Globe Corner Blogs

Today was the first day I ventured out to work after the blizzard. The first customer I found in the travel aisle was shivering in front of our wide selection of Caribbean guidebooks. I asked if she needed any help. She peered up at me from beneath a wooly hat and pleaded, “I want to go somewhere warm!”

Don’t we all? That’s why we’re celebrating the sunny Caribbean as our Destination of the Month of February. After puzzling over how to get to Cuba for awhile, my customer determined she would go swim with the migrating whales off the coast of Belize. If, like me, your February will be spent trudging between work and home through ice and snow and sludge, our destination shelf is brimming with titles ready to transport you to the blazing heat of a sun-baked beach.

Travel alongside the erudite classic travel writer, Patrick Leigh Fermor, as he wanders among the old colonial capitals of several Caribbean Islands, including Guadeloupe, Martinique, Barbados, Trinidad, and Haiti. Fermor’s first published travel narrative, Traveller’s Tree, describes the culture and people inhabiting the paradisaical landscape, from steel drum bands to Voodoo practices.

Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean is an engaging history book to supplement your knowledge of the Caribbean Islands and the surrounding waters, which, just after the Spanish Inquisition, were often populated with Jewish Pirates. Edward Kritzler describes the adventures of such ships as the Prophet Samuel and Queen Esther and the prospects of their fascinating crews.

Tropic Death is a collection of short stories set in Barbados, Panama, and other Caribbean landscapes that filled the childhood memories of author Eric Walrond. Although fictional, these vivid depictions of life in the tropics transport the reader into the lives of island residents living in the aftermath of colonialism.  If the Dominican Republic is your destination, Junot Diaz’s short story collection, Drown, reveals the lives of residents of the villages and barrios of the DR. Both of these short story collections would make a great read for a flight to the Caribbean. And of course, for a sultry romp through Puerto Rico, all you have to do is pick up Hunter S. Thompson’s The Rum Diary and you’re off to 1950s San Juan.

If you are looking not only to escape the cold, but also the city, pick up Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place, and let her take you to a ten-by-twelve mile island, her home of Anitgua. Watch the changes that came with colonialism and tourism, and learn about the lives lived out in this small place in the Caribbean.

Booksmith was back at the fourth annual Boston Book Festival this past weekend. Luckily the hurricane held off so we didn’t have to fight the winds and rains, and instead enjoyed a crisp, sunny autumn day. For those of you who didn’t make it to Copley Square to wander among the publisher, bookseller, and all-things-book-related booths or to attend one of the author panels, we were parked just outside of Trinity Church, sharing the  main circus tent with Information and WBUR. We had the privilege of selling books for the authors speaking at Trinity’s two venues. Those of you who stopped by to say hello or browse our tables would have seen stacks upon stacks of–among others–Junot Diaz’s latest This is How You Lose Her, Brookline’s own Edith Pearlman’s Binocular Vision, Madeline Miller’s Song of Achilles, and a pile of books resembling bricks of gold (and weighing almost as much)–that was Eric Kandel’s Age of Insight, a beautiful hardcover with Klimt’s “Golden Phase” on the cover, which sold out after his event.

In fact, we sold out of many of our books in the charged atmosphere of the festival, as readers met their author idols and shared their favorite reads. It’s this particular atmosphere that makes me excited to work the book festival each year. I love wandering among the booths and seeing all of the organizations that make up my writing and reading life in Boston. Everyone around me is, in some form or another, a reader. Don’t get me wrong, Booksmith is full of book-loving customers, but at the book festival, there’s a particular eagerness to the readers that come by our booth. They’re excited about the ideas they just heard, the free book bag they just won, or the prospect of getting a copy of their book signed in person. It’s more than eager–there’s something earnest about these readers, which instantly endears me to them.

That’s why I was so sorry to disappoint one young man who came out of Junot Diaz’s event looking for Diaz’s novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I had to tell him we had just sold our last copy. He looked at me, stunned. “Are there any bookstores in the area?” he cried desperately. I couldn’t think of any close by. “How long will Diaz be signing?” he asked. We both looked at the long line of readers, stretching out of the tent as far as we could see. “I think he’ll be here for awhile,”  I guessed.

Not more than thirty minutes later, Diaz was still signing, and the customer was back. “I made it!” he cried, dripping with sweat, completely out of breath, and triumphantly holding up a rather worn copy of Oscar Wao. He told me he had run home three miles to get his copy of the book so Diaz could sign it. I watched him proudly join the end of the now-dwindling line, and when, a few minutes later, I looked up, I saw Diaz congratulate the runner with a hug before signing his book.

New York is a city of extremes. As soon as I arrived I remembered how it was possible to love and hate the city at once. “You either sink or swim here,” Pat Carrier of the former Globe Corner bookstore told me as he guided me through the labyrinth of  publisher booths crammed inside the illogically (it seemed to me) laid out Javits Convention Center. I had come to NYC for two days of Book Expo America, beginning with an author breakfast with Stephen Colbert, Barbara Kingsolver, Junot Diaz, and Jo Nesbo, the last of whom, I thought, proved funnier than our host, who kept his punch lines to Fifty Shades of Grey jokes.

After coffee with Colbert (okay, it wasn’t quite as intimate as it sounds, and listening to Colbert crack Fifty Shades jokes over blueberry muffins wasn’t exactly an appetizing way to start the day), I stepped onto the exhibition floor full of publishers, authors, booksellers, librarians, and readers all conducting the business of books, which included much elbowing for the latest free advanced reader copy. I wandered disoriented among the chaos for quite some time, unsure of how exactly I fit between the world of swanky New York publishers and the woman in front of me who just jammed a display copy I am not certain was free into an already burgeoning shoulder bag of ARCs.

Unidentified BEA attendee with bags full of free books.

I felt exactly as I had when I first stumbled off my train from Boston the night before, weaving through Penn Station crowds and onto the metro–instantly overwhelmed, intimidated, and drained by the city. But when, 15 minutes later, I had emerged from the underground up onto a quiet, tree lined street in Greenwich Village, where I was lucky enough to find a room, I discovered that I could breathe again, and deeply. Perhaps it was the refreshing contrast from home, the thrill of new streets and shops to explore, perhaps it was the contrast with the crowds of the metro that made the sudden space and sunshine more charming than was their due, but I was enamored.

These extreme reactions continued at BEA, leaving me baffled at first, overwhelmed, then charmed and grateful at once. By the second day on the exhibition floor, I began to take a few faltering strokes. I found space to think and even to be inspired in a few of the educational sessions, and I began meeting people within the book industry, talking, exchanging cards. Once conversations began to open up, I began to see inside the work that was going on before my eyes. Though I had much to learn, I was no longer an outsider. Continue Reading »

Cartagena--photo by Harriet

We arrived in Cartageña to welcome sun and humidity. The 5-10 minute stroll along the harbor, from our hotel in the Getsemaní district to the entrance to the walled city, was glorious even during the mid-day heat. The walled city’s many plazas, varied retail districts, cobblestone streets, and beautifully maintained or restored buildings were breathtaking. It was reassuring to be in a historic port–a cultural travel destination that still somehow retains a sense of everyday life. We wandered down narrow streets, gazing at colorful buildings, pausing in plazas (many with fountains) to take in cafes, check our map, and plan our next route to a museum or church. Continue Reading »

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao --by Junot Diaz

I have ticked off another box on my Writering Life List (…like birding, but with authors).

Junot Diaz was sitting across from me on the subway the other morning. I was on my way to work, so it was early; I feared my senses were still blurry from having just woken. But there was really no mistaking it. Having seen his picture everywhere when our friends at Harvard Book Store hosted a reading with him, I was familiar with that stubble, that hairline (or lack thereof), those glasses, and that peculiarly frowning mouth. It was him.

Did I go up him and tell him how much I loved Oscar Wao? Of course not! Would you casually saunter up to a pileated woodpecker if you spotted one and tell him how brilliantly red his crest was? Of course not! Most writers are known to be solitary creatures, skittish at the sight of fans clutching books to their chests, grinning shyly, practicing softly under their breath how to say, “I’ve been the biggest fan for…” without sounding like that guy.

So no, I did not bother him. Besides, he was reading.

Continue Reading »