We're very happy to say that one of our favorite local authors, Ron Currie, Jr., will be at the store to celebrate the paperback release of his novel, Everything Matters.

We were first wowed by Currie, a Waterville native, after the release of his debut story collection, God is Dead. That volume won awards, garnered praise, and set a very high bar for his future work. Our anticipation was rewarded with Everything Matters!. This wild ride of a novel stars Junior Thibodeaux, a young man cursed with the knowledge that a life-destroying comet is only 36 years away. But Currie's novel eschews grandiose despair in favor of complex characters, a whimsical narrative, and emotionally moving scenes. We don't know what else Mr. Currie has up his sleeves, but we can't wait to find out.

"Mr. Currie is a startlingly talented writer whose book will pay no heed to ordinary narrative conventions.... He survives the inevitable, apt comparisons to Kurt Vonnegut and writes in a tenderly mordant voice of his own.... Throughout the story there is the sheer delight of Mr. Currie's fresh, joltingly funny imagery.... Above all Everything Matters! radiates writerly confidence. The excitement that drives the reader from page to page is not about the characters. It's about seeing what Mr. Currie will try next."
- Janet Maslin, New York Times

Our Summer Pick

Father of the Rain
by Lily King (Atlantic Monthly, $24)

Stuart and Chris rarely agree on books, but Father of the Rain is one of their favorite reads in a long time. King's new novel was also chosen as an IndieBound Favorite and an Oprah Magazine Best Summer Read.

Early in Father of the Rain, 11-year-old Daley experiences a moment she'll treasure for decades: "My father grinning his biggest grin and looking at me like he loves me, truly loves me...." Never mind that he's high on martinis and the thrill of pulling a stunt that humiliates his wife and insults her dinner guests. Lily King's luminous novel centers on a child's blinding hunger for a parent's affection. King makes this well-worn theme seem fresh with her vividly drawn characters—especially Daley's father, Gardiner, a narcissistic alcoholic with an ugly temper and a magnetic charm—and a clear eye for the details of their singularly messed-up relationships. Set in the affluent East Coast seaside town where Gardiner was raised, in a world of Wasp privilege he takes for granted, the novel covers three decades starting in the mid-'70s. Daley's mother leaves Gardiner, but Daley can't give up hoping he'll change. "You want the daddy you never got," her boyfriend says. Obvious? Maybe to us. The uplifting ending comes as Daley finally sees for herself what's been clear all along. - O, The Oprah Magazine

“Lily King’s Father of the Rain is one of the most richly satisfying and haunting novels I've read in a long time.”
- Richard Russo

Perfect for the Beach!

Lit
by Mary Karr (Harper, $14.99) Now in Paperback!

Mary Karr has won awards for both her poetry and her prose, garnered widespread acclaim from critics, and published several bestselling books - but success didn't come easily. In Lit, Karr's third memoir after The Liar's Club and Cherry, she illuminates her life struggles (family, marriage, motherhood, alcohol) the way only she can.

"Mordantly funny, free of both self-pity and sentimentality... A master class on the art of the memoir."
- New York Times

Eating the Dinosaur
by Chuck Klosterman (Scribner, $15) Now in Paperback!

As usual, Klosterman's work defies description, but it's safe to say this is more of the oddball writing you've come to expect from Chuck. Witty, incisive and irreverent essays on the strange and ever-changing world of popular culture. This book will make you think. And laugh. And laugh some more.

"Klosterman's relentlessly thoughtful prose makes a case that our arts and entertainment are more suffused with meaning than ever before. Even as he's fretting over the direction of the culture, his writing stands as an eloquent defense of it."
- Wall St. Journal

The Anthologist
by Nicholson Baker (Simon & Schuster, $15) Now in Paperback!

Maine author Nicholson Baker has some pretty eclectic interests, as his literary catalogue (Vox, Mezzanine, Human Smoke, etc) will attest. His novel The Anthologist unleashes Baker on the world of poetry, as he follows an old poet, Paul Chowder, charged with introducing a major new anthology. Luckily for the reader, Chowder is hopelessly distracted by a string of engaging tangents that make for a memorable reading experience.

"Baker writes like no one else in America."
- David Gates, Newsweek

Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It
by Maile Meloy (Riverhead, $15) Now in Paperback!

Chosen by the New York Times in 2009 as one of the Ten Best Books of the Year, Meloy's latest story collection wowed readers and critics alike. Set primarily in her home state of Montana, Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It takes on a diverse group of characters who share that all-too-human dilemma: choice, and its consequences.

"After two well-received novels, Meloy returns to the short story, the form in which she made her notable debut and to which her lucid style is arrestingly well suited."
- The Atlantic

The Hunger Games
by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic, $8.99) Now in Paperback!

The first book in Collin's young adult series has become a cult favorite for the 12-and-up crowd. In Hunger Games, the not-too-distant future stars a nation in disrepair, and the annual Hunger Games where each region sends two children to compete in a nationally televised battle for survival. You can expect to be fully engrossed in Collin's alternate future, so here's the good news: Mockingjay, the third and final installment of the series, is due out at the end of August.

"Collins's characters are completely realistic and sympathetic as they form alliances and friendships in the face of overwhelming odds; the plot is tense, dramatic, and engrossing."
- School Library Journal, Starred Review

"Impressive world-building, breathtaking action and clear philosophical concerns make this volume, the beginning of a planned trilogy, as good as The Giver and more exciting."
- Kirkus

A moving story about the power of books by one of our favorite young adult authors. DiCamillo won this year's Indies Choice Award for Most Engaging Author at Book Expo America.

Kate DiCamillo's Acceptance Speech - May 26, 2010

"When I was in second grade, I fell in love with Abraham Lincoln. The Clermont Elementary School library had a series of books called Notable Young Americans. And in this way, through these books, I met George Washington and Helen Keller, Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison, Amelia Earhart and Booker T. Washington. I met them and I liked them. But it wasn't until Abraham Lincoln that I fell in love.

Something about his story (the poverty, the death of his mother, his love of words and books) resonated with me, moved me. I came home from school and told my mother everything that I had learned about the young Abraham Lincoln. I told her that I wanted to learn more. My mother took me to the Cooper Memorial Library in downtown Clermont. They had there many books about Honest Abe, but there was nothing for a reader my age. And so my mother checked out a thick volume on the life of Abraham Lincoln written for adults. The text was impenetrable. After a few pages, I gave up on it and contented myself with looking at photographs of the man, his sad and hopeful face.

That year, for my eighth birthday, my mother gave me a hardcover biography of Lincoln called Meet Abraham Lincoln by Barbara Cary. It was written at my reading level. There were wonderful illustrations, and I was smitten with the man anew. Where had my mother found that book? At Porter's Stationery and Gifts in Eustis, Florida. Eustis was the next town over from Clermont, thirty miles away. At Porter's, they had looked for a book about Lincoln that was at my reading level and they had special-ordered it for my mother, for me. Also, they had told my mother that there was another book I might like. It was called The Cricket in Times Square.

And so, in addition to a book about a poor, lonely boy who went on to become President of the United States, I also received the story of a small cricket who loves music, a cricket who sings so beautifully that people stop to listen. Who was that bookseller who thought, "Here is an almost-eight-year-old girl who loves Abraham Lincoln. What other book will she love? Oh, yes. This book about a cricket."? There was nothing logical about that decision. It was a leap of faith. Those two books changed me. Together, they cemented an idea in my eight-year-old heart. That idea was this: It doesn't matter how small, how lonely, how broken or sad or poor you are. There is a way to make yourself heard. There is a way to sing. A bookseller put those books into my mother's hands, and my mother put them into mine. Sometimes we forget that this simple, physical gesture can change lives. I want to remind you that it does. I want to thank you because it did."

- Kate DiCamillo, May 26th, 2010