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Housing Works Used Bookstore Cafe – New York, NY

October 1, 2010 in essay, short story, used books by Kim | 2 comments

Fighting AIDS One Book at a Time

I don’t know of another bookstore in the US like Housing Works Bookstore Cafe.  The entire premise is to raise money for AIDS programs; it’s a thrift store for books.  I keep thinking I must have been in other ‘charity’ bookstores (other than at a library), but can’t come up with one.  To date, Housing Works has helped over 20,000 men, women, and children with AIDS/HIV.  The public contributes in a variety of ways.  Housing Works offers memberships.  For example, a $60 annual fee entitles the member to 10% off all purchases.  Book donations stock the store, in fact there was a table of books donated by Chronicle Books, but unlike most used bookstores, the public is actually giving the books to the store without receiving a credit.  If that was an option in LA, I’d happily give my books to a charity bookstore (I already give my books to the library, but I’m open to spreading the love).  And, of course, you can do what I did-buy books and eat there.

The Bookstore

It’s all for a good cause, but is it a good bookstore?  You bet.  The atmosphere is used store perfection:  wood floors, dark bookshelves, open space for lounging or holding events, a wide selection.  In the essay section I found a volume of Michel de Montaigne’s Essays that has been on my ‘to be purchased’ list for over a year.  In classics I found Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time which I passed up the day before at Posman Books.  The book was discounted and it was for a good cause, so I succumbed.  But the prize was waiting for my in the short story section.  A book rack displayed recommended books and there was Nathan Englander’s For the Relief of Unbearable Urges. Half an hour earlier, I was shopping at McNally Jackson and almost bought Englander’s book; at Housing Works I practically lunged for the book wondering why no one had snatched it before me.

Why my reaction to Englander?  A few weeks earlier, Claire e-mailed me and said I had to read Englander’s story in the New Yorker’s 20 under 40 issue.  People tell me I have to read stuff all the time, and I love hearing recommendations, but often it feels overwhelming to add them to the sea of books on my desk.  But, Claire isn’t the biggest fan of short stories, so I paid some attention.  When she asked the next day if I had read the story and sent me the link, I knew I needed to read it.  It’s gut wrenching and  impeccably written, Claire describes it best in her post.  Needless to say, I felt like I hit the jackpot when I found it, I almost took a picture of it to send to Claire.

Any used bookstore where I can pick up two books I passed up at regular prices within 24 hours of seeing them qualifies as a good bookstore in my opinion.  Plus, they serve a mean quiche.  Check out the two amusing signs I found in the store.  FYI, Housing Works and McNally Jackson are less than two blocks apart, making for a nice duo excursion.

If you know of other charity bookstore, other than those associated with libraries, please tell us about them!

Housing Works Bookstore Cafe

126 Crosby Street

New York, New York   10012

Tel:  212.334.3324

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Discovering Nathan Englander

August 15, 2010 in autism, book review, short story by Claire | 1 comment

I just discovered my favorite author of the decade.  Maybe of the past several decades.

Every once in a while–say every five or ten years–I read a short story that blows me away. I still remember mulling over O’Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi” and Maupassant’s “The Necklace” (the MOST agonizing story ever written) as a fairly young kid, and Hemingway’s “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” when I was a bit older, moving on and up through O’Connor’s “Everything That Rises Must Converge,” Shaw’s “The Girls in Their Summer Dresses,” and Olsen’s “Tell Me a Riddle” (which is arguably more novella than short story).

But nothing in recent years has blown me away like the two stories I just read, both by Nathan Englander.

”Free Fruit for Young Widows” was my first exposure to him.  I’d never even heard of Englander before, but I stumbled across this short story in The New Yorker. (You can still read it online on their website.)  I thought it was incredible, so I checked Englander’s short story collection For the Relief of Unbearable Urges out of the library.

The whole collection is worth reading but the first story, “The Twenty-Seventh Man” is simply one of the best things I’ve ever read in my life. Period. It’s compassionate, harrowing, funny, poignant, horrifying . . . all in a few pages. And should be taught in every high school in this country. (An aside: there’s a character in it who has autism–at least I think he does; it’s not stated–and it was the most original, compassionate portrayal of autism I’ve seen since Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time.)

I’ve recommended these two Englander short stories to a bunch of people, ranging from Kim (who reads everything) to my father (who’s in his eighties) to my brother (who mostly reads scientific articles) and everyone has said it’s simply one of the best things he or she has ever read.

I don’t gush about a lot of modern writers, as anyone who reads these pages knows.  I was an English major in college, reading Dickens, Austen, Bronte and the like.  Most modern literature leaves me cold.  I don’t find the stories exciting or the people engaging.  It feels like the majority of short stories I read fall into the same pattern: a description of someone leading your basic life of quiet desperation, somewhat alienated from the people around him, with lots dialogue and details that sum up the meaninglessness of our daily pursuits, and a minor emotional epiphany at the end that leads to precisely nowhere.

But Englander tells a real story and he tells it like no one else.  His stories aren’t “familiar” but they are page-turners.  Frankly, I don’t need to recognize the boring, soul-sucking details of my own daily life in the stories I read: I’d much rather recognize something huge and painful about the way people torture and also love one another, about how compassion is the only healing force in the face of cruelty, about how parents can and should teach their children that, and about how we shouldn’t judge anyone until we know what his life has been.

Englander’s stories remind me of a beautiful and poignant quote from Olsen’s Tell Me a Riddle:

“Heritage.  How have we come from our savage past, how no longer to be savages–this to teach.  To look back and learn what humanizes–this to teach.  To smash all ghettos that divide us–not to go back, not to go back–this to teach.”

This is what Englander teaches.  Only he does it in the best way possible: by writing a story you can’t put down.

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Literary Links

February 4, 2010 in publishing, short story, young adult by Kim | 3 comments

A compilation of what I’ve found interesting:

Amazon is a bully. Another instance of “Amazon Fail” occurred last weekend when Amazon pulled all Macmillan books off of it’s shelves.  Customers could no longer buy the books in paper or via the Kindle, in fact in some instances purchased e-books were pulled from Kindles (wouldn’t that be a bummer if you were at a juicy part).  It was all about pricing.  Charlie’s Diary has a great review of what happened and the role Amazon thinks it plays in the publishing process vs. the role the publishers think it should play.

Of course, as we’ve been saying for 18 months, it’s vital to have independent bookstores who don’t cut off publishers over pricing or for any other incompetent or nefarious reason.  Independent booksellers provide a necessary alternative to the dominance of Amazon or other big box stores.

I love this quote from today’s Shelf Awareness:

“And special thanks and a show of support to the Macmillan companies in the face of bullying tactics by one of our largest competitors.”–Michael Tucker, head of Books Inc. and president of the American Booksellers Association, speaking yesterday at the opening of the Winter Institute in San Jose, Calif. His comment was interrupted by a standing ovation from the 500 independent booksellers in attendance.

If You Are the Mother of a Teen, Bookmark this Post Bilgungsroman posted a booklist of tough issues for teens.  From eating disorders to drugs to religion to sex, I couldn’t think of one that isn’t covered.  Every book is rated using a movie scale (G, PG, etc) and starred for quality.  The books seem to range for offering awareness of an issue to heavy duty reality situations.  This list is a gift.

This is what I’m getting Claire for her Birthday, but don’t tell her.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles The Millions asked its readers for recommendations on what to read/listen to for planes, trains, automobiles.  Here are mine:

  • Planes – I need a plot-driven, fast-paced novel that distracts me from thinking “I’m going to die, I’m going to die.”  A few of the recommendations on The Millions list were from nervous flyers, but I could tell from the choices that they are novice chickens.  I’ve made a plane let me off on the tarmac, in a foreign country – I’m serious when it comes to fear.  My choice:  Dan Brown, Diana Gabaldon, Stephanie Meyer, names you’ll rarely see me talking about, but one of those books and some wine and I’m good to go.
  • Trains – anything, who ever died on a train, unless you live in LA.  Uh oh, I live in LA.
  • Automobiles – I love listening to Garrison Keillor audio books/collections and David Sedaris audio books/collections.  We are also huge fans and customers of The Teaching Company courses, especially anything by Robert Greenberg.

Short Story Collections Having just finished reading Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It (I love the title, it may be a new life philosophy) by Maile Meloy, it’s hard to imagine another collection that will match it.  However, Book Fox lists the collections coming out this year that will try to give Maile a run for her money.

Never Wanting to Pass Up a Chance to Embarrass Claire She is speaking at the Pasadena Literary Festival on Saturday, there may be a few tickets left.  It will be a wonderful event, don’t let the rain stop you from attending.

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Franny and Zooey and Me

January 28, 2010 in book review, classics, RIP, short story by Claire | No comments

Why I Love JD Salinger

Kim gets news before I do.  So she shot me an email a few minutes ago, to tell me that JD Salinger had just died.  I’ve said to her in the past that his Nine Stories is probably my favorite book in the whole world, so she asked me if I wanted to write something about him, and maybe include my reasons for loving that book so much, since she didn’t have the same passion for it.  Salinger isn’t about Catcher in the Rye for me, I should be clear on that.  I read it once, didn’t like it, haven’t reread it.  But Nine Stories . . .

Best. Book. Ever.

How do you tell someone why a book gets to you on some deep emotional level?  It’s something both Kim and I have struggled with, I think, as we’ve written this blog and also tried to persuade each other to read certain books.  She loves Atonement; I couldn’t finish it (not because I didn’t like it, but because it was clearly going to be about someone making a false accusation and ruining someone’s life and I can’t bear that kind of a story.  The writing was beautiful).  Anyway, she tried to convince me to finish that and I never did.  So how can I convey to her how Nine Stories is more than just a collection of words to me?

It’s one of the books that made me want to be a writer, I know that much.  And I know that every time I write a patch of dialogue that feels real to me (not as often as I’d like), I think about JD Salinger and how no one has ever written more realistic dialogue, dialogue which sounds like what people might actually say–but resonates in ways that stay with you for a long time.

And then there’s the Glass family.  Or should I say, first and foremost, there’s the Glass family, who are more real to me than most of the people I know.  Seymour and Buddy and the twins and Franny and Zooey and Boo Boo.  Did I leave anyone out?  Probably.  They weave in and out of Nine Stories, sometimes front and center (“A Perfect Day for Bananafish”) sometimes off to the side but still influential (“Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut”).

Oh, god.   “Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut.”  What woman can read that story and not weep for what she thought her life was going to be as opposed to what it is?  In that story, Eloise remember being in love with Walt Glass (who died during the war) and then looks at her life now, married to a guy who’s nowhere near as sensitive or smart as Walt was.  Miserable, drunk, disgusted with what she’s become, she is suddenly, savagely cruel to her own daughter.  And then she says to her friend, desperately, tragically, “I was a nice girl . . .  wasn’t I?”

Well, now I’m crying.  Salinger has that affect on me.  Seven words, that’s all it took.  Seven words–something someone might actually say–and an entire tragic life is summed up, right there. Read the rest of this entry »

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Reading for the Maker of Lists – 2010 Reading Challenges

January 16, 2010 in Challenge, community service, essay, short story by Kim | 3 comments

What is it about a list that gets me going?  Years ago someone asked me, “what makes a good day?”  My immediate response was “one in which I cross off everything on my list.”  That is an answer that should send most people into therapy.  While I currently wouldn’t respond the same way (I didn’t start therapy, I just stopped making daily to-do lists, which is probably an indication of denial or avoidance or some other under-rated coping device), I recognize that a list inspires me to action.  I enjoy list making so much that I wonder if I can include it as a hobby.  My favorite part comes later – the crossing off.  The satisfaction I feel is wonderful.  I’ve included on a list tasks I’ve already completed, just so I can cross them off.  I think it is this addiction that attracts me to reading challenges.

Last year I joined four reading challenges:  the Essay Reading Challenge, the Art History Reading Challenge, the World Citizen Challenge and 100 Shots of Short (a short story challenge).  All taught me a bit about my reading and the subject I explored.  Well, almost all, I never read a single book for the World Citizen Challenge, but I did read the New York Times all year, which should compensate a little bit.  Here are my plans for this year:

  • My favorite challenge was the Essay Reading Challenge, so I’ve joined it again.  Because I don’t write reviews of each of the essays, there is a page dedicated to this challenge and I’ll write a wrap up post when I’m done.
  • 100 Shots of Short is a perpetual challenge and I’m just over halfway done.  Again, because I don’t review every short story, I have a separate page for 100 Shots of Shorts.
  • I love the Art History Reading Challenge and am looking forward to another year of reading about and viewing art.  Last year I committed to the six book level, this year I’m going to strive for nine books.  I’m hoping to combine what I’m reading with what I’m seeing to enrich both.  I will write separate posts about the books I read.
  • I signed up for Literary Affair’s Bronte Literary Luncheon series and was excited to see the All About Bronte Challenge.  I was going to read the books anyway, so it feels like a “gimmie” but why pass up a list crossing off opportunity?  This challenge includes books by and about the Brontes plus spin offs from the novels, and the Bronte movies.  I’ll commit to reading three Bronte books, one from each sister, but am hoping to do more.  I’ll write separate posts for my book reviews.
  • Even though I utterly failed at the World Citizen Challenge, I’ve decided to join the Social Justice Challenge.  For me, a book can be good on it’s own, but what makes it rise to the pantheon of great in my life is if it contributes to my non-reading life.  That could mean that it is the spring board for a great conversation, or it causes me to see a different viewpoint, or it enriches an experience related to the book.  What attracts me to the Social Justice Challenge is that for at least three months during 2010 the participants commit to doing something.  Each month of the challenge concentrates on a different issue.  This month is religious freedom and next month’s topic is water.  Each month the participants commit to a certain level of activity related to the issue, some months just reading a book, other months reading and doing an activity ,and if needed, a few months can be spent just observing what others are doing.  I’m looking forward to exploring important topics a little bit deeper.  During the months that I’m reading a book, I’ll post about it.

Those are my hopes for 2010, in addition to reading books for book groups, literary events, vacation, spiritual direction, translated books and just because it looks interesting.  Let us know of any interesting challenges you’ve found (even if you didn’t join).

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