Coming into an Author's Oeuvre Late, or What to Make of Richard Powers' "Generosity"

So I was off to Chicago for a trade show (yes, this happened a while ago) and I decide what I need is a book set in Chicago. So I pick up Richard Powers' Generosity and give it a go. Many books into his writing career, I'm late to the party. I'll never catch up, and I'll never be a fan the way the folks who discovered him back when did. My ex-coworker Jack was handselling Powers at Schwartz back with his first novel, Three Farmers on the Way to a Dance twenty years ago. Am I that old? Yes I am. End stream of consciousness here.

Sometimes just reading one book by the author can give you insight into his or her entire output. OK, that works a little better with Danielle Steel (I read Fine Things, since it was set in a department store) but most writers do have a certain style and care about overarching themes.

Generosity is from the perspective of a not-very-successful writing instructor. He realizes that in his class is someone who may have a condition known as hyperthymia--she's just pretty much always joyful, despite being an Algerian refugee who's been through the playbook on suffering. The story jumps back and forth between these two (and the guidance counselor who gets involved with both of them) and an futurist-industrialist who's looking for just this sort of breakthrough. Some chance revelations to the media spins the story out of control for all the characters. It's the kind of book that makes the mind spin; the future's just a bit closer and it balances on the precipice of dream and nightmare. I really enjoyed reading it, but it also made me nervous.

But without knowing too much, I wonder how Powers' works connect. Do they always have that meta quality? In Generosity's case, the author reassures us he's telling a story, despite the whole thing being ripped from today's headlines. Would the hordes of readers who jumped on the Powers bandwagon with the last NBA-winning Echo Maker happily go back into his collected work?

So I look back to his other books for clues:

Three Farmers...(1985)--Two plots spinning off the World War I-era photo. One of them involves a computer scientist.

Prisoner's Dilemma--A son recounts his father's mental decline

The Gold Bug Variations--An affair between two scientists intent on modeling DNA.

Operation Wandering Soul--A ward of refugee children, an overworked doctor.

Galatea 2.0--A neurologist teaches a model of a human brain English literature.

Gain--I always seem to think this is a historical novel about Procter and Gamble (of course it isn't it's set in Illinois), and as almost always, there's another parallel story about a woman with cancer.

Plowing the Dark--This novel is about research into virtual reality, and there's another story about a hostage. Get it? Both sort of contained in nothingness.

The Time of Our Singing--A white physician marries a black singer, and the kids sort of follow in their parents paths, sort of. OK, I had trouble figuring out exactly what the boys did from the reviews, but the daughter because a militant activist.

Echo Maker--Man has traumatic head injury. Thinks his sister is an impostor.

Heart and mind? Heart vs. mind? Science (one hand) and the effect on us (the other).

My idea. I'm going to try to suggest Powers to anyone browsing intently in our SCG (that's cognitive science) section and see if I successfully make a convert. I probably won't let them read Gain first. We'll see how it goes.

(Richard Powers' Generosity goes on sale tomorrow, September 29th).

Store Closing, Bookstore Visits in Boston Area

Store closings expected to his 10,000 this year, says a new study published in the Chicago Sun Times. That's double last year. Bookstore closings are expected to reach 400, which is a 500% increase over last year. Why that's the size of one good-sized chain!

While my panic on retail has been limited to one store closing on my block (Soaps and Scents), you can certainly see results from the real estate bubble bursting around town. And I suspect that some far-out suburban areas, where there was more strip-center development and speculative building, will fare even worse.

In my mom's neighborhood in Brookline (akin to a very, very, very busy Downer Avenue), we were counting the casualties, from a home store I was quite loyal to (Bowl and Board) to several chains including Ritz Camera, Foot Locker, Qdoba, and The Children's Place. The highest profile closing was the neighborhood B&N, with nearby Brookline Booksmith hoping to pick up the slack. About five people sent me this article (either cut out of an actual newspaper or by linking) on Brookline book changes.

On my recent trip to Boston, I did some browsing (and buying) at the various bookstores in the area, including outlets at both Borders and Barnes and Noble (actually three chains as I went to at least one store in the college division, which was until recently, a separate entity).

The five indies I visited were Harvard Book Store, Brookline Booksmith, Porter Square, Symposium, and Trident. The latter two are new to my visit list. Symposium is an academic bargain book store in Kenmore Square, while Trident in Back Bay has been around for 25 years. They love the Dover spinner racks, and while three seemed like too many for me, you might find at least one with the kids titles in our future. I bought pirate tattoos and Jeremy Fisher stickers.

At Harvard Book Store, I got to chat with several of the folk there and hear their picks. Megan loves Generosity, the new Richard Powers (I'll have a post on this when it comes out) while Carole touted Strength in What Remains, by Tracy Kidder. It has much of the power of his previous Mountains Beyond Mountains, which went on to be a huge bookseller and critical fave.

While there, I bought a copy of The Most Beautiful Book in the World, a book they are recommending like crazy at Next Chapter. It's a Europa book, so it's mighty purty. I can't wait (stack is large, may wait a while). It's on the featured on Select Seventy.

At the two other stores, I did some card shopping, partly to buy cards and partly to look for interesting lines. I got at least one good idea, but another needs a local supplier. Someone in the Boston area does beautiful local postcards, on good quality paper. They make a custom card of the bookstore carrying the line for each store. Nice idea!

Aside from that, I visited family, the bargain book show, and tried out a selection of cupcakes from Sweet. Here's their menu.

We Don't Have as Many Advance Reads on the Hot Titles for Fall, and Here's Just One Reason (OK, Lots More than One) Why

We don't see the number of advance reader's copies that we used to. There are a lot of reasons for this of course.

1. We are a smaller store than before. If a rep got one or two galleys before, we might have been on the shortlist. Now it's less likely.

2. We're a new store and inadvertently were left off mailing lists in the transition. One publisher actually left me on their mailing list but didn't have the new address. Mailings have been going out as: "Daniel Goldin, Address TK, 53202." Believe it or not, these mailings are eventually getting to me, even though our current zip code is 53211. Thank you to the UPS gang (can I give a shout out to Drew?) for forwarding this properly.

3. Publishers are doing less of them. One place where the ebook has really caught on is with uncorrected proofs/bound manuscripts. Most of my reps have Sony Ebooks for this sort of thing. At least one group was given Kindles, even though under that scenario, the publisher no longer has control of their own product. Big mistake, it seems to me. The rep can no longer share that ebook manuscript with a store.

4. In my particular case, I'm no longer the new book buyer. The copy often (but not always) goes to Jason and though he may think of me as the best person to get the galley, he may not. I could say to him, "I want to see everything you get and get first dibs." But how's that going to help the books take off? He's great about divvying up titles to our booksellers, and I can only read seven or so books per month. There's usually a couple that I start and don't finish because, well, I don't like them. I shouldn't have gotten those in the first place.

So I have nothing personal to say about all the exciting August books I mentioned in a previous post. It's all hearsay, of which I am trying to absorb plenty! I've only read four "fall" titles (which I think we consider August through November on sale). I've pictured two of them, from Dan Chaon and Richard Powers, but Jeannette Winterson's cover is changing so I won't post the old one.

Despite this, our galley shelf in our break room is pretty full. So what's going on? That's for another post.

Another Day, Another Offsite

Dateline: Tuesday, July 14th.

Greetings from the “City of Milwaukee Emerging Business Sustainability Conference.” I got here at 7 PM to set up. I’m the only vendor that has widgets to sell; everyone else is selling services. That left most other folks to leave their spaces and participate in the workshops, leaving me behind to read Richard Powers’ Generosity. Did you know Powers doesn’t sign books? For a second, I thought that meant he might still do readings, as long as he didn’t sign, but he doesn’t do that either, at least for me. He lives in Illinois so I thought we had a shot. We didn’t.

Maybe one day Powers’ cousin will stop by and say, “Did FSG say Rick doesn’t do events? He’s coming to my wedding next May and he’d do anything once I told him this was my favorite bookstore.” There’s a lot of fantasy involved in that statement. I feel like I’m writing fan fiction.

Hey, that's sort of what happened with David Rhodes, author of the wonderful and popular (at least in Milwaukee) Driftless. We were told he wouldn't be touring for the hardcover (it seemed like a shot because he lives in Wisconsin), but he's appearing at Boswell Book Company for the paperback, on Sunday, October 11th, at 2 PM. Go figure. I'm thrilled.

I brought some startup books of the entrepreneurial sort, some basic management stuff, some sales, some sustainability titles, and some business narratives. I played, “How many books have I read on the table” with Marc, the Associated Bank guy who led me to this gig. I read 12; he read more. I’ve got about 60 titles altogether, in ones, twos and threes. There’s no speaker. My rule of thumb is “No speaker, no offsite,” but I broke the rule almost immediately.

So far, the two titles most talked about are Good To Great and The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. These are titles that appeal to companies and nonprofits alike. Everybody’s got a crappy coworker, I guess. Oh, and several folks have commented on Jeffrey Gitomer’s The Little Red Book of Selling. I wasn’t quite sure how far an emerging business would be, which is why I brought three copies of How to Write a Business Plan. I looked at a number of books on the subject when I was starting my business and I thought this was the best. (I sold one to a fledgling construction company owner, with just this endorsement).

So anyway, I think I’m supposed to be here all day. I got up at 4 this morning. I’m not sure I’ll make it.

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In the end, I sold five books, two of which I threw in the kit at the last minute. I talked to some nice folks, several of whom were trying to sell me their services. And I finally got to go in the new Manpower Headquarters. They have a very neat display case with historical artifacts from the company.

I made it to about 2 PM.