The Spectacled Bear

If you’re wondering how the first Literary Thursday went, you can find out and read all the other latest news from the bookshop on the all new Urso de Óculos news blog.

I decided to put all the news from the bookshop in one place, and keep The Spectacled Bear for more general bookish blether. Enjoy!

News from Urso de Óculos International Bookshop in Itacaré

http://www.ursodeoculos.com/n1/

This week, Journalist and Cultural Events Organizer Juliana Machado is re-launching a project she started in 2006 in Itacaré, this time round in collaboration with our bookshop.

From today until the end of 2008, every week Juliana will present “Literary Thursday” at Urso de Óculos, with themed readings and chat on various topics in world literature.

The launch is today at 19:00, with the theme of love for valentine’s day (that’s today in Brazil!)

There’s also wine and nibbles, and, specially for the launch there will also be live acoustic music!

Entry is FREE, so come along, bring your loved ones and check out the culture of Itacaré!

This is a question I have been asked many times. A possible answer, according to Tyler Cowen of the blog Marginal Revolution, is that Most Brazilians do not read.

Cowen’s post “Why are books so outrageously expensive in Brazil?” offers up three other theories in an attempt to explain this issue, and there’s a heated debate going on in the comments to his post at the moment. From the sublime to the ridiculous, people from all around the world are musing on why it so difficult to stock up on reading material in Brazil without making a hole in your bank account.

The adage that Brazilians do not read may or may not be true, but it certainly is an oft-mentioned stereotype image. The question comes up a lot in conversation and has me stumped.  Personally, I know plenty of Brazilians who adore reading, and plenty of Brits who don’t. Whether many people anywhere in the world read much that is any good is another matter entirely.

Rocco has just launched the Brazilian version of the latest book by Nick Hornby - one of my favourite British writers. It’s called Slam and it’s about a sixteen year old skateboarder in London. My copy of the original in English has just arrived and I’m off to start reading it RIGHT NOW…!

SLAM by Nick Hornby
Translation in to Portuguese: Paulo Reis
Published in Brazil by Rocco
ISBN:9788532523280
Price : R$ 33,00 
 

I am delighted to announce that The Spectacled Bear’s very own bricks and mortar bookshop is now open.

Actually, the shop opened a few months ago, but the website has only just moved beyond its previous bear-cub status.

It is currently the only bookstore in Itacaré, and, to the best of my knowledge, the only bookshop in Southern Bahia with major sections in English, French and German.

The guardian angel of independent booksellers has looked after me well so far.

Word does seem to be spreading, and we have had visitors from all over Brazil and beyond, including from Malaysia, Poland and Finland (we now have two 2nd hand books in Finnish. Takers, anyone?). Surprisingly few Brits, though, so we still have plenty of Earl Grey.

As well as books, coffee, tea, brownies, great decor, a super friendly team and a breathtaking view, since the official opening we’ve also done a couple of community events, teachers’ discounts evenings, and launched a story writing contest. So now you know why I don’t always have time to write regular posts for this blog.

 Read all about it . And come and visit us!

Jorge Amado has been re-branded.

São Paulo publisher Companhia das Letras has released the first part of their series of new editions of all Jorge Amado’s books, with beautiful new book designs and afterwords by Milton Hatoum, Mia Couto and Ana Maria Machado, among others.

The book designs are gorgeous and the marketing campaign is impressive. The publisher’s aims are so far working wonders on me, and the project really has inspired me to re-read  Jorge Amado, having been put off by the style when I first read Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon in English.

With the nationwide hype surrounding this new publishing initiative, I have got back into Amado in the past few weeks, in both English and Portuguese, and hereby proclaim that his stories are funny, rhythmic, sexy, raw and addictive ….a little like Bahia.

In English, I have recently read The War of the Saints. This book contains a “bedroom scene” very similar in substance, if not in style, to a vital scene of Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach. I can’t give spoilers, so if you want to know what I am rattling on about, read both books.

And in Portuguese, I am now in the middle of the new edition of Mar Morto (the one with the red cover in the images above - the beautiful image on the cover depicts the traditional “saveiro” boats in Salvador), commissioned in 1936 by José Olympio to help Amado’s financial situation after his release from prison in Rio de Janeiro that year. So far the soundbite in my head  would be something along the lines of Amado’s art of storytelling being comparable to that of Herman Melville, but way more brash and much funnier.

Well there goes carnival for another year. 

I have just arrived in the city of Salvador de Bahia, and as I write this post I can see from my window a group of workmen slowly, steadily dismantling a vast scaffolding structure, which just 72 hours ago was a camarote on the orla of  the Barra district, housing a tiny part of the biggest street party on earth.

I wasn´t here for the party - I just arrived for the clearing up. (I was somewhere else entirely during carnival, absorbed in a good book and working on a tan).

In case you too missed the action, you can get ready for next year with the Almanaque do Carnaval, a new book by André Diniz published by Zahar.

It´s a meticulously detailed tome, an All You Wanted to Know about Carnival in Brazil But Were Afraid to Ask number. The book includes over 120 images of the enormous variation in carnivals all over Brazil, tips on where to go, what to do and how to do it, and - best of all - where to read more about carnival. Diniz is also the first guest writer on a new feature of the publisher´s website - an author´s blog. Read his blog and check out his pics of this year´s carnival on the blog do autor. More about the book and an interview with André Diniz on Zahar´s site. 

Almanaque do Carnaval - A história do carnaval, o que ouvir, o que ler, onde curtir
by André Diniz
Editora Zahar
ISBN: 978-85-378-0047-8

The instructions of the meme are:

1) Pick up a nearby book (NEARBY, don’t search);

2) Open it on page 161;

3) Find the 5th complete sentence;

4) Post this sentence on your blog;

5) Don’t choose the best phrase or the best book;

I have a number of books near at hand (I am typing this from behind the desk of one of the millions of bookshops in the world - more on this soon).

Some of the books nearby are good, some of them are trite. I decided to choose one of the good ones for the purpose of this meme, and one fitting the general theme of this site.

Also, by coincidence last night, on one of the very rare occasions I have turned on the television set in recent times, I watched the writer of this very book moving his hips and singing his sweet words on Globo.

And the book is:

TROPICAL TRUTH - A STORY OF MUSIC AND REVOLUTION IN BRAZIL

By Caetano Veloso

Translated by Isabel de Sena and edited by Barbara Einzig

Published by Da Capo Press 2003

It’s a water damaged copy (a memory of The Big Rain that came to town in February 2007) but ‘new’ in that it was unread until about a week ago, when I picked it up and was drawn into by these words on the acknowledgements page:

Towards the end of the fifties, Rodrigo Veloso gave me a subscription to the magazine Senhor, which led me to the discovery of Clarice Lispector, whose books Rodrigo started buying for me assiduosly, as he did those of Jõao Guimarães Rosa and Jõao Cabral de Melo Neto. This endowed me with a depth of love for books that surpasses my superficial aquantaince with them to this day. Thank you.

I discovered Clarice Lispector at the end of the nineties, and am also grateful to the person responsible… But back to The Nearby Book:

Scanning 1960’s history, music, culture and politics in Brazil, Tropical Truth tells the story of Tropicalismo. As well asbeing an insight into the Tropicalismo movement itself, it’s also a background to the art and ideas shaping Caetano Veloso himself - one of the most important songwriters in Brazil.

I haven’t read the original in Portuguese, so I don’t know how the translation compares to the original, but the English is fluid and easy to read - I don’t agree with the reader critics on Amazon who think otherwise. It’s an interesting read about an important time in the story of modern culture in Brazil, and it’s one of those books that makes you go - ‘uh-huh’ and ‘oh right….’ out loud as the stories of the main players of the time are unfolded in the text.

So onto the rules of the meme. Here is the 5th sentence on page 161:

Everything that came to be called tropicalismo was nourished by acts of violence against a taste that had matured steadily and was everywhere lucidly defended.

This sentence does, in fact, sum up what the reader will glean from the whole book - that tropicalismo was a reaction to everything presented as entertainment. Get it?

That, I say, is the meaning of culture.

The sixth rule of the meme is to tag 5 other blogs. I dislike the idea of tagging people, so if you want to participate, then please consider yourself tagged. All I ask is that you link back to me so I can muse on your Nearby Book.

Between 1944 and 1959, Clarice Lispector accompanied her diplomat husband on his trips abroad, and during this time she corresponded by letter with her sisters in Brazil. The letters she wrote have been collected in a new book compiled by Teresa Monter and published by Rocco.

The book, Minhas Queridas, consists of 120 previously unpublished letters from Clarice to her sisters.

To mark the publication, Rocco launched the “Cultural Contest” Uma Carta para Clarice (A letter for Clarice).

To enter, and be in with a chance of winning copies of Minhas Queridas and other Clarice Lispector titles, participants must write an imaginary letter to Clarice Lispector, of 1000 characters or less. Be quick, because all entries must be emailed to Rocco by the 14th of December. Check out the rules and all the details on the publisher’s Clarice Lispector minisite.

Minhas Queridas
Clarice Lispector
Rocco, 2007
ISBN: 9788532522740