The seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Reid

 

This was my book club’s latest selection. I'd been interested in it given that it's been on the NYT best seller list for months. I really enjoyed this story of a aging actress who decides to tell her life story to a novice magazine writer, revealing for the first time who the love of her life was.

Remainders of the day: A bookshop diary, by Shaun Bythell

 

Bythell (Confessions of a Bookseller) is the owner of Scotland's largest used bookstore, which has more than 100,000 books in stock. The Bookshop is located in Wigtown, a small town in southwest Scotland that has transformed itself from a declining industrial center to a haven for booklovers.

With Bythell's fourth book (after Seven Kinds of People You Meet in Bookshops) about his experiences as a bookstore owner, he shares amusing and wry anecdotes about the ins and outs of running a secondhand bookstore. Written in diary form, this book covers a year, beginning in February 2016.

The author takes readers along with him to appraise and buy collections, and he describes his everyday encounters with local characters, eccentric employees, and customers who both buy and sell books. As one of the organizers of the annual Wigtown Book Festival, Bythell reveals the planning that goes into making such an event successful.

His dry humor and skeptical view of humanity make for a very funny take on his business. This is a charming look at a small-town bookstore, its owner, and the people he meets.

Originally published in Library Journal 147:11 (2022): 115.

Election, by Tom Perrotta

 

This was my book club's August pick; one of our members wanted to read it in anticipation of the sequel. It was a quick and very amusing take on a high school election, made into a movie decades ago with Reese Whitherspoon in the lead role. Based on my memory of the film, it followed the book very closely.

Making the list: a cultural history of the American bestseller, 1900-1999, by Michael Korda

 

I picked up this book in the Books about Books section of the Dog Ears Used Bookstore in Hoosick, NY a couple of weeks ago. It gives the history of the bestseller lists and includes the lists for every year of the 20th century. Based mostly on the Publishers Weekly lists, it reveals trends in American interests, showing that they haven't changed all that much in the last hundred years. Nonfiction lists reflect the times (war, political scandals, celebrity biographies), but also include diet, health, and cooking. Fiction lists went from novels geared primarily toward women in the early part of the century to bigger books that were marketed at both men and women. Author Michael Korda demonstrates that the fiction list has become much more difficult to break into as popular authors developed a rhythm of publishing a book a year and came to dominate the bestseller lists year after year. The book also touches upon changes in both publishing and bookselling, but ends without touching upon Amazon or other online retailers, and just briefly mentions e-books and how they might change the landscape. Korda devotes a chapter to each decade, introducing it with an essay that points out the highlights, then providing the lists by year. In the early years there was only a fiction list, but nonfiction was added in 1912. Both the fiction and nonfiction lists were expanded from 10 titles to 15 in 1978.

Aethelflaed: the Lady of the Mercians, by Tim Clarkson

 

Aethelflaed is the oldest daughter of Alfred the Great, but the most important near-contemporary history of that time, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, doesn't devote much attention to her. Tim Clarkson, an independent scholar of the Anglo-Saxon period, uses other sources to flesh out Aethelflaed's life, including many Anglo-Saxon charters, the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland, and the Mercian Register. Even with these (and other) additional sources, there is a lot of speculation about Aethelflaed's life; however, this book provides a rich and well-written history of the early 10th century period in what eventually becomes England. In addition to eight pages of photographs, I really appreciated the many maps throughout the book along with the many drawings of the layouts of various towns and burhs that Aethelflaed founded or built up; many of them show the original Roman walls and streets as well as the newer Anglo-Saxon defenses added in the 10th century. The overarching theme is of Aethelflaed and Edward the Elder building burhs and other defenses against both the Danes in the north and east and the Welsh in the west, and ultimately expanding the borders of the Mercian and Wessex territories into East Anglia and Northumbria, slowly growing their lands to become the England that we're familiar with today, although that doesn't happen until later.

The burnout challenge: managing people's relationships with their jobs, by Christina Maslach and Michael P. Leiter

 

Psychologists Maslach and Leiter follow up their book The Truth About Burnout with this guide to the causes of burnout and how organizations and employees can make changes to prevent it. The reality is that only a mere 20 percent of workers are fully engaged with their jobs, and the COVID pandemic has only exacerbated this problem. Organizational pressures such as cutting costs, downsizing, and overwork lead to burnout, defined as a combination of exhaustion, cynicism, and a feeling of ineffectiveness. Many view burnout as a problem with the individual, or even a mental health issue; the authors point out, however, that in 2019, the World Health Organization defined burnout as an occupational phenomenon, not a medical one. The authors propose that the way to prevent or ameliorate burnout is by addressing the mismatches between the workplace and the worker, which can fall into six areas: work overload, lack of control, insufficient rewards, breakdown of community, absence of fairness, and value conflicts. They apply their research alongside real-life examples to provide insightful strategies for both individuals and organizations to avoid burnout. VERDICT This book proposes a thoughtful approach to tackling a common and serious workplace problem.

This review was previously published in Library Journal 147:10 (2022): 148-149.

The hidden public: the story of the Book-of-the-Month Club, by Charles Lee

On a recent trip to Bennington, VT, we stopped off at the Dog Ears Book Store, where my favorite section is the books about books category, and where I found this interesting history of the Book-of-the-Month Club (BOMC) from its founding in 1926 through 1958, when it was published. The BOMC filled a significant niche in the literary marketplace because much of the US population did not live within a reasonable drive to a bookstore. Mail order book businesses allowed them to learn about new authors and buy contemporary fiction and non-fiction. Dozens of similar book clubs popped up, many of which were unsuccessful, but others of which continued for many years. Booksellers were outraged by the book club model, protesting the prices, premiums, and dividends offered to members, but industry analyses showed that the book clubs did not take away from book store purchases, and in fact, books and authors selected for the book club had skyrocketing sales in book stores as well due to the publicity offered by the book clubs.

I have my own history with book clubs, having been a member of one or more for decades starting in high school. I began subscribing to Organic Gardening in high school since I'd been gardening for years. Back then I really liked getting mail, and I would sign up for every catalog I could by filling out the postcards inside the magazine, as long as it had the stamp "no postage necessary." This way I got on tons of mailing lists, and I enjoyed reviewing all the catalogs that came my way, including the ones for the Troy-Bilt Roto-tiller, which my Dad continued receiving for decades, long after I moved out. Anyway, one of the mailings that I received was invitation to join a book club that focused on gardening and related pursuits. I decided to join, and my first three books covered many of my interests: a book about gardening, a book about how to become a vegetarian, and a book about raising small livestock. But the books kept coming, and I didn't have any way to pay for them, and I just hid them in my dresser drawer, until my Dad finally noticed all the mail and asked me if I'd joined a book club. I had to come clean. He paid the bills, and I let him read the books, too. My next book club was the Quality Paperback Book Club (QPBC), which I joined in the mid 1980s. I managed that book club better, and by that time I had my own checking account, so I could pay the bills. I belonged to the QPBC for decades, and have it to thank for opening my eyes to a lot of great literature. Some of the books that I remember getting from them in the early days included Alice Walker's The Color Purple, Toni Morrison's first five books, Paul Scott's The Raj Quartet, John Edgar Wideman's The Homewood Trilogy, and Richard Wright's Native Son and Black Boy (in one volume). I got a lot of nonfiction from QPBC as well, such as a biography of Mahatma Ghandi and collected articles by Ernie Pyle. It really expanded my horizons. Over the years I joined other book clubs: The Literary Guild, BOMC, History Book Club, and the Cooking and Crafts Book Club, but the QPBC will always be my favorite (with the History Book Club a close second).
 

The Bezos blueprint: communication secrets of the world's greatest salesman, by Carmine Gallo

 

Communications coach Gallo (Talk Like TED) teaches successful speaking and writing by breaking down the communication style of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Intended for professionals in a business setting, the book draws lessons from real excerpts of speeches and shareholder memos that Bezos has delivered over the past 20- plus years. Gallo also mines the records of other successful entrepreneurs for examples of effective writing. Among the book's basic communication strategies are to write at an eighth-grade level (using words with only one or two syllables, in sentences of varying lengths) and to deploy metaphors and analogies to add interest. Some of the techniques come from screenwriting, such as formulating a logline and developing "three-act" presentations. Key Bezos tactics include replacing PowerPoint presentations with narrative memos in management meetings, working backwards to get ahead (i.e., writing a product's press release at the beginning of the design stage), and treating every day as "day one." Additional examples reveal insights on communication at companies such as Apple, Canva, and Airbnb. VERDICT An insightful guide to improving communication skills.

Review published originally in Library Journal 147:9 (2022): 148.

A man of the world: My life at National Geographic, by Gilbert M. Grosvenor

 

I picked up this book at the ALA conference in Washington, D.C. in June. It tells the story of author Gilbert M. Governor's life growing up within the National Geographic Society. Following his family's generations-long involvement with founding, working for, and leading the Society, Grosvenor was immersed in geography, adventure, travel, photography, and writing from a young age. After college he went to work for the magazine as a photographer, and spent the next 40+ years working for them in a series of roles of increasing responsibility. He served as editor for a decade in his forties, following that with service as chairman for many years after. Even after he stepped down as chairman, he continued to serve on the board, contributing in many ways to National Geographic Society projects. His most ambitious project was to incorporate geography education into K-12 schools across the U.S. This is a captivating inside look into one of the most ubiquitous institutions in the country. While I'm thrilled to have picked this up at ALA, it's an advance reader's edition and lacks the photographs. When it comes out in September, I'm going to have to get my hands on a copy to check out the images.

Lady in the lake, by Laura Lippman

 

I really enjoyed this mystery set in the 1960s. Maddie Schwartz has left her husband and is trying to make it on her own. She begins an affair with an younger, Black police officer, and befriends a young woman who is using her to get out from under her parents' overprotective sight. When they find a missing young girl's body, Maddie uses that to break into the news business, first writing a short piece, and then working as an office assistant. She decides to investigate another missing woman, and her research leads to another body. Maddie won't drop the story, though, and her investigations upend a lot of lives in the process. Each chapter is told from a rotating set of viewpoints, with Maddie's being the most prominent. I liked this way of framing the story; it kept it moving, but also allowed each character's story to be told.

I want to die but I want to eat tteokbokki, by Baek Sehee

 

Author Baek Sehee is a successful professional in the publishing industry who grew up with an abusive father and a hypercritical mother. Internalizing the criticism, as a young woman she questioned and criticized herself to the point of depression and severe anxiety. The depression is disruptive, but not so debilitating that she does not still want her favorite foods, such as tteokbokki. After initiating therapy with a psychiatrist, Baek began to record her sessions, and the bulk of this book consists of transcriptions of discussions in which they talk about her depression and pervasive self-criticism. Baek is cringingly honest and authentic throughout. While many of Baek’s anxieties may seem trite or petty (e.g., “Is she prettier than I am?”), they interfere with her ability to live a full life. She begins each chapter with a brief essay that introduces a topic she wants to discuss with the psychiatrist and concludes each one with an essay reflecting on what she learned from the session. Chapters address topics such as honesty, self-surveillance, self-esteem, medication, physical attractiveness, and more. VERDICT This is a sincere attempt at self-discovery that will resonate with young people who suffer from similar forms of depression and anxiety. 

This review was previously published in Library Journal 147:8 (2022):106.

The magicians: Alice's story, by Lev Grossman, Lilah Sturges, Pius Bak

 

This graphic novel tells the story of Alice, one of the main characters in The Magicians, a fantasy novel about a group of students who learn that their favorite fantasy series as children turns out to be true (think something along the lines of Narnia). The artwork is very good, with engaging color, and expressive characters. The only thing that I don't like about this book and the original novel is that the main characters are always bickering and angry, which I found a little tiresome.

Dreams of departure, by Naguib Mahfouz

 

It's been 26 years since I read Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy, which I enjoyed as much for the writing as for learning about modern Egyptian culture. Not long after writing those books, Mahfouz was attacked, stabbed by someone inspired by a fatwa placed on him because of another of his books, Children of the Alley. Mahfouz, born in 1911, didn't write very much after that attack, which damaged his nerves and affected his ability to write. However, he did manage to write several collections of dreams. Dreams of Departure is the second of these volumes collecting short narratives that were inspired by actual dreams, on which he expanded with additional fictional details. They are very short; in many cases, they're only a few sentences. Many of them evoke sexual encounters with beautiful women. Others clearly refer to political violence, arrests, detentions, and revolutions. Read as a stand-alone volume, these are slight and generally unsatisfying. However, according to the translator, Raymond Stock, who is a scholar of Mahfouz and is currently writing a biography of him, details in these short dreams provide many clues and references to things that took place in Mahfouz's real life as well as in his fiction, so this book might be more interesting to someone who is more steeped in his other writing.
 

A waiter in Paris: adventures in the dark heart of the city, by Edward Chisholm

 

Unable to find work after graduating from a London university, Chisholm followed his girlfriend to Paris looking for any type of work that he could find. After months with no success, and his relationship with his girlfriend souring, he found himself alone in Paris with an apartment that he could not afford. A frantic search for work followed, with Chisholm determined to find a job as a waiter. Successfully landing a job at a respectable restaurant, he is hazed by the other waiters until he finally catches on to the cutthroat culture that exists among them. His descriptions of the behind-the-scenes antics at the restaurant are highly entertaining. He brings the restaurant world

to life as he relates the stress, pressure, and anxiety felt by all the workers. The long hours, the competition among the waiters, the petty grudges, and the poor treatment by supervisors are all exposed. Most poignant are his coworkers’ stories: they share their hopes and dreams with him. With this book, Chisholm has achieved his own dream to become a writer. VERDICT An absorbing and moving inside look at a Parisian restaurant.

Review published originally in Library Journal 147:7 (2022): 71-72.