Alan Huffman and Michael Rejebian visited Off Square Books last night to talk about their new book: WE'RE WITH NOBODY. For over twenty years they have been working in "opposition" research meaning they are hired by political candidates to find out buried truths about their opponents.  Huffman and Rejebian also dig into their own clients' past. Needless to say, they have a colorful and interesting job.  If you missed them at Square Books, on Monday they will be featured on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show.  

 

Square Books’ 2012 event schedule got off to a nice start last night (January 17) with Mac Gordon, at Off Square, talking about his Hometown: A Remembrance – how a small town newspaper and ordinary citizens joined together in the 1960s to end racial violence in McComb, Mississippi.

January 23 will bring a crowd to meet historian John Barry (author of Rising Tide), who will talk about his new work – Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul: Church, State, and the Birth of Liberty (Viking, 35.00).

January 24 – Educators’ Night.  In all three stores we will celebrate our teachers with discounts and giveaways.

January 26 – Novelist Adam Johnson will be here to read from his brilliant new novel that several of us are wild about, The Orphan Master’s Son (Random House 26.00).  The fastidious Michiko Kakutani wrote in the New York Times that “Mr. Johnson has written a daring and remarkable novel, a novel that not only opens a frightening window on the mysterious kingdom of North Korea, but one that also excavates the very meaning of love and sacrifice."

January 27 – The Neelys will be here!

January 27 – Yes, later the same day, Nevada Barr will return with The Rope (Minotaur, 25.99), her latest Anna Pigeon novel.  It’s always good to see Nevada back in town.

January 30 – Joshilyn Jackson (Gods in Alabama) will be back with A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty (Grand Central, 25.99), which Sara Gruen said “feels a lot like falling in love: giddy and enthralling and a little bit dangerous,” suggesting “book clubs take note.”

January 31 – We will close these two great weeks with Oxford’s Julie Cantrell’s first book, Into the Free.

Jesmyn Ward's excellent novel, Salvage the Bones, recently took home the National Book Award.  Ward, a Mississippi native, gave a nod to several bookstores in her home state during her acceptance speech for the award--check out a video of her speech on our blog here.  Salvage the Bones has garnered tons of excellent reviews and Jesmyn has been all over the place.  Read a review from the NY Times here, where Parul Sehgal says, "Salvage the Bones is a taut, wily novel, smartly plotted and voluptuosly written."  Ward mentions Square Books again (and fellow Mississippi indie Lemuria Books in Jackson) in a recent interview with the American Bookseller's Association. It's an excellent interview (see below for an excerpt of click here to read the entire interview).

FROM BOOKWEB'S BOOKSELLING THIS WEEK: 

BTW: What is your connection to Lemuria Books, Square Books, and Pass Christian Books?

Jesmyn Ward: I signed for the first time at Lemuria Books a few months ago, and I appreciated the fact that the bookstore does everything it can to be a community center for Jackson in the way that the best booksellers are. I love the folks at Square Books. Richard Howorth has been a great advocate for me and my writing, and he and his staff have worked very hard to introduce and include me in the literary community that surrounds Square Books. Visiting that bookstore feels like visiting family. And Pass Christian Books is also special to me because its owner, Scott Naugle, has also been a huge advocate for my writing and work, and like Richard, believed in me from the beginning. Pass Christian Books has a great story: they were wiped out by Hurricane Katrina, moved to another physical location in DeLisle for a short time, and now operate online only. They encountered hardship and survived. They’re scrappy fighters, and I love that.

Please read the rest of the interview here. 

To order a signed copy of Salvage the Bones please call us at 1-800-648-4001.  

Sam Haskell was interviewed on CBS this morning (Dec. 28, 2011) about his successful career and his book, Promises I Made My Mother, which has been and continues to be one of Square Books'  top bestsellers since its publication in April, 2009.   A popular fixture on the speaker circuit, Sam and his wife Mary manage very busy careers but have settled comfortably into the moderately paced life of Oxford since moving here in recent years.   Signed copies of Promises I Made My Mother (Random House, $24) are available from Square Books.

You can now easily purchase and read e-books from Square Books using the new IndieBound Reader app for Android and Apple iOS.

The new application was created by the American Booksellers Association and Bluefire Productions, an independent software company in Seattle, WA. It allows book lovers to read ebooks purchased from Square Books and other independent bookstores.

Independent bookstores have partnered with Google to sell Google eBooks™ because of its open and accessible platform, so indies can provide an easy way for their customers to discover, read, and buy ebooks while supporting local business.

Google eBooks are cloud-based, digital books that allow readers to access their libraries on almost any device (except the Kindle) from one single repository. You can purchase and read your Google eBooks on your Android device or iPhone/iPad/iPod using the IndieBound Reader app, but you will also be able to read them later on your computer, and on a wide variety of eReaders.

Read more on e-books and e-readers here.