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Indies First (and Second, and Third)

11/20/2014

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As part of Indies First, a national campaign to promote independent bookstores, New Door Books is doubling up on Thanksgiving weekend.
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Black Friday, Nov. 28: Publisher Doug Gordon and author Sam Gridley will be at Big Blue Marble Bookstore in Mount Airy, the supercool neighborhood of Philadelphia, from 10:00 to about 1:00. The store is at 551 Carpenter Lane, Philadelphia 19119; telephone 215-844-1870.

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Small Business Saturday, Nov. 29: Author Louis Greenstein, a.k.a. Mr. Boardwalk, will be at Main Point Books in ultracool Bryn Mawr, where the spirit of Kate Hepburn lingers, from 11:00 to 2:00. The store's address is 1041 W. Lancaster Ave.; telephone 610-525-1480.

Grab your winter-holiday shopping list and come visit these stores. Both have great children's sections as well as travel books, coffee table books, bestsellers, and more. Who knows, the ghost of Kate Hepburn may appear.

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A "kick-ass, high-imagination writer"

11/18/2014

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More reviews of Mark Lyons's Brief Eulogies at Roadside Shrines:

From Miriam Peskowitz, author of The Daring Books for Girls series, writing on Amazon:
A book of roadside shrines, spread across time, across a nation. Characters that -- well, what kind of kick-ass, high-imagination writer can even dream up characters like these? Offbeat, odd, filled with sadness and rage and yet eventually, so entirely lovable and human.

Just like each of us.

I love this collection.
And from Jon Busch, writing in a more formal vein in Cleaver Magazine:
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The collection pulses with a tragic calmness akin to the writings of Carver or Cheever. Beneath every scene and absurd occurrence lurks a temperate sadness. While the explored themes of isolation, loneliness and death are heavy, the electric tone of the prose persistently enthralls.
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Playing with Canons

11/18/2014

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On Wednesday, November 19, at 6:00 p.m., Treehouse Theater in Manhattan begins a free series of Wednesday-night readings, featuring plays from the book Playing with Canons, an anthology of 18 indie plays that adapt classics ranging from Genesis to Greek tragedy to Shakespeare, Austen, Chekhov, Poe, Melville, and more.

What, for instance, does Shakespeare's The Tempest have to say to modern audiences? You can find out on the opening night when a cast of 12 actors reads from Larry Loebell's La Tempestad, an adaptation set in Puerto Rico and dealing with themes like the War on Terror, the power of the U.S. military, and gay marriage. The play has been given full stage performances in New York, but if you didn't see it then, you'll want to catch this reading.

In an interview with director Aimee Todoroff, Larry Loebell says this about La Tempestad:

I'm always drawn to plays that explore the human aspect of social justice issues, and that question our notions of right and wrong. One of the reasons I love this play is that the characters, though radically, wildly updated from Shakespeare's, are so richly drawn. Each has something they are fighting for, and each is motivated by love: love of a partner, love of country, love of a child.
Go here for the full interview.
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"A Gifted Storyteller"

11/13/2014

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Again and again, reviewers of Mark Lyons's Brief Eulogies at Roadside Shrines are coming up with phrases like the one in the headline. This time it's Kirkus Reviews, which goes on (in its starred review) to say that "Lyons has a wonderful ear for dialect, effortlessly going beyond mimicry.... An engrossing collection giving ordinary people their due." Click on the image for the full review.

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Short Stories Worth Savoring

11/1/2014

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In the November 2 Philadelphia Inquirer, Kevin Grauke reviews Mark Lyons's story collection, Brief Eulogies at Roadside Shrines. According to Grauke,
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what truly unifies the collection is Lyons' impressive ability to capture the voices of a wide range of characters. He's so good that readers may find themselves wishing all 12 stories, rather than nine of 12, had been written in first person.

Just as varied as their settings - Mackey's Corners, Ark.; South Philadelphia; Tlaxcala, Mexico; Fairfield, Iowa; Edo, Japan - the narrators come from all walks of life. One is a snake-handling preacher run out of town by his congregation for turning to antivenin after a bite. Another is a Kwakiutl Indian working dangerously high above the ground on the electrical towers along the edge of Lake Champlain. Still another is a guard for the U.S. Border Patrol whose own mother, before his birth, illegally crossed the Rio Grande into Arizona. The voice of each emerges so naturally that it's easy to forget that only one person, Mark Lyons, lies behind all of them.
If you care about the true America, beyond Hollywood and Wall Street and TV celebrities, this is a book for you.
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