Blogs

It's All About the Book


It’s all about the book, the conference. I know for a fact we take it for granted. Every year, Square Books, Jr., along with a group of teachers, parents, and librarians select two authors for the Young Authors Fair, and each child in two respective age ranges is given a copy of the author’s book. By the time the conference rolls around the kids can actually meet the authors, ask questions, give feedback, and share the book with others. This year the 20th annual Oxford Conference for the Book Young Authors Fair brought authors Jewell Parker Rhodes and Mary Amato to Oxford and Square Books, Jr.

Jewell Parker Rhodes has been to Oxford before, and we had to have her back, because we wanted lots of kids to read Ninth Ward, not only because New Orleans is geographically close to us, but because we all experienced Hurricane Katrina in parts. Most importantly, however, we want readers to connect with Lanesha, resident child of a setting we know exists or used to exist. We want to celebrate Lanesha’s story and herald the innocence of children despite great loss and suffering. Mary Amato was graciously sent to Oxford by Egmont USA, possibly one of my favorite publishing houses. It isn’t an easy task to find a novel for the whole of ninth grade, boys and girls. While not overtly about a girl or about a boy, Guitar Notes is about the interchanges of youth, the crush and the crushed. Amato’s characters, like the different gauges of stringed instruments, experience “thrum” or an exchanged vibration or energy on the same wavelength or something. Dig it? Thrum is what the Oxford Conference for the Book is all about. The kids in Oxford get it, and we are grateful to Mary and Jewell for coming all this way to share their books with us. And ultimately there is the connection between the authors and readers and booksellers and librarians and teachers, and well, it is a domino effect… a shared literary experience in a town that’s just crazy about books and experiences. JM

 

Own a piece of Square Books -- and help us pay for balcony repairs


Since 1986 readers and writers from Oxford or afar, Ole Miss students, and Mississippi tourists have enjoyed a quiet, solitary afternoon or a meeting with friends on the balcony outside the second floor of Square Books overlooking the historic Square. It's where writer Josephine Humphreys once remarked, "this must be the center of the universe." There have been plenty of book signings up there -- one with Willie Morris accompanied by tunes from Charlie Jacobs and Fish Mickie, others with John Grisham, Larry Brown, Buddy Nordan, and Barry Hannah. There's a photo in the upstairs office of Gary Fisketjon and Donna Tartt, gazing off into different directions, on the balcony. The Square Books balcony is a favorite spot for viewing Christmas and 4th of July parades and the annual Double Decker Festival, and at least three weddings and numerous marriage proposals have taken place here. Bill Buford wrote a profile of Lucinda Williams for the New Yorker in which he claimed that he saw something else taking place on this balcony. (We tend to think he made that up, as we've never seen that up here.)

The City recently upgraded the building code regarding balconies on the Square, so we are renovating accordingly and replacing the deck at the same time. We are offering for sale pieces of this history, the Square Books balcony, for $5 each, partly in an effort to recover some of our cost. You may get them in the store or, if you're out of town, we will ship with your next mail order. Each piece is 9" tall, the standard height of a hardcover book. RH

Thacker Mountain Radio at the Lyric Thursday, March 21 at 6 p.m.

Thacker Mountain Radio will be at the Lyric as part of the Oxford Conference for the Book 



Ron Rash’s new collection of short stories, set in the Appalachia of today and as far back as the Civil War, Nothing Gold Can Stay (Ecco, hd. 24.99), is a priceless collection that will haunt readers long after the book is closed.  Rash, the prolific and talented author of short stories, poetry and novels, including last year’s bestseller The Cove, has a gift for evoking a place, a people and their harsh and difficult lives and finding the unsentimental beauty there. CFR

Jamie Quatro’s linked short stories in I Want to Show You More, the author’s first book, are of lives that are slightly off kilter, the cracks beginning to appear in the calm surfaces concealing turmoil--family, children, death, infidelity, faith. They are scary, and horrifying and quirkily funny. Advance praise from authors like Jill McCorkle, Tom Franklin and Sven Birkerts continues to pour in and Tom Bissell put it best--”Ladies and gentlemen, this is what short fiction is for.” CFR

Do You Know What Who Used To Work at Square Books is Doing Now?


Kasimu Harris worked at Square Books from 2006-2007 while studying journalism at Ole Miss. He was a bright lad who always had something nice to say, especially while working upstairs in the cafe. A New Orleans-native, Kasimu has returned to the Big Easy as photographer and featured style writer for the Oxford American and currently is featured in the March issue of Southern Living. 

If you're part of the old Square Books gang, give us a shout some day and update us.

2013 Book Conference Feature

 



Reading Eddie Huang’s memoir, Fresh Off the Boat (Spiegel & Grau, hd. 26.00) is like walking with someone with legs longer than yours--you have to hustle to keep up and still have to do the occasional little sprint. The son of Chinese immigrants, his story of food, family, and culture is colorful, salty, wickedly clever and wildly entertaining.
  We can’t wait to meet this guy Friday, March 22 at 6 pm in conversation with John T. Edge at Off Square Books. CFR

Eddie Huang will be here Friday, March 22 at 6 p.m. in conversation with John T. Edge at Off Square Books

2013 Book Conference Feature

 



Ron Rash’s new collection of short stories, set in the Appalachia of today and as far back as the Civil War, Nothing Gold Can Stay (Ecco, hd. 24.99), is a priceless collection that will haunt readers long after the book is closed.  Rash, the prolific and talented author of short stories, poetry and novels, including last year’s bestseller The Cove, has a gift for evoking a place, a people and their harsh and difficult lives and finding the unsentimental beauty there. CFR

Ron Rash will be on Thacker Mountain Radio Thursday, March 21 at 6 p.m. at The Lyric.

2013 Book Conference Feature

 


Jamie Quatro
’s linked short stories in I Want to Show You More, the author’s first book, are of lives that are slightly off kilter, the cracks beginning to appear in the calm surfaces concealing turmoil--family, children, death, infidelity, faith. They are scary, and horrifying and quirkily funny. Advance praise from authors like Jill McCorkle, Tom Franklin and Sven Birkerts continues to pour in and Tom Bissell put it best--”Ladies and gentlemen, this is what short fiction is for.” CFR


Jaime Quatro will be on Thacker Mountain Radio Thursday, March 21 at 6 p.m. at The Lyric

CONFERENCE SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

 

Square Books Recommends


A PARTIAL HISTORY OF LOST CAUSES
by Jennifer DuBois is the story of Aleksandr Bezetov is a former world chess champion nurtured in the Soviet system. After winning and later losing the world championship, he has launched a presidential campaign against Vladimir Putin. Irina Ellison is a 30-year-old lecturer in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her father died from Huntington’s disease, a process that took twenty years and robbed him slowly of his mind. Irina, certain she will suffer the same fate, contacts Bezetov who her Russophile father assiduously followed.

“Hilarious and heartbreaking and a triumph of the imagination. Jennifer DuBois is too young to be this talented. I wish I were her.”  -Gary Shteyngart (SUPER SAD TRUE LOVE STORY)  CFR

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