New Displays-Resetting Edgar and NBCC Noms

I have broken many vows over the years, some professional and others personal. But one I've done pretty well on is switching out displays with some regularity. And nothing energizes me like too much to do, so I followed up our four events on Friday (OK, Jason sold the books at the Riverside but I did help him pack) and a visit from family to spend Saturday evening working with Jocelyn to freshen things up.

The Edgar nominees already had their table, but now we've got signs listing all the book noms. So it was fun to get a take from mystery reviewer Carole Barrowman when she brought in her Oprah's Book Club class for a session with Chris Bohjalian--they always read Midwives. We both agreed that we'd love to see Tom Franklin get the prize for Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter.

Carole also gave me her pick for Best First Novel, The Poacher's Son by Paul Doiron. Well, at least that's what she told me. I wish I had been writing this down. It's about a Maine game warden that finds his estranged father accused of murder. The author is the editor of Down East magazine, so you can be sure that he captures local color. Here are the rest of the noms for that category:
Rogue Island, by Bruce DeSilva
The Serialist, by David Gordon
Galveston, by Nic Pizzolatto
Snow Angels by James Thompson

Just as an aside, here is Sharon's recommendations for another nominee, James Thompson. She's read both Snow Angels and its follow-up, Lucifer's Tears, and this is a group rec.

"The first two books in James Thompson's new series provide an excellent answer to the question of what to read when you are done with Stieg Larsson. Kari Vaara is a Finnish police detective with an American wife. In Snow Angels, he has to solve the brutal killing of a Somali actress. In Lucifer’s Tears, he is investigating the torture and murder of a Russian businessman’s wife. The crimes are quite violent, but what makes these stories interesting are the details about Finnish culture and language. Like most Americans, I know next to nothing about Finland, and I found these books to be a quick fascinating read about a place that I will probably never have the opportunity to visit."

We also finally set up our National Book Critics Circle nomination display. It's right at the front of the store, bumping our winter book club picks to the middle. Eventually book club will settle in its semi-permanent home where we have the last of our holiday markdowns.

I've already listed a few of the category noms on another blog post, but here are a couple more. Jason's had a bit of a challenge getting in some of the noms for this one, so if you don't see something as you're browsing the table, just ask.

Poetry
Anne Carson,author of Nox
Kathleen Graber, author of The Eternal City
Terrance Hayes, author of Lighthead
Kay Ryan, author of The Best of It
C.D. Wright, author of One with Others: [a little book of her days].

Biography
Sarah Bakewell, author of How To Live, Or A Life Of Montaigne
Selina Hastings, author of The Secret Lives Of Somerset Maugham
Yunte Huang, author of Charlie Chan
Thomas Powers, author of The Killing Of Crazy Horse
Tom Segev, author of Simon Wiesenthal. Translated by Ronnie Hope.

Autobiography
Kai Bird, author of Crossing Mandelbaum Gate
David Dow, author of The Autobiography of an Execution (just out in paperback)
Christopher Hitchens, author of Hitch-22
Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, author of Hiroshima in the Morning
Patti Smith, author of Just Kids
Darin Strauss, author of Half a Life.

Not sure why one set up nominations come title first, and the other comes author. I should fix that...someday. Lots of washed-out grays in the jackets that got nominated. And that makes two noms that I read this year, Apollo's Angels in nonfiction and Half a Life in autobiography. I feel like a good bookseller should have read at least three, so I still have work to do.