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Skylight Books Newsletter

June 2009                            www.skylightbooks.com
In This Issue
Dennis Cooper
Sesshu Foster
The Promising Series
King Middle School Writers Club
Mary Yukari Waters
Francesca Lia Block
Joe Meno with Jim Ruland and Margaret Wappler
Attica Locke
Rick Reid and Karen Harryman
Josh Weil
Stacie Cassarino
Ron Carlson
S. L. Stebel
Scott Lasser
Adrian Tomine and Seth
Charlie Haas
Benjamin Nugent
Dean Wareham
Jason Torchinsky
Wayne White
Martin Cox and Gordon Ghareeb
Skylight's Blog: Invaded by Aliens!
Book Groups and First Novels!
Services
 
We Accept AmEx, MasterCard, Visa and Discover
 
Special Orders Welcome!
 
10% off all book purchases on your birthday
 
Senior Discount Tues before 4pm 
 
Frequent Buyer Program--ask us for details
 
Free Gift Wrapping
 
National Gift Cards ____________________

Skylight Books Will Be Selling Books at These Events--Come Join Us!
RHAPSODOMANCY
Sunday, June 7 at 7:00 p.m.
@ The Good Luck Bar

FOUND MAGAZINE
With The Watson Twins, Brett Loudermilk, and DJ Andrew Cohn
Wednesday, June 24 at 8:30 p.m.
@Largo at the Coronet Theater

DWELL ON DESIGN CONVENTION
Friday, June 26-Sunday, June 28
@Los Angeles Convention Center
Skylight Books May 2009 Bestsellers
Bestsellers as of May 29. Our updated list is on our website, here.

1. The American Painter Emma Dial by Samantha Peale
2. Lucky Breaks by Susan Patron
3. Best of Contemporary Mexican Fiction, ed. Alvaro Uribe
4. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
5. Sunnyside by Glen David Gold
6. Ask Me About My Divorce, ed. Candace Walsh

7. No One Belongs Here More than You by Miranda July
8. Los Angeles Noir, ed. Denise Hamilton
9. Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman
10. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
Join Our List
Join Our Mailing List
Kerry's View from the Skylight
 
Dear Friends of Skylight Books,
 
Brooklyn BridgeIt's past midnight and I'm propped up in bed pecking this out on my Blackberry in a Brooklyn hotel room. Several of us Skylighters are attending the annual big book convention in New York,  which is an amazing 'confab' of booksellers, editors, publishers, journalists, marketing people, agents and authors--and the big question that's on everyone's mind is... What is it that YOU most want to read and in what form do you want to get it?  The times they are changing in so many ways in the book biz as in every other field... Costs, technology, multiplicity of purchasing options and formats mean that nothing is business as usual and we all have to be fast on our feet and make thoughtful and creative choices. Publishers as well as booksellers are feeling the financial crunch.  But fortunately, it's a business that's still made up of passionate eccentrics and stubborn visionaries, and it is my belief that the reader--namely, YOU--can only profit from all this re-thinking of the process.  No one's taking you for granted and everyone wants you to get a high quality product.

And in spite of all this change, I'm also happy that much remains the same:  this month we're hosting our 13th year of readings by King Middle School's grand Writer's Club.  And a reading by the brilliant and provocative writer Dennis Cooper, who has been so supportive over the years.  A return visit by the remarkable graphic novel author/artists Adrian Tomine and Seth.  And many more exciting new and returning writers.

I attended a seminar today about "viral marketing" and what some of us realized is that  no one really knows how to guarantee that one's marketing message will go "viral," but we CAN work at offering the best quality content possible --and then just put the word out there.  You know  it when you see it.

 
Kerry Slattery, General Manager
June Events at Skylight Books  

DENNIS COOPER

Monday, June 1 at 7:30 p.m.
 
Ugly Man: Stories (Harper Perennial)   

Dennis CooperThe launch of the internationally acclaimed author's newest book. Dennis Cooper continues to study the material he's always explored honestly, but does so now--in stories--with a sense of awareness and a satirical touch that exploits and winks at his mastery of this world. As it has done for decades, Cooper's taut, controlled prose lays bare the compulsions and troubling emptiness of the human soul.

More info...
SESSHU FOSTER
Thursday, June 4 at 7:30 p.m.

World Ball Notebook (City Lights Books)


Sesshu Foster Foster's City Terrace Field Manual, published in 1996, caused a sensation, heralding the debut of a formidable voice experimenting with the "prose poem" genre. The critical success of Foster's next book, the novel Atomic Aztex, increased awareness of his work. Atomic Aztex was awarded The Believer Magazine's Annual Book Award (2006), and received critical acclaim from publications such as Publishers Weekly, Bookforum, The Village Voice, Los Angeles Times Book Review, and the San Francisco Chronicle. This is Foster's anticipated follow-up publication--a collection of prose poems filled with awe, yearning, and acerbic wit.

More info...
THE PROMISING SERIES
Curated by Noel Alumit
Friday, June 5 at 7:30 p.m.

The Promising Series is dedicated to showcasing emerging and established lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender writers. This edition will feature Cheryl Klein, Raquel Guiterrez, Orlando Ashley, and Scott Turner Schofield. (This series was formerly held at A Different Light bookstore.)

More info...
KING MIDDLE SCHOOL WRITERS CLUB
Saturday, June 6 at 2:00 p.m.

Join us for our 13th annual reading of the terrific students in the King Middle School Writers Club, led by teacher/author Steve Abee.
MARY YUKARI WATERS

Saturday, June 6 at 5:00 p.m.

The Favorites
(Scribner)

Mary Yukari WatersAn elegant first novel about three generations of women as they come to terms with the difficult choice a mother made during World War II.

This is the first novel from Mary Yukari Waters. She is half Japanese and half Irish-American. The recipient of an O. Henry award, a Pushcart Prize, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, she has been published in The Best American Short Stories 2002 and 2003, The Pushcart Book of Short Stories: The Best Stories from a Quarter-Century of the Pushcart Prize, and Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope 2 anthology. She earned her MFA from the University of California-Irvine, and lives in Los Angeles.

More info...
FRANCESCA LIA BLOCK
Sunday, June 7 at 5:00 p.m.

The Waters and the Wild (Harper Teen)

Francesca Lia BlockAn award-winning author presents a sparkling new teen novel about a 13-year-old girl who can't shake the feeling she doesn't belong in this world--or the thought that her life is not her own. Francesca Lia Block, winner of the prestigious Margaret A. Edwards Award, is the author of many acclaimed and bestselling books, including Weetzie Bat, Dangerous Angels: The Weetzie Bat Books, Psyche in a Dress, and Blood Roses. Her work is published around the world.

More info...
JOE MENO with JIM RULAND and MARGARET WAPPLER
Monday, June 8 at 7:30 p.m.

The Great Perhaps by Meno (W. W. Norton); Big Lonesome by Ruland (Gorsky Press)

Joe Meno Joe Meno will read from his novel The Great Perhaps, and will be joined by author Jim Ruland and journalist Margaret Wappler, who will read from their work. Joe Meno is the best-selling author of the novels Demons in the Spring, Hairstyles of the Damned, The Boy Detective Fails, How the Hula Girl Sings, and Tender As Hellfire. He was the winner of the 2003 Nelson Algren Award for short fiction and is a professor of creative writing at Columbia College Chicago.

Jim Ruland is the author of the story collection Big Lonesome. Ruland is also known for running Vermin on the Mount, a terrific reading series at the Mountain Bar in Chinatown. Margaret Wappler has written for such publications as The Believer and the Los Angeles Times.

More info...
ATTICA LOCKE
Tuesday, June 9 at 7:30 p.m.

Black Water Rising (HarperCollins)

Attica Locke Writing in the tradition of Dennis Lehane and Greg Iles, Attica Locke, a powerful new voice in American fiction, delivers a brilliant debut thriller that readers will not soon forget.

Jay Porter is hardly the lawyer he set out to be. His most promising client is a low-rent call girl and he runs his fledgling law practice out of a dingy strip mall. But he's long since made peace with not living the American Dream and carefully tucked away his darkest sins: the guns, the FBI file, the trial that nearly destroyed him. With pacing that captures the reader from the first scene through an exhilarating climax, Black Water Rising marks the arrival of an electrifying new talent.

More info...
VANINA MARSOT
Wednesday, June 10 at 7:30 p.m.

Foreign Tongue
(Harper)
 
Vanina Marsot Paris, the storybook capital of romance--of strolls down cobblestone streets and kisses by the Seine--may not be the ideal location to mend a wounded heart. But pragmatic professional writer Anna, who has been unlucky in love in L.A., has come here with keys to her aunt's empty apartment. Bilingual and blessed with dual citizenship, she seeks solace in the delectable pastries, in the company of old friends, and in her exciting new job: translating a mysterious, erotic French novel by an anonymous author. Intrigued by the story, and drawn in by the mystery behind the book, Anna soon finds herself among the city's literati--and in the arms of an alluring Parisian--as she resolves to explore who she is . . . in both cultures.

Vanina Marsot holds an MFA in literature and creative writing from the Bennington Writing Seminars. She divides her time between Paris and Los Angeles.

More info...
RICK REID
and KAREN HARRYMAN
Thursday, June 11 at 7:30 p.m.

Be Hung from the Ceiling by Strings of Varying Length
by Reid (Akashic Books); The Auto Mechanic's Daughter by Harryman (Akashic Books)


Rick ReidRick Reid is a conceptual artist and writer living in Brooklyn, New York. His groundbreaking poetry collection is a work of interval, delay, and retracing; a writing of shifts of silence. Each page serves as a kind of frame that superimposes itself temporally, aurally, and visually on pages that come before and after.

Karen Harryman lives in Burbank, California, with her husband Kirker Butler. Auto Mechanic's Daughter is her first book. Charting the vicissitudes of her own life, and the travails and triumphs of the lives of those whom she knows and loves, Harryman's poems travel great distances, both internally and geographically. "In Karen Harryman's hands everything becomes a blessing." --Ellen Bass, author of Mules of Love.

More info...

JOSH WEIL
Friday, June 12 at 7:30 p.m.

The New Valley (Grove Press)

Josh WeilThe linked novellas that comprise Weil's masterful debut bring readers into America's remote, unforgiving backcountry, and delicately unveil the private worlds of three very different men as they confront love, loss, and their own personal demons.

"I was captivated and moved by each of these finely made novellas. The quiet, mostly ordinary lives of the characters who populate The New Valley shine with a strange and intense luminosity that is at times heartbreaking, at other times triumphant. There is a magic and gentle beauty in this book that makes me remember why I had always wanted to be a writer." --Tim O'Brien

More info...
STACIE CASSARINO
Saturday, June 13 at 5:00 p.m.

Zero at the Bone (New Issues Press/Western Michigan University)

Stacie Cassarino"Of the many ways of knowing the world, Stacie Cassarino in her elegant and poignant first book of poems, Zero at the Bone, reminds us of the primacy of the senses." --Michael Collier

Cassarino is a recipient of the "Discovery"/The Nation prize and the Astraea Foundation Writer's Fund, a finalist for the Rona Jaffe Writers' Award, and nominee twice for the Pushcart Prize. She has worked as a chef, and has held teaching positions at Middlebury College in Vermont & Pratt Institute in NYC. She is currently a candidate for the Ph.D. at UCLA.

More info...
RON CARLSON
Saturday, June 13 at 7:30 p.m.

The Signal (
Viking/Penguin)

Ron Carlson A beautifully written and suspenseful tale of love and peril by the award-winning writer of four story collections and four novels, most recently Five Skies. Carlson's love for the mountains and his mastery of fiction radiate in the pages of this thrilling, fast-paced love story, set in the woods and mountains of Wyoming.

Carlson's fiction has appeared in Harper's, The New Yorker, Playboy, and GQ, and has been featured on NPR's This American Life and Selected Shorts as well as in Best American Short Stories and The O. Henry Prize Stories. His novella, Beanball, was recently selected for Best American Mystery Stories. He is the director of the renowned UC Irvine writing program.

More info...
S. L. STEBEL
Sunday, June 14 at 5:00 p.m.

Double Your Creative Power (
Allen A. Knoll)


Double Your Creative PowerA hands-on writers' workshop with novelist, playwright, and screenwriter  S. L. Stebel, demonstrating the amazing technique of "story dowsing." Bring 3 pages of your novel, play, or screenplay to the workshop and Stebel (who teaches in the graduate Professional Writing Program at USC) will assist you in moving on creatively. To sign up to read, call or stop by the store and ask for your name to be added to the reader's list.

"S. L. Stebel is the best writing teacher that ever was." --Ray Bradbury

More info...
SCOTT LASSER
Monday, June 15 at 7:30 p.m.

The Year that Follows (Random House)

Scott LasserThe story of a woman's search for her brother's lost son, orphaned in the wake of his sudden death, drives Scott Lasser's riveting new novel--a work of stunning economy and momentum about a woman's quest and a family's longing for wholeness and completion.

Scott Lasser received an M.F.A. from the University of Michigan and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School. He is the highly praised author of All I Could Get ("Utterly engrossing, harrowing, and, yes, fun. Scott Lasser's All I Could Get is all you could want." --Richard Russo). He was formerly a government-bond trader at Lehman Brothers. He lives in Aspen, Colorado.

More info...
ADRIAN TOMINE and SETH
Wednesday, June 17 at 7:30 p.m.

Shortcomings by Tomine; A Drifting Life (the Tatsumi memoir edited and designed by Tomine) George Sprott by Seth; The Collected George Wright (edited and designed by Seth; all books published by Drawn & Quarterly)

Adrian Tomine and Seth Adrian Tomine and Seth will discuss their graphic novels. Adrian Tomine is a graduate of U.C. Berkeley and lives in Brooklyn, New York. His illustrations have appeared in myriad publications, including The New Yorker, Esquire, and Rolling Stone. Seth lives in Guelph, Ontario. He regularly contributes illustrations to The New Yorker and The National Post and recently provided the entire album artwork for Sony Records singer-songwriter, Aimee Mann.

More info...
CHARLIE HAAS
Thursday, June 18 at 7:30 p.m.

The Enthusiast
(Harper)


Charlie Haas Henry Bay has his own America going. If there's an offbeat interest or extreme sport that's poised to sweep the nation, chances are there's a magazine for its enthusiasts, and chances are also good that Henry has worked there. He's a modern nomad, associate-editing his way from state to state, exploring the small worlds that make up modern America from Spelunk to Ice Climbing, to Cozy, The Magazine of Tea. But those are other people's interests--Henry's still looking for his own enthusiasm. He ends up finding more than he ever imagined in this energetic, hilarious debut novel from a surprising and promising new voice.
 
"One of those rare, one-of-a-kind novels that defies description even as it moves readers to yank strangers off of buses to read them passages. Giants like Stanley Elkin, Tobias Wolff, George Saunders and J.D. Salinger come to mind. But The Enthusiast occupies a smart, weirdly fascinating, sometimes laugh-out-loud, ever soulful universe all its own. . . . As close to perfect as any first novel should ever be allowed to be. I really loved this book." --Jerry Stahl

More info...
BENJAMIN NUGENT
Friday, June 19 at 7:30 p.m.

American Nerd: The Story of My People
(Scribner)


Benjamin Nugent"The coolest book about nerds ever written. Heck, one of the coolest books ever written, period. . . . Outsiders of the world, this is required reading. Know your roots!" --Paul Feig, creator of Freaks and Geeks

Benjamin Nugent embarks on a fact-finding mission of the most entertaining variety. He seeks the best definition of nerd and illuminates the common ground between nerd subcultures that might seem unrelated (Why do the same people who like to work with computers also enjoy playing Dungeons & Dragons?). This clever, enlightening book will appeal to the nerd (and anti-nerd) that lives inside all of us.

Nugent joined the staff of Time magazine as an arts and pop culture correspondent at the age of 22. He's gone on to write for numerous publications, including New York magazine, The New York Times Book Review, and NME. Nugent's first book, Elliott Smith and the Big Nothing, was published in 2004. He lives in Los Angeles. He was a nerdy child.

More info...
DEAN WAREHAM
Sunday, June 21 at 5:00 p.m.

Black Postcards (Penguin)


Dean Wareham A bewitching memoir about the lures, torments, and rewards of making and performing music in the indie rock world. Dean Wareham's seminal bands Galaxie 500 and Luna have long been adored by a devoted cult following and extolled by rock critics. Now he brings us the blunt, heartbreaking, and wickedly charismatic account of his personal journey through the music world--the artistry and the hustle, the effortless success and the high living, as well as the bitter pills and self-inflicted wounds.

"I have always been a fan of Dean Wareham and have worked with him and Luna many times. I love reading the thoughts of frontmen. I think it's a great read for the fan of adventure." --Lou Reed

More info...
JASON TORCHINSKY
Friday, June 26 at 7:30 p.m.

Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture (Faber & Faber)


Ad NauseamWith the style and irreverence of Vice magazine and the critique of the corporatocracy that made Naomi Klein's No Logo a global hit, the cult magazine Stay Free--long considered the Adbusters of the United States--is finally offering a compendium of new and previously published material on the impact of consumer culture on our lives.

In an engaging, accessible, and graphically appealing style, Carrie McLaren and Jason Torchinsky (as well as contributors such as David Cross, The Onion's Joe Garden, The New York Times' Julie Scelfo, and others) discuss everything from why the TV program CSI affects jury selection, to the methods by which market researchers stalk shoppers, to how advertising strategy is like dog training. The result is an entertaining and eye-opening account of the many ways consumer culture continues to pervade and transform American life.
WAYNE WHITE
Saturday, June 27 at 5:00 p.m.

Wayne White: Maybe Now I'll Get the Respect I So Richly Deserve (Ammo Books)


Wayne WhiteThis is the launch of this monumental book about the work of artist Wayne White. You'll recognize his paintings from Fred 62, where they've been on display for years, or from the walls of major museums.

Wayne White: Maybe Now I'll Get the Respect I So Richly Deserve is a monumental 400 page look at the deadpan, strange, and endlessly mesmerizing body of work White has created in his 30 plus year career as a fine artist, illustrator, and director. Divided into two chapters and with an extended interview between Todd Oldham and the artist, this monograph first takes an intimate look at White's unpublished sketchbooks, drawings, and paintings during his tenure as co-creator of Pee Wee's Playhouse, music video director, and as art director for dozens of influential children's programs.

More info...
MARTIN COX
and GORDON GHAREEB
Sunday, June 28 at 5:00 p.m.

Hollywood to Honolulu: The Story of the Los Angeles Steamship Company (Glencannon Press)


Hollywood to Honolulu For over a decade during the "Roaring Twenties," a great white ocean liner would sail from berth 156 in Los Angeles every Saturday. The pier was packed with waving and cheering people looking up at the happy passengers crowding the railings. The vessel's band on deck played jazz tunes and popular favorites. The captain stood forward on the bridge wing watching the lowering of the gangway amid a hail of colored streamers and confetti. The liner's whistle would blow at noon, raising the cheering to a higher pitch as the band played "Aloha Oe." Slowly the great mass of the liner inched away from the dock. These magnificent ocean liners provided not only a regular connection between the mainland and the islands, but were a high-profile means of proclaiming that Los Angeles was becoming a world class harbor, financial center and artistic metropolis. And the Los Angeles Steamship Company, "LASSCO," became known across the country.
SKYLIGHT'S BLOG:
INVADED BY ALIENS!
Find us at www.skylightbooks.blogspot.com

If you've cruised past Skylight's front windows anytime over the past six months, you might have noticed that our staffer Dan likes to make decorative creatures out of packing materials and hang them in our window displays.  Well, this time he's outdone himself, making a four-eyed, horned, striped alien for our Speculative Fiction display. None of us could resist posing with our new friend from outer space for a few snapshots, which we've uploaded to our blog.  See a few of our favorites below, and check out the rest here.

Alien and ArloAlien and BillAlien and Monica and Dan

And that's not all we've been up to!  Edan recently interviewed author Joe Meno for the book blog The Millions, and she writes about what she liked about his new book The Great Perhaps and incudes an excerpt from her interview.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009
The Great Perhaps by Joe Meno

The Millions: There's a notion in your novel that cowardice and failure can be inherited. Do you think the book supports or disproves this theory - or does it do both?

Joe Meno: Actually, I did a lot of research looking at the theories concerning the heredity of personality traits, and there's a lot of evidence that our behaviors are not only influenced by role models like our parents, but also by the genes they pass on through these structures called epigenes, which is fascinating and also really, really horrifying. I think, in the end, that all humans, who on some basic level are all genetically related, have the very real potential for stunning acts of cowardice, and at the same time, the possibility for kindness and bravery.

Read the rest of Edan's post here.  To see all our recent posts, visit our blog homepage here.

Plus, you can follow Skylight on Twitter by adding skylightbooks to your feed.  We're on Facebook as skylightbooks, too.
BOOK GROUPS and
FIRST NOVELS!
 
Our fiction table is overflowing with acclaimed books by first-time novelists. There are a lot of gems to be found this time of year--here are a few newly out in paperback that your book group might like to delve into!

Last Days of the Lacuna CabalThe Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal by Sean Dixon
There's a lot of buzz surrounding this debut novel about a quirky book club whose members try to experience, rather than simply read, their picks, and matters only get more complicated when one member, Runner, convinces the rest to take up a bizarre work: 10 cuneiform tablets, loosely translated (at best) by Runner herself, that tell The Epic of Gilgamesh.

Dear American AirlinesDear American Airlines by Jonathan Miles
A stranded airline passenger sits fuming at his canceled flight, then begins a hilarious letter to the airline demanding a refund. His letter, though, soon devolves into a lament for his life gone awry. "A flinty, funny, irreverent, and heartbreaking first novel," according to Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love), and a Best Book of the Year according to the Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal.

Harry RevisedHarry, Revised by Mark Sarvas
This novel about a recent widower who tries to reinvent himself won a lot of praise when it came out last year. "Self loathing was never so funny, and Sarvas's depiction of his downward-spiraling anti-hero is spot-on," says Los Angeles Magazine. Now out in paperback, and we have signed copies!

Remember: Book groups that register with the store get 15% off their pick each month, so e-mail Emily at emily@skylightbooks.com now to find out how to register your book group.  You can check out our registered book groups here.
Skylight Books
1818 N Vermont Ave (between Hollywood Blvd and Franklin)
Los Angeles, CA 90027
323 660-1175
 
Next door to the Los Feliz Cinema and across the street from the Post Office (where you can park after 6pm)
 
metroWe are about 4 blocks north of the Vermont/Sunset subway stop and directly on many bus routes, including the Hollywood DASH.  Bicycle racks in front of the store.