Shakespeare and Co. Booksellers

Panderosa

Posted in Books, Events, News on 9 July, 2009 by S&Co.

Well, we lost our perennial 3rd place slot to Barnes & Noble in the latest Best of Missoula poll. It’s a terrible wake-up call.

Ah, I’m kidding. Congratulations to all the winners!

In other news, Kevin Canty’s newest goes on sale the 14th of July, Bastille Day, and he will be here next Tuesday night (the 14th) to read from it, at 7 pm. Kevin reads so well, on the page and in person, so please plan to join us for this special event.

And finally we will see arrival of Nicola Keegan’s brilliant first novel, Swimming. I read the galley some months ago and I must say it struck me as the best thing I’d read in quite some time. I look forward to seeing a finished copy, and to excerpting from it here.

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It’s so dadgum fast.

Posted in News on 4 July, 2009 by S&Co.

Except for the fact that there’s no wild Standing O at the end, I think this is cool as hell:

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July 4th Hours

Posted in News on 3 July, 2009 by S&Co.

We are open Saturday, July 4th from 10 to 3.

Normal hours Sunday.

Many, many new books came in this week, and loads of shelfstock as well. It’s a great time to stop in and browse …

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Strickland, Brown, & Smetanka

Posted in Journals on 29 June, 2009 by S&Co.

If you care to peruse our fine selection of literary journals, you may come across the following in these new arrivals:

In Harvard Review (#36) a story by Sarah A. Strickland (”A Dark Turn”) that TOTALLY KICKS ASS. I had not heard of Strickland, but I believe she is vastly talented, and this story is worth reading. Harvard Review — I’ve said this before — is — at just $10! — a tremendous value.

In Fence #21 (Spring/Summer 2009) a poem (p. 136) by Missoula’s own (at least for this season) Steffen Brown.

In the new Brick (Summer 2009) an illustration by Missoula artist Andy Smetanka (p. 167) Also in Brick, an interview with the late Donald Westlake.

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The Writer’s Notebook: Craft Essays from Tin House

Posted in Books, Excerpts, Writing with tags Tin House, Writing on 28 June, 2009 by Jenna

Dorothy Allison on place:

[pg. 11] You were in that room with him when he said no, he did not want you, and you walked out of the room and it felt as if you were bleeding into your own belly. You went down the stairs, out into the night, and you smelled—what did you smell? Was there the distinct odor of spilled beer on the steps? Were you thinking about how when your daddy left that was all that you could smell on the front steps after he was gone? Is it torn-up weeds you smell? Somebody was sitting on those steps earlier and she was crying, and she didn’t have anything else so she reached down and pulled up the grass and ripped it, and you can smell the torn grass in the air.

Or is it your own skin? You had put on perfume. You had bathed carefully. You had washed your hair. You had used that new soap with lavender scent and flowers. You wanted to be wanted, and no one can ever understand how terrible it felt to be told, no, I don’t want you. But you smell your skin, and it stinks of sour disappointment, and you don’t want you. You can understand why he didn’t want to have sex with you. That’s place—the smell in the air, the memory, the association. It’s all history. You are somebody real who comes from somewhere, and you have been hurt in specific, deep, terrible ways.

—The Writer’s Notebook: Craft Essays from Tin House, $18.95
IN STOCK

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Dept. of Vivid Description

Posted in Excerpts, Magazines on 27 June, 2009 by S&Co.

From this week’s New Yorker fiction:

He walked up the flag steps, through the unlocked door, and into a broad hall. It was an echoing house of frighteningly tall rooms that smelled of emptiness and mouse droppings. The place hadn’t been painted in many decades, though the last occupants had left it relatively clean. The lightless kitchen, something added a hundred years after the place was built, contained a gassy-smelling stove and a badly chipped sink. Upstairs, four vast rooms opened off a wide hall, and a door led up to an attic crossed with naked cypress beams. Above that perched a glassed-in belvedere, unbearably hot, where he could look out over long flat plots of woods that had once been cotton fields. He imagined pickers dragging their bags slowly across the steaming landscape and understood whose labor had built the house. The roof was iron, and it looked to be sound, though storm-dented and running with rust.

– Tim Gautreaux, Idols

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Meet Jane Smith, Thursday, July 2nd, 7 pm.

Posted in Books, Events with tags Jane Smith, The Garden of Invention on 26 June, 2009 by S&Co.

The story by Erika Fredrickson of the Missoula Independent.

The story by Jamie Kelly of the Missoulian.

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Model United Nations

Posted in Books, Excerpts with tags Chuck Palahniuk on 20 June, 2009 by Jenna

[pg. 78-79] Cat sister say, “Hey, Pygmy, want to do me a big, big favor?”

From distance across worship shrine, Magda eyeball this agent and host sister.

Whisper of cat sister say, “It’s about the Model United Nations next week.” Say, “Nobody wants to be the United States…will you?”

For official record, this agent requested to represent American nation on council floor, service on security council, create policy.

Whisper scented of solder smoke, melted lead connecting circuits sister mystery project, whisper say, “Special favor?” Host sister lift hand, fingers straight as for pledge or vote, say, “Swear, I’ll owe you, big-time.”

On condition this agent act as delegate on behalf of United States will host sister be indebted. So vast appeal.

Cat sister say, “Plus, Ms. Matthews will give you extra credit in Social Studies.” Say, “Plus, we’re having a Dance of World Peace after.” …

Continue sister say, “I’m going as Swaziland. United Nations is exactly like Halloween except more political.” Say, “My brother’s going as Ceylon. He figures since nobody knows jack about Ceylon he can just make up stuff.”

—Pygmy, by Chuck Palahniuk (Doubleday, $24.95) IN STOCK

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The Radical Becomes Pragmatic

Posted in Magazines, Opinion on 20 June, 2009 by S&Co.

Kevin Baker writes in the July issue of Harper’s:

Obama’s failure would be unthinkable. And yet the best indications now are that he will fail, because he will be unable — indeed he will refuse — to seize the radical moment at hand.

Every instinct the president has honed, every voice he hears in Washington, every inclination of our political culture urges incrementalism, urges deliberation, if any significant change is to be brought about. The trouble is that we are at one of those rare moments in history when the radical becomes pragmatic, when deliberation and compromise foster disaster. The question is not what can be done but what must be done.