December 19, 2011

Bookworks Best of 2011 - and our bestsellers!

Here's a list of some picks from some of our store employees for the best books and music of 2011. Plus, the top-20 bestselling books at Bookworks for 2011.

Books

Desi Giraudo, Out-of-Store Events Coordinator
Best New Fiction of the year is The Passage by Justin Cronin. I consider this book the best New Fiction this year, because Justin Cronin was able to approach a popular theme, the apocalypse, with the attention to detail and precision of a memoir. This book kept me glued to the pages and up late into the nights waiting to see what would happen next. The best part is this is just the beginning and I am awaiting the next installation with anticipation I have not felt since Harry Potter.
Best New Non Fiction of the year is Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President by Ron Suskind. This political non-fiction reads like a novel, a novel where all the main characters are the men who are running this country. Suskind presents the rich content with such ease and allure that you just can’t put it down, which for political nonfiction is rare.

Joe Wesbrook, Bookseller
Rodney Crowell: Chinaberry Sidewalks. The songwriter writes a memoir of growing up in Houston, or how to overcome dysfunctional parents.
Sam Kean: The Disappearing Spoon. (released in paperback this year) Suddenly the Periodic Table makes sense. Fun science.

Susan Wasson, Bookseller
Iron House by John Hart – John Hart is one of my very most favorite writers and his books have gotten better with each one. Iron House has quite a bit of violence in it, which is appropriate for the story, and I love everything about his writing, his plots, and his characters. The last sentence of the book is perfect and makes you smile.
Agent X by Noah Boyd – it’s an exciting thriller with a really neat main character, who is a smart-alec and really likeable. Also very capable at being a fired, re-hired FBI agent. Boyd’s books are just excellent thrillers and unfortunately, Agent X is the last one since Mr. Boyd died a few months ago.

Music

Joe Wesbrook, Bookseller
Junip - Fields
Brian Wilson - In the Key of Disney
Bell X1 - Bloodless Coup
Paul Simon - So Beautiful or So What
Straight No Chaser - With a Twist

Amy Lahti, Marketing and Events Manager
Foster the People, Torches – “Pumped Up Kicks” was the breakout single from this album but it is actually one of the less-interesting songs in the mix. Although the “poppiness” of Torches turned off some, I think it’s what makes the album so infectious.
Smoove and Turrell, Eccentric Audio – Also getting high marks in the “infectious” category is this album, which defies categorization. The most obvious comparison is classic 60s funk, but Smoove and Turrell take classic funk and then take it way beyond the obvious.
Adele, 21 – This isn’t so much an album as it is a catalog of heartbreak. Anyone who has ever loved anything and lost it will find themselves in these songs. Adele is something many of us thought music had lost – a pop star with actual vocal chops who doesn’t rely on Autotune or oversinging to create breathtakingly beautiful songs.
The Decemberists, The King is Dead – I’ve personally felt the last few Decemberists releases were a little uneven, and while I respect a group’s desire to explore new musical territory, some of their recent explorations weren’t terribly listenable. Then the band released The King is Dead. This pared-down, back-to-basics album is exactly what no one expected them to do, and exactly what they needed to do right now.
Bon Iver, Bon Iver – We played this disc so much in the store we almost wore through the imprinting. I wasn’t an immediate Bon Iver fan, believing that no one could out-Sigur Ros Sigur Ros themselves. But this album is far from an imitation – it’s an invention, and one that gets better with every listen.

Bookworks Bestsellers for 2011 – Top 20 Books:

Seven Spiritual Laws of Superheroes – Deepak Chopra
Randy Lopez Goes Home – Rudolfo Anaya
Half Broke Horses – Jeannette Walls
Emperor of All Maladies – Siddhartha Mukherjee
La Llorona, The Crying Woman – Rudolfo Anaya
Billy the Kid and Other Stories – Rudolfo Anaya
Beatrice and Virgil – Yann Martel
Bird Cloud – Annie Proulx
Cutting for Stone – Abraham Verghese
A Spy’s Guide to Santa Fe and Albuquerque – E.B. Held
Jemez Spring – Rudolfo Anaya
First Grave on the Right – Darynda Jones
Go the F*** to Sleep – Adam Mansbach
Cowboys Don’t Cry – Charles Berry
More Make it Fast, Cook it Slow - Stephanie O’Dea
Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins
Thanks to My Mother – Schoschana Rabinovici
Wildflowers of the Sandia and Manzano Mountains – Larry Littlefield
An Improvised Life – Alan Arkin
Clara and Mr. Tiffany - Susan Vreeland

November 16, 2011

Why Should You Shop At Bookworks?

Yesterday, we got an email from a customer that sparked some provocative conversation here at the store. Out of privacy concerns, I’m not going to share the email. In short, the customer basically asked us to bonus him/her free merchandise with a holiday gift book order that a relative was placing for him/her, to make up for the fact that our prices are “so much higher” than Amazon.com.
At first, I was a little confused. We already have a holiday gift-with-purchase offer we are promoting, that starts Nov. 28. But this customer didn’t want that gift; he/she wanted something else, something additional that would “compensate” him/her for “losing out” on additional books he/she could get as gifts from Amazon.
As you can imagine, we were pretty startled by this request. Some of us felt angry, as though we were being blackmailed. Others felt disheartened – is this really how customers think, these days? Ultimately, though, we try to focus on the positive here. And the positive in this situation was that we could use this as an opportunity to spark a conversation that gives some possible answers to the question, “Why should I shop at Bookworks instead of Amazon.com?”
All of us here at Bookworks are aware that Amazon is out there, and we also know that many of our customers like to shop at Amazon AND shop at our store. We actually don’t have a problem with that. People have a choice of where to shop, and we appreciate it whenever people choose to shop with us, even if it’s for only a few of their annual book purchases. However, we hope people understand that while Bookworks and Amazon sell some of the same things, we are pretty different businesses. There are good reasons to buy things from Amazon – believe me, in this economic environment, we are sensitive to people’s price concerns, and understand why people are trying to save money.
But there are also some good reasons to shop at Bookworks, reasons that I gave to the customer who emailed us yesterday looking for bonus merchandise. I wanted to share those reasons with all our customers, as I shared them with that customer, as “food for thought” about why you should buy books from us:
- We pay state taxes that support our community's public services and initiatives (including roads, public transportation, social services, etc.), which many online retailers do not.
- We provide even our lowest-level line employees with a safe, appropriate working environment.
- We pay higher-than-average wages, and give benefits like health care and retirement plans to our employees (who are your friends and neighbors), lessening the local drain on social service programs.
- We donate money and books (to the tune of over $40,000 last year) to local nonprofits and educational organizations, and we support our local libraries, especially their literacy and reading-promotion programs, which have been proven to increase school success for children.
- We are readers ourselves and we actually enjoy reading new books, talking about books, writing about books, and recommending books to customers. We love the “thrill of discovery” and enjoy helping our customers experience that same thrill.
- And, we give back to our community however we can, whenever we can. We host school and nonprofit fundraisers, we sell books at nonprofit benefit events and donate a percentage of our proceeds, we work with arts and cultural community organizations to help promote their events, etc. etc.
We understand that all of those reasons don’t have an immediate effect on someone’s pocketbook, when they get ready to buy a book. But we hope that people see the value in these things, when you look at it from a long-range perspective.
The book business is in tremendous flux right now. We just don’t know what’s going to happen to our business in the near or long term. There are tons of social and technological changes going on that make the future of any independent retail business less than assured. But I am getting more and more worried about what kind of future any of us will have if we lose small, independent businesses – of any kind. We have had some conversations at the store about how it seems people are getting more and more reluctant to leave their homes to do anything, these days. What will happen if stores gradually shut down – and then if you WANT to leave your house, there’s nowhere to go?
We are doing our best to hang on, and we so appreciate everything that our customers do to help support Bookworks – whether it’s buying a book from us, or emailing information about a book event to your friends, or putting a bumper sticker on your car, or just talking enthusiastically about the store to someone you meet.
We have a pretty strong “no whining” ethic here at the store, and we feel it is much more productive to figure out how to adapt to changing economic and social conditions than sit around and complain about them. We try, whenever possible, not to provoke people, but to educate, and foment thought and conversation. I don’t ever want to make people feel bad for shopping at Amazon, or anywhere. I don’t necessarily believe that big vs. little, chain vs. local, or corporate vs. indie has to be a zero-sum game. There is probably an equilibrium point for peaceful coexistence – at least, I like to think so. We will all have to work together to find it.
I would love to hear what our customers have to say about this. Please feel free to comment at the bottom of the blog (sorry, commenting on this system is a little wonky), share your comment with us on Facebook or Twitter, or just send me an email at events@bkwrks.com.

November 7, 2011

The holidays are coming up, and I don’t know how most people feel about them, but I usually start out loving the holiday season – or the idea of it, anyway – and then feeling overwhelmed in pretty short order. Part of it is that now that I’m a parent, I feel that pressure to make sure the holidays are “picture-perfect” and that everything looks and feels just the way it should. Which is kind of a ridiculous goal, but there you have it.
I recently read a really great book for all the parents and involved grandparents, aunts, uncles, godparents, etc. out there, called The Whole Brain Child (Random House, $24, ISBN 9780553907254).
The basic idea of the book is that as parents, we need to help our kids develop not only great academic skills, or sports skills, or social skills, but also good emotional-health, emotion-handling, and resilience skills. The only way we can do that is by engaging their whole brain. The book goes through the different aspects of brain functioning, chemistry, and development, and explains how to deal with different parenting situations so that kids utilize different parts of their brain to handle issues that come up.
A lot of the recommended techniques have been covered before if you have read about “empathetic parenting” or “gentle discipline,” or if you have read any of the several great books out there about parenting “challenging kids.” However, this book is great because the text is so straightforward – it covers very complex topics like brain anatomy in a really clear, easy-to-understand way. It also doesn’t get bogged down in a lot of academic language, but instead uses role-play examples to model how you should respond to a given challenge.
What I really liked about this book is that unlike a lot of the parenting theory books I’ve read, this book connects the dots between “this is how your child’s brain works” and “this is how you should handle this challenge.” It is a lot easier to understand why you should react a certain way when a child misbehaves, or has a meltdown, when you understand that they are acting this way because of their brain’s developmental stage.
One other thing I liked was the authors’ emphasis on helping children develop resilience. A couple of studies have been published recently that show that ultimately, achievement in adulthood is determined not by a child’s innate ability or skills, but by their ability to face a challenging situation, fail, and then go back and keep trying.
This is a great book for any parent, but especially if you are – like me – a parent of a child who has “big feelings” and feels things (anxiety, disappointment, failure) more acutely than some other kids do.

November 2, 2011

Wanted to share a review of a great book I read a few months ago which is now available for purchase. It's called Moonlight on Linoleum by Terry Helwig. I really loved this book - check it out! ISBN is 978-1451628470, remember you can shop with us right here on the website!

In this memoir, a woman looks back at her mother’s life and choices, and how those choices affected the lives of her children – in both good and bad ways.
Terry Helwig’s mother, Carola, was a charismatic, mercurial, troubled woman who had become a mother when she was still a child herself. Navigating through relationship problems, economic insecurity, a search for herself, and the births of five more children left Carola consistently in crisis, and Helwig thrown into the role of “parent” for her younger siblings. Many people in Helwig’s place would have grown up full of resentment and anger for their lost childhood. Helwig, however, has a different perspective: that her mother was only human, after all, and did the best she could. And, that Helwig’s responsibility for her siblings created an incredibly tight bond with her sisters. Although Carola’s life ended tragically after struggles with drug addiction and the death of a toddler son, Helwig remembers what made her mother so compelling a personality, and the good and bad times the family shared, that made them a family. This is a touching portrait of a family with an unshakable attachment to each other – forged in the flames of adversity, the steely resolve Helwig and her siblings now bring to their lives and their relationships with each other seem unbreakable. Anyone with a less-than-picture-perfect family of origin (that is to say, almost all of us) will find this memoir heartfelt, tragic, uplifting, funny and inspirational. There will be comparisons to Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle, but this is an original portrait of an original woman, and the strong women her weaknesses produced. Highly Recommended.

October 24, 2011

Sybil Exposed

I just finished this very startling and controversial book and had to share a review. Have you read this book, or read about it? What do you think?
In the 1970s, Americans were introduced to the story of Sybil, a fragile young woman who sought therapy for her “hysteria,” only to reveal in therapy that she had been horrifically abused by her mother when she was young – and as a result, had developed 16 separate multiple personalities that would periodically take command of her body, leaving her stranded in unfamiliar situations and with no memory of recent events.
“Sybil’s” story went unquestioned and uninvestigated for years. Recently, though, reporter Debbie Nathan gained access to a huge archive of Sybil author Flora Rheta Schreiber’s papers. What Nathan found was incredible – for one, “Sybil” (real name: Shirley Mason) had at one point completely recanted everything she had told her therapist, Connie Wilbur, in therapy, saying that she had been lying about everything. For another, Schreiber herself had tried to investigate Mason’s claims of childhood abuse and Multiple Personality Disorder-caused difficulties, and came up with no corroborating evidence. No person from Shirley’s past – including a domestic worker who spent considerable time in Mason’s home – remembered ever seeing Mason with bruises, remembered any of the outrageous behavior Mason accused her mother of, or remembered Mason ever “blanking out” or appearing to become a different person. Some of the anecdotes Mason relayed about her childhood – about “waking up” in the fifth grade after another personality had had control over her body for the last two years, and nearly flunking fifth grade as a result – had no basis in fact. The corn crib Mason's mother supposedly left her in to suffocate was a small cabinet not large enough to contain even a child-sized human being. As Nathan continued to dig, more and more inconsistencies arose.
Schreiber’s papers reveal some other startling truths about the case, according to Nathan. Among them, that Dr. Wilbur, Mason’s therapist, engaged in a number of highly irregular and inappropriate behaviors with her patient – including giving her money, prescribing massive amounts of barbiturates to her, and allowing Mason to live with her at times – that definitely affected the therapeutic relationship. Most of Mason's revelations of abuse and dissolution in to "alters" happened after multiple marathon therapy sessions where Wilbur had drugged Mason with sodium pentothal, which had been used as a "truth serum" by law enforcement officials until it was revealed that the drug lead to false confessions and hallucinations. Nathan also found evidence in Schreiber's papers that, in fact, that Mason’s “recovered” memories of abuse, and her subsequent “dissociation” into different personalities were not independent activities by Mason, but artifacts suggested by Wilbur during sessions. Mason admitted as much to Wilbur and to Schreiber. The women, however, quashed Mason’s assertions and objections in fear of losing out on the financial rewards the book could bring them.
This book is already proving to be controversial. In the last part of the book, Nathan investigates the possibility that not just Mason, but many other “multiple personality” patients, may have been coaxed into revealing “alters” and past abuse by their therapists – “recovering memories” of things that did not actually happen. There’s also the not-insignificant fact that all three of the women Nathan talks about in the book are dead now, and not available to counter any of her assertions. However, Nathan’s explorations of the Schreiber archive, and her own investigations, paint a compelling picture of the real Sybil and how she was controlled and manipulated by others throughout her tormented life. Whether or not Mason fabricated her recollections of abuse, one thing is certain – the poor woman lived a tortured, sub-functional existence, and was not seemingly encouraged to develop independence or normal human relationships by her therapist. Recommended read.
Sybil Exposed, Simon and Schuster, Inc. $26. ISBN 9781439168271

October 17, 2011

Hi! My name is Amy and I'm the store's Marketing Manager. I also read a ton of nonfiction books. I'll be blogging about them here.

Why do I like to read nonfiction? For a few reasons:

- I think many times, truth can be as compelling and strange as fiction.

- I love learning and especially learning things about history, or our world, that I didn't know.

- Knowledge is power!

I don't have a review to share today, but I am reading The Man in the Rockefeller Suit by Mark Seal, published by Viking Adult. Available now! Here's the ISBN for easy searching in our inventory system: 978-0670022748

So far, it's amazing! I'll post a review ASAP after I finish the book.

Until then, happy reading

Amy