Lady Banks' Commonplace Book

A'Twitter

Dearest Readers,

Her ladyship is all a’twitter. This month the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance announced that the ceremony for the 2008 SIBA Book Awards at the upcoming Decatur Book Festival would be a “Twitter-inspired event.” To which her ladyship, the editor thought “how cute.” Instead of the usual thank-you speeches, authors at the ceremony would respond to questions in twitter-fashion, duly limiting their answers to brief sentences of 140 characters or less.

The ramifications, her ladyship candidly admits, were not immediately apparent to her.
Her ladyship, the editor dutifully created her own Twitter account (she invites those of you who “tweet”—she shudders—to follow her).  She then spent a most frustrating evening attempting to write sentences composed of less than 140 characters. She is now quite doubtful that it can be accomplished. She is certain it cannot be accomplished while remaining faithful to the basic rules of good grammatical construction. Her ladyship, you may have had the opportunity to notice, is not known for her concise turns of phrase.

Nevertheless, she has persevered.  She now also has accounts on MySpace where you are certainly welcome to be her “friend” (another, lady-like shudder) and on Facebook, where she invites you to “write on her wall.” Her ladyship confesses that she is not entirely sure what that means.

Most of all, she exhorts any of her readers who happen to be attending the Decatur Book Festival to come and visit her in person at the SIBA table.  No number of tweets or emoticons will ever be able to replace the joy in meeting a new friend, or in seeing a real smile,with teeth.

Her ladyship, the editor

Authors 'Round the South

Authors Round the South is the home of one of the most extensive listings of literary events in the South, including author readings & appearances, book club meetings, book & literary festivals, open mics, poetry slams and writing groups. No matter what part of the South you live in, you can find a bookstore and author appearance near you!

Cherri Bingham, author of Reflections From the Heart at My Sister's Books, Inc. in Pawleys Island, SC	Michael Connelly, author of Brass Verdict at That Bookstore in Blytheville in Blytheville, AR	Tony Earley, author of The Blue Star at Bound to be Read in Atlanta, GA	Clyde Edgerton, author of The Bible Salesman at Pomegranate Books in Wilmington, NC
John Farris, author of Avenging Fury at Eagle Eye Book Shop in Atlanta, GA	Hollis Gillespie, author of Trailer Trashed at Book Exchange in Marietta, GA	Joshua Henkin, author of Matrimony: A Novel at McIntyre's Fine Books in Pittsboro, NC	John C. Inscoe, author of Race, War, and Rememberance in the Appalachian Sou at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva, NC
Bud Johnson, author of The Perfect Season at Windows a bookshop in Monroe, LA	Hank Kimmel, author of The Last Stand of a Stand-Up Comic at Wordsmiths Books in Decatur, GA	Haven Kimmel , author of Iodine at Square Books in Oxford, MS	Gen. Harold Moore, author of We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battl at Alabama Booksmith in Birmingham, AL
Ellie Morris, author of Cooling the South: The Block Ice Era, 1875-1975 at Book Seller in Birmingham, AL	T. Lynn Ocean, author of Southern Poison at Litchfield Books in Pawleys Island, SC	Jayne Pupek, author of Tomato Girl at Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, VA	Deborah and Joel Shilian, author of Rabbit in the Moon at Muse Book Shop in Deland, FL
Grady Thrasher, author of Tim and Sally' Beach Adventures at Horton's Books & Gifts in Carrollton, GA

Book Festivals & Special Events

The 2008 SIBA Book Awards at the Decatur Book Festival
August 28-30
If you want to count by “number of authors attending,” the Decatur Book Festival, which has over 200, is one of the largest in the country. And her ladyship, the editor, who will be in attendance, is not even counted among the number of luminaries since she is, after all, an editor, not an author.  Nevertheless you may meet her at the SIBA booth (#406)  at the festival on Saturday.

Katrina Benefit/New Stories From the South Party
Featuring Z.Z. Packer
August 28th, at 7:00 pm at Housing Works Bookstore in NYC

BOOKMARKS 2008
Winston-Salem, NC
September 13
Make plans to attend the FOURTH EDITION in Historic Bethabara Park on Saturday, September 13. Check out our list of authors to-date. Planning is underway so check back for ongoing updates. Learn how you can be involved in planning the book festival.

Fall for the Book Festival
Fairfax, VA
September 21 - 26

Charlotte Literary Festival
Charlotte, NC
September 6

Southern Festival of Books
Nashville, TN
October 10 - 12
The 20th annual Southern Festival of Books, October 10-12 in Nashville needs volunteers, Facebook Friends, and (of course) donations.

AUTHOR 2 AUTHOR:

Waving her white bra in defense of men, nationally syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker claims in her latest book, Save the Males, that maleness and fatherhood are under siege in America. But, as we soon learn, this provocative, sassy, and laugh-out-loud book is, at least in part, a loving tribute to Parker’s own father.

Listen in as Kathleen Parker discusses Save the Males with Karen Spears Zacharias, author of the forthcoming Where’s Your JesusNow? 

Q: When we think of voiceless victims, the male gender doesn't usually come to mind, unless he's under the age of 8. Why would an accomplished, articulate woman like yourself want to write a book defending males? 

A: First of all, thank you for that generous description. It’s very simple. I was raised by my single father after my mother died and I’ve helped raise three boys. That experience caused me to see things from the male perspective and it’s not looking so good out there. Save the Males is an attempt to shine a light on a constellation of dots, which, once connected, reveal a cultural mosaic that is anti-male. If trends continue on their present trajectory, it seems to me that the American family – the rock upon which this nation was built – will be irreparably damaged. I agree with the great journalist Midge Decter, who once said that families don't make you happy; they make you human. They are necessary, not only for raising children with character and purpose, but also for the continued strength of our country. A nation of fractured families is nation in trouble, vulnerable not only to external forces but also to increased government control as family autonomy is surrendered incrementally to “helpful” agents of the state.

Q:You speak of a new feminism. What do you mean by that? What's wrong with the old one?

A: We’re now in the third wave of feminism. Distilled, the first wave gave us the vote; the second gave us divorce and jobs; the third is helping us become porn stars. Look, I’m a feminist; you’re a feminist. But the feminism we grew up with that aimed to make the world a more female-friendly place has morphed in a movement that is decidedly hostile toward males and manhood. It’s time for a fourth wave that recognizes the important work feminism still has to do in the larger world where women have no rights, but also acknowledges the contributions men have made toward our own freedoms. Women do have enemies in the world, but they are not men of the West.

Q: What do you think are the three greatest misconceptions about males that we liberated woman are passing along to our daughters?

A:        1. That men are to blame for all that’s wrong with the world;
            2. That men are essentially violent, dumb and irresponsible;
            3. That we can live without them.

Q:  Didn't you grow up in that generation of southern women that were reading Marabella Morgan's The Total Woman? You're not suggesting we ought to meet our men at the door wrapped in cellophane are you?

A: Ha, now there’s a scary thought. I did grow up in the olden days when women were attentive to men in traditional ways. They didn’t have their own stripper pole in the living room, but they might have had dinner ready in the kitchen. I witnessed multiple variations on the domestic front as my father was a serial husband  - married four times after my mother died at age 31. What can I say? He was a dazzler – nectar to women – but also a gentleman. Apparently, he thought you had to marry a woman with whom you were familiar. I’m making some assumptions here.

But here’s the thing. Despite all those marriages, only two of which took place while I was officially a child, my father mostly raised me and he groomed me to be a feminist. That is, independent and self-sufficient – and in no way subservient to a man. My only conclusion about how women ought to treat men is with respect and the occasional unsolicited kindness. Here’s what I’ve discovered living mostly among men my entire life: Men are human. They like to be appreciated, loved, and greeted not necessarily in cellophane, but with a smile. How hard is that? For some reason, women have come to believe that if they fix a man a sandwich or sew on a button, they’ve surrendered a piece of their autonomy. For whatever reason, Southern women seem not to mind as much.

Q: Tell us about your father and the way in which he's shaped your attitude toward men.

A. Let me answer by painting you a picture with a little more texture. As I hinted before, my father was handsome, brilliant and hilarious. This isn’t just an adoring daughter talking. There’s a pretty significant consensus on those points. That also doesn’t mean he was perfect - five wives suggests some flaws – but he was a splendid father whose sacrifices I didn’t begin to appreciate until I became a parent.

He became a single parent at age 31, ten years after his marriage to my mother on his 21st birthday while he was a pilot in the Army Air Corps. She died of heart failure as a consequence of having had rheumatic fever before the discovery of Penicillin – and left  him with a three-year-old girl and a six-year-old boy. In a devastating instant, this young man became both mother and father. I forgave him all his marital mistakes because it comforted me to think that he simply couldn’t replace my mother. A motherless girl needs to believe that.

From the time I was 12 until I left for college, it was just us two except for a brief, one-year marriage. Each day after school, I joined him at his law office where I did my homework until he finished up. Once home, we convened in the kitchen where he cooked while I perched on a wooden stool peeling potatoes. We talked.

In that ritualized communion, I learned many useful lessons about the opposite sex. I learned that men like to talk while doing something else. I learned that good men do hard things without asking for anything return. I learned that men have big hearts that are often hurt and broken. That they’re smart and wise and can even understand the pressing concerns of teenaged girls. I learned that fathers adore their children and will sacrifice anything to help them succeed. I learned that fathers will lay their lives down for their children. I learned that men are capable of honor, valor, compassion and courage and that they are essential to instilling those virtues in their sons and daughters. 

Q: Can men become overly domesticated? If so, in what ways do you see that happening?

A: The current culture essentially wants to make men more like women, while pushing women to be more like men. I can’t really figure out why this is desirable, though apparently the drive toward these ends is attached to radical feminism’s idea of equality. The thinking seems to be that if we can get enough men wearing aprons – and enough women in combat – then equality will have been accomplished. What we fail to take into account is that human nature is only so malleable. These experiments ultimately will fail, but we may have to sit through a few generations of absurdity. This is good for columnists, but bad for kids.

Q:  I just read a book that's on the NYT Bestseller list that portrays God as a woman. I really like that notion, that God is beyond gender, but there were several references in that book suggesting that if women ran the world, we'd all be a lot better off. What does an egalitarian society look like to you?

A: I guess it looks like my home, where my husband and I are co-god and –goddess, equal partners in every respect. That doesn’t mean we each perform equal portions of a given “chore” because that’s never going to happen. We’re different. We have different gifts and talents. I leave the money to him because he’s got a business mind. (He’s a finance/banking attorney who helps businesses get started.) I do the cooking because I’m good at it and enjoy it. This is not a plot to keep women in the kitchen and men in charge of the purse strings. It’s about doing what makes sense. I guess we’re implementarians. When it comes to who wins and who loses, we generally skip the argument and let the one who cares most take the day. Of course, we’ve been practicing marriage for a long time (20 years). You learn to pick your battles.

In the larger world, an egalitarian society would recognize – and celebrate – the differences between the sexes and not reduce all transactions to a zero sum game. Equal opportunity and equal protection under the law, but no assumption of interchangeability.

Q: In defense of fathers, you challenge the family court system. Do you think the courts are archaic in their belief that children are almost always better off with mothers?

A: I challenge the family court notion that children don’t need fathers more than 50 days a year, which is the average number of days the child of divorced parents sees his/her non-custodial parent, usually the father. That’s insane. How is it that a man and woman who loved each other enough to marry and have children should now hate each other enough to deny a child half of his/her identity?

I’ve been divorced, have first-hand experience with single parenthood, and have been a stepparent, so I’m not casting aspersions here. I know how hard all of this is. But to me, the most compelling issue - more important than adult feelings - is that children know they’re loved by both of their parents and that they have equal access to both, assuming there are no compelling reasons for them not to.

That said, I also think that parents need to work these things out between themselves, if possible. Clearly, a baby needs to be close to Mom in the tender years, not to the exclusion of Dad but within sensible boundaries. We know this absolutely when we’re all under the same roof. Needs don’t change with address labels. At other ages, little boys need more time with Dad than with Mom. You can’t create absolute formulas that will work for every child and every couple, which is why courts can’t ever solve this problem. Parents have to be grown-ups and do the right thing for the kids they both love. I have ultimate faith in reasonable people behaving reasonably, but we may have to eliminate lawyers and judges from the equation.

I was talking to a friend who lives near her ex-husband so that their children can easily go from one house to the other. Their shared parenting isn’t the result of a court decree or a cultural manifesto; it’s common sense based on a shared, if separated, love. This arrangement also isn’t the adults’ fondest dream come true, you can be sure. But as my friend said, whenever she puts the children’s interests first, she always makes the right decision.

Q:  Quoting WalkerPercy, you've said that we need to repent from labels. What do you mean by that?

A: I mean that when we label each other and ourselves – we’re either liberal or conservative, feminist or whatever – we tend to get locked into prescribed ways of thinking and responding. Real communication breaks down. I’d rather we ditch our –isms and –ologies and focus on our humanness.

Q: You've taken a lot of heat for coming to the defense of males, haven't you? Why do you think there is so much anger toward men in America?

A: Taking heat is part of the job description when you’re a columnist. I’ve been defending the male of our species ever since I gave birth to a boy. Until then, I had been a fire-breathing feminist and bought everything I had been taught and told. God has an eye for certitude and turned the kliegs on mine. Becoming mother to a boy was a revelation of sorts and I began to see the world through guy eyes. It never looked the same after that and I couldn’t countenance a world that was so hostile toward my boy. It’s pretty easy to take heat when your righteousness is based in ancient wisdom and fueled by love for another.

Q: What’s the source of so much anger toward men?  

A: Two things: history and our tendency to universalize our own experience. Men have ruled the world since the dawn of time and women are ticked off about some of man’s less admirable accomplishments. On balance, I think we can see that the good outweighs the bad. On a less global scale, women who have been hurt in bad marriages find company among others who share their belief that their experience is a microcosm of the larger human experiment. One man isn’t bad; all men are. Soon the specific is generalized and a movement grows around shared anger.

The anger is understandable in some cases, but the globalization of that anger is mostly fashionable. The culture applauds both the anger and the hostility it breeds to the detriment of the next generation of boys, who, like my own, were born innocent - and the girls who in their true hearts really do like boys.

Q:  You're married, right? Did he give you any input on the book? Did you take his advice?

A: My husband is a prince, totally supportive of everything I do and patient with my sometimes tightly wound personality. He is my absolute best friend, the guy I never tire of talking to, and the grown up I know I can count on. As I tell our boys, I always know he’ll do the right thing. That’s the definition of manliness in my book. He mostly influenced the book by constantly reinforcing my firm belief that men are essentially good.

Southern Author Blogs

Glenda Beall of North Carolina Writers’ Network West wonders how mac-and-cheese became a vegetable at the meat-and-three.

Clyde Edgerton talks about writing his new book The Bible Salesman on A Good Blog is Hard to Find :

“I knew I wanted a Bible salesman and a criminal in my narrative--and I wanted the time to be around 1950. I can remember the year 1950 (I turned six that year) and it seemed like an appropriate and relatively simple time to use. I’d let my criminal meet O’Connor’s Misfit and I’d let the Bible salesman meet her Bible salesman…”

Before the Airstream: Hermann Glimscher reads Travels with Charley at Baby Got Books:

“Now I see that the book as a whole is about fear and change, among other things. It is about a people who are adjusting to a society that is no longer simple and direct, but complicated and ever-changing. The solid ground beneath them turned to shifting sands, and they struggled to find their balance through improvisation and luck. . .”

Her ladyship is somewhat late in noticing that one of her favorite writers, Mr. J.D. Rhoades, has a blog she should be reading. In her defense, she feels she must point out that it is a MySpace blog, and you have already heard her ladyship’s thoughts about that.  Nevertheless, Mr. Rhoades writes ones of the most amusing commentaries upon life, literature, and politics, and not so long ago reported on this particular burning political issue in North Carolina—the implicit obscenities of license plates that begin with WTF.

Literary Gossip & News

Her ladyship was most distressed this month to hear of the difficulties facing one of her favorite bookshops, Wordsmith’s Books in Decatur, GA.  But on the heels of the alarm came a most gratifying result. The community rallied to support a shop that had most certainly become not simply a place to buy books, but a place to love literature. Fundraisers were held, pleas sent out by authors and artists on behalf of the store, and indeed for the last two weeks the literary bulletins and boards of Decatur and Atlanta have discussed little else.  Owner Zachary Steele took the unusual stance of being completely transparent about the store’s difficulties, and the expectations of the customers (some of whom, quite naturally, questioned the notion of fundraising for a for-profit business.) The upfront honesty, summed up best, perhaps,  in the simple question Zach put in one of his blog posts-- When did it become wrong to ask for help?—has had its effect. Wordsmith’s announced that the immediate crisis had passed, thanks to the generosity of a community who wanted to keep their bookstore. Her ladyship is pleased to hear it.

In other literary news, The Southern Literary Trail website, is now open, a wonderful resource for anyone who ever wished to follow in the footsteps of Faulkner.  

The South Carolina Center for the Book has announced its 2008 Awards Recipients

The Poet Laureate of North Carolina, the inestimable Ms Kay Byer, has taken her duties to promote poetry and Carolina poets most seriously and enthusiastically.  She has begun a blog to “lasso the words of North Carolina's writers and readers” 

Booksellers are recovering from the Night of Twilight (her ladyship, the editor, is a bit nonplussed at this mania for vampires. But she admits to have never quite managed to finish any book by Ms. Anne Rice)

One author acknowledges the importance of independent bookstores for newly published authors.

The Arlington, VA Connection profiles Real Bookstores for Real Book Lovers. (Her ladyship the editor, most mischeiviously, wished to enclose the word "book" in that headline in parenthesis. She restrained herself.)

Recommended by Your Neighborhood Southern Booksellers

Cost by Roxana Robinson
A “privileged” family, whose members have become emotionally estranged, is forced together to intervene in the tragic heroin-addiction of one of the sons. I love Robinson’s writing—it is finely and beautifully crafted—one can feel the breezes and visualize the flowers of the Maine coast—in stark contrast to the severe dysfunction of the family.  I felt sympathy for every member of the family and was totally engrossed in their story. It was one book I couldn’t put down. --Nancy Olson, Quail Ridge Books & Music, Raliegh, NC

The Bible Salesman by Clyde Edgerton
 Clyde is at his best in this novel set in rural North Carolina in the 1950’s. Sly car thief Preston Clearwater convinces innocent, young Bible salesman Henry Dampier that he's an FBI agent in need of a helper to bust a car theft ring. The characters’ voices are pitch perfect and the unfolding plot, teeming with thievery, lying, double-crossing, love and lust - with occasional bouts of wholesome goodness – is engrossing and satisfying.--Sarah, Quail Ridge Books & Music, Raleigh, NC

Cooking With All Things Trader Joe's by Deana Gunn and Wona Miniati
"If you have a Trader Joe's in your area, you need this book! Chock full of pictures and recipes, this is a great cookbook. Who even knew there was such a thing as green chickpeas?" --Kathy World, The Gothic Bookshop, Durham, NC

M Is for Mischief: An A to Z of Naughty Children by Linda Ashman, Nancy Carpenter (illus.)
"This is a very funny book, more poetry and humor than an alphabet book. Ashman writes about 26 delightfully naughty children, from Angry Abby to Zany Zelda, with perfectly paired illustrations by Carpenter. Young readers are sure to laugh as each character gets a well-chosen comeuppance." --Leslie Reiner, Inkwood Books, Tampa, FL

Bookseller Blogs

Consuming Books: A veritable variety of books
The Girl With No Shadow (William Morrow, 2008), by Joanne Harris, is the sequel to Chocolat. 
Midnight Never Come  (Orbit Books, 2008) by Marie Brennan is an historical fantasy novel.
Good-bye and Amen by Beth Gutcheon (William Morrow, 2008) is the sequel to Leeway Cottage, an international best-seller.

Fiction Addiction: The 2008 World Fantasy Award Nominees

The 2008 World Fantasy Award nominees have been announced. In what may be a first, two of the nominees for Best Novel are husband and wife: Emma Bull was nominated for Territory and her husband, Will Shetterly, for Gospel of the Knife. Another of the nominees is Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay. I’ve not yet read Ysabel but Tigana by Kay is one of my favorite fantasy novels of all time…read more

Little Shop of Stories: How to hide a book in class?

So, school's back in session for most folks, and the time has come to address the most crucial issue facing kids in school today: How do you read the book you're REALLY interested in during class? How many times have you been caught hiding the new Percy Jackson, Artemis Fowl, or Eragon book in your lap behind your desk?

A Reading Life:What’s so great about Gatsby?

The way I choose the books I read is sometimes serendipitous—a swirl of little coincidental events that will nudge at my brain until I finally clue in to the fact that Universe is trying to tell me something. For example, when a discussion with a friend about favorite movies led around to The Great Gatsby, I hardly thought anything of it except to comment, “I’ll never forget that billboard with the eyes.”. . . read more

Page 854: The blog for Accent on Books
Summer reading for armchair travelers -- Accent on Books has an extensive travel section with a guidebook -- in some cases, several guidebooks -- for practically every location on earth. Yet as good as it is, I'll have to admit our selection doesn't include any of the books mentioned by "Slate" in their article several days ago in which they chose the "10 Oddest Travel Guides Ever Published." Want to know the comparative economic benefits of leopard farming and mink farming? Curious about the Cumberland Pencil Museum, or the countries of Kugelmugel or Whangamomona? Interested in how to get around Europe on fifty cents a day? . . .
Slate's article is here. And remember, "A Masai warrior admires a pair of Hudson Bay two-point shoes."

The Regulator: on readers with a sense of adventure. . .

The woman listened to our spiels with interest, but then, one at a time, she put each of the books back on the shelves. These all sound quite good, she said, but I would probably come across them at a number of other bookstores. I'm looking for some books that I'm only going to find out about at The Regulator. . .read more

The Urban Think! Mark Rothschild is Dumfounded

What fresh hell is this? I stopped, dumbfounded. My grandmother was at my bedroom door. “What the hell are you doing?” she asked, surprised but not angry. I looked down at my dress. “Playing school.” My grandmother began stroking her chin. Clearly, there were several ways she could take this conversation. “Matthew, what are you wearing?” I could see that she didn’t really want to ask this question but felt she had to. “A dress,” I said. . . . “And where did you get this dress?” she asked. . . . “I found it?” My grandmother sighed. “So you’ve been wandering around the women’s department at JC Penney? Do you expect me to believe you couldn’t find a better dress than that?”

Wordsmiths Books Blog: An Open Letter to Our Customers

Yikes and Away! The blog of A Sense of Humor Bookstore
The worlds oldest jokes. . .are all about farting and sex?

Lady Banks’ Commonplace Book

A mother decides the war is over

Swarming the air about his head that evening, there was a clough of newly hatched mayflies, ephemeral and chaffy, their pale membrous wings pleating the darkening sky. Not an hour ago he’d watched them ascend in their moment, like a host of angels from the stream that bubbled from a split rock and pooled, before scribing a silver arc in the boulder-strewn pasture, before falling over a cliff, and then he heard his mother’s plaintive voice.

When he came down from the high meadow, the dogs were standing sentry at her sides, their solemn stalky bodies leaning into her.

She said softly and then she said again with the conclusion of all time in her voice when he did not seem to understand, “Thomas Jackson has died.”

“It is now over,” she said, not looking at him, not favoring his eyes, but looking past him and some place beyond. There was no emotion in her words. There was no sign for him to read that would reveal the particulars of her inner thoughts. Her face was the composure of one who had experienced the irrevocable. It was a fact unalterable and it was as simple as that.’

He held his bony wrist in his opposite hand. He shuffled his feet as if that gesture were a means to understanding. He patiently waited because he knew when she was ready, she would tell him what this meant.

“Thomas Jackson has been killed,” she finally said. “There’s no sense in this continuing.” She pause and sought words to fashion her thoughts. “This was a mistake a long time before we knew it, but a mistake nonetheless. Go and find your father and bring him back to his home.”

Robert Olmstead, Coal Black Horse (2008 SIBA Book Award finalist)

 

Lady Banks’ Bookshelf

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