Watermark Books and Cafe

May 10, 2012

In this issue:
News and Notes Worthy: Lincoln Heights Farmers Market; Gardening Book Sale.
Upcoming Events.
Book of the Week.
Watermark Winner.
First line(s)...
Watermark Bestsellers.
"Summer of the Gypsy Moths" by Sara Pennypacker, review by Melissa Fox.
"The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson" by Robert A. Caro, review by Todd Robins.
"Sacre Bleu" by Christopher Moore, review by Beth Golay.

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Stop by Lincoln Heights Village on Wednesday mornings this summer and you'll see something new (and great!)--the Lincoln Heights Village Farmers Market! Every Wednesday from 7:00 to 11:00 a.m. from May through September will feature items for sale that are Kansas grown and Kansas made. Stop by next Wednesday!

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Our gardening book sale continues through Saturday, May 11. Look for the sale tables, and select gardening books will be marked 45% off!

-

May events...

Information about all of our event can be found on our website at www.watermarkbooks.com.

May 10, 7:00 p.m. Mike Smith presentation and signing for "When the Sirens Were Silent"
Mike Smith’s highly-regarded first book "Warnings: The True Story of How Science Tamed the Weather", makes the case that the storm warning system developed by weather scientists over the last fifty years is the only thing protecting American society from triple and quadruple-digit death tolls caused by tornadoes and other storms. But, what if the warning system failed? Would triple-digit fatalities result? Sadly, that point was proven on May 22, 2011, when 161 lost their lives in a tornado that caught most residents of Joplin, Missouri, by surprise. In "When the Sirens Were Silent," Mike tells the gripping story of how things went tragically awry that terrible Sunday afternoon as experienced by people in the path and people in the storm warning center. And, to help keep you and your family safe in future storms, "When the Sirens Were Silent" contains removable pages with the latest tornado safety rules for homes, schools, and businesses. 

Also appearing with Smith tonight will be reporter Denise Neil and photographer Jaime Green of the Wichita Eagle, who were in Joplin for a wedding and will talk about what they went through.

Read more here: http://blogs.kansas.com/weather/2012/05/09/how-the-warning-system-failed-joplin-last-may/#storylink=cpy
http://www.watermarkbooks.com/event/mike-smith

May 12, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Wichita Area Sister Cities Scholarship Fund Book Fair.
http://www.watermarkbooks.com/event/wichita-area-sister-cities-book-fair

May 17, 7:00 p.m. Geraldine Brooks reading and signing for "Caleb's Crossing" - this is the 4th event in our Penguin Author Series.
In 1665, a young man from Martha's Vineyard became the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College. Upon this slender factual scaffold, Brooks has created a luminous tale of love and faith, magic and adventure.

The narrator of "Caleb's Crossing" is Bethia Mayfield, growing up in the tiny settlement of Great Harbor amid a small band of pioneers and Puritans. Restless and curious, she yearns after an education that is closed to her by her sex. As often as she can, she slips away to explore the island's glistening beaches and observe its native Wampanoag inhabitants. At twelve, she encounters Caleb, the young son of a chieftain, and the two forge a tentative secret friendship that draws each into the alien world of the other. Bethia's minister father tries to convert the Wampanoag, awakening the wrath of the tribe's shaman, against whose magic he must test his own beliefs. One of his projects becomes the education of Caleb, and a year later, Caleb is in Cambridge, studying Latin and Greek among the colonial elite. There, Bethia finds herself reluctantly indentured as a housekeeper and can closely observe Caleb's crossing of cultures.

This is the 3rd of 4 events in our Penguin Author Series. This is a ticketed event.
http://www.watermarkbooks.com/event/geraldine-brooks

May 30, 6:00 p.m. Summer Challenge Discussion for "The House of Mirth," pages 3-260 in the new Penguin omnibus Three Novels of New York.

May 30, 7:00 p.m. Alex Grecian reading and signing for "The Yard"
Victorian London is a cesspool of crime, and Scotland Yard has only twelve detectives—known as “The Murder Squad”—to investigate countless murders every month. Created after the Metropolitan Police’s spectacular failure to capture Jack the Ripper, The Murder Squad suffers rampant public contempt. They have failed their citizens. But no one can anticipate the brutal murder of one of their own . . . one of the twelve . . .
 
When Walter Day, the squad’s newest hire, is assigned the case of the murdered detective, he finds a strange ally in the Yard’s first forensic pathologist, Dr. Bernard Kingsley. Together they track the killer, who clearly is not finished with The Murder Squad . . . but why?
 
Filled with fascinating period detail, and real historical figures, this spectacular debut in a new series showcases the depravity of late Victorian London, the advent of criminology, and introduces a stunning new cast of characters sure to appeal to fans of The Sherlockian and The Alienist.
 
http://www.watermarkbooks.com/event/alex-grecian

May 31, 7:00 p.m. Dorothy Wickenden reading and signing for "Nothing Daunted"
Dorothy Woodruff and Rosamond Underwood attended grade school and Smith College together, spent nine months on a grand tour of Europe in 1910, and then, bored with society luncheons and chaperoned balls and not yet ready for marriage, they went off to teach the children of homesteaders in a remote schoolhouse on the Western Slope of Colorado. They traveled on the new railroad over the Continental Divide and by wagon to Elkhead, a tiny settlement far from the nearest town. Their students came to school from miles away in tattered clothes and shoes tied together with string.

Dorothy Woodruff was the grandmother of New Yorker executive editor Dorothy Wickenden. Nearly one hundred years later, Wickenden found the buoyant, detailed, colorful letters the two women wrote to their families. Through them, she has chronicled their trials in the classroom, the cowboys and pioneering women they met, and the violent kidnapping of a close friend. Central to their narrative is Ferry Carpenter, the witty, idealistic, and occasionally outrageous young lawyer and cattle rancher who hired them, in part because he thought they would make attractive and cultivated brides. None of them imagined the transforming effect the year would have—on the children, the families, and the teachers.
 
Wickenden set out on her own journey to discover what two intrepid Eastern women found when they went West, and what America was like at that uncertain moment, with the country poised for the First World War, but going through its own period of self-discovery.

Drawing upon the letters, interviews with descendants, research about these vanished communities, and trips to the region, Wickenden creates a compelling, original saga about the two intrepid young women and the “settling up” of the West.
http://www.watermarkbooks.com/event/dorothy-wickenden

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Watermark's Book of the Week is "Bring Up the Bodies" by Hilary Mantel (Henry Holt, ISBN 9780805090031, originally $28.00)

The sequel to Hilary Mantel's 2009 Man Booker Prize winner and New York Times bestseller, "Wolf Hall" delves into the heart of Tudor history with the downfall of Anne Boleyn.

Though he battled for seven years to marry her, Henry is disenchanted with Anne Boleyn. She has failed to give him a son and her sharp intelligence and audacious will alienate his old friends and the noble families of England. When the discarded Katherine dies in exile from the court, Anne stands starkly exposed, the focus of gossip and malice.

At a word from Henry, Thomas Cromwell is ready to bring her down. Over three terrifying weeks, Anne is ensnared in a web of conspiracy, while the demure Jane Seymour stands waiting her turn for the poisoned wedding ring. But Anne and her powerful family will not yield without a ferocious struggle. Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies follows the dramatic trial of the queen and her suitors for adultery and treason. To defeat the Boleyns, Cromwell must ally with his natural enemies, the papist aristocracy. What price will he pay for Anne's head?

Shop online or in the store, this week "Bring Up the Bodies" is 30% off.

Order "Bring Up the Bodies" online here: http://www.watermarkbooks.com/book/9780805090031
Or for your eReader here: http://www.watermarkbooks.com/google-ebooks/bring-bodies-novel

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This week's winner of a free lunch from Watermark Café is John Whitlock of Wichita. Thanks for signing up for News & Notes. 

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First line(s)...

"I'm going to begin by telling you about Miss Frost. While I say to everyone that I became a writer because I read a certain novel by Charles Dickens at the formative age of fifteen, the truth is I was younger than that when I first met Miss Frost and imagined having sex with her, and this moment of my sexual awakening also marked the fitful birth of my imagination. We are formed by what we desire. In less than a minute of excited, secretive longing, I desired to become a writer and to have sex with Miss Frost--not necessarily in that order."

... from "In One Person" by John Irving (Simon & Schuster, ISBN 9781451664126, $28.00)

Order "In One Person" online here: http://www.watermarkbooks.com/book/9781451664126
Or for your eReader here: http://www.watermarkbooks.com/google-ebooks/one-person-novel

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Watermark Bestsellers.
1. "Caleb's Crossing" by Geraldine Brooks 2. "Fifty Shades of Grey" by E.L. James 3. "The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson" by Robert Caro 4. "The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Food From My Frontier" by Ree Drummond 5. "Pinches and Dashes" by the Junior League of Wichita 6. "The Serpent's Shadow: Book 3 in the Kane Chronicles" by Rick Riordan 7. "Oklahoma City" by Andrew Gumbel and Roger Charles 8. "Fifty Shades Darker" by E.L. James 9. "Freeman" by Leonard Pitts, Jr.
10. "Wichita" by Thad Ziolkowski

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"Summer of the Gypsy Moths" by Sara Pennypacker (Balzar + Bray, ISBN 9780061964206, $15.99)

I am a huge fan of Sara Pennypacker's "Clementine" beginning chapter books. They're everything a book for first and second graders should be: fun, smart, well-written, with a main character you can't help but love. So, when I found out that she had a book for older kids--the 9 to 12 crowd--I was excited, hopeful that it would be just as wonderful as Clementine is.

Stella hasn't had an easy life. She's currently living with her Great-aunt Louise, because since her grandmother died, she and her mother have been wandering aimless from city to city until the government finally stepped in and took Stella from her mom due to neglect. Now, she and Louise--and another foster child, Angel--are hitting it off in their little house on Cape Cod, readying for the summer season with their garden, blueberry bushes, and the vacationers in the four little cottages they manage.

That is, until Louise dies. (That's not a spoiler: it happens in the first chapter.)

Stella and Angel panic: if they call people to come and take Louise away, then the same people, the ones who put them in the foster-care system in the first place, will take them away, send them to homes that might not be so nice. So the two of them make a pact: they'll bury Louise in the back yard and run the cottages as if Louise were just injured and unable to help out, take the money they get as tips and save it until they have enough to go somewhere.

It's all quite vague--very much the way 12-year-olds would think--and they don't do everything perfectly. Thankfully, even though it's one of those "bad mother" books, it doesn't ever seem either overly desperate and sad or overly implausible. Because of her situation with her mother, Stella is more grown up than she otherwise would be, and is able to take charge, with the help of Heloise's advice columns. Granted, I'm not sure two 12-year-old girls could go four weeks (which is how long they end up faking everyone out) without someone noticing that the responsible adult is never around, but somehow they do. But, there are consequences: they end up going hungry much of the time because there isn't a grocery store nearby, and they don't have money for food anyway. It's a small thing, but it's a nice touch.

I've been trying to pinpoint what I liked about this book. The lying bothered, of course; as did the far-fetched situation. But, in the end, I liked it for its simplicity and its heart. Pennypacker's writing is simple and direct without being simplistic or pandering, which is part of the reason I like her Clementine books. It holds true for this: Stella and Angel are opposites, but they learn to work together. Problems are solved. Ocean is enjoyed. There are moments of loneliness and hardship, but it's never overly dramatic. It's got that classic feel, without being old-fashioned.

The other thing I liked was that it was a true middle grade novel: there had to be bad parents and dead great-aunts so that the two girls could shine and grow and learn and develop. It's a humble adventure, but it's still an adventure: learning that they really do need people to take care of them, and what the meaning of home and friendship are.

In the end, even with the drawbacks, it's a sweet little summer read.

Review by Melissa Fox

Recommended for ages 9 to 12

To order a copy of "Summer of the Gypsy Moths" online, click here: http://www.watermarkbooks.com/book/9780061964206
Or for your eReader here: http://www.watermarkbooks.com/google-ebooks/summer-gypsy-moths

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"The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson" by Robert A. Caro (Knopf, ISBN 9780679405078, $35.00)

The New York Times writer Charles McGrath recently compared the biographer Robert Caro, in one way or another, to such literary legends as Gibbon, Macaulay, and Balzac. By mentioning the first two writers, McGrath had my attention, but when he went so far as to bring Balzac into the discussion, it was all but inevitable that I would read “The Passage of Power.” To be sure, McGrath’s comment was that “Caro is a little like Balzac, who kept fussing over his books even after they were published.” Now that I have read “The Passage of Power,” however, I would be tempted to make additional comparisons about the manner in which the authors approach their subjects. 

Admittedly, of the nineteenth century, big novel crowd, Balzac is certainly one of my favorites. Maybe I’m easily impressed, but I have always admired his work ethic: he produced something like ninety novels in twenty years, roughly between the ages of thirty and fifty. And he did it in the face of money problems brought on by his own extravagant lifestyle. To adequately measure his resolve, it serves to remember that this was in the era when they put you in the jar if you lacked the required funding. The other point about Balzac is that he wrote sublime scenes about feasting. (I’m thinking, right now, of a scene in “The Wild Ass’s Skin.”) It seems clear that the author liked to partake, which started me thinking about bringing him back to life. If you could do such a thing, hypothetically raise him up, like Lazarus, and invite him to Watermark, then the first order of business would be to stoke him with the biggest cup of coffee in the house, along with a cinnamon roll, a wedding cookie, a cream cheese pecan cookie, and a birthday cake shake, at which point I am confident that I could talk him into going even further in hock by buying Caro’s latest book about Lyndon Johnson. 

Here are the reasons that I could hook the great Frenchman: “The Passage of Power,” which covers Johnson’s odyssey from ’58 to ’64, has everything and more that Balzac riffed on in his novels. He had an uncanny ability, for example, to understand how the world works (he somehow knew the ins and outs of an impressive number of occupations), which is a standard that Caro lives up to in “The Passage of Power.” Balzac held no illusions that justice would come to the deserving, or that those who perpetrate fraud would not find a way to be victorious. Similarly, Caro has a nuanced and realistic view of human events. He has, in fact, spent the past forty years studying the period in American political life that stretches from 1930 to 1975. Of necessity, then, the biographer has examined American political life from start to finish. He writes authoritatively about the manner in which things get done, and he has uncovered instances in which various election officials used unconventional methods to count votes. Furthermore, “The Passage of Power” contains an absorbing account of how Johnson pushed through civil rights legislation in the first few months of his presidency. That section of the book is one gem among many. 

Balzac, who famously dodged his creditors while moving from one luxurious hotel to another, and who loved to write stories about dreamers and schemers as they sought to conceal certain proclivities in the realms of art, politics, and commerce, would be pleased to learn that the real world schemers in “The Passage of Power” could rival anything in The Human Comedy (though it might be awfully tough to top Vautrin). Lyndon Johnson, all by himself, as reported by Caro, had the ability to conceive of and then to juggle plots within plots, but for this new book, the biographer has made use of the opportunity to describe additional modes of seizing the main chance. The Kennedy brothers made a run at it Ivy League-style. Then there are the almost major and colorful minor players, getting down to business behind-the-scenes, such backroom connivers as Richard Russell, Sam Rayburn, John Connolly, the Texas oil crew, JFK’s Irish mafia, and Johnson’s protégé, Bobby Baker. Among my favorite minor “characters” is the Waco reporter, Sarah McClendon, who exposes one of Baker’s diversions, which leads to the exposure of another, and then another…

Balzac, larger than life, after finishing his ice cream, would not be able to dismiss the epic theme and scope of Caro’s narrative. “The Passage of Power” opens with Johnson thinking too hard about the 1960 nomination fight, only to get outfoxed by the mid-twentieth century version of a slacker, JFK. But Caro is only getting warmed up. He goes on to keep the reader spellbound with masterful accounts of how Johnson got a spot on the Kennedy ticket, the battle with Nixon, the Kennedy administration, the assassination, the Warren Commission, and the aforementioned civil rights narrative. 

What can the bookseller do, at this point, but fill the great Frenchman’s cup of coffee? “Mr. Balzac, shall I put Caro’s book on your account?”

“Yes, please do. Have my valet take a copy to the Hyatt. And never tell a soul where I’m staying.”

Review by Todd Robins

To order a copy of "The Passage of Power" online, click here: http://www.watermarkbooks.com/book/9780679405078
Or for your eReader here: http://www.watermarkbooks.com/google-ebooks/passage-power

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Watermark's book reviews can be heard on alternate Mondays on KMUW 89.1. You can read our most recent review below or listen to it here:
http://www.kmuw.org/index.php/book/may_7_sacre_bleu_by_christopher_moore/

“Sacre Bleu” by Christopher Moore (William Morrow, ISBN 9780061779749, $26.99)

When an author goes on a book tour, he might fall into a routine that sounds something like this:
• Fly into a city.
• Go from airport to hotel.
• Go from hotel to bookstore.
• Read from your book.
• Return to hotel.
• Fly out in the morning.

When Christopher Moore goes on book tour, he adds one more step.
• Spend some time at the local art museum.

Christopher Moore has a following, and for years I was not among them. I had always heard about his funny, irreverent writing, with titles like “Fool,” “Lamb,” and others that you would not repeat in polite company. With these books, the promise of laughter and forehead slapping wasn’t enough. When Moore threw art into the mix, questioning van Gogh’s suicide in his latest book, “Sacre Bleu,” it piqued my interest.

Sacre Bleu means sacred blue, the name given to a certain shade of blue used by artists during medieval times when the church said, if you’re going to paint the Virgin’s cloak, it must be with this blue. This “sacred blue” made from lapis lazuli was chosen over organic pigments for its fade resistance.

van Gogh used sacred blue, as did all of his Impressionistic friends. And in Moore’s telling, they all used the same colorman for their paints and pigments. If you did business with this particular colorman, you might as well have sold your soul to the devil. The Colorman and his partner, the goddess Muse, coaxed and cajoled these artists to use their sacred blue to create masterpieces--but then demanded high payment in return.

Christopher Moore’s museum visits served him well. This story of art and color illustrates that great art comes at a price, resulting in lost health, happiness, and often sanity.

Review by Beth Golay

To order a copy of "Sacre Bleu" online, click here: http://www.watermarkbooks.com/book/9780061779749
Or for your eReader here: http://www.watermarkbooks.com/google-ebooks/sacre-bleu-comedy-dart

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Later.
Beth

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Stop by Lincoln Heights Village on Wednesday mornings this summer and you'll see something new (and great!)--the Lincoln Heights Village Farmers Market! Every Wednesday from 7:00 to 11:00 a.m. from May through September will feature items for sale that are Kansas grown and Kansas made. Stop by next Wednesday!

-

Our gardening book sale continues through Saturday, May 11. Look for the sale tables, and select gardening books will be marked 45% off!

-

May events...

Information about all of our event can be found on our website at www.watermarkbooks.com.

May 10, 7:00 p.m. Mike Smith presentation and signing for "When the Sirens Were Silent"
Mike Smith’s highly-regarded first book "Warnings: The True Story of How Science Tamed the Weather", makes the case that the storm warning system developed by weather scientists over the last fifty years is the only thing protecting American society from triple and quadruple-digit death tolls caused by tornadoes and other storms. But, what if the warning system failed? Would triple-digit fatalities result? Sadly, that point was proven on May 22, 2011, when 161 lost their lives in a tornado that caught most residents of Joplin, Missouri, by surprise. In "When the Sirens Were Silent," Mike tells the gripping story of how things went tragically awry that terrible Sunday afternoon as experienced by people in the path and people in the storm warning center. And, to help keep you and your family safe in future storms, "When the Sirens Were Silent" contains removable pages with the latest tornado safety rules for homes, schools, and businesses. 

Also appearing with Smith tonight will be reporter Denise Neil and photographer Jaime Green of the Wichita Eagle, who were in Joplin for a wedding and will talk about what they went through.

Read more here: http://blogs.kansas.com/weather/2012/05/09/how-the-warning-system-failed-joplin-last-may/#storylink=cpy
http://www.watermarkbooks.com/event/mike-smith

May 12, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Wichita Area Sister Cities Scholarship Fund Book Fair.
http://www.watermarkbooks.com/event/wichita-area-sister-cities-book-fair

May 17, 7:00 p.m. Geraldine Brooks reading and signing for "Caleb's Crossing" - this is the 4th event in our Penguin Author Series.
In 1665, a young man from Martha's Vineyard became the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College. Upon this slender factual scaffold, Brooks has created a luminous tale of love and faith, magic and adventure.

The narrator of "Caleb's Crossing" is Bethia Mayfield, growing up in the tiny settlement of Great Harbor amid a small band of pioneers and Puritans. Restless and curious, she yearns after an education that is closed to her by her sex. As often as she can, she slips away to explore the island's glistening beaches and observe its native Wampanoag inhabitants. At twelve, she encounters Caleb, the young son of a chieftain, and the two forge a tentative secret friendship that draws each into the alien world of the other. Bethia's minister father tries to convert the Wampanoag, awakening the wrath of the tribe's shaman, against whose magic he must test his own beliefs. One of his projects becomes the education of Caleb, and a year later, Caleb is in Cambridge, studying Latin and Greek among the colonial elite. There, Bethia finds herself reluctantly indentured as a housekeeper and can closely observe Caleb's crossing of cultures.

This is the 3rd of 4 events in our Penguin Author Series. This is a ticketed event.
http://www.watermarkbooks.com/event/geraldine-brooks

May 30, 6:00 p.m. Summer Challenge Discussion for "The House of Mirth," pages 3-260 in the new Penguin omnibus Three Novels of New York.

May 30, 7:00 p.m. Alex Grecian reading and signing for "The Yard"
Victorian London is a cesspool of crime, and Scotland Yard has only twelve detectives—known as “The Murder Squad”—to investigate countless murders every month. Created after the Metropolitan Police’s spectacular failure to capture Jack the Ripper, The Murder Squad suffers rampant public contempt. They have failed their citizens. But no one can anticipate the brutal murder of one of their own . . . one of the twelve . . .
 
When Walter Day, the squad’s newest hire, is assigned the case of the murdered detective, he finds a strange ally in the Yard’s first forensic pathologist, Dr. Bernard Kingsley. Together they track the killer, who clearly is not finished with The Murder Squad . . . but why?
 
Filled with fascinating period detail, and real historical figures, this spectacular debut in a new series showcases the depravity of late Victorian London, the advent of criminology, and introduces a stunning new cast of characters sure to appeal to fans of The Sherlockian and The Alienist.
 
http://www.watermarkbooks.com/event/alex-grecian

May 31, 7:00 p.m. Dorothy Wickenden reading and signing for "Nothing Daunted"
Dorothy Woodruff and Rosamond Underwood attended grade school and Smith College together, spent nine months on a grand tour of Europe in 1910, and then, bored with society luncheons and chaperoned balls and not yet ready for marriage, they went off to teach the children of homesteaders in a remote schoolhouse on the Western Slope of Colorado. They traveled on the new railroad over the Continental Divide and by wagon to Elkhead, a tiny settlement far from the nearest town. Their students came to school from miles away in tattered clothes and shoes tied together with string.

Dorothy Woodruff was the grandmother of New Yorker executive editor Dorothy Wickenden. Nearly one hundred years later, Wickenden found the buoyant, detailed, colorful letters the two women wrote to their families. Through them, she has chronicled their trials in the classroom, the cowboys and pioneering women they met, and the violent kidnapping of a close friend. Central to their narrative is Ferry Carpenter, the witty, idealistic, and occasionally outrageous young lawyer and cattle rancher who hired them, in part because he thought they would make attractive and cultivated brides. None of them imagined the transforming effect the year would have—on the children, the families, and the teachers.
 
Wickenden set out on her own journey to discover what two intrepid Eastern women found when they went West, and what America was like at that uncertain moment, with the country poised for the First World War, but going through its own period of self-discovery.

Drawing upon the letters, interviews with descendants, research about these vanished communities, and trips to the region, Wickenden creates a compelling, original saga about the two intrepid young women and the “settling up” of the West.
http://www.watermarkbooks.com/event/dorothy-wickenden

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Watermark's Book of the Week is "Bring Up the Bodies" by Hilary Mantel (Henry Holt, ISBN 9780805090031, originally $28.00)

The sequel to Hilary Mantel's 2009 Man Booker Prize winner and New York Times bestseller, "Wolf Hall" delves into the heart of Tudor history with the downfall of Anne Boleyn.

Though he battled for seven years to marry her, Henry is disenchanted with Anne Boleyn. She has failed to give him a son and her sharp intelligence and audacious will alienate his old friends and the noble families of England. When the discarded Katherine dies in exile from the court, Anne stands starkly exposed, the focus of gossip and malice.

At a word from Henry, Thomas Cromwell is ready to bring her down. Over three terrifying weeks, Anne is ensnared in a web of conspiracy, while the demure Jane Seymour stands waiting her turn for the poisoned wedding ring. But Anne and her powerful family will not yield without a ferocious struggle. Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies follows the dramatic trial of the queen and her suitors for adultery and treason. To defeat the Boleyns, Cromwell must ally with his natural enemies, the papist aristocracy. What price will he pay for Anne's head?

Shop online or in the store, this week "Bring Up the Bodies" is 30% off.

Order "Bring Up the Bodies" online here: http://www.watermarkbooks.com/book/9780805090031
Or for your eReader here: http://www.watermarkbooks.com/google-ebooks/bring-bodies-novel

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This week's winner of a free lunch from Watermark Café is John Whitlock of Wichita. Thanks for signing up for News & Notes. 

- 

First line(s)...

"I'm going to begin by telling you about Miss Frost. While I say to everyone that I became a writer because I read a certain novel by Charles Dickens at the formative age of fifteen, the truth is I was younger than that when I first met Miss Frost and imagined having sex with her, and this moment of my sexual awakening also marked the fitful birth of my imagination. We are formed by what we desire. In less than a minute of excited, secretive longing, I desired to become a writer and to have sex with Miss Frost--not necessarily in that order."

... from "In One Person" by John Irving (Simon & Schuster, ISBN 9781451664126, $28.00)

Order "In One Person" online here: http://www.watermarkbooks.com/book/9781451664126
Or for your eReader here: http://www.watermarkbooks.com/google-ebooks/one-person-novel

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Watermark Bestsellers.
1. "Caleb's Crossing" by Geraldine Brooks 2. "Fifty Shades of Grey" by E.L. James 3. "The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson" by Robert Caro 4. "The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Food From My Frontier" by Ree Drummond 5. "Pinches and Dashes" by the Junior League of Wichita 6. "The Serpent's Shadow: Book 3 in the Kane Chronicles" by Rick Riordan 7. "Oklahoma City" by Andrew Gumbel and Roger Charles 8. "Fifty Shades Darker" by E.L. James 9. "Freeman" by Leonard Pitts, Jr.
10. "Wichita" by Thad Ziolkowski

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"Summer of the Gypsy Moths" by Sara Pennypacker (Balzar + Bray, ISBN 9780061964206, $15.99)

I am a huge fan of Sara Pennypacker's "Clementine" beginning chapter books. They're everything a book for first and second graders should be: fun, smart, well-written, with a main character you can't help but love. So, when I found out that she had a book for older kids--the 9 to 12 crowd--I was excited, hopeful that it would be just as wonderful as Clementine is.

Stella hasn't had an easy life. She's currently living with her Great-aunt Louise, because since her grandmother died, she and her mother have been wandering aimless from city to city until the government finally stepped in and took Stella from her mom due to neglect. Now, she and Louise--and another foster child, Angel--are hitting it off in their little house on Cape Cod, readying for the summer season with their garden, blueberry bushes, and the vacationers in the four little cottages they manage.

That is, until Louise dies. (That's not a spoiler: it happens in the first chapter.)

Stella and Angel panic: if they call people to come and take Louise away, then the same people, the ones who put them in the foster-care system in the first place, will take them away, send them to homes that might not be so nice. So the two of them make a pact: they'll bury Louise in the back yard and run the cottages as if Louise were just injured and unable to help out, take the money they get as tips and save it until they have enough to go somewhere.

It's all quite vague--very much the way 12-year-olds would think--and they don't do everything perfectly. Thankfully, even though it's one of those "bad mother" books, it doesn't ever seem either overly desperate and sad or overly implausible. Because of her situation with her mother, Stella is more grown up than she otherwise would be, and is able to take charge, with the help of Heloise's advice columns. Granted, I'm not sure two 12-year-old girls could go four weeks (which is how long they end up faking everyone out) without someone noticing that the responsible adult is never around, but somehow they do. But, there are consequences: they end up going hungry much of the time because there isn't a grocery store nearby, and they don't have money for food anyway. It's a small thing, but it's a nice touch.

I've been trying to pinpoint what I liked about this book. The lying bothered, of course; as did the far-fetched situation. But, in the end, I liked it for its simplicity and its heart. Pennypacker's writing is simple and direct without being simplistic or pandering, which is part of the reason I like her Clementine books. It holds true for this: Stella and Angel are opposites, but they learn to work together. Problems are solved. Ocean is enjoyed. There are moments of loneliness and hardship, but it's never overly dramatic. It's got that classic feel, without being old-fashioned.

The other thing I liked was that it was a true middle grade novel: there had to be bad parents and dead great-aunts so that the two girls could shine and grow and learn and develop. It's a humble adventure, but it's still an adventure: learning that they really do need people to take care of them, and what the meaning of home and friendship are.

In the end, even with the drawbacks, it's a sweet little summer read.

Review by Melissa Fox

Recommended for ages 9 to 12

To order a copy of "Summer of the Gypsy Moths" online, click here: http://www.watermarkbooks.com/book/9780061964206
Or for your eReader here: http://www.watermarkbooks.com/google-ebooks/summer-gypsy-moths

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"The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson" by Robert A. Caro (Knopf, ISBN 9780679405078, $35.00)

The New York Times writer Charles McGrath recently compared the biographer Robert Caro, in one way or another, to such literary legends as Gibbon, Macaulay, and Balzac. By mentioning the first two writers, McGrath had my attention, but when he went so far as to bring Balzac into the discussion, it was all but inevitable that I would read “The Passage of Power.” To be sure, McGrath’s comment was that “Caro is a little like Balzac, who kept fussing over his books even after they were published.” Now that I have read “The Passage of Power,” however, I would be tempted to make additional comparisons about the manner in which the authors approach their subjects. 

Admittedly, of the nineteenth century, big novel crowd, Balzac is certainly one of my favorites. Maybe I’m easily impressed, but I have always admired his work ethic: he produced something like ninety novels in twenty years, roughly between the ages of thirty and fifty. And he did it in the face of money problems brought on by his own extravagant lifestyle. To adequately measure his resolve, it serves to remember that this was in the era when they put you in the jar if you lacked the required funding. The other point about Balzac is that he wrote sublime scenes about feasting. (I’m thinking, right now, of a scene in “The Wild Ass’s Skin.”) It seems clear that the author liked to partake, which started me thinking about bringing him back to life. If you could do such a thing, hypothetically raise him up, like Lazarus, and invite him to Watermark, then the first order of business would be to stoke him with the biggest cup of coffee in the house, along with a cinnamon roll, a wedding cookie, a cream cheese pecan cookie, and a birthday cake shake, at which point I am confident that I could talk him into going even further in hock by buying Caro’s latest book about Lyndon Johnson. 

Here are the reasons that I could hook the great Frenchman: “The Passage of Power,” which covers Johnson’s odyssey from ’58 to ’64, has everything and more that Balzac riffed on in his novels. He had an uncanny ability, for example, to understand how the world works (he somehow knew the ins and outs of an impressive number of occupations), which is a standard that Caro lives up to in “The Passage of Power.” Balzac held no illusions that justice would come to the deserving, or that those who perpetrate fraud would not find a way to be victorious. Similarly, Caro has a nuanced and realistic view of human events. He has, in fact, spent the past forty years studying the period in American political life that stretches from 1930 to 1975. Of necessity, then, the biographer has examined American political life from start to finish. He writes authoritatively about the manner in which things get done, and he has uncovered instances in which various election officials used unconventional methods to count votes. Furthermore, “The Passage of Power” contains an absorbing account of how Johnson pushed through civil rights legislation in the first few months of his presidency. That section of the book is one gem among many. 

Balzac, who famously dodged his creditors while moving from one luxurious hotel to another, and who loved to write stories about dreamers and schemers as they sought to conceal certain proclivities in the realms of art, politics, and commerce, would be pleased to learn that the real world schemers in “The Passage of Power” could rival anything in The Human Comedy (though it might be awfully tough to top Vautrin). Lyndon Johnson, all by himself, as reported by Caro, had the ability to conceive of and then to juggle plots within plots, but for this new book, the biographer has made use of the opportunity to describe additional modes of seizing the main chance. The Kennedy brothers made a run at it Ivy League-style. Then there are the almost major and colorful minor players, getting down to business behind-the-scenes, such backroom connivers as Richard Russell, Sam Rayburn, John Connolly, the Texas oil crew, JFK’s Irish mafia, and Johnson’s protégé, Bobby Baker. Among my favorite minor “characters” is the Waco reporter, Sarah McClendon, who exposes one of Baker’s diversions, which leads to the exposure of another, and then another…

Balzac, larger than life, after finishing his ice cream, would not be able to dismiss the epic theme and scope of Caro’s narrative. “The Passage of Power” opens with Johnson thinking too hard about the 1960 nomination fight, only to get outfoxed by the mid-twentieth century version of a slacker, JFK. But Caro is only getting warmed up. He goes on to keep the reader spellbound with masterful accounts of how Johnson got a spot on the Kennedy ticket, the battle with Nixon, the Kennedy administration, the assassination, the Warren Commission, and the aforementioned civil rights narrative. 

What can the bookseller do, at this point, but fill the great Frenchman’s cup of coffee? “Mr. Balzac, shall I put Caro’s book on your account?”

“Yes, please do. Have my valet take a copy to the Hyatt. And never tell a soul where I’m staying.”

Review by Todd Robins

To order a copy of "The Passage of Power" online, click here: http://www.watermarkbooks.com/book/9780679405078
Or for your eReader here: http://www.watermarkbooks.com/google-ebooks/passage-power

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Watermark's book reviews can be heard on alternate Mondays on KMUW 89.1. You can read our most recent review below or listen to it here:
http://www.kmuw.org/index.php/book/may_7_sacre_bleu_by_christopher_moore/

“Sacre Bleu” by Christopher Moore (William Morrow, ISBN 9780061779749, $26.99)

When an author goes on a book tour, he might fall into a routine that sounds something like this:
• Fly into a city.
• Go from airport to hotel.
• Go from hotel to bookstore.
• Read from your book.
• Return to hotel.
• Fly out in the morning.

When Christopher Moore goes on book tour, he adds one more step.
• Spend some time at the local art museum.

Christopher Moore has a following, and for years I was not among them. I had always heard about his funny, irreverent writing, with titles like “Fool,” “Lamb,” and others that you would not repeat in polite company. With these books, the promise of laughter and forehead slapping wasn’t enough. When Moore threw art into the mix, questioning van Gogh’s suicide in his latest book, “Sacre Bleu,” it piqued my interest.

Sacre Bleu means sacred blue, the name given to a certain shade of blue used by artists during medieval times when the church said, if you’re going to paint the Virgin’s cloak, it must be with this blue. This “sacred blue” made from lapis lazuli was chosen over organic pigments for its fade resistance.

van Gogh used sacred blue, as did all of his Impressionistic friends. And in Moore’s telling, they all used the same colorman for their paints and pigments. If you did business with this particular colorman, you might as well have sold your soul to the devil. The Colorman and his partner, the goddess Muse, coaxed and cajoled these artists to use their sacred blue to create masterpieces--but then demanded high payment in return.

Christopher Moore’s museum visits served him well. This story of art and color illustrates that great art comes at a price, resulting in lost health, happiness, and often sanity.

Review by Beth Golay

To order a copy of "Sacre Bleu" online, click here: http://www.watermarkbooks.com/book/9780061779749
Or for your eReader here: http://www.watermarkbooks.com/google-ebooks/sacre-bleu-comedy-dart

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Later.
Beth