Dreadlock Girl’s visit to a Powell’s Books Author Event: Luis Alberto Urrea!!
Even though June was one of the craziest months for us ever, I couldn't handle not heading to Powell's to see an author. And the choice was hard, last month they had Carlos Ruiz Zafon, David Sedaris, Lisa See, among many other equally exciting authors. However, after having twittered with them for months, I just had to choose Luis Alberto Urrea and his lovely wife and kids at the Powell's Books event on his tour to promote Into the Beautiful North. I warned them that I was a tad bit shy in person and they promised to be cuddly and they most certainly were. In all honesty I have never met an author like Luis Urrea, he was kind, attentive and he captured the audience with such ease, as he is just as good at public speaking as he is at writing. I loved him from the minute I saw him, and it was easy to see everyone else there did too. He was swarmed at the end, and he spent time meeting every person individually that wanted to talk or had questions.
Beyond how amazing of a public speaker, storyteller and writer Luis Urrea is, what I most enjoyed was seeing how personable he was with his adoring fans, and with his family. He is a real person, and I loved meeting him!!
When he explained his journey to writing Into the Beautiful North, what stood out to me the most was how he used bits and pieces of his family members, his friends, and people he has grown to admire or fear. Each character is based on someone, someone that has impacted Urrea's life and by sharing those characters with us, he shares them with his readers giving us segments of them as we read. And after finishing Into the Beautiful North I can say that it really works, by making them hold a hint of a real-life person, they become real, they are real.
What is he up to now? You want the full dish? He informed the peeps there that his book Hummingbird's Daughter is going to be made into a film, it is already on its way, and will start filming in January. Also he is working on a sequel to The Hummingbird's Daughter, so keep your eyes open for it.
Urrea is full of surprises and great ones at that!
For more bookie pictures go to my flickr album: All things BOOK related
Secret Son
Secret Son
by Laila Lalami
291 pages
Fiction, International Fiction, Morocco
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
13, April 2009
An illegitimate son living in the slums comes to know that the story of his life is a lie, his father wasn’t killed, and his mother is not a widow, but he was shielded from the truth. Set in Morocco, there is a difference in class systems and Laila Lalami captures the heart of this barrier with great depth. Her writing is pretty, practical and always honest, even when it hurts. There is one specific part where the son, Youssef narrates a chapter and in the subsequent chapter his new found wealthy father narrates that same time from his perspective, I loved that!
As in so much of the world, whether seen and spoken or ignored classes exist and the reprocutions of these systems are brought to life in Secret Son. This is a battle of the classes at its best. A son who should have lived the life of absurd luxury that his father is living, dinning on $300 plates of seafood, but because his mother was a maid he lives in the slums and they attempt to make ends meet. Will the wealth of his father entice Youssef to leave the mother who stuck by his side and had to forsake her entire family in order to keep him?
This is a book of relationships, dreams and the desire to make something of oneself, however most importantly it is of family, and the ties and bonds that hold us tight even after years and years of separation.
I enjoyed this read, but not as much as I started out to. Somehow there was a downturn three fourths of the way through, the story seemed to switch gears and become more political, less personal and I was lost in the mix. I did like the book, I just thought when I started out that I was going to love it and that was not the case. However because there are so many aspects of the book that severely intrigued me I do feel it is a good read. I went to Morocco when I was in high school, I am interested in the different class systems around the world, I love reading internationally and I am all about relationships in books and plots that twist around and around. If those are subjects you feel a drawn towards, you should check out Secret Son by Laila Lalami.
Laila Lalami’s website
Blog filled with cool stuff and tour dates
Laila Lalami Author Book Event at Powell’s Books:
Laila Lalami, the author of Secret Son was at Powell’s and I was able to get up there with Alyce from At Home With Books to the author event. It was such fun, there were people asking weird questions during the Q&A (and I mean REALLY weird questions, that had nothing to do with the book!) and much more to laugh about. Laila Lalami was so sweet…even after I blurted that I had been to Morocco and didn’t really love it. What is my deal!? I can’t help but let the truth explode from my mouth. AHHH!
Of course, you know me by now, photos are a must!
If you haven’t seen the Powell’s Books podium…believe me it is the craziest podium ever. HUGE!
Laila was so sweet, very personable and just my size! (A big thank you to Alyce for these photos!!!)
Alyce got found some books to take home, she was a blast to hang with. Too fun.
The Cellist of Sarajevo
The Cellist of Sarajevo
by Steven Galloway
256 pages
Literary fiction
Riverhead Books
March 2009
Living is very different when your life is under constant threat, when each time you leave the house you run, knowing you are observed and are very much a walking target. In these situations life takes on a whole value. What is important enough to actually put your life in their hands for? Then you wonder when it became an act of bravery to cross the threshold of your door. This is the everyday life, the new normal for those in Sarajevo during the siege. The Cellist of Sarajevo is a novel based on a non-fictional siege, and a non-fictional well known local cellist, Vase Smailovic a who played Albinoni's Adagio in G Minor for twenty-two days as a tribute to those who had been killed while standing in line waiting to buy bread. During this twenty-two day period not only is Sarajevo the cellist's audience, but the audience extends far beyond the well guarded borders of even Sarajevo itself, the world is his audience.
In a nation that is being torn apart, what will make those in the city stop and see that there still is anything worth living for? Society is not buildings, it is not libraries, or community halls-those are the shells that societies leave behind, the remnants and evidence that the people were there working together. Society is a community, the relationships held between people, and an understanding of an acceptable way to treat one another. When that society is under attack, a new normal emerges for its civilians, a new acceptable way to interact with others which is more an instinct than an interaction. When society as we know it falls apart and there are no longer any rules to how we should act, it is from within us that our actions arise. Those actions will prove a person to be a man or woman of courage and heart, or a human who only lives to protect itself.
The Cellist plays, and it is not he that is the focus in this novel, but those he impacts, his audience. There are three main characters which the narrator follows on their daily routine and of which the reader learns their thoughts and fears. Music, as all forms of art, inspires people to continue on, to hope for a future in a better world, and even to remember the past. Every day during the twenty-two day tribute, the Cellist was giving an outdoor concert- the notes rising amongst the broken buildings, the burnt down libraries, and mending the dreams and hearts of the broken people. And yet, that is just the starting point of this novel- it is what those three characters do with the hope that has been given them that caries the musical notes beyond just the listeners who were inspired.
This is the second book that I have read about the conflict in Sarajevo. I also read and reviewed Sarajevo Marlboro by Miljenko Jergovic . Check that out too.
Powell's Books Event:
Steven Galloway author of The Cellist of Sarajevo
I could not believe my luck when I saw that Steven Galloway was to be at Powell's Books! I was so blessed to go to that event last night. Brad (B) and I both got to go up and enjoy the full experience. We both knew that meeting the author could actually scar our already high opinion of the book somewhat, if the person who wrote the book is arrogant and rude, it does make it harder to love the book just as much. Don't you agree? However it was not an issue, as we came away delighted that he was an amazing person as well as writer, he was funny, clever, and very sweet. Like my grandma would have said " he had a good head on his shoulders!", and I am a believer in good heads. 
It was also really, super fun to meet up with Ali from Worducopia at the reading and chat a bit afterwords, but I thought she was in some of the pictures, but she seems to have escaped out of them! I'll get her next time.
My favourite quote from the author Steven Galloway was when telling us how he has a short attention span and it really freaks publishers out because they never know what to expect, he remarks, "You know, I wish I could write a good sexy werewolf novel. That is where the money is! I apologize though, if any of you are sexy werewolves that was not meant to offend". Yes, we were all laughing!
I got so shy when I met the author that all I could do was say, "My-favourite-character-was-Arrow. I-am-a-book-reviewer-and-really-loved-your-book!" Seriously, somebody HELP ME! I need to take boldness pills for next time.
Author Website: Steven Galloway
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