Stepheny Houghtlin's Blog, page 8

B – Books of Wonder – New York, NY

WELCOME to the letter B and to this year’s theme: BOOKSHOPS

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18 W. 18th St. NY, NY  212-989-3270

When I was a little girl, my mother would read to me. The books of my childhood created my lifetime habit of reading.  Eventually, I authored two novels myself. (A 3rd in the works.) One of my favorite childhood books is A Tree for Peter, written and Illustrated by Kate Seredy. I hope you’ve had the pleasure, as I have, of tracking down such a book, perhaps paying too much money, as I did, but reunited with one of your childhood treasures. I offer you the children’s bookstore you are looking for while in New York or visit by phone or online.

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Founded in 1980, Books of Wonder is New York City’s largest and oldest children’s bookstore and the city’s leading specialist in children’s literature. Of special interest to collectors are their old, rare, and collectible children’s books and original children’s book art, many signed by the author or illustrator. There are some 19th-century editions of classic Grimm and Andersen fairy tales. early editions of The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew and beloved classics like Eloise, Paddington Bear, The Story of Babar, A Wrinkle in Time. Prices range from ten dollars to several hundred dollars with some even in the thousands!

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Books of Wonder is also one of the nations leading dealers in original children’s book art. We know that the paintings and drawings created to illustrate children’s books have the power to captivate, excite, and delight us. Among the talented artists found at Books of Wonder are Caldecott Medal winners Leo & Diane Dillon, Paul O. Zelinsky, and Trina Schart Hyman, as well as celebrated artists Michael Hague, Mark Teague, Michael Foreman and Troy Howell. In addition to these modern masters, Books of Wonder also offers original illustrations by some of the great artists of the past.

 

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Books of Wonder publishes many of the Oz classics, including the original L. Frank Baum titles (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its many sequels) In partnership with HarperCollins Publishers there are the Books of Wonder Classics: deluxe gift editions of timeless stories, illustrated with full-color plates and black-and-white drawings. Included in the series is Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, The Jungle Book, The Story of Dr. Doolittle, Black Beauty and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The child we carry with us to this day would love a visit to Books of Wonder. Have fun.

[image error]Artist: Jessie Wilcox Smith (1863-1935 – American)

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A – Avid Bookshop -Athens Georgia

WELCOME to the letter A and to this year’s theme: BOOKSHOPS

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493 Prince Avenue  Athens, GA    706-352-2060

April…spring in the south with the roadside awash in fresh greenness. As we start our bookstore tour, we will begin by visiting historic downtown Athens with its pervasive student culture at the University of  Georgia.  Here is a vibrant and energetic place with restaurants and music, intellectual, creative and artistic talent. We are delighted to find an independent bookstore, Avid Books, that owner Janet Gaddis opened in 2011. Five years later she has opened a second shop. Our step quickens as we near the store because Janet has offered the community a place after our own hearts.  “We want to find just that perfect book that will change your life for the better. We want to serve as a hub for open conversation between people of all backgrounds and a spot where people of all ages and reading habits can feel welcome and comfortable,”

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Five Points – 1622 S.Lumpkin                      706-850-2843

Consider this: Jessica Handler, author of “Invisible Sisters: A Memoir….. says, “Independent bookstores like Avid hand-sell. So unlike big box stores they know our tastes, are enthusiastic about authors, and they really contribute to the literary community with their knowledge of what’s new and good to read, and what authors will be on hand to meet, read and sign books. Indie bookstores like Avid are so crucial to the literary ecosystem.”

Like myself, I know you love a bookstore. I look forward to sharing some special shops throughout the blog challenge where architecture comes into play, an intriguing community, and the owners are great stewards of our world of books.

                “WHERE IS HUMAN NATURE SO WEAK AS IN THE BOOKSTORE?”                                  Henry Ward Beecher

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Image found on Pinterest: Bookstore -Willy Belinfante

Theme Reveal Day – Paying Tribute to Bookstores

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One of my ‘unlived’ lives is owning a bookstore. Addicted to reading, I can fantasize the tinkling of the bell on the shop door as a book lover joins me in my quaint, welcoming shop. Imagine if you will, a cross between Marks and Company at 84 Charing Cross Road where Anthony Hopkins looks up to greet you and Meg Ryan reading to children in The Shop Around the Corner in the movie, You’ve Got Mail.

Though my husband used to say, Stepheny never met a bookstore she didn’t like, that isn’t quite true. We’ve all had the unhappy experience of visiting a bookstore where no one is able to make a suggestion when asked for a mystery set in Australia to give to a friend to read on the long plane ride there. No one can help with a book for a grandchild too old for Beatrix Potter and too young for Harry Potter. You ask yourself, could it be that no one working in the store reads?  Then there is the joy of the bookstore where other browsers get into the act by naming books they loved when they overhear you asking the owner for a recommendation. The comradery of fellow readers is a balm for the soul.

We’ve all been concerned about the vanishing small, independent bookstore. As revitalization takes place on Main Street USA, we are thankfully seeing independent bookstores open again. In the immortal words of my granddaughter when her family moved to a small town in Wyoming,  “What kind of a place is this if it doesn’t have a bookstore?”

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In making amends to independent bookstores for the amount of shopping I do on Amazon Books, I announce with love and gratitude, this year’s THEME for the 2018 AtoZ Blog Challenge:

                   BOOKSHOPS                                         

I invite you to join me as I pay tribute to individual far-flung stores from Raleigh, NC to Charing Cross Road in London and those in between. I hope this year’s theme will encourage you to never leave a bookstore without buying at least one book because life without books is unimaginable.

Image: The Fantasy Bookshop by Aimee Stewart found on Pinterest

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A Writers Writer – Nicola Upson’s Mystery Series – Featuring Josephine Tey

It has been some time since I wrote about the author, Nicola Upson’s series of mystery novels. They feature Josephine Tey, (25 July 1896 – 13 Feb. 1952) a Britain’s golden age of crime writing author.  I invite you to take a moment to read the earlier post.

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I have finished yet another in this well written and researched series: London Rain. Josephine Tey returns in this sixth installment of Nicola Upson’s series that unfolds in 1930s London as England prepares to crown a new king in prewar England. As an avid reader of the series, I feel Josephine Tey has no better friend than the author, Nicola Upson, who portrays Tey in a respectful, thoughtful manner. She handles Tey’s private life, which was guarded carefully, more openly in the series but through the eyes and heart of a soul mate.

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If you are an addicted cozy and classical mystery reader as I am, you will enjoy further information about Josephine Tey to enhance your reading. Tey’s mystery novels are classics of their kind, deftly constructed with strong characterization and a meticulous prose style. Six of the novels feature as their main character the slightly built, dapper Inspector Alan Grant, a gentleman police officer with independent means. Inspector Grant is one of the first Scotland Yard detectives to be introduced to the mystery writing genre, making his debut in 1929 in The Daughter of Time (1951).

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Playing a role in the setting of the series is The Cowdray Club at 20 Cavendish Square, London – a professional Women’s Club of which Josephine Tey was a member. She also visited the Costume and Theatre Design Group, known as ‘The Motleys’ at their studio workshop off St. Martin’s Lane where she encountered many members of the acting profession and where characters in the novels abide.  I highly recommend this well-written series. Rather than saying, it was raining in Piccadilly, I love this: “The evening had settled into a half-hearted drizzle, and the roar of daytime Piccadilly died a little as the centre of the West End made its transition from a life of work to a life of pleasure.”

Josephine Tey was a pseudonym used by Elizabeth MacKintosh, a Scottish author best known for her mystery novels. She also wrote as Gordon Daviot, under which name she wrote plays, many with biblical or historical themes.

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A Writers Writer – Alan Bradley -The Flavia De Luce Series

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“I’d been spending so much time sitting halfway down the stairs that I was beginning to feel like Christopher Robin”   Flavia from I’m Half Sick of Shadows

Flavia De Luce  lives in a dilapidated old mansion in the English countryside with two older sisters who are rarely nice to her and with a distant father who spends his days immersed in his stamp collection. Flavia, an eleven year old brilliant, motherless, chemistry-obsessed, poison-loving young girl is at the heart of these books and in each one,  she solves a murder. She also comes closer to understanding the larger mystery in her life: who her mother, Harriet, really was.

Bradley’s first Flavia book was published when he was 70, and it was the first novel he ever wrote and was my introduction to one of my new favorite authors and a cast of characters I throughly enjoy and you will too. Bradley’s story is a writers fantasy come true.  In early 2007, Bradley entered the Dagger contest by submitting fifteen pages about a girl now named Flavia de Luce. These pages, which took only a few days to write and several weeks of polishing, became the basis of The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. Bradley set the book in England despite having never been thee. In June 2007, two judges from the contest contacted Bradley’s agent in Canada to express interest in publishing the proposed book; they also inadvertently informed him that Bradley was the winner of the competition. A bidding war ensued, and on June 27, 2007, Bradley sold Orion the rights for three books in Britain. After the award ceremony, Bradly spent seven months turning the submitted fifteen pages into a full-length novel. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie was published in the UK in January 2009 and in Canada in February 2009.

[image error]I have finished (out of order) my second book of the series and find Bradley’s writing, his descriptions, and the irresistible, 1st person voice of this young girl, a remarkable addition to my reading life. This is not a precocious child that is a pain in the…….but a interesting child that is perceptive beyond her years. No giving away of the mysteries, but in cozy-fashion the stories do not dwell on the bloody crime, but on the cast of possible suspects. I highly recommend this setting filled with good humor and exceptionally  well written mysteries. Check with Amazon who was running a great price the last time I looked on both  books mentioned here. ENJOY!

Order of the Series

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie




The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag




A Red Herring Without Mustard

 


I Am Half-Sick of Shadows




Speaking From Among the Bones




The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches




The Curious Case of the Copper Corpse




As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust




Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew’d




A Grave’s a Fine and Private Place

 

Giving Books for Christmas 2017 – Part 2

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I have read three of author Beatriz William’s books that feature the daughters of the Schuyler family. In each of these novels, one of the sisters comes forth as the main character and moves the tale of this complex family along. The supporting cast in each of the books is equally well drawn. I love this author. In fact, when a quotation on the back cover of The Secret Life of Violet Grant suggests this novel is a good beach book, I was highly offended believing that a beach read is supposed to be frivolous.  Ms. William’s writing is much more than a beach book suggests; she is a fine writer who is a consummate story-teller providing historical details that are well researched and enrich each book.

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“The Secret Life of Violet Grant,” begins in 1964 with college graduate Vivian Schuyler working to become a writer at a popular magazine. One day she receives a battered suitcase that belonged to her Great Aunt Violet Grant who disappeared in Germany in 1914 and was thought to have killed her husband and ran off with her lover. Or did she? Need I say more to peak your curiosity?

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Along The Infinite Sea: In the autumn of 1966, Pepper Schuyler’s needs to take care of herself and the baby she carries—the result of an affair with a married, legendary politician. She discovers a rare vintage Mercedes and is involved with its restoration where she sells it at auction. The car’s new owner, Annabelle Dommerich, has her own secrets: a Nazi husband, a Jewish lover, a flight from Europe, and a love so profound it transcends decades. As the many threads of Annabelle’s life before the Second World War stretch out to entangle Pepper in 1960s America, and the father of her unborn baby tracks her down to a remote town in coastal Georgia, the two women must come together to face down the shadows of their complicated pasts.

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In “Little Tiny Thing,” “Tiny” Schuyler is married to a politician on the rise. She spends the summer of 1966 at her husband Frank’s family summer compound with her mother-in-law, who rules the roost, a father-in-law who is determined that his son will be president, and various other relatives. Two weeks before Tiny marries Frank, she meets a man at a diner and, after a violent holdup takes place, she and this mystery man became more than friends.

Beatrix Williams has created a world in which the Schuyler family connects us with a past when women were expected to marry, raise a family, and support a husband’s career. Here is what happens to a few of these women who have a problem with that script.

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Tagged: Along the Infinite Sea-novel by Beatrix Williams, Beatrix Williams-author, Giving books for Christmas, Little Tiny Thing-novel by Beatrix Willaims, The Secret Life of Violet Grant-novel by Beatrix Williams

Giving Books for Christmas 2017 – Part 1

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It’s the time of the year when we love to give books and I have some I want to recommend to you for giving, but first things first…..I have finished a sequel to my first novel, Greening of a Heart, which had good reviews and many book club appearances. The new book will be published in 2018. I hope you will read Greening yourself, and give it to others for Christmas so they are introduced to some of the characters who come forth in the new book. Let me read to you from the beginning of the first chapter to give you a feel for the story that follows.

Here is the cover of the book and the blurb about it.

When the Bishop insists that Martin Winchester take a sabbatical from his par[image error]ish to restore his depleted energy and regain his spiritual focus, his wife Hannah is left on her own for the first time in years. Her new found freedom gives her an opportunity to reflect on her life. Retreating into the newly-renovated vicarage garden in the Cotswold’s village of Burford, Hannah not only wants to escape the demands of her role as the vicar’s wife but to reinvent herself. Lives begin to change after Henry Bernard arrives in Burford to solve a family mystery. Not only Henry, but a young artist, an electrician and his entrepreneur wife, the new owners of the Bay Tree Inn, and a dying spinster, all embark with Hannah on an unforgettable summer as their lives intertwine in unforeseen ways. If you like the novels of Rosamunde Pilcher (The Shell Seekers, September) you will enjoy Greening of a Heart.

Buy Greening of a Heart through Amazon, NOOK, or the Apple iTunes Store.

Don’t have an e-reader? You can read the book on your computer. Click on highlighted text to download a free Kindle application for your PC or Mac.

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Tagged: Giving books for Christmas, Greening of a Heart-novel by Stepheny Forgue Houghtlin

Seeing the New Movie…Murder on the Orient Express

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Click Here to watch a brief trailer for the movie, Murder on the Orient Express

Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Penelope Cruz, Willem Dafoe, Judi Dench, Josh Gad, Derek Jacobi 

 

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I love a good movie, don’t you? I was delighted that the new Agatha Christie movie was making an appearance in our Rocky Mount, NC movie theater. Murder on the Orient Express has a great cast, is beautifully filmed, but I am conflicted when writing about the overall impression of the movie. I wouldn’t want you to miss it, but I wonder if you won’t agree that Kenneth Branagh leaves a lot to be desired as Poirot and that this brilliant cast comes off flat and passionless.  It’s a great mystery, and you may remember begins with Hercule Poirot arriving at the Tokatlain Hotel after catching the Taurus Express from Aleppo in Syria traveling to Istanbul. Once there, Poirot receives a telegram prompting him to return to London. He instructs the concierge to book a first-class compartment on the Simplon-Orient Express leaving that night. The train is fully booked, and Poirot is able to secure a second-class berth with the intervention of his friend M. Bouc, a fellow Belgian who is a director of the train line.  Here then is the setting for a murder with all the passengers as suspects, and a crime to be solved.  See the movie and let me know what you think.

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With the new movie release, let us tip our hat to Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, (15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976,) English crime novelist, short story writer, and playwright.  She is best known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around her fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Murder on the Orient Express was published in 1934.

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Book Jackets for this famous mystery

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Tagged: Agatha Christie, Movie:Murder on the Orient Express

Judging a Book by its Cover – Andrew Davidson – Artist and Illustrator

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Andrew Davidson

I have already written about Andrew Davidson in an earlier post. I hope you will take a moment and Click Here to read it. Because I finished another in the Jacqueline Winspear, Maise Dobbs Series,  A Dangerous Place, which is set in Gibraltar with a civil war taking place in Spain, I wanted to mention the series and illustrator, Andrew Davidson once again. The book covers of Andrew Davidson drew me to  Maise Dobbs, an interesting historical mystery series. I highly recommend these novels to you. I prefer to start at the beginning of any series, and in this case, the times, characters and settings change and build upon themselves.

I left a comment on Jacqueline Winspear’s Goodreads author page asking her about Andrew Davidson. This is what she wrote back, which I appreciated. I hope you share my interest in Book Jackets and the artists who introduce us to authors and their stories.

Jacqueline Winspear Thank you for this question – I love Andrew’s work, for he is both an artist and a craftsman. Those covers are actually wood engravings. Andrew was first commissioned by Penguin for the paperback covers of MAISIE DOBBS and BIRDS OF A FEATHER. When I moved publisher, everyone loved the covers so much, his work became a feature of each book. It was fairly early on that I was asked to come up with some image suggestions for one of the books – I think it was PARDONABLE LIES, so Andrew and I emailed back and forth, with me sending photographs etc (he always reads the manuscript too), and since that time he has always managed to depict a cover in almost exactly the way I see it. I am extremely fortunate that my publisher, Harper Collins, encourages this collaboration, as writers often have no say regarding cover art at all. There is another aspect to the work, and that is the huge contribution of the Creative Director, who takes Andrew’s image and then pulls it all together with the colors chosen for title and text, and the layout. Archie Ferguson is the invaluable linchpin – he’s the overall “designer” of the covers. Then they go to various people within the company for comment – but there are very rarely changes.

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Tagged: A Dangerous Place-A Maise Dobbs Mystery, Andrew Davisdson-artist & illustrator, Jacqueline Winspear-author, Maise Dobbs Mystery Series

A Writers Writer….Author Tom Rachman -The Imperfectionists

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I am never without a book, I read every day, though more often than not propped up in bed after 11:00 PM. A great book can last until two in the morning. Recently, I needed a quote for the other blog I write, Mainstreetrockymount.com – a two part series about The Rocky Mount Telegram newspaper. Some research led me to a quote I liked, but who was Tom Rachman and what was this novel, The Imperfectionists? I certainly didn’t want to quote someone who turned out to be an embarrassment to my literary sensibilities. The blurb was intriguing, so much so that I bought the book…free shipping Amazon Prime!

Upon arrival, it had to wait while I finished a Peter Robinson mystery, one of his many that always deliver. Robinson can teach a writer a thing or two about describing a character as they arrive on the scene. Never borrowing a stereotype, like she had nice brown eyes, he writes fresh descriptions that tell you something up front about the character you are going to spend time with. Coming to the end of Robinson, I took up with Tom Rachman who was born in London and raised in Vancouver. He graduated from the Columbia School of Journalism and has been a foreign correspondent for the AP, stationed in Rome and worked as an editor at the International Herald Tribune in Paris. He lives in Rome. And can he write…..

The Imperfectionists (2010) is Rachman’s debut novel that follows the private lives of the reporters, editors, and executives of an international English-language newspaper in Rome as they struggle to keep it and themselves going. Each chapter reads like a short story as the characters are brought forward. Fifty years and many changes later, the paper founded by a millionaire from Atlanta resides in a dingy office with stains on the carpet. Nothing about the editor, the lazy obituary writer, the financial officer, a freelance writer that makes up news in order to get noticed, disappoint for they are but a few of the compelling, interesting, funny, pathetic, brilliant people I wouldn’t have missed for the world. I can’t say enough positive things about this story, this writer, this experience of entering Rachman’s world of journalism fictionalized by an author with credentials that make this a delightful, authentic read. I’ll leave you with a quote that particularly amused me.

“Nigel, an attorney-at-rest since they left D.C. more than two years earlier, thrives on this life: reading nonsense on the Internet, buying high-end groceries, decrying the Bush administration at dinner, wearing his role of househusband as a badge of progressive politics. By this hour, he’s normally fulminating: that the CIA invented crack cocaine; that Cheney is a war criminal; that the September 11 attacks were conceived by agents of Big Oil. (He talks a lot of shit about politics. She has to smack him down intellectually once a week or he becomes unbearable.) This evening, however, Nigel is restrained, “Good day?” he asks.”     I can’t resist adding one more quote…

“For many, especially those in remote locales, the paper is their only link to the greater world, to the big cities they left, or the big cities they have never seen, only built in their minds. The readers constitute a sort of fellowship that never meets, united by loved and loathed bylines, by screwed-up photo captions, by the glorious corrections box.”[image error]

 

 

Tagged: Author Tom Rachman, Journalism, Novel-The Imperfectionists