Top 10 Idlewild bestsellers for June 2009:

1. Delhi Noir, anthology (India)

2. The Thing Around Your Neck, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria/U.S.)

3. Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri (India/U.S.)

4. The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga (India)

5. Travels with Herodotus, by Ryszard Kapuscinski (various countries)

6. The Hakawati, by Rabih Alameddine (Lebanon)

7. My Life in France, by Julia Child (France)

8. A Freewheelin’ Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties, by Suze Rotolo (NYC)

9. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by Jane Austen and Seth Graeme-Smith (UK)

10. Between the Assassinations, by Aravind Adiga (India)

I heard these nocturnal bells tinkling away as I fell asleep again. They were traveling from the shores of the Euxine to the shores of the Caspian, and they became symbols to me, emblems of mystery, of the past, of the future. Time and space spread in echoing circles like waves from the sound of the little bells. It might have been the Antarctic circle which spread outside my room, it might have been the year one thousand that was rolling around the earth. In fact, as I lay in bed I felt sure that it was, that time and space flowed together like waters into a sea, that everything existed forever and everywhere. I was beginning to understand Asia.”

from The Asiatics (1935), by Frederic Prokosch

Farrar Straus Giroux $15.95 paper

Idlewild price $12.80

e-book $9.99

Top 10 Idlewild destinations, based on June 2009 book sales:

1. Italy

2. France

3. USA/NYC

4. UK

5. Spain

6. Russia

7. Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand)

8. Japan

9. China

10. Turkey

“That way,” he said, pointing. “Follow the tree flowers,” he said. “Only the tree flowers. As they go, you go. You will be where you want to be when they are gone.”

So he raced from dogwood to blossoming peach. When they thinned out he headed for the cherry blossoms, then magnolia, chinaberry, pecan, walnut and prickly pear. At last he reached a field of apple trees whose flowers were just becoming tiny knots of fruit. Spring sauntered north, but he had to run like hell to keep it as his traveling companion. From February to July he was on the lookout for blossoms. When he lost them, and found himself without so much as a petal to guide him, he paused, climbed a tree on a hillock and scanned the horizon for a flash of pink or white in the leaf world that surrounded him. He did not touch them or stop to smell. He merely followed in their wake, a dark ragged figure guided by the blossoming plums.”

from Beloved, by Toni Morrison
page 115
Vintage $13.95 paperback
Idlewild price $11.20
e-book $9.99

Another Tuesday, another quiz! Five very different books set in five very different cities — Rome, Mumbai, New York, Berlin and Paris — but they all have one thing in common. (Okay, more than one thing: they’re all printed on paper, all employ certain narrative techniques, etc, etc — but read our minds: what overarching characteristic do these books share?)

A Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio, by Amara Lakhous

The Death of Vishnu, by Manil Suri

The Tenants of Moonbloom, by Edward Lewis Wallant

This Must Be the Place, by Anna Winger

The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery

Send your guesses to quiz@idlewildbooks.com

The first email with the correct answer wins a copy of Gourmet Rhapsody, Muriel Barbery’s long-awaited follow-up to The Elegance of the Hedgehog. The most creative answer — the person who either comes up with an interesting similarity we hadn’t thought of, or just has the looniest wrong answer — also gets a copy.

Answer tomorrow!

Interviewed at Idlewild Books 7/7/09 at 3:35 p.m.

Hey, where ya goin’?

Iceland! I’ve never been there before, or even thought about it to tell you the truth, but I randomly found a cheap ticket and I’ve never been that far north before so I thought why not?

Do you like traveling alone?

Love it. I don’t do it very often, and it’s wonderful to travel with friends of course, but I always meet amazing people I might not have met otherwise. When I went to northern Brazil alone last year, I met a great couple from Rio who invited me to stay with them when I eventually made it down there and it completely changed my experience. We’re still in touch.

What books are you picking up today?

The Time Out and Wallpaper guides, which I always try to find when I travel, The Sagas, and a crime novel set in Reykjavik called Jar City. I read another novel by the same author last year called Voices and couldn’t put it down.

Give us a fantasy flash-forward to a perfect day from your Iceland trip.

Head out to a volcano at dawn (they have volcanoes, right?), hike to the top, then come back to Reykjavik in the evening for a soak in that crazy hot springs harbor, floating with my eyes closed and a drink in my hand, followed by a night of barhopping and dancing with a bunch of Bjork lookalikes.

‘Hello? Anyone home?’ She knocked on the Pathaks’ door but there was no answer.

Salim had told her that the Asranis and Pathaks had been wrapping up their fight when he had passed their floor. ‘Looks like they couldn’t agree who should pay for the hospital bed,’ he said. ‘So they sent the ambulance away without poor Vishnu.’

Mrs. Jalal instantly felt the guilt, kindled that morning by Short Ganga. ‘You mean he’s just lying there on the steps, dying?’ she asked Salim. She paced her kitchen, worrying about it, and finally decided to go downstairs to see what could be done.

	Title: The Death of Vishnu
	Author: Manil Suri
	Description: Vishnu, the odd-man job in a Bombay apartment block, lies dying on the staircase landing. Around him, the lives of the apartment dwellers unfold: the warring housewives on the first floor, lovesick teenagers on the second, and the more>>
	Harper Perennial, 2001 $14.95 paper
	Idlewild price $11.96

“The continent’s future, he said, depends on good governance, “which has been missing in far too many places for far too long.”

“That is the change that can unlock Africa’s potential,” he said. “And that is a responsibility that can be met only by Africans.”

The sight of the first black president of the United States, the son of a onetime African goat herder, electrified this small coastal nation and much of the region. Cheering crowds lined streets to catch a glimpse. Billboards with his picture dotted the city. His name and campaign theme became the refrains of songs played in his honor.

But while the history of the moment was lost on no one and Mr. Obama bathed in the rapturous welcome, he also delivered a strong and at times even stern message.

“No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves, or police can be bought off by drug traffickers,” he said. “No business wants to invest in a place where the government skims 20 percent off the top, or the head of the port authority is corrupt. No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery. That is not democracy, that is tyranny, and now is the time for it to end.”

“Africa doesn’t need strongmen,” he added. “It needs strong institutions.”

These words, had they come from any of his predecessors, might not have been received the same way. Instead, it was cast by the White House as hard truths from a loving cousin who could say what no one else could.

As he did in his address to the Muslim world in Cairo last month, he used the details of his biography to soften the sometimes blunt language.

“My grandfather was a cook for the British in Kenya,” he said, “and though he was a respected elder in his village, his employers called him ‘boy’ for much of his life.”

Reading and reception

Our favorite new(ish) magazine Lapham’s Quarterly, which collects writing across the ages around a new theme every three months, is finally publishing a Travel issue! On June 30, LQ editor Lewis Lapham and contributors Suketu Mehta, author of “Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found” (Knopf), and Simon Winchester, author of “The Man Who Loved China” (Harper Collins), will give short readings followed by a reception at Idlewild Books.

Contributors to the LQ who are not expected to attend the event include Abigail Adams, Charles Dickens, and Homer. But there will be wine so it all evens out.

RSVP required: events@idlewildbooks.com
More about Lapham’s Quarterly here.