Welcome to the early July edition of the Country Bookshelf newsletter. We’ve got some great new books and events to share.

BOOKS

Bestsellers

Need ideas for the next book everyone’s talking about? View the Country Bookshelf bestseller list for June and see what the locals are reading.

Hemingway

We’re excited about Moveable Feast: The Restored Edition by Ernest Hemingway, edited by Sean Hemingway which should be in the store this Tuesday, July 14th.

Read the New York Times article about it, including an interview with local resident Patrick Hemingway, here. You can also read an excerpt from it here.
Upcoming Titles

Our website now features a book calendar with just a sampling of the great new books coming out this fall with expected release dates. We’re happy to pre-order any of these for you at any time. Just call, email or stop in. We’ll even take a nice, old-fashioned letter in the mail.

EVENTS

Art Walk

We’ll be open until 8pm for this Friday’s Art Walk (July 10), and we’ll again host the Intermountain Opera Association.  Also, come see some work by Native American painter Robin Rexroat, featured here for the Art Walk.

Crazy Days

Come downtown for the bargains during the annual Crazy Days Friday and Saturday, July 17-18. We’ll be open from 9am-6pm each day and will have books and cards at our sidewalk sale.

Readings & Other Events Begin Again in the Fall!

More to come. Check our website’s event calendar & stay tuned to the newsletters for the latest information.

Tuesday, September 15th 7pm

Jamie Ford will read from and sign his debut novel, Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.

Book Clubs Get-together

Look for more information about a meeting for local book clubs this September where we’ll host an open forum for discussion and information. If you are a member of a local book club, please let us know how the Country Bookshelf can best serve your needs. We gladly order books in small quantities for many clubs. See our recent post about this, including a list of recent local book club choices.

One Book One Bozeman

Events for the community reading program, One Book One Bozeman, happen this September. The Soloist by Steve Lopez is this year’s selection, and it is also the MSU freshmen read.

Thanks for reading and we look forward to seeing you soon!

Please email us suggestions for how the Country Bookshelf can be of further service to your club or what kind of information you’d be interested in about other clubs, including:

• how they manage/operate the club;
• who directs meetings (if at all) and how;
• how, when and what kinds of books are chosen;
• what books they liked, didn’t like, sparked great conversation;
• how the club began, how it has changed over time, and whether new members are welcome;
• whether the club has particular goals or themes. 

We are also planning an open forum meeting for book club members and other readers sometime this September. Look for more details in the future and be sure to let us know what would be most helpful or interesting to you.

If your book club is not in our register, please contact us to add it and begin ordering books for your group. If your club has ordered books through us before, we’d love to get the most current contact information.

We already stock many book club selections, and I’ve seen many customers mine the book club shelf for reading ideas (you folks have fabulous taste!), but for those who can’t visit us in person as often, I’d like to begin this conversation with a list of recent book club choices.

If your book club has read one of these, please share with us how people liked it and how the conversation went. With your permission, we’d love to share these thoughts in future posts and perhaps even in a special book club newsletter.

 A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell

The Best American Short Stories 2008 edited by Salman Rushdie

Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl

Buster Midnight’s Cafe by Sandra Dallas

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The Ambassadors by Henry James

Birds of America by Lorrie Moore

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

The Last Crossing by Guy Vanderhaeghe

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

Lipstick Jihad by Azadeh Moaveni

The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen

New Non-Fiction (hardcover)

1. Born to Run by Christopher McDougall

2. Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew Crawford

3. Tears in the Darkness by Michael & Elizabeth M. Norman

4. Rapt by Winifred Gallagher

Non-Fiction (paperback)

1. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson

2. The Soloist by Steve Lopez

3. Legend of Colton H. Bryant by Alexandra Fuller

4. Wesley the Owl by Stacey O’Brien

5. When You are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris

Regional

1. Stick Horses & Other Stories of Ranch Life by Wally McRae

2. The Surrounded by D’Arcy McNickle

3. The Pass by Thomas Savage

4. Day Hikes around Bozeman by Robert Stone

5. Wolf Tracks on the Welcome Mat by Paul Zarzyski

6. Trash Fish by Greg Keeler

7. This Common Secret by Susan Wicklund & Alan Kesselheim

Mystery

1. Swan Peak by James Lee Burke

2. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

3. Triple Cross by Mark T. Sullivan

4. The Foreigner by Francie Lin

New Fiction (hardcover)

1. Selected Works of T. S. Spivet by Reif Larsen

2. Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

3. Brooklyn by Colm Toibin

4. The Eleventh Man by Ivan Doig

5. Short History of Women by Kate Walbert

6. Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

7. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter & Sweet by Jamie Ford

Fiction (paperback)

1. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

2. Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows

3. Mudbound by Hillary Jordan

4. Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

5. Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

Young Adult

1. Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

2. Twilight (series) by Stephenie Meyer

3. Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel by Michael Scott

Juvenile

1. Listen to the Wind by Greg Mortenson

2. Rainbow Magic Fairies (series) by Daisy Meadows

3. Percy Jackson & the Olympians (series) by Rick Riordan

4. Dinosaur Cove (series) by Rex Stone

5. Three Cups of Tea (young reader edition) by Greg Mortenson

In case you missed it, you can hear local poet Christy Stillwell’s Yellowstone Public Radio interview with George Cole here.  It’s well worth it!  Signed copies of her poetry chapbook, Amnesia, are available here for $14.

While there, you can also listen to interviews with other local and national authors and personalities, including Phyllis Smith, Patrick and Carol Hemingway, David Quammen, Dr. Susan Wicklund and Alan Kesselheim, and Amy Goodman.

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Gordon Sullivan, author of Saving Homewaters: The Story of Montana’s Streams and Rivers, stopped in this morning and signed fresh copies of his book. 

According to the publisher, it is:

A remarkable account of Montana’s efforts to save its trout streams and rivers from pollution and neglect.The fabled nature of Montana’s streams cannot be taken for granted. In the late 1800s many of Montana’s rivers were filled with pollution and dying fish. Certain key conservation and restoration policies between 1900 and 1940 set the stage for the waters that now draw visitors and anglers from around the world. Yet, many of those same rivers and streams are once again facing devastating environmental threats.

Montana is a paradigm for conservation issues that are faced around the nation and around the world. Yet, no one has ever managed to tell the story of the policies and unique policy makers who made this all possible. And, no one has therefore been able to turn back to that history as a source of direction for dealing with the ongoing environmental challenges facing streams everywhere. 10 black & white photographs, 1 map.

 

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Don’t forget the fantastic event this Thursday at 7pm: Wally McRae and Paul Zarzyski will delight and entertain in “An Evening of Poetry and Prose,” co-sponsored by the Western Folklife Center.

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Finally, we now have copies of both the June 14th and June 21st editions of the New York Times Book Review available free to Country Bookshelf customers while they last. 

The cover review of the June 14th issue is for Kate Walbert’s novel A Short History of Women. Anna is currently reading this book and finds that its praise is well-deserved.

The June 21st edition includes a review for a novel with Montana ties, The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet by Reif Larsen. For more information, see the article from the MSU News Service.

We currently have both of these titles, as well as many others reviewed in the NYTBR, in stock. Please call or email if you’d like us to hold or special order any book.

Cowboy Poetry & Prose

We’re excited to announce “An Evening of Poetry and Prose” with Wally McRae and Paul Zarzyski, co-sponsored by the Western Folklife Center, here next Thursday, June 25th at 7pm. This event is free and open to the public.

Wally McRae’s new book of essays, Stick Horses and Other Stories of Ranch Life, and Paul Zarzyski’s poetry collection, Wolf Tracks on the Welcome Mat, will be available the day of the event. Call or email to reserve your copies today!

Art Walks

The Country Bookshelf will be open until 8pm for each of this season’s Downtown Art Walks. We will be hosting representatives from the Intermountain Opera Association. Downtown Art Walks will be held July 10th, August 14th & September 11th.

Shakespeare in the Parks starts this week.

Want to brush up on the bard? We have copies of both plays being presented by Montana Shakespeare in the Parks (The Tempest and Two Gentlemen of Verona) as well as complete editions and single play versions of many of Shakespeare’s works.

Father’s Day Gift Ideas

Here are some books chosen by our staff as intriguing selections for Father’s Day:

The Strain by Guillermo del Toro (well-known as the creator of the Oscar-winning film Pan’s Labyrinth) and Chuck Hogan. This fun vampire thriller is the anti-Twilight. As a recent IndieBound pick, another bookseller wrote, “The Strain begins with a newly landed plane stopping dead on the runway. When the rescue crews arrive, they discover that all the passengers and crew are dead in their seats, with their necks cut and their bodies devoid of blood. This utterly original novel is absolutely fantastic and like no vampire novel I’ve read. You will love it!”
—Jon Tobin, Saturn Booksellers, Gaylord, MI

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall. Mary Jane loved listening to the audio version of this book.

The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. This sequel to The Shadow of the Wind is a must-read for those who loved the first. Nancy says it’s darker, more violent, and thoroughly enjoyable.

How to Build a Dinosaur: Extinction Doesn’t Have to Be Forever by Jack Horner.

Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann

Not So Big Remodeling: Tailoring Your Home for the Way You Really Live by Sarah Susanka and Marc Vassallo

Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work by Matthew B. Crawford

Rewilding the West: Restoration in a Prairie Landscape by Richard Manning

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese. This beautifully-written and absorbing first novel is one you can expect to sink into.

Summer Reading Recommendations

Fiction (hardcover)

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin.

This sad, beautiful novel felt like it could have been the story of one of my grandmothers. It is both a character study of a young Irish woman who is sent to America in the 1950s, a woman who always lets others make decisions for her, and an exploration of the meaning and search for home. Well- but never over-written, this is a quiet, absorbing, thoughtful masterpiece.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford.

If you’ve already heard of this novel, it’s for good reason. Ford (who lives in Great Falls, Montana) seems able to effortlessly recreate the past worlds in this haunting tale of Henry Lee, a Chinese-American man who grew up in Seattle’s ethnic neighborhoods during World War II and befriended a Keiko, Japanese-American girl. Lee loses Keiko when she is sent to the internment camps, and forty years later, when Lee is widowed, he tries to cope with his loss by looking back to the love he lost so long ago while trying to repair relations with his grown son.
 

Fiction (paperback)

I’ve decided that the best way to keep cool on hot summer days is to pick up one of the many fabulous Scandinavian mysteries now available in translation. My current favorites are the suspense-filled Detective Kurt Wallander books by Henning Mankell. Wallander is a philosophically-inclined opera lover trying to understand the cultural and social changes of late 20th century Sweden while racing to solve what at first appear to be inexplicable murders.

Social critiques and social justice are also important themes running through the works of fellow Swedish authors Stieg Larsson (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and the upcoming The Girl Who Played with Fire) and Kjell Eriksson (The Princess of Burundi, The Cruel Stars of the Night, and The Demon of Dakar) and the Icelandic wonder Arnaldur Indridason whose Silence of the Grave kept me from completing all other tasks until the final page.

How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely.

Although this hilarious novel does not debut until July, it’s well worth waiting for. Pete Tarslaw is a well-educated young man with a talent for words, so why is he slaving away writing the college entrance essays of those less literate for peanuts? He’s not, at least not for long. After being fired from this dubious job, Tarslaw decides that it can’t be that hard to write a sappy literary bestseller along the lines of The Bridges of Madison County to make money, earn fame, and shame his ex-girlfriend at her upcoming nuptials. So he starts collecting the cliches and pounding out mellifluous phrases. Though critiquing the literary world is easy, you’ll find yourself laughing the whole way through the bookworld rollercoaster Hely lays out for his protagonist.

Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen.

Galchen’s highly intelligent first novel captivated me from the very beginning: “Last December a woman entered my apartment who looked exactly like my wife.” From there we get the story of Dr. Leo Liebenstein, a psychiatrist who believes that his wife, Rema, has disappeared and an almost perfect duplicate has taken her place. As he searches for the real Rema, he becomes convinced that her disappearance is somehow linked to the disappearance two days prior of his patient, Harvey, who believes he is a secret agent for the Royal Academy of Meterology with the power and duty to control small-scale weather patterns. Galchen’s work has garnered comparisons to Murakami and Borges. In this meditation on love, the heart, the humor, and the carefully observed detail have not gone missing.

Nonfiction/Memoir (hardcover)

Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities & Occasional Moments of Grace by Ayelet Waldman.

This delightful essay collection moves swiftly from humorous and breezy to somber, heart-rending, defiant and controversial, as it reflects upon, critiques, and sometimes simply records a myriad of motherhood moments. I greatly appreciated this book because I think all mothers, at some point, feel that we’re not up to the task, that we don’t know what we’re doing, we don’t measure up, and that our poor children will be ruined by something we’ve said or done or not said or not done. Waldman puts these anxieties into perspective, which comforted, challenged, and entertained me.
 

Nonfiction/Memoir (paperback)

The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry by Kathleen Flinn.

Following in the steps of other cozy culinary memoirs (think Julie and Julia which has been turned into a feature film), Flinn’s account of her time at Le Cordon Bleu focuses on food and the culinary arts but also weaves in her story of recreating her life after an unexpected job loss and finding love (and a rather storybook life in Paris). Recipes are included. Light, fun to read, and atmospheric. This made me want to reread Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast which is being reissued this summer in a restored edition.

Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh.

I didn’t know what to expect from this book, but I loved what I got. Venkatesh (now a sociology professor at Columbia) starts his tale as a naïve graduate student from the middle-class suburbs of California who becomes immersed in the life of Chicago’s housing projects. As he tries to understand gangs, poverty, race relations and the underground economy, Venkatesh provides the reader with a rare and intimate account that never glosses over the complexity of these issues. And yes, he does get the opportunity to be a gang leader for a day, but in case you were worried, he sets clear limits of what he is and is not willing to do in the course of this day. This highly readable (and often suspense-filled) book is likely to spark some fascinating conversations.
Best,
The Country Bookshelf staff

New Non-Fiction (hardcover)

1. How to Build a Dinosaur by Jack Horner

2. Losing Mum and Pup by Christopher Buckley

3. Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination & Invigorates the Soul by Stuart Brown

4. Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell

5. Not Becoming My Mother by Ruth Reichl

Non-Fiction (paperback)

1. The Soloist by Steve Lopez

2. The Legend of Colton H. Bryant by Alexandra Fuller

3. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson

4. American Lion by Jon Meacham

5. In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan & Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow by Elizabeth Lesser (tie)

Regional

1. Forget Me Not by Jennifer Lowe-Anker

2. The Pass by Thomas Savage

3. Blind Your Ponies by Stanley Gordon West

4. Montana Gardener’s Companion by Bob & Cheryl Gough

5. This Common Secret by Susan Wicklund

Mystery

1. Triple Cross by Mark T. Sullivan

2. Girl of His Dreams by Donna Leon

3. Blue Heaven by C. J. Box

4. In the Woods by Tana French

5. About Face by Donna Leon

New Fiction (hardcover)

1. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

2. Eleventh Man by Ivan Doig

3. Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

4. Italian Shoes by Henning Mankell

5. Selected Works of T. S. Spivet by Reif Larsen

Fiction (paperback)

1. Still Alice by Lisa Genova

2. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

3. Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong

4. Mudbound by Hillary Jordan

5. People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

Juvenile

1. Percy Jackson and the Olympians (series) by Rick Riordan

2. Rainbow Magic Fairies (series) by Daisy Meadows

3. Warriors (series) by Erin Hunter

4. True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex

5. Soldiers of Halla by D. J. MacHale

Young Adult

1. Twilight (series) by Stephenie Meyer

2. Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

3. Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson

4. Luxe by Anna Godbersen

This Monday, June 8th at 6:30 pm, tune in to Yellowstone Public Radio to hear an interview with Bozeman poet, Christy Stillwell.

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Then, on Thursday, June 25 at 7pm, make your way to the Country Bookshelf where we’ll host two cowboy poets, Wally McRae and Paul Zarzyski. This reading is FREE and open to the public.  Books should be available to purchase & have signed that night.

(To support the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering and the Pioneer Museum here in Bozeman, you can also plan to attend the “Evening of Poetry and Song” the next night, Friday, June 26th at 7:30 where McRae and Zarzyski will be joined by other poets and musicians at the Emerson Cultural Center. Tickets for this event are $25. For more information visit www.westernfolklife.org.)

 ALICE MUNRO WINS 2009 MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE

http://www.themanbookerprize.com/

Alice Munro is today, 27 May, announced as the winner of the third Man Booker International Prize.

The Man Booker International Prize is worth £60,000 to the winner and is awarded once every two years to a living author for a body of work that has contributed to an achievement in fiction on the world stage. It was first awarded to Ismail Kadaré in 2005 and then to Chinua Achebe in 2007.

Munro is best known for her short stories and is one of Canada’s most celebrated writers.   

Alice Munro comments: “I am totally amazed and delighted.”

Alice Munro was born in Wingham, Ontario on 10 July 1931. In 1963 she moved to Victoria and established Munro Books with her husband. Her stories frequently appear in publications such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Grand Street, Mademoiselle, and The Paris Review.

Her first collection of stories, Dance of the Happy Shades (1968) was highly acclaimed and won the Governor General’s Literary Award, Canada’s most prestigious literary prize. This success was followed by Lives of Girls and Women (1971), which won the Canadian Booksellers Association International Book Year Award.  In 1980 The Beggar Maid was shortlisted for the annual Booker Prize for Fiction.

Other awards Munro has won include the Marian Engel Prize, the Canada-Australia Literary Prize, the Giller Prize, the Trillium Book Award and the 1978 and 1986 Governor General’s Literary Awards.

Her latest collection of short stories, Too Much Happiness, will be published in October 2009. She lives in Canada.

The judging panel for the Man Booker International Prize 2009 is: Jane Smiley, writer; Amit Chaudhuri, writer, academic and musician; and writer, film script writer and essayist, Andrey Kurkov. The panel made the following comment on the winner:

“Alice Munro is mostly known as a short story writer and yet she brings as much depth, wisdom and precision to every story as most novelists bring to a lifetime of novels.  To read Alice Munro is to learn something every time that you never thought of before.”

The Man Booker International Prize seeks to recognise a living author who has contributed significantly to world literature and to highlight the author’s continuing creativity and development on a global scale. 

Peter Clarke, Chief Executive, Man Group plc comments: “Since her first collection of stories was published in 1968, Alice Munro has been highly acclaimed as the contemporary master of the short fiction genre.  We are delighted to honour her as the recipient of the third Man Booker International Prize.”

Alice Munro will receive the prize of £60,000 and a trophy at the Award Ceremony on Thursday 25 June at Trinity College, Dublin.

The above text is from the official press release.  Alice Munro’s work is much loved by many regular customers of the Country Bookshelf. If you are unfamiliar with her work, please come in and browse our selection.

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View the Country Bookshelf bestseller list for this year so far on our website.
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View the IndieBound Independent Bookseller’s Bestseller list here.
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June 10-14: Volunteers are needed to help build Bozeman’s Dinosaur Playground. For more information, go to www.dinosaurplayground.org or call 406-551-4972. Also, see the gingerbread model of the playground in our window featuring great books on the value of play for both children and adults and pick up a brochure on how you can help make Bozeman’s Dinosaur Playground a reality.  Prominently featured is Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul by Stuart Brown, M.D., a book that is heartily recommended by local reader, Mary Vant Hull.

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Recent books in paperback that you might have been waiting for include:

• The Likeness by Tana French (a sort-of sequel to last year’s fabulous In the Woods)
• My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D.
• The End of Food by Paul Roberts
• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
• What Happened by Scott McClellan
• The House on Fortune Street by Margot Livesey
• The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon
• The Little Book by Selden Edwards
• Forget Me Not by Jennifer Lowe-Anker (and the paperbacks are even signed by the author!)

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And, one final note for those of you who’ve enjoyed The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery (or have heard of it and been intrigued by this indie-bestseller phenomenon): the author has a new book, Gourmet Rhapsody, scheduled to be released on August 25th. You can call or email us to pre-order.
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Thanks for reading! And don’t hesitate to let us know what you’d like to see in these messages, on our website, on Facebook, or on Twitter. We love hearing from you.
Best,
The Country Bookshelf Staff

The Country Bookshelf is thrilled to be supporting young local writers with a group reading next week.

Join us Wednesday, May 20th at 7pm to hear middle school students from Headwaters Academy read selections from Eureka!, their new arts and letters journal.

This exciting new venture started this past fall and has resulted in a spiral-bound publication (thanks Insty Prints!) featuring work by each student at Headwaters, from full-color art to poems and prose. The first edition of what we hope will be an ongoing project will be available for purchase at the signing (costs TBA).  If you’d like to reserve a copy, please let us know.

We hope that you’ll be able to join us in celebrating Bozeman’s young authors and artists.

Headwaters Academy builds confident, capable, adaptable learners and leaders for the changing world.

Headwaters Academy is Gallatin Valley’s only private, independent middle school offering a college-prep curriculum to academically-motivated students in grades 6-8. Visit Headwaters on the web at www.headwatersacademy.org