On a cold night (for Florida), customers got the chance to talk with media critic Eric Deggans about how TV news sometimes distorts the facts to gain viewers.  This conversation occurred just two days after the presidential election and after everyone had been exposed to political coverage for months.  Deggan's book Race-Baiter addresses the problems created by such biases.  You may have seen Deggans on the weekend news talk shows and heard him on NPR.

In a related effort to fool the public, women's glossy magazines have been airbrushing photos to "enhance" the  look of models and celebrities.  Neptune Beach resident, Jennifer Nelson, has worked in this industry, and in Airbrushed Nation she considers the effects this has on our society.  This was a special evening with a beaches author, and she treated everyone to some great food and wine.

  A large group of art lovers and readers came out to hear B. A. Shapiro talk about the art heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and her novel, The Art Forger, which is based on that theft.  We found out not only about the museum and the paintings, but also about how to forge a great piece of art.  MOCA Jacksonville representatives talked about how the museum works diligently to ensure the authenticity of its collection and surprised everyone with the fact that 40% of all art on exhibit is forged.  Attendees were also invited to join the museum at a special rate.

When Helen Scott Correll first approached me about an event featuring her book Middlewood Journal: drawing inspiration from nature, I was skeptical about who might be interested in a nature journal  from South Carolina.  Then I met Helen and saw the book and knew it would be a wonderful event.  And indeed it was.  A room filled with family, old friends, and soon-to-be new friends listened to the author and artist talk about her experiences in the woods and were invited and encouraged to journal in their own back yards.  

Every year when the Beaches Town Center "dresses up" for the holidays, we're reminded of the how lovely life is in a small town and how much we look like the scenes from the movie It's a Wonderful Life (sans the snow of course).  This year we paired the nostalgia of Christmases past with memories of Jacksonville's "big store", Cohen Brothers.  Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate with our plans to have strollers meet local authors Ennis Davis and Sarah Gojekian, but the "plan B" indoor event lent itself to great conversations and nostalgic memories of downtown Jacksonville and the "big store" in particular.  Cohen Brothers: The Big Store provided the catalyst for a good history lesson and a discussion of the future of downtown Jacksonville.  

Remember, signed books make a special gift.  We have limited copies of these books and those by other authors as well.

History/Biography/Current Affairs

Desperate Sons: Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, John Hancock, and the Secret Bands of Radicals who Led the Colonies to War by Les Standiford (Harper $27.99)

 More than two hundred years ago, a group of British colonists in America decided that the conditions under which they were governed had become intolerable.  Angry and frustrated that King George III and the British Parliament had ignored their lawful complaints and petitions, they decided to take action.  In this gripping narrative, Les Standiford (author of The Last Train to Paradise) reveals how this group of intelligent, committed men, motivated by economics and political belief, bean a careful campaign of interlocking events that would channel feelings of vague injustice into an armed rebellion of common cause, which would defeat an empire and give birth to a radical political experiment--a new nation known as the United States.

The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today by Thomas E. Ricks (The Penguin Press $32.95)  

History has been kind to the American generals of World War II--Marshall, Eisenhower, Patton, and Bradley--but less kind to the generals of the wars that followed.  In this book, Ricks sets out to explain why that is.  We meet great leaders and suspect ones, generals who rose to the occasion and those who failed themselves and their soldiers.  Ricks (author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Fiasco) has made a close study of America's military leaders for three decades, and in his hands this story resounds with larger meaning: about the transmission of values, about strategic thinking, and about the difference between an organization that learns and one that fails. 

The Second World War by Anthony Beevor (Little, Brown and Company $35)

Beevor's (author of the international bestseller D-Day: The Battle for Normandy) book on WWII is the epic, authoritative work on the defining event of the twentieth century, taking us from the North Atlantic to the South Pacific and from the first battle in August 1939 on the borders of Manchuria to V-J Day six years later.  The author's wide lens lets us see the reality of the struggle as never before.  World War II engulfed every power and touched every life.  In its wake, seventy million were dead, nations were destroyed, and new powers rose from the blood and rubble.

 Leonardo and the Last Supper by Ross King (Walker & Company $28)

King (author of Brunelleschi's Dome) tells the fascinating behind-the-scenes story of the creation of one of history's greatest masterpieces.  Early in 1495, Leonardo da Vinci began work in Milan on what would beome one of the world's most influential and beloved works of art--The Last Supper.  After a dozen years at court, Leonardo was at a low point personally and professionally: at forty-three, in an era when he had almost reached the average life expectancy, he had failed, despite a number of prestigious commissions, to complete anything that truly fulfilled his astonishing promise.  In this history, King chronicles how--amid war and the political and religious turmoil around him, and beset by his own insecurities and frustrations--Leonardo created the masterpiece that would forever define him.

The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor by Jake Tapper (Little, Brown and Company $29.99)

Combat outpost Keating: the end of the line, the U.S. military base nobody could believe had been built.  Placed within the valley's deepest cleft, ringed by three steep mountains that formed part of the vast Hindu Kush range in Afghanistan, the camp would be one of the most remote outposts in this most remote part of a country that was itself cut off from much of the rest of the world.  Acclaimed journalist Jake Tapper gives us the gripping saga of the group of brave, doomed soldiers who were stationed at the base.  This book may read like a novel, but it is not fiction.  Rather it is brilliantly reported fact, the result of hundreds of firsthand interviews in Afghanistan and around the world.

 Custer by Larry McMurtry (Simon & Schuster $35)

 In this lavishly illustrated volume, Larry McMurtry, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lonesome Dove and one of the greatest chroniclers of the American West, tackles for the first time one of the paramount figures of western and American history.  On June 25, 1876, General George Armstrong Custer and his 7th Cavalry attacked a large Lakota Cheyenne village on the Little Bighorn River and lost not only the battle but his life.  McMurtry explores how the numerous controversies that grew out of the Little Bighorn combined with a perfect storm of technological developments to fan the flames of his legend.

Gift Books and "Books about Books"

The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe (Alfred A. Knopf $25)

Despite the title, this oddly is not a depressing book.  Rather it's an homage to the power of the book and the love of reading.  In fact, it is the inspiring true story of a son and his mother who start a "book club" (with only two members) that brings them together as her life comes to a close.  Over the course of two years, mother and son carry on conversations that are both wide-ranging and deeply personal, prompted by an eclectic array of books and a shared passion for reading.  Their list jumps from classic to popular, from poetry to mysteries, from fantastic to spiritual.  The issues they discuss include questions of faith and courage as well as everyday topics such as expressing gratitude and learning to listen.  Throughout, they are constantly reminded of the power of books to comfort us, astonish us, teach us, and tell us what we need to do with our lives and in the world.  Reading isn't the opposite of doing: it's the opposite of dying.

100 Diagrams that Changed the World: From the earliest cave paintings to the innovation of the i Pod by Scott Christianson (Plume Books $25)

 This is a collection of the most significant plans, sketches, drawings, and illustrations that have influenced and shaped the way we think.  From primitive cave paintings to the complicated DNA helix drawn by Crick and Watson, they chart dramatic breakthroughs in our understanding of the world and its history.  Beautifully illustrated, it will not only inform but also entertain as it demonstrates how the power of a single drawing can enhance, change, or even revolutionize our understanding of the world.  It's the perfect gift for almost anyone on your list! 

My Ideal Bookshelf art by Jane Mount; edited by Thessaly la Force (Little, Brown and Company $24.99)

  The books that we choose to keep and display--let alone read--can say a lot about who we are and how we see ourselves.  In this book, more than one hundred leading cultural figures, inclduing writers Chuck Klosterman, Mary Karr, Junot Diaz, and Jonathan Lethem, and musicians Patti Smith and Thurston Moore, chefs and food writers Alice Waters and Mark Bittman, Hollywood figures Judd Apatow and James Franco, and fashion designers Kate and Laura Mulleavy of Rodarte, share the books that matter to them the most.  Original paintings of the colorful and delightful book spines showcase the selections.

The Art of the Epigraph: How Great Books Begin compiled and edited by Rosemary Ahern (Atria Books $16)

  For many book lovers, there is no more pleasing start to a book than a well-chosen epigraph.  These intriguing quotations, sayings, and snippets of songs and poems do more than set the tone for the experience ahead: the epigraph informs us about the author's sensibility.  This delightful, small volume collects more than 250 examples from across five hundred years of literature and offers insights into their meaning and purpose, including what induces so many writers to cede the very first words a reader will encounter in their book to another writer.