agraves's blog

Alden Graves - Bookseller, Movie & Music Buyer

Submitted by agraves on Mon, 01/01/1990 - 12:16pm
A native Vermonter, Alden works in the music department at the Northshire. He is also in charge of the DVDs and tries very hard to have titles that customers might not readily find elsewhere. He loves film, especially ones that have either trains or Elizabeth Taylor in them. Alden contributes a weekly column on the movies to the Bennington Banner. His other interests include shipwrecks, Jack the Ripper, Peggy Lee, and real country music. Other staff members at the Northshire are very tolerant as he rambles on about the Andrea Doria and they probably know a lot more about the Ripper than they ever thought they would.

Joyland

Submitted by agraves on Mon, 06/10/2013 - 12:52pm
Book List

Joyland (Paperback)

By Stephen King
$12.95
ISBN-13: 9781781162644
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Hard Case Crime, 6/2013
Devin Jones decides to spend his summer working at an amusement park along the North Carolina seacoast. He discovers that Joyland was once the site of a brutal murder and the victim, it is said, still haunts one of the rides. Escapist fare at its best, served up by a master storyteller. ~ Reviewed by Alden Graves

Exorcising the past

Submitted by agraves on Mon, 06/10/2013 - 12:34pm
There is a self-congratulatory undercurrent that wafts through Run, Brother, Run that would be off-putting in most books but, when you finish this one, you will probably grant that author David Berg has earned the right to parcel out some credit upon himself. God knows, the odds were mostly against him right from the start.There are no completely guiltless people in this courageous disinterment of a terrible personal event that most people would bury and hope to be able to forget.

Mr. Berg is the younger son of Nathan Berg, a human pile driver whose volatile temperament expanded proportionately with his business setbacks -- and his setbacks were considerable and frequent. Nathan took out his frustrations on his entire family, but David’s older brother, Alan, was the preferred target of his father’s wrath. Nathan’s dream had been to become a doctor, but, like most everything else in his life, it didn’t work out. The disappointment hovered over Berg; a merciless reminder that, no matter what else he accomplished, in his own mind it would be second best.

Alan, who had alienated himself further from his father by not becoming a doctor, offered David a kind of firewall, protecting him from Nathan’s emotional browbeating. It seemed for a while that Nathan had finally found the promise of some financial security after he and Alan opened an upholstery business in Houston. A fire ended all that. There was no insurance and the Bergs were back on square one, but they had acquired a flair for resilience -- of sorts.

The relationship between Nathan and Alan continued to be explosive. Alan’s fourth wife, Harriet, had a stabilizing influence on her new husband’s chaotic life. The couple had two sons and all the attendant financial responsibilities that come with children. Alan began drifting back into bad habits. He bet large sums on sporting events and couldn’t always pay up quickly when he lost. Then one day, he just never came home.

Much of the book is concerned with Nathan’s desperate attempts to discover what became of his son. The man who continually fought with Alan, belittling and humiliating him, would spend thousands of dollars tracking down every lead, no matter how far-fetched and tenuous, only to arrive at a destination that Alan’s family very likely knew that it was going to reach from the very start of their nightmare.

I am sure writing Run, Brother, Run provided Mr. Berg with a catharsis and it provides a gripping story for the reader. I suspect a lot of attention, however, will focus on the fact that the central villain of the tale is the father of actor Woody Harrelson. It would be difficult to find any redeeming qualities in Charles “Chuck” Harrelson, even if his famous son had the resources to hire the same lawyer who was so instrumental in helping O.J. Simpson beat the hangman. But, aside from the Hollywood connection, there is nothing particularly interesting about Harrelson. He’s a garden variety thug whose kid happened to be famous. (Oliver Stone told Woody to “act like your father” when they were filming Natural Born Killers.)

The most deviously fascinating character in a book that is overflowing with them is the lawyer Charles Harrelson hired to defend him at the trial for Alan Berg’s murder. Percy Forman was one of those legendarily flamboyant lawyers who could better serve justice by being ficticious. He once hired a van to clean out a client’s home of its valuables as payment for his “services,” a maneuver that even outraged a judge in Texas. Forman’s liberal interpretation of “win at any cost defense” is the most shocking aspect of the book.

David Berg is a lawyer as well as a writer, but that fact doesn’t preclude him from painting a very dim picture of the legal system in America. Run, Brother, Run may have had it’s origins in Mr. Berg’s anger and frustration, but this worthy attempt to place a human face on his flawed brother’s rocky life is also a jarring reminder that justice is awed by fame, easily manipulated by unscrupulous men, and -- are you ready for this revelation? -- corrupted by money.
Book List

Run, Brother, Run: A Memoir of a Murder in My Family (Hardcover)

By David Berg
$26.00
ISBN-13: 9781476715636
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Scribner, 6/2013
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The Black Country

Submitted by agraves on Wed, 05/29/2013 - 11:57am
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The Black Country (Hardcover)

By Alex Grecian
$26.95
ISBN-13: 9780399159336
Availability: Usually Ships from Warehouse in 1-5 days
Published: Putnam Adult, 6/2013
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Inspector Walter Day from Scotland Yard is called to investigate the disappearance of three members of a family from a remote village in The Midlands. Blackheath is home to a number of superstitions, including tales about a creature that prowls the woods surrounding the town. The author, as he proved in his post Jack the Ripper story, The Yard, is a master at creating a palpable atmosphere of suspense. ~ Reviewed by Alden Graves

The ride into the sunset

Submitted by agraves on Wed, 05/29/2013 - 11:53am
Shot All to Hell: Jesse James, the Northfield Raid, and the Wild West's Greatest Escape“If I had it all to do over, I’d rather have all the pain and danger and trouble than to be just a plain farmer.” -- Frank James

By 1876, the sun was setting in the Old West and even the outlaws were becoming aware of it. If their bad habits persisted, it was usually because life seemed so dull and uneventful after the shoot-em-up years began to wane. It wasn’t easy earning an honest living when the only thing a man knew how to do that was worth a damn was dishonest.

The country was beginning to recover from the devastation wrought by the Civil War, although old resentments still lingered, especially in the border states. When they exploded, they could still be as deadly as any battlefield.

Frank James was born in Kearney, Missouri in 1843 and his brother, Jesse, in 1847. Their father was a minister, who passed away when Frank was 12-years-old. As young men, the brothers had their share of scrapes with the law, but they embarked on their trail of infamy with a vengeance after a bungled raid on the James farm by Pinkerton operatives left their mother injured and their young half-brother dead. Jesse promptly murdered a neighboring farmer whom he thought had supplied information to the Pinkertons.

The violent and bloody road that Frank and Jesse set out upon eventually led them to a bank in Northfield, Minnesota. They had joined forces with the Younger brothers, Bob, Jim, and Cole, and some other ne’er-do-wells. Northfield’s bank hadn’t been the gang’s first choice to rob, but the layout of the town and the bank had been carefully scrutinized. It looked like an easy morning’s work.

It didn’t turn out that way. Northfield residents didn’t much care for the looks of the ruffians who rode into their town on the morning of September 7, 1876. When the James/Younger gang rode out, two of its members lay dead in the street and a cashier in the bank had been brutally -- and senselessly -- murdered.

The robbers rode away with a little over $26.00 for their efforts, but the brazen crime instigated the biggest manhunt since John Wilkes Booth had been cornered and killed 20 years earlier.

Mark Lee Gardner’s book, Shot All to Hell, is about the hunt for the perpetrators of the Northfield robbery. The book is written in a style that fits its subject like a pair of comfortable boots, scuffs and all. It has a lot of the good guys and bad guys aspects of a rousing Louis L’Amour western, complete with an evocative -- and slightly lurid -- title: Train robberies, bank hold-ups, outlaws on the run and posses just a few hours behind.

The adventure elements are played out amidst one of the most turbulent periods in American history and Mr. Gardner deftly incorporates the bloody times into his story of a band of men who contributed heavily to the blood-letting and, even more significantly, to the romantic aura that always evolve from the disreputable glamour of gunsmoke and lawlessness.

The author isn’t taking sides here. It is largely left to the reader to decide whether Frank and Jesse were worthy of any admiration. Mr. Gardner is simply telling a good story. Or, more precisely, the end of a story. Jesse’s violent demise was probably inevitable and provided an accelerant to the legend that was growing even while he was alive. Frank’s death serves as a reminder that history and inevitability are sometimes only passing acquaintances.

Shot All to Hell will be published by William Morrow in July, 2013.
Book List

Shot All to Hell: Jesse James, the Northfield Raid, and the Wild West's Greatest Escape (Hardcover)

By Mark Lee Gardner
$27.99
ISBN-13: 9780061989476
Availability: Coming Soon - Available for Pre-Order Now
Published: William Morrow & Company, 7/2013
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The Friedkin Connection

Submitted by agraves on Wed, 05/29/2013 - 10:39am
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The Friedkin Connection: A Memoir (Hardcover)

By William Friedkin
$29.99
ISBN-13: 9780061775123
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Harper, 3/2013
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A bumpy ride through the Hollywood maze. After starting in the mail room at a Chicago television station, Friedkin went on to direct two of the most influential films of the 1970s, The French Connection and The Exorcist. This memoir is an incisive look at a business that traditionally takes a dim view of idealistic notions about the kind of personal cinema that Friedkin admired and embraced. ~ Reviewed by Alden Graves

Bunker Hill

Submitted by agraves on Wed, 05/22/2013 - 2:49pm
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Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution (Hardcover)

By Nathaniel Philbrick
$26.36
ISBN-13: 9780670025442
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Viking Adult, 5/2013
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One of the most decisive events in American history is examined in this riveting history. The bloody battle marked the beginning of the war for independence after the skirmishes at Lexington and Concord. The book provides a intimate look at pivotal figures and reverberant events that led up to the confrontation on what was actually Breed's Hill outside of Boston in 1775. ~ Reviewed by Alden Graves

Guilt Trip - Movie Review

Submitted by agraves on Wed, 05/22/2013 - 2:37pm
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Guilt Trip - DVD

Guilt Trip - DVD (DVD-Video)

$29.98
Model: 0032429129406
Seth Rogan and Barbra Streisand in a surprisingly affecting movie about the uneasy relationship between a young man and his overbearing, widowed mother. What could have been a tough slog through sentimentality manages to generate some honest emotion thanks mostly to a sharply written script and a couple of very likable performances by the two stars. ~ Reviewed by Alden Graves

Mama - Movie Review

Submitted by agraves on Wed, 05/22/2013 - 2:28pm
Book List
Mama (Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy + UltraViolet)

Mama (Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy + UltraViolet) (Blu-ray & DVD)

$34.98
Model: 0025192166907
Two recently orphaned girls are adopted by a computer-generated madwoman. Spectacularly bad parenting augmented with creepy interludes, but the plot twists will seem vaguely familiar to devotees of the genre. There must have been moments when Jessica Chastain wished that she was back chasing bin Laden. ~ Reviewed by Alden Graves

Winds of change

Submitted by agraves on Mon, 05/06/2013 - 3:17pm
The Son“Follow your footsteps long enough and they will turn into those of the beast.” -- Philipp Meyer, The Son

I’m sure adjectives like Epic, Sprawling, Brawling, Lusty, Bloody, and, yes, even Romantic will be piled upon Philipp Meyer’s new novel, The Son, when it is published by Harper/Collins in June. Unlike a lot of hype, this book lives up to all of them. It is a multi-generational, centuries-spanning saga of a Texas family, whose history coincides with the evolution of Texas itself, from a wild territory torn by conflict and savagery to a modern state dominated by a different sort of ruthlessness.

There are a lot of vivid characters in The Son, but the narrative centers around one member of three different generations of the McCullough family, starting at the midpoint of the 19th century with 13-year-old Eli McCullough. Eli and his brother are taken captive by a Comanche raiding party that brutally rapes and kills his mother and sister. He learns to adapt to -- and even thrive in -- a world where only the strong survive and where weakness is winnowed out as if it was a pestilence. Eli evolves in time and legend into an almost mythic, uniquely Texan character simply called (what else?) “The Colonel.”

Peter McCullough is Eli’s son. His ability to adapt to the unforgiving nature of his surroundings is not as boundless as his father’s had been. He is burdened with a conscience in a land that needs regrets like it needs more dust.

Jeanne Anne McCullough has a spirit that matches her great grandfather’s; transplanted to a different era and applied to a Texas that Eli only sensed (with trepidation) was coming. J.A. has escaped the prison of a “suitable” marriage that trapped Peter, but she balks at being confined by the limitations imposed on women in what has always been a man’s world.

It has become a literary cliche that vast and violent frontiers demand larger-than-life characters to tame them, and they are certainly present in Mr. Meyer’s novel. But there is also another side to the story, one that humanizes these rugged, stubborn, and occasionally infuriating people and places them into a perspective that the reader can identify with. Behind the doors of their mansions and on the top floors of the glass towers, where they make decisions that will impact millions of lives, they worry about lost loves and troubled children and the real price tag that comes attached to the big house and the executive suites.

As Texas evolved, it moved away from an agrarian economy to an industrial one -- despite a fierce resistance from the old-guard families -- the ability of the people who shaped the state’s destiny narrowed. In many ways, J.A. is as trapped by her heritage as Eli was free to determine his legacy.

The inevitable comparisons will be to Lonesome Dove’s tremendous scope and to Blood Meridian’s shocking violence, but the book is also reminiscent of Edna Ferber’s more sedate story of the trials and tribulations of a wealthy Texas family in Giant. Ms. Ferber even turns up briefly as a not entirely welcome guest of the McCulloughs.

This is a big book in every sense of the word, a cautionary tale about wealth and family ties that moves with the speed of a cattle stampede. It is also a meticulously researched historical examination of a changing, expanding land and the people who must change with it or be buried beneath it. To adequately encompass all of its sweeping ambition, The Son simply had to be a big book to pay proper homage to its vast and violent subject.
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