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Weekly Words about Books APRIL 28, 2013
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Well, This Is Interesting
| Jessica Hagy is a writer and illustrator perhaps best known up until now for her award-winning blog, Indexed. A while back, she wrote a post on Forbes.com called "How to Be Interesting" that went viral, attracting over 1.4 million viewers to date.
The idea came to Hagy when, in her words, "I was pondering personal assets in business, modern virtues if you will. I thought that being interesting was the greatest one. It's more vital than hustle or education, more important than good networking. It's a core attribute that draws people toward each other, and greases the wheels of love and commerce and politics."
And now, Hagy has written a small and quirky book called, not surprisingly, How To Be Interesting (In 10 Simple Steps). In it, she addresses 10 themes, using simple but telling illustrations to underscore her messages. Among her exhortations:
About taking chances: Expose yourself to ridicule, to risk, to wild ideas.
About being childlike, not childish: Remember how amazing the world was before you learned to be cynical.
About being open: Never take in the welcome mat.
About taking ownership: Whatever you're doing, enjoy it, embrace it, master it as well as you can.
About growing a pair: If you're not courageous, you're going to be hanging around the water cooler, talking about the guy that actually is.
I confess to not being a big fan of the touchy-feely brand of self-help books, and this certainly won't be everyone's cup of tea, but at $10.95 How To Be Interesting is a nice little gift for the right person, and well timed as we enter the Moms, Dads, and Grads season.
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Interesting people do their own things
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Interesting people pay attention
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This Week's Book Publicity Blitz - Amanda Knox
| | In a high-profile trial that drew international attention, she was accused of killing her roommate in Perugia, Italy and served four years in jail before a higher court reversed the  decision and set her free. Now, a month after the Italian courts overturned the acquittal and ordered her to face retrial, Amanda Knox has her say in a new memoir that hits bookstores Tuesday, Waiting To Be Heard.
Filled with information from the journals she kept in Italy, Waiting To Be Heard is the story of Knox's harrowing ordeal in her own words. In it, she not only makes the case for her innocence but provides an up-close and personal look at her life behind bars. Given the publicity and notoriety that the case generated, Amanda Knox's story will undoubtedly be of interest to many, and I suspect you will hear from Knox herself a fair amount this coming week.
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TOP SHELF Bookstore Picks
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Every Sunday, the San Francisco Chronicle Book Review publishes short reviews of new books, in hardcover or paperback, recommended by a Northern California independent bookstore. This is a recent list from the staff at Rakestraw Books in Danville, CA. FICTION
Life After Life by Jill McCorkle. In learning to die at the Pine Haven Retirement Home, people learn what it means that they have lived. A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash. A debut novel that is also the best Southern gothic novel to come around in many years - now in paper. The Lost Saints of Tennessee by Amy Franklin-Willis. The twin debts of family and the past allow 42-year-old Zeke to come to terms with his life - now in paper. The Watery Part of the World by Michael Parker. North Carolina's outermost island is the setting for this century-spanning, yet compressed and elegant, novel - now in paper. NONFICTION
Island: How Islands Transform the World by J. Edward Chamberlain (BlueBridge, $19.95). In essays that consider islands, real and imaginery, Chamberlain displays both wit and wide learning. A History of Future Cities by Daniel Brook. St. Petersburg, Shanghai, Mumbai, and Dubai provide the focus of the book, but Brook also explores what cities have meant and what that teaches us about where they (and we) are going. The Ordinary Acrobat: A Journey in the Wondrous World of the Circus, Past and Present by Duncan Wall. When, on a whim, the author became a student at the most prestigious circus school in France, he found himself plunged into a world as colorful and off as any you can imagine. Butterfly People: An American Encounter with the Beauty of the World by William Leach. This chronicle of America's first sustained exploration of the beauty of the world is also the story of the industrialization of the United States. |
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A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ME
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My name is Hut Landon. I'm a former bookstore owner who now runs the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association (NCIBA) in San Francisco.
My goal with this newsletter is to keep readers up to date about new books hitting the shelves, share what booksellers are recommending in their stores, and pass on occasional news about the book world.
I'm not into long, wordy reviews or literary criticism; I'd like HUT'S PLACE to be a quick, fun read for book buyers.If you have any friends who you think might like receiving this column each week, simply click on "Forward this email" below and enter their email address. There is also a box in which to add a short message.
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WHERE TO FIND A BOOKSTORE
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Many of you already have a favorite local bookstore, but for those of you without such a relationship, this link will take you to a list of Northern California indie bookstores by region.
If you live or work elsewhere, you can click here to find the nearest indie bookstore by simply entering your postal code.
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