Blog Posts

I’M SHIPPING OUT by Chris

February 28, 2010

It has become a sad, self-perpetuating cycle. Every couple of months I pick up my copy of Moby Dick, read the first chapter, then put it down on the floor next to my bed. The next night the latest issue of The New Yorker is lying on top of it, followed shortly by older ones I haven’t completely read (which is pretty much all of them), and a small tower of magazines begins to rise. Two months later I either decide to do a little cleaning or accidentally knock over the ‘zine tower, and I am again confronted by the fat old paperback at the bottom. By this time, though, I’ve forgotten everything that happened in that first chapter, so I have to read it all over again. I should now be a renowned scholar on the first 12 pages of Melville’s alleged masterpiece. But all I would be able to say, if someone asked me what happened in that first chapter, would be: “I don’t know, not much.”

I’m not sure why I feel I have to read Moby Dick. I know English professors who have never cracked the spine on it or “Ulysses,” and they don’t seem any worse off for it. I guess when it comes right down to it, it has less to do with reading for enjoyment or becoming well-read than it does with finishing what I started. That, and I hate the way the book seems to sneer at me every time I find it at the bottom of that pile of magazines. What right does it have to mock me like that? I own it. And yet I am bothered by this. It’s almost like…an obsession.

It is time to break the cycle. Today I commit. One chapter down, 134 to go. Although now that I think of it, I should probably reread Chapter 1 just one more time.

AGATHA CHRISTIE! or, Not Now, Please, I’m Reading – by George

March 4, 2010

Here’s why bookstores are wonderful and dangerous places: You can get an email about a book Tuesday afternoon, order the book Tuesday night, and pick it up Thursday morning while you’re at work. You can if you work at Bear Pond, anyway, and, even better, if the book’s so entirely enthralling you can’t stop looking at it ["Hey! Customer!" "What? Oh. Hi. Sorry."] you can try to pass it off as………research? Yeah, research. That’s it. Thank you, Jon Lovitz.  Really, though, if you’re a mystery fan at all and the book in question is Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks, what else can you do?

Notebooks is the result of years of research by John Curran, a Christie scholar and – especially – fan. The introductory essays themselves are worth the price of admission: Curran became friends with Christie’s grandson when they met at a play in Toronto. Years later, he found Christie’s notebooks in a storage room of her daughter’s estate. He then, enraptured, sorted the notebook entries – there were 73 notebooks and Agatha apparently didn’t assign one to each novel, she just grabbed whatever was handy – and, even more impressive, translated her handwriting. [Notebooks also contains reproductions of actual notebook pages. They're indecipherable.]  You want to know how she worked out the concept for The ABC Murders? It’s here. Where she may have gotten the idea for The Murder of Roger Ackroyd? Notebooks has a letter from an Illustrious Personage suggesting just such a thing. Feel like reading a couple of previously unpublished Poirot short stories? Notebooks has ‘em. This book is a treasure trove; it’s a literary land mine of the very best sort; it’s an authorial pool of knowledge into which you may happily dive and never return. Just go read it already.

BOOKS AS FRIENDS WHEN YOU’RE SICK by Pat L-S

February 27, 2010

I think I have the flu–I can hardly lift the coffee cup to my lips and last night I was so cold I actually wore gloves in bed.   However, that doesn’t stop me from lifting the books I’m interested in reading.  Forget aspirin, just give me a good book or two, or five.

What would I do without publisher galleys in my life especially when I’m sick.  I lie in bed surrounded by upcoming books–new ones by Isabel Allende(May 2010), Oscar Hijuelos(June 2010) and Vendela Vida(July2010), and old ones that I never got around to reading including The Book Thief by Makus Zusak and The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist.   Which to read first? I can almost enjoy being sick knowing that today I don’t have to make dinner, take the garbage to the dump or even cross country ski.  I can read!  Ahh the benefits of working at a bookstore and not feeling well.

Isabel Allende

Vendela Vida


Oscar Hijuelos

A snowy afternoon – posted by Patty – February 25, 2010

I stopped in at Bear Pond late yesterday afternoon – the end of a snowy day.  Tom was working at the front counter and I could see that he was working on the computer composing a book review for the e-mail newsletter that Pat Lyon-Surrey will send out soon.  I walked upstairs to an office – Suzanne was at one computer and Amanda at another – and there was more book review composition going on.  I went a few steps further to another workspace and there -guess what? – Chris working on another book review.  It was quite impressive.  I don’t know what most of their reviews were about, but it was fun on a quiet, snowy afternoon to witness all that mental power and creativity.  Be on the lookout for your e-mail newsletter.

A Brave New World, A Brand New Section

By Jane

February 17, 2010

Lately as I’ve been recommending books to parents of kids and teens, I’ve been hearing many of them exclaim “Wow- that sounds really good!” And my answer continues to be– yes, it really is. Try it yourself!

Thus a new section in adult fiction is birthed. We’re calling it the “Young Adult Books for Adults” section– creative , huh? (I amaze myself, even in February).  It is an almost vampire-free section, though we cannot exclude the supernatural entirely lest we want a book-free section also.

So, brave fiction readers, next time you’re browsing our long fiction wall take a peek at the tender morsels in this sub-section near the beginning of the alphabet. You’ll find as much mystery, intrigue, beauty, sorrow, inspiration, wisdom (and –without a doubt –more romance and angst)  as you would along the rest of the fiction wall.

FOR YOUR VALENTINE

February 12, 2010

The ladies of Bear Pond present our favorite gift ideas for your Valentine:


Amanda’s Picks:

Sexually I’m More of a Switzerland A follow-up to They Call Me Naughty Lola, the brutally self-aware and hysterical personals ads from the London Review of Books.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte for the truly romantic in all of us

Lynne’s Pick:

Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog by Lisa Scottoline Believe it or not Lynne’s the staff romantic!

Jane’s Pick:

The Ballad of Valentine by Allison Jackson A sweet children’s picture book with great illustrations – and a pig.

Suzanne’s Pick:

Six Word Memoirs on Love and Heartbreak by Writers Famous and Obscure Some funny, some touching, all clever.  Let your imagination wander with: “Bachelor Visits Library, Books Wife (Non-Fiction)”

Mary’s Pick:

The dark chocolate truffles by Home R Truffles, made by local chef (and Jane’s husband) Paul Knight.  It’s hard for Mary to focus on books when there’s chocolate on the front counter.

Claire’s Pick:

Asian Dumplings by Andrea Nguyen What could be more of a romantic gesture than making your little dumpling a nice plate of Chinese Chive Dumplings?

A VALENTINE FROM HOWARD FRANK MOSHER

February 11, 2010

Our hearts warmed to find this lovely letter from the always delightful Howard Frank Mosher in our inbox today (Howard’s new book Walking to Gatlinburg will be out in March and he’ll be here for a reading on March 9th):

Recently, as I was setting up my “Great American Book Tour” itinerary for Walking to Gatlinburg, a bookseller asked me to define “a good independent bookstore.”  I’d like to share my reply with my blog readers and fellow fans of indie bookstores everywhere:

In response to your inquiry, I believe that a good independent bookstore always puts good books and good customers ahead of the bottom line.  Interestingly, by doing so, passionately and knowledgeably, many (though, sadly, not all) independent bookstores have managed to stay in business in this economically depressed era when even chain stores are suffering.

Of course, one of the reasons that chain bookstores are having their own difficulties is that many of them do not place a top priority on books and customers.  In fairness, though, I have to say that, from time to time, in chain stores, I meet very independent booksellers who love books and respect customers and like to match them up.

Good independent bookstores – like Tolstoy’s families – are all different.  But they are very happy places.  When I walk into one, the colorful jackets of books that are my old friends or may become new friends excite me the way walking out of the dim concourse of a major league baseball stadium onto the bright, geometrical familiarity of the diamond below excites me.

Good independent bookstores are always welcoming.  Customers are invited to browse.  Booksellers make time to talk about – books!  Go into any university English department at the end of the day.  All you hear is people grousing about poor students, parking restrictions, pay freezes.  Booksellers should be so lucky.  Still, they’re as enthusiastic about Elizabeth Gilbert’s Committed and the new Raymond Carver collection at the end of the day as at 10 a.m.  They just plain love books.

And there’s something else about independent bookstores.  Something important.  They keep writers like me, and hundreds of others, going. They don’t overload their stock with just the best sellers.  Most of my favorite writers – Richard Russo, Chris Bohjalian, Annie Proulx, Richard Ford, Ivan Doig – got their start in independent bookstores.  What’s more, by championing freedom of speech, our constitutional right to privacy, and freedom of the press, the indies help preserve America’s precious political and cultural heritage.

Thank you, independent booksellers!

Very best,

Howard Frank Mosher

BEAR POND’S JANUARY BESTSELLERS

February 2, 2010

Our top 11 (11?) bestseller’s for January 2010:

______________________________________________________________________

1. Food Rules by Michael Pollan

2. Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

3. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

4. Marriage and Other Acts of Charity by Kate Braestrup

5. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

TIED WITH

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

TIED WITH

The Women by T.C. Boyle

6. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson

TIED WITH

Dog Gone It by Spencer Quinn

7. Thirty Below Zero by Ethan Hubbard

TIED WITH

The Pleasures of Cooking for One by Judith Jones

TRAVEL BY BOOK by Pat L-S

February 1, 2010

I love to travel and have been to England, Wales, Scotland, Austria, Luxembourg, Slovakia, Hungary, Italy and New Zealand.  Noticeably absent from the list are places in Asia and the Middle East.  Although I am not drawn to physically visit these areas, my reading seems to constantly navigate to them.
In the past month I have read 2 books by debut novelists that speak of the cultures of Iran and Afghanistan with great richness and pathos.

Born Under a Million Shadows by Andrea Busfield is told through the eyes of eleven-year-old Fawad, ever the optimist, even though his father has been killed and his sister has been abducted. The Taliban have withdrawn but their shadow lingers in Afghanistan as Fawad and his friends work the streets and cling to the hope for a better life.

Bone Worship by ElizabethEslami is the story of American born and raised Jasmine who fails out of college and reluctantly returns to the home of her Iranian father and American mother. She is immediately confronted with her father’s (and surprisingly her mother’s) determination to plan a “hastegar”, an arranged marriage, for her. The more intense story, always in the background, is her search to discover the life of her evasive father, and her continued longing to be close to him. Eslami weaves the richness of Iranian culture into the novel.

I’ll read anything written by Ha Jin and love the simplicity of his prose.

I’m currently reading a new book by Dai Sijie, the author of  Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress.  Sijie’s new book , Once on a Moonless Night, set in China, shows both the beauty and the horror of its history.

That is the joy of books.  You don’t have to physically visit countries but you can still be present to their history, their culture and their beauty.  Bon Voyage!

ROBERT B. PARKER, R.I.P. by George

I was a freshman at UVM, and as clueless as only a freshman could be. I’d walked down to the Gaynes on some invented errand just to get out of the dorm. There, in the spacious Books section [two racks, all paperback] I found a tatty copy of a book called The Godwulf Manuscript – yellow cover, glaring typeface, some guy named Spenser. I picked it up and read the first line: “The office of the university president looked like the front parlor of a successful Victorian whorehouse.” Well. Forty-five minutes later I’d spent $1.25 of the $2.00 in my pocket. Two hours later I was back at the dorm finishing the book, studies abandoned [and not for the last time either]. Parker was witty, quick, sharp. Spenser was like no one I’d met before in books – a tough guy who cooked, a wisecracker who was reflective, a [self-contained] cynic who kind of enjoyed other people. And who was this guy Chandler Parker kept mentioning? Could I find him at the library? Yes I could.

Parker changed my reading forever. His writing never palled. The 37th Spenser novel - The Professional - was as good as the first. Better, probably: the Chandleresque style had long ago become one all his own. There’s never been anyone funnier or able to set a scene in fewer words. The Hawk/Spenser dialogue? Priceless. He wrote violence better than anyone else, too: short and terse and unemotional. Parker [and Spenser] created the hard-boiled private eye renaissance. Robert Crais, Dennis Lehane, Lee Child – they’re not Chandleresque, they’re Parkeresque.

So when I heard Tuesday that he’d died – at 77, at his desk – I felt really quite thoroughly bereft. It’s not so much the loss of a fine writer, although that’s true, it’s the loss of someone I felt I knew through his books. It’s the knowledge  that Spenser and Hawk and Susan [and Pearl - I'm really going to miss that dog] won’t be living in Boston. It’s the thought that Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch won’t be wandering the old West. It’s the not knowing whether Jesse Stone and Sunny Randall will actually make a go of it. For me, it’s a combination of how I felt when I heard Ted Williams had died and when I read the last chapter of the final Harry Potter book. Robert B. Parker’s dead, and I’m really going to miss him.

Thanks, Mr. Parker.