, and movement.

Poet Joseph Mills

For adults, there’s a writing workshop or two as well. Local poet and University of North Carolina School of the Arts professor Joseph Mills will teach a poetry workshop from 1-1:45 p.m. on the Trade Street Stage and Joan Holub will lead “The 3 Secrets of Writing a Children’s Book Series” from 11-11:45 a.m.

Many biographies include in their titles the phrase, “a life.” When it comes to Kurt Vonnegut, what a life it was. Best known for Slaughterhouse Five, based on his experiences as a POW surviving the Dresden firebombing in an underground meat locker, Vonnegut authored some of the most original postmodern novels of the twentieth century. His early books were ahead of their time. His sardonic wit captured a national mood that was still forming, and like wine, his writing aged to reach peak appeal to baby boomers that came of age in the early 1970s.

Had Vonnegut not become a bestselling author, his story may never have been told, but his life would still be fascinating because of the extraordinary events he experienced and the notable lives of his relatives and friends. In the book And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut, A Life, Charles Shields mines these experiences and relationships to produce a gem of a biography. 

He opens the book by killing off his protagonist. Shortly after he started interviewing Vonnegut, the 84-year-old fell down his front steps and never regained consciousness. Shields completed the project using a trove of correspondence between Vonnegut, who loved to write letters, and his fans, colleagues, friends, and lovers. Shields seems to have tracked down and interviewed everyone who ever knew Vonnegut. Like all good suspense, the end is never in doubt; it is peeling away the layers that make the story.

NEW YORK TIMES Bestselling author, Charles J. Shields
Photo credit Michael Bailey

Shields deconstructs the flat caricature of Vonnegut’s public persona and reassembles his life-like a 3-D jigsaw puzzle, revealing the hidden and often contradictory passions that drove him: his aristocratic family roots and egalitarian aspirations; his mother’s suicide and father’s hard-won favor; his sibling rivalry, his ability to make friends easily and tendency to hurt those closest to him. Vonnegut’s was a long life. It was a full life. And Shields has captured it all.

Charles Shields will be at BOOKMARKS on Saturday, September 8th. He will first appear in a panel discussion with local favorite author Penelope Niven on “The Biographer as Literary Detective.” The panel discussion will take place from 11:45am-12:30pm on the Downtown Stage and will be moderated by 2012 Honorary Chair Dr. Edwin G. Wilson.

Charles will also do an individual presentation on his biography of Kurt Vonnegut from 1:30-2:15pm inside Artworks Gallery.

When bibliophiles see a movie adapted from a book, the question is almost inevitable: what’s better, book or movie?

Usually, for me, the book wins hands down. No film can compare to the movie I’ve produced in my mind.

But when I read Daniel Wallace‘s Big Fish in one of my graduate school classes two years ago (the course was “Modern Southern Novels,” and had a reading list that included Edward P. Jones’ The Known World, Valerie Martin’s Property, and Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain–it was a dream of a class!), I had trouble deciding. Here was one of the rare cases where I had seen the movie before reading the book, and the movie, with its lush, mythical, and larger-than-life imagery and fantastical vignettes, was firmly imprinted on my consciousness. Perhaps director Tim Burton’s trademark touch (a la Nightmare Before Christmas and Beetlejuice) was to blame.

If you haven’t read Big Fish or seen Burton’s 2003 film adaptation of the 1998 novel, it’s a collection of tall tales centered around Edward Bloom. On Edward’s deathbed, his son, William, tries to reconcile his father’s wild tales of his past with reality. It’s a story about storytelling, in many ways.

Wallace’s distinctly Southern narrative draws on American myths and classics like Homer’s The Odyssey  and Joyce’s Ulysses.

Daniel Wallace now directs  the undergraduate creative writing program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He appears in Big Fish, the movie, as a professor. Besides Big Fish, Wallace is the author of a children’s book and three other novels, most recently Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician.

He will kick off this year’s Forsyth County Public Library’s On the Same Page community book reading program with his appearance at BOOKMARKS on Sept. 8. He will present on Big Fish and the subject of myth and OTSP’s theme “it’s all about the journey” 3:30-4:15pm inside Artworks Gallery.

Daniel will also appear on a panel discussion, “The Blessing and the Burden of Place” with Tayari Jones and Michael Malone. These three southern novelists will talk about the role the South has played in the creation of their fiction. This panel discussion will take place at 10:45am on the Downtown Stage.