{"id":72974,"date":"2024-01-11T17:37:28","date_gmt":"2024-01-11T22:37:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/?p=72974"},"modified":"2024-01-11T20:56:17","modified_gmt":"2024-01-12T01:56:17","slug":"a-book-beat-newsletter-for-a-new-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/2024\/01\/11\/a-book-beat-newsletter-for-a-new-year\/","title":{"rendered":"A Book Beat Newsletter for a New Year"},"content":{"rendered":"
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detail from the book The Voice in the Hollow by Will Hillenbrand, Holiday House, 2023<\/p><\/div>\n

Dear Book Lovers,<\/p>\n

Thank you for your support in the past and welcome to the New Year!<\/p>\n

A new year brings hope and resolutions. The idea we can all improve and do better. In the world of books there is always change and new ideas. Looking back on the past year of reading, there were many highlights and bright spots.<\/p>\n

The announcement of Jon Fosse as the Nobel Laureate was surprising to many but not to staff member Nicholas, who has been reading Fosse for a long while and has kept a stack on his recommended shelf over the past year or two.<\/p>\n

Fosse is a Norwegian playwright, poet and novelist, whose lecture at the Nobel Awards was titled \u201cA Silent Language\u201d where he arranged his inspirations and beautifully articulated the silent speech within words and the musicality of writing\u2014a Silent Language<\/em> that he derives from listening. \u201cThe act of writing is to me to listen,\u201d said Fosse. \u201cWhen I write I never prepare, I don\u2019t plan anything, I proceed by listening. So if I should use a metaphor for the action of writing, it has to be that of listening. Thus, it almost goes without saying, that writing is reminiscent of music. And at a certain time, in my teens, I went more or less directly from only being engaged with music, to writing.\u201d Fosse’s complete Nobel Prize acceptance speech can be read here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Reading is also an act of listening\u2014to the voice and music of the author where a kind of prayer or communion occurs each time a book is opened.<\/p>\n

At this time of year I\u2019m reminded of Shirley Schreidell, a retired English teacher who passed away in the winter of 2020 at the age of 96. She was a friend and one of the first customers in the 1980s who helped shape the bookstore. Shirley reminded us to be better readers, returning to the classics and great stories that shaped our culture and civilzation. Our repost this month is Shirley Schridell, a book lover<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Listening was a main issue in our last reading group selection The Hive<\/em> by Camilo Jos\u00e9 Cela, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1989. The Hive<\/em>, written in 1951, contained over 300 individual characters, but there is nothing  crammed in or superfluous. The novel reveals the interior of a city, the daily action surrounding an urban Madrid caf\u00e9. Cela is a master of the common routines and human quirks that spin around us\u2014going unnoticed, invisible. The Hive<\/em> is plotless but totally engaging, an inspiring read that contains a sacred goofiness and deep humanity, a struggle of survival and ascension reminding one of the best Beat writing by Kerouac or Burroughs.<\/p>\n

Our reading group selection for January is The Apple in the Dark<\/em> by Clarise Lispector, a novel filled with brilliance\u2014like a finely cut stone. It is the last book of Lispector’s translated in a series published by New Directions, edited and translanted from the Portuguese by Benjamin Moser,  author of the great Pulitzer Prize-winning biography Sontag: Her Life and Work<\/em>.  Join us online when we meet to discuss The Apple in the Dark<\/em> on Wednesday, January 31. Read more about this month’s reading group selection here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tom Bowden returns this month with thirteen new reviews of small press books in his column, i arrogantly recommend…<\/a> His book selections are often unique, radical, rarely reviewed elsewhere and works deserved of attention.<\/p>\n

Thank you again for your support and encouragement. We were overwhelmed this holiday, a great ending to a stressful year, so if you bought from us in store or ordered online from our affiliate page at Bookshop.org<\/a>, we are grateful and recognize your contribution to our store. Wishing you all good health and good reading in the days ahead. There’s more to come!<\/p>\n

Warm regards,<\/p>\n

Cary, Colleen and the Book Beat staff<\/p>\n

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