Blue Bicycle Books

Blue Bicycle Books is excited to welcome the Lee Brothers for a special lunch, Fri., Mar. 22, 2012, 10:30 am, at Fleet Landing Restaurant, 186 Concord Street, to celebrate the release of their newest cookbook: The Lee Bros. Charleston Kitchen (Clarkson Potter, hb., 256 pp.).

Tickets are $75 and include a multi-course lunch and a signed copy of the book. Doors will open at 10:30 am, with lunch served at 11. To purchase call 843-722-2666 or click here.

Between courses, Matt and Ted Lee will discuss how they wrote The Lee Bros. Charleston Kitchen as a tribute to the classic cuisine of the Holy City and how Charleston made them the cooks they are today. (The spot where the boys used to throw their cast net is visible from the dining room of Fleet Landing.)

Featuring traditional Charleston recipes updated for today’s kitchens and plenty of Lowcountry food lore, the Lee Bros. newest book is a personal history and a classic cookbook all in one.

Lunch will include two courses plus dessert — all prepared by Fleet Landing Executive Chef Drew Hedlund using recipes from the book. The following menu is tentative and subject to change:

Featured Cocktails:

The Hugo

Lowcountry Lemoncello

Kumquat-Chili Bloody Mary

First Course:

Peanut Oyster Stew

Second Course:

Deviled Crab with Skillet Asparagus and Grapefruit

Dessert:

Huguenot Torte

Sweet Benne Wafers

Pancake Cookies

Macaroons

Despite a recent Blue Bicycle Books newsletter (staff-written) poking fun at my slowpoke reading pace, I did actually read all of John McPhee’s Levels of the Game. It’s an account of a semifinal tennis match between Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner at the  1968 U.S. Open. Both men had come up though the  junior tennis circuit and were roughly the same age, both were still amateurs. The book starts with the first serve and ends with the follow-through of the backhand winner at match point, and in between tells very different stories of these two men, in relation to their approaches to the game and in relation to what was going on in America at the time.

I’d always known that Arthur Ashe was a pioneering black athlete, I’d never known that his style was so loose and free, based on going for low-percentage shots that often left his opponents shaking their heads in wonderment. As for McPhee, I’ve sold many of his books — writers like him are the very reason we created the nonfiction section back when I took over the store — but had never read a word of his. I was reading a recent New Yorker piece by him on how he structured his writing, and how Princeton computer programmers developed editing software around his methods, when I saw the book at my brother-in-law’s house, and picked it up.

I’m sure there are other fine books that use a microcosmic look at one event in the late 1960s to cast light on the larger cultural and political  moment, but the one that comes to mind right now is my friend James Scott’s Attack on the Liberty. It’s a thorough examination of the unexplained 1967 attack on a U.S. spy ship by Israel — taking into consideration not just the events on the ship before and after the attack but domestic political concerns, especially the support for Israel by Jews in the U.S., American-Soviet tensions, and rising protests against the Vietnam war. — Jonathan Sanchez

Tues., Jan. 15, 7 pm, help us celebrate the release of Charleston-based writer and retired Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel Brad Taylor’s third book, Enemy of Mine, at the Blind Tiger Pub, 36 Broad St.

The third installment in Taylor’s Pike Logan thriller series, Enemy of Mine follows Logan and his partner as they track an assassin across a shifty trail throughout the Middle East. They must contend with terrorist organizations, independent killers, and shaky allies to uncover the biggest threat of all: an American citizen hiding a secret that just may destroy everything, including their organization, the Taskforce.

If you’re new to the series, we’ll have the first two books on hand as well.

Christmas Eve 10:00 am – 3:00 pm

Christmas Day CLOSED

New Year’s Eve 10:00 am – 3:00 pm

New Year’s Day CLOSED

Happy Holidays!

Blue Bike’s Author Luncheon Series continues with renowned local artist Mary Whyte, Osteria la Bottiglia, 420 King St. (next door to the bookstore), 12 noon, Tues. Dec. 11, 2012. Tickets are $25 and include lunch, author talk and a champagne-and-dessert reception.

Ms. Whyte will be discussing her new book Down Bohicket Road (USC Press, 152 pp., $49.95). You won’t want to miss this opportunity to meet this gracious and talented artist describe how a group of Gullah women from Johns Island influenced her life and art in astonishing and unexpected ways.

Purchase tickets here.

About the book: Including two decades worth of watercolors, Down Bohicket Road continues the story of Whyte’s relationship with a group of 15 women on Johns Island, following the passing of Alfreda LaBoard, against the backdrop of the ongoing commercial development of Johns Island. For Whyte, the heart of this community remains in the simple homes clustered along Bohicket Road, in the island’s winding tidal creeks, and in a small church where eighteen hardscrabble women gather in fellowship each week. In her book Whyte illustrates that both watercolors and friendships can be the unpredictable results of an abundance of blessings.

All royalties from the sale of this book benefit the Hebron Saint Francis Senior Center on Johns Island.

Mary Whyte is a teacher and author whose figurative paintings have earned national recognition. Her portraits are included in numerous corporate, private, and university collections, as well as in the permanent collections of South Carolina’s Greenville County Museum of Art and the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston. Whyte’s work has been featured inInternational Artist, Artist, American Artist, Watercolor, American Art Collector, L’Art de l’Aquarelle, and numerous other publications. Whyte is the author of Working South: Paintings and Sketches by Mary Whyte, Painting Portraits and Figures in Watercolor, An Artist’s Way of Seeing, and Watercolor for the Serious Beginner. Her work can be found at Coleman Fine Art in Charleston.