Humor: The Best Nonexistent Books of 2012

by Hannah E. Sternberg

Nonfiction
Soft as a Petal: A History of the World, Told through Handkerchiefs
Jason Smithson

Hannah Sterberg

This elegant little history is an excellent primer for anyone fascinated with the role of textiles in law, love, and literature. Many authors of popular history have hunted for the perfect "frame story" that would inspire general readers to make sense of the long and tangled threads of world civilization. Smithson's Soft as a Petal puts it in your back pocket. From the hankie's humble beginnings as an all-purpose rag and surrender flag for meek craftsmen on ancient trade routes, to its heyday in Victorian parlors, its near-extinction after the disposable tissue revolution, and its triumphant renaissance alongside the return of the handlebar mustache in the 21st century, the common pocket handkerchief has seen virtually every major turning point of history. Smithson weaves the hankie's story in a humorous, readable style that will make this book one to reach for for years to come.

Runners-up
Eating Will Kill You: The definitive diet book of 2012. Don't miss 2013's The "Eating Will Kill You" Cookbook: 415 Recipes That Will Leave You Hungry for Less.

Guiscard's Lists: Famous People Who Aren't Dead Yet: Perhaps the most useful Guiscard list book this year, it will save you from embarrassing mishaps. Sadly, this one only made our runners-up because of our doubts about its enduring relevance.

Continue reading this humorous post at Hannah's own site here.

Holiday Memories: The Gift

by Ellen Holzman

It’s not unusual for Meredith to get up before me, get the dog out, start the coffee and turn on the heat in our home office. What I didn’t know was that she was also checking emails on my computer to make sure I didn’t see any of the order confirmations or shipment notifications that were coming through for a gift. And I was bringing home so many presents for nieces and nephews from the post office, that I didn’t notice an extra one. I just handed them all over to her for repackaging and reshipping. I had no reason to be suspicious. 

 

This year, we had agreed not to buy each other gifts. Since we’re both too close for comfort to age 60, and we generally buy what we want for ourselves anyway, it seemed practical to me. I should have known when she agreed so readily and calmly that something was up. And, looking back on it, there were the questions about where the Menorah was, did we have enough candles for all eight nights of the Festival of Lights, where exactly in the house they should be lit. 

But I was completely surprised when, on the first night of Chanukah this year, Dec. 8, she said, “I can’t wait anymore!” And she handed me a gift-wrapped box. It had odd angles and some soft spots. “Go ahead, feel it,” she said, and the light in her eyes was just as bright as any that would be on the Menorah. “What do you think it is?” 

I rubbed and squeezed and shook it up and down. A nightgown? No. A pair of hiking boots? No. A Scrabble game? No. 

“Open it!” If she had had a tail, it would have been wagging ferociously. So I opened it. 

And we spent hours that night enjoying it. She guided me through starting it up, and trying it out. I will long remember the gift she gave me this year. Not because of what it is — an iPad — but because of how much she enjoyed giving it to me. That’s the gift that will keep on giving.

_____

Ellen Holzman is the talented author of the short story "Call of the Riled," a hilarious and complex mystery told entirely in letters to the editor of a small-town newspaper. It appears in volume three of Istoria's Lunch Reads series--short stories you can devour on a lunch hour.

Holiday Memory: Lost in the Forest

by Mary Fisherov

When I was fourteen or fifteen years old, and it was still the Soviet Union, and the winters in Russia were very cold, I went to stay with my grandmother in a village for the school winter break. The village was surrounded by dense forests stretching far and wide, its spruces and pine trees covered by a thick layer of snow. If, with your ski pole, you hit a branch of a spruce (branches so thick we called them "paws"), you would be covered by a waterfall of snow descending from it – a pastime that gave a lot of pleasure to us children.

One morning, on January 6^th, I could not find any companions willing to go cross-country skiing with me, so I went alone. I was confident that I knew the nearby part of the forest quite well and that I could never lose sight of the tracks. A small blizzard started blowing, and at first I did not pay much attention to it. Then I noticed that the tracks were now covered with a layer of snow. I still thought I knew my way around, but then it started dawning on me that one clearing in the woods looked exactly like another clearing in the woods. Suddenly I had no idea in what direction my house was anymore. I realized that I was lost.

Panic seized me. I was running in one direction, then in another. It was getting darker, and the pine trees in the wind made a noise that resembled the howling of wolves. I started crying and thought that maybe I should try to spend the night in the forest and then start searching for my way again in the morning once the sun came up. But the fear kept me going.

Several hours later I finally stumbled on a highway. The highway at that time of night was empty, but after a while, to my great luck, a truck was passing. To my even greater luck, the driver stopped at my frantic waving and agreed to take me to the village I came from, although he was very much puzzled how I'd ended up so far away from it. When we arrived at the village, we were greeted by everybody and the local police who were, in turns, congratulating me on my miraculous return or seriously scolding me for taking off alone into the forest.

A week or two later, when I was back in Moscow, I received a letter. It was written by somebody in the village, yet it was unsigned and I never learned the name of the sender. The letter told me that, unbeknownst to me, I had gotten lost on the Eve of the Orthodox Christmas (January 7^th). And that my calamitous disappearance and my miraculous return turned out  to be a reminder of Mary and Joseph’s strenuous and exhausting journey to Bethlehem and the miracle that happened in a manger. 

----

Istoria Books is proud to publish in print and digitally Mary Fisherov's historical romance, Love's Destiny Foretold, the sweeping tale of a Russian countess on the run in fin de siecle New York. It is her first work of fiction in English. Enter a Goodreads contest to win a free print copy!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Love's Destiny Foretold

by Mary Fisherov

Giveaway ends December 31, 2012.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Where faith isn't preachy; it's just not hidden

by Libby Sternberg

I have to admit that I cringe a bit when I see/hear the word "Inspirational," the name given to a specific genre of fiction. These books include faith elements but leave out any cursing or sex or anything else that might offend a faith-filled reader.

And for this, they're put in a special category, often shelved away from regular fiction, sometimes with religious nonfiction books.

What a shame if readers miss out on finding these novels because of this categorization! And what a shame if readers skip over this category if they think inspirationals are preachy, filled with evangelizing and proselytizing. They're not. They're usually just good stories whose characters don't keep their spiritual sides under wraps. They might talk about their belief in God. They might even quote scriptures or pray. What they don't do is offer up a "Believe or you're going to hell" kind of message. They don't even suggest that their characters' way is the only way.

In fact, I think characters in these books are much closer to the reality of most Americans' lives. Gallup, the well-known polling organization, regularly measures how important religion is in our lives. Its 2010 survey found these numbers holding steady throughout the years, with 54 percent expressing the view that religion was very important in their lives, and 26 percent saying it was "fairly important." While the same poll shows that many Americans see religion losing influence in the country, it still clearly plays a large role in individual lives.

Despite the importance of religion in Americans' lives, faith issues are usually not front and center in most fiction. In fact, if you've ever written a book with faith issues in it, you might find it difficult at times to convince an editor it's not necessarily an "inspirational"--as that genre is understood today-- and you might also find your book reviewed as an "inspirational" when it's not. Both experiences have happened to me.

That said, I am the happy author of two bona fide inspirational novels, books that fall within the genre's parameters. Both are historicals and both deal with the same family. Kit Austen's Journey, the tale of a woman on the Oregon trail running away from secrets and toward a new life, was released through Istoria several years ago, hitting Amazon best seller lists for a time. Mending Ruth's Heart, just released, tells the tale of Kit's granddaughter, on the mend after a tragedy in which her fiance was lost, and finding herself in San Francisco right before the fateful earthquake hits the city in 1906.

In both books, the heroines go to church (or church services, in the case of Kit) and both wrestle with their own behavior and outlook on life in the context of what God expects of them. Kit has to learn to forgive herself for past decisions. Ruth has to learn to set aside a judgmental attitude if she wants others not to unfairly judge her.

In Mending Ruth's Heart, the faith elements are whispers on a breeze, not a dominant part of the story but not hidden. And I think that's what I enjoy about writing inspirationals. You don't need to hide the fact that ordinary people do think about God and their relationships with God. In that way, characters in inspirationals are much more like ordinarily Americans than characters in other books where scant--if any--notice of God or prayer or church is mentioned.

Here's hoping more readers discover the world of inspirationals. No matter what your personal faith level is, these are good stories, well-told about real people confronting moral and spiritual issues in their lives.

A New Title for a Terrific Book: CODE OF THIEVES

by Libby Sternberg

Joyce Yarrow is a wonderful mystery writer whose Jo Epstein books featuring a female poetry-writing private investigator remind me of Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone series with its quirky female protagonist and layered mysteries. Although Joyce's books are fully her own imaginative creation, they should appeal to the same readers of the bestselling alphabet-titled Grafton series.

In other words, Joyce Yarrow's mystery-writing skills deserve a big audience.

The second in Joyce's Jo Epstein series is released through Istoria Books in digital format. In it, PI Jo attempts to clear her Russian emigre stepfather of a murder he didn't commit, an investigation which takes her to New York and ultimately Russia where she unearths secrets about his past. It's as intricate and layered as the Russian nesting dolls in its original title, The Last Matryoshka.

Personally, I loved that title--once I figured out how to pronounce it! (Mah-troo-shkah is close.) But therein lies the rub. Would other readers stumble over its title, too, not bothering to learn more about the book?

We began to wonder if the title's unpronounceability was a barrier to purchasers. Readers browsing mystery titles for ones they might like encounter a compelling cover with some Russian onion domes, a female PI....and...what is that title again?  Hmm...on to the next one...

For some speedy book buyers, an unfamiliar, unpronounceable title might have them skipping quickly to other selections, in other words, before reading more about Joyce's great book.

So....we've done something that would be extremely difficult to impossible in the print world but is fairly easy in the digital world--we've officially retitled the book CODE OF THIEVES, taking the book off digital shelves and reloading it with its new title, but keeping it linked to the hardcover version that carries the other title.

CODE OF THIEVES communicates mystery and the underlying premise of the book, the inner workings of the Russian criminal class, the vory.

We're hoping that this new title -- CODE OF THIEVES (we love it so much, I have to repeat it!) -- will keep mystery lovers on the page to read more about the book, its terrific reviews and Joyce Yarrow.

This is one of the benefits of digital publishing--it allows publishers to be nimble, to experiment, to never give up on a book that deserves as wide an audience as possible.

Now, go on over and pick up a digital copy of CODE OF THIEVES by Joyce Yarrow! Now that you can pronounce the title, what are you waiting for?

A Russian novelist's first book in English: Love's Destiny Foretold

Love’s Destiny Foretold, by Russian native Mary Fisherov, is a sweeping historical love story that brings together an exiled Russian countess, an opera singer, and a world-traveling playboy in the slums and mansions of 1890s New York City as they seek love, fortune and safety. A swirling confection of a story, Love’s Destiny Foretold is a combination of delicious action and witty surprises, for fans of larger-than-life storytelling, epic romance, and some sly observations of “revolutionaries.”

Mary Fisherov is an internationally published writer of literary fiction whose novels have been translated into German, Spanish, and French. She has been awarded several literary prizes in her native Russia. Love’s Destiny Foretold is her first work in English.

Fisherov, who comes from a literary family, is on the Classics faculty of a California state university. Here, she responds to Istoria’s questions about her book and herself:

One of the major characters in your book is an opera star. You describe the music she sings so well that one can almost hear it. Are you an opera fan? If so, what are your favorites?

Fisherov: In my twenties, I discovered opera for myself and became a huge fan for awhile. One of my first discoveries was the ”Ring" cycle at the Met. The seats I could afford were at the very top of the opera house, and the height always made me dizzy. This is how I remember opera: being overwhelmed by music and dizzy from the height. And since Wagner was, in my head, connected with my memory of New York, I made my heroes involved with his music. Wagner, Ellis Island, and Tenement Museum: the triangle of impressions.

Because of the book's operatic feel, it also has a very melodic quality to it. Do you listen to music when you write? If so, what? If you could recommend a "play list" for readers to listen to while reading Love’s Destiny Foretold, what would it include?

Fisherov: Unfortunately, I absolutely cannot do two things at once - say, write and listen to music. The only sound I can tolerate while writing is the hum of people's voices in a coffee shop. I think that prose has its own music inspired by the language itself. As a non-native speaker, I was never sure if I got that melodic quality in English. I am very happy that you seem to have perceived it in my text. As a "play" list I would recommend Wagner's The Flying Dutchman and Tristan and Isolde, Rimsky-Korsakov's Sadko (the air of magic and incantation),  Ravel's Bolero (for Raoul's madness in the book); and then you have noticed a Carmen motif!

There is at times an almost surreal character to the novella that reminds one of the same quality in, say, the movie Moulin Rouge. Were you attempting to paint that kind of picture? What experience were you hoping the reader would have?

Fisherov: I suppose it is just me, my signature, I cannot write otherwise. Readers find that my other books have a slightly surreal, dreamlike atmosphere about them. I do not attempt to give this impression on purpose - I suppose it is a reflection of how I perceive the world. My task when writing this book was just to write a romance novel, a completely new genre for me. But, I guess, it was unavoidable that I brought some of my previous writing experience into it.

The character of the opera singer herself, Lilane Ferraro, is brilliantly done. Did you have a particular opera singer in mind when writing her?

Fisherov: In some way I was inspired by Maria Callas, who started out as an overweight and completely unglamorous teenager. There was that divine beauty of her voice - and then, by an almost superhuman effort, she transformed her looks, brought them in accordance with her voice, so that her outer shell would express the vocal beauty: turned herself into a goddess.

You have noted that the Russian agents, Kislin and Gerashchenko, are modeled after Russian leaders Vladmimir Putin and Dmitri Medvedev. Tell us a little about what you were parodying here in each of them.

Fisherov: I just needed to model the secret service guy on somebody - and I realized I have one just in front of me, he is actually running my country. I know that Putin, like my Kislin, had that dream of working for the secret service from an early age. The KGB was, of course, a most evil organization. Yet evil has always something of an operetta in it, evil is never great or tragic (the suffering it inflicts is tragic). Thus the secret agents serve as a comic relief in my novella. The cold-hearted one needed a sidekick, someone more human. So I gave him Gerashchenko.

Your book lightly, elegantly pokes a little fun at "revolutionaries" especially when Vera wonders about whether "loving humanity" would allow her to love Gabriel, just "one man." Could you share some thoughts on that, on what you wanted readers to come away with from these and similar scenes?

Fisherov: Vera's prototype was the real Russian 19th century anarchist Vera Zasulich who attempted to assassinate Trepov, the colonel who ordered a young man flogged. Russian revolutionaries - I am talking of highly educated, idealistic young men and women - committed atrocities in the name of that abstract love for humanity. It is obvious for us now that abstractions and ideologies cannot have anything in common with real love. Love must be something very concrete. The heart learns to love during an entire life: one meets sometimes these wise old people who are marvelously in love with the entire creation.

You have written literary fiction, but Love’s Destiny Foretold is a romance novella, a delightful confection of a book. Could you tell us why you decided to explore this genre?

Fisherov: Once, in an airport, I was in a very good mood and picked up a novel by Tessa Dare - I guess I was lucky because she writes really well. I never read romance novels before, and was quite stunned at the possibilities this genre offered. Shortly before that, I finished writing a poem that was quite sad, hard, and I very much wanted to amuse myself. In the airplane, I imagined what I would write if I were a romance novelist, and came up with the Love’s Destiny Foretold story.

That summer I was reading a fascinating book by Jack Finney, Time and Again, about a man who time-travels into the late 19th century New York. I especially loved the descriptions of the Elevated Railroad and the Ladies' Mile! My romance novel was very much inspired by it.

Writing it requited a giant leap of faith for me: I do believe in love, of course, but I do not believe in happy endings. However, I suspended my disbelief for the time I needed to finish it.

How long have you lived in America?
Fisherov: I have spent four years on the East Coast in the Nineties, and five past years in California.

This is your first book in English. Would you tell us a little about the challenges of writing in a language that is not your native tongue? Do you know/speak other languages?

Fisherov: In Russia I am asked sometimes if I would ever write a novel about the U.S. Instead of writing about the U.S., I decided to write an American novel. Not in the sense of the Great American Novel, of course. But American in the sense of musicals and potboilers, written in the way that seems American to us, Russians: plot twists, cliffhangers, a dynamic sequence of events, a happy end. Writing it in Russian seemed counterintuitive to me. But in English it came to me quite naturally.

Since English is not my native language, I aimed first and foremost for clarity and precision, to make myself understood. In general, I love foreign languages, I speak a bunch of them. Right now I am learning Catalan.

It is reported that Chekhov once said if you place a gun on the mantelpiece in Act I, someone needs to fire it by the end of the play. You set many "guns" on the mantelpiece and fire them all by the end of the book -- were you aware of that saying?
Fisherov: Yes, very much so! It is a saying that I remember from the school bench. Our existence may be random, but every detail of a creative work must have a purpose. Maybe art is just that: a stubborn fight of human soul against the aimlessness of physical life.
____
Mary Fisherov's first English-language book, the romance novella Love's Destiny Foretold, will be available this month (May 2012) for Kindle and for Nook and other ereaders midsummer.

Joyce Yarrow Reads from CODE OF THIEVES

Read an interview with Joyce Yarrow ("From Crime-Ridden Bronx to Crime-Ridden Mystery Novels") here.