Club Calvi spotlights new young adult novel written by college student from New Jersey
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The CBS New York Book Club talks with the author of the best-selling book, "The Last Bookstore on Earth"
Lily Braun-Arnold is a native of Montclair, New Jersey and a junior at Smith College. Her first novel, "The Last Bookstore on Earth," debuted in January at number four on The New York Times best sellers list for young adult hardcover books.
Braun-Arnold told Mary Calvi that she wrote "The Last Bookstore on Earth" before she entered college.
"I wrote this when I was graduating high school, in the summer of 2022" Braun-Arnold said. "You can definitely tell that it was written by someone who was facing the future. I wrote it between graduation rehearsals and prom. I was also working at my local bookstore, Wachtung Booksellers, while I was writing it."
Braun-Arnold wrote whenever she had a spare moment. "I just really jammed writing it where ever I could," she explained. "In the 30 minutes I had between two different activities, or after work staying up late into the night typing away on my computer. That's how it continues to this day while at school: just finding the time where I can jam it in. Suddenly you have a book like this and it's been a wonderful process."
"The Last Bookstore on Earth" is set in New Jersey.
"It takes place a year after an apocalyptic rain storm has wreaked havoc on my main character Liz Flannery's world," Braun-Arnold said. "Instead of staying home, instead of doing the best she can to survive, she returns to the bookstore she worked at in high school. She lives there, trading books for supplies with people, and treating the bookstore as sort of a post office for other survivors. One night, a mysterious girl named Maeve breaks in. The story follows their relationship as they get closer together and as they prepare for another storm that threatens to take away any sort of normalcy they have left."
Braun-Arnold says she wrote two books during the COVID pandemic before writing "The Last Bookstore on Earth."
"I spent that summer writing my first book," Braun-Arnold says, "and it was a hot mess. It was horrible. Then I did the same thing the next summer, and it was still bad."
Mary asked Braun-Arnold if the pandemic influenced the end-of-the-world feeling in her book.
"I think that's why I got drawn to the apocalypse in the first place," Braun-Arnold answered. "It definitely wasn't always something that I wanted to write abouut when I was a kid. I was obsessed with dragons and magic and orphaned children. During COVID and after COVID, a sense of uncertainty clung to a lot of my thoughts especially as I was going off to college, graduating, and leaving home behind."
Expect more books from Braun-Arnold. She says she's working on another one now.
The CBS New York Book Club focuses on books connected to the Tri-State Area in their plots and/or authors. The books may contain adult themes.
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"The Last Bookstore on Earth" by Lily Braun-Arnold
From the publisher:
The world is about to end. Again.
Ever since the first Storm wreaked havoc on civilization as we know it, seventeen-year-old Liz Flannery has been holed up in an abandoned bookstore in suburban New Jersey where she used to work, trading books for supplies with the few remaining survivors. It's the one place left that feels safe to her.
Until she learns that another earth-shattering Storm is coming . . . and everything changes.
Enter Maeve, a prickly and potentially dangerous out-of-towner who breaks into the bookstore looking for shelter one night. Though the two girls are immediately at odds, Maeve has what Liz needs—the skills to repair the dilapidated store before the next climate disaster strikes—and Liz reluctantly agrees to let her stay.
As the girls grow closer and undeniable feelings spring up between them, they realize that they face greater threats than the impending Storm. And when Maeve's secrets and Liz's inner demons come back to haunt them both, they find themselves fighting for their lives as their world crumbles around them.
Lily Braun-Arnold is from New Jersey and is a student at Smith College.
"The Last Bookstore On Earth" by Lily Braun-Arnold (ThriftBooks) $16
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Excerpt: "The Last Bookstore on Earth" by Lily Braun-Arnold
When I first met the man in the faded navy peacoat, or Peacoat Man, as I've taken to calling him, Eva had been gone for two days. I'd devolved into a vampiric existence, not sleeping, not eating. And sure, it's not like we were ever anything more than friends— although my crush had grown to a size that I had never before encountered— but it hurt like something more. I spent my time picking at my fingernails and watching them bleed. I didn't know what to do except stare at the ceiling and wallow in my own uselessness.
I thought I had gone mad when I first looked out the window and saw a figure approaching. For an instant, I was transported back to normal times, when I'd pass the hours watching people walk by from inside the comfort of the air-conditioned store. And sure, maybe I shouldn't have, but out of reflex, I smiled at him.
I don't know if that's what started it all. My gleaming smile could have been the catalyst that led me to this particular point in time. Or maybe the man was going to come into the bookstore whether I let him in or not. Maybe he would have gone all zombie movie on me and busted down the door with a rusted chain saw. Still, as he reached for the door handle, he smiled back, and I let him in.
He had come to buy a book about birds, or at least that's what he said, and he even tried to hand me a crumpled twenty-dollar bill in payment.
He said, "I have nothing else to give you."
I laughed at its uselessness, but I took it anyway. At that time, I couldn't understand what value a book had in this new world. I mean, I understood what it meant to me, but to the rest of the world? It soon became clear that I severely underestimated the power of distraction. Peacoat Man chuckled when I asked him if he wanted a paper bag, or birthday wrapping.
He said, "No thank you. My birthday isn't until March. But thank you for making my day a little less dull."
I said, "Thank you for stopping by. Please do come again."
• • •
The bell above the door chimes as Peacoat Man walks in, and I smile. He pauses for a moment before he plasters on a smile in return, and I watch the corners of his eyes crinkle slightly as he combs his fingers through his sweat- slicked hair. I watch something flicker across his face, as if he's wondering whether to hide his emotions for my sake. I make the choice for him, sticking to our normal pleasantries as I put down my copy of The Island of Dr. Moreau.
"It's a little hot to be wearing a coat." I can feel the back of my tank top adhering to my skin in the sticky July heat. I say it as if he hasn't been wearing the same coat every single time I've seen him, even as the months slipped into summer and the temperature climbed. I say it as if I haven't said it a million times before in the seventeen times I've seen him these past nine months.
The man laughs. "I'd lose it if I wasn't wearing it. I'd lose my head if it wasn't screwed on." His fingers shake slightly as he pulls at the collar of his shirt.
"Ah. I know the feeling."
I don't know the man's name. He's never told me, and I've never asked. I don't want to know until he's ready to tell me. It might be rude and go against some apocalyptic rule of etiquette. It's not in any of the volumes of etiquette books that I have here in the bookstore, and I've read them all out of sheer boredom. I've read most of the store at this point and have become rather fond of the more tragic endings. Anything that finishes with more desolation than it started with, but beggars can't be choosers.
Everyone who comes through these doors learns my name. Elizabeth. Liz. Eliza. Lizbeth. E. Don't wear it out. I'm not afraid of them knowing.
When the last person who knew you forgets your name, it's like you never really existed in the first place. It's like you were never really there. Poof, gone. I figure that I'll spread my name far and wide, considering how few people are left. I'll offer it to anyone who walks through that door, if they're willing to listen. If they're willing to remember me.
"What are you looking for today?" I ask, sliding into customer- service mode. That chipper lilt creeps into my voice again, like it always does. Old habits die hard. I rub my hands against the wooden counter, tracing gentle curves into the dust. I'll try to clean that later, even if dust accumulates faster than I can remove it.
Peacoat Man wrinkles his nose and wipes his hands on his pants. "A mystery, I think. One that I can figure out, though. Nothing too dark, if you know what I mean."
"I know what you mean." I smile again. This time a real one, not one formed by years of muscle memory. "I'll let you look for yourself. I know how peeved you get when I try to give you a recommendation."
"That's because your taste in books couldn't be any worse. A Canticle for Leibowitz? In this climate?"
I'm going to be perfectly honest and say that I've never read A Canticle for Leibowitz, some postapocalyptic epic about a Catholic monastery that worships Saint Leibowitz through-out centuries of desolation and destruction. It was one of the options on my freshman-year summer reading list. I almost chose it until my dad told me he'd read it once and hated it so much that at the age of thirteen, he was scarred for life. I have never read A Canticle for Leibowitz, because I am a chicken who doesn't want her life ruined. So, of course, I now try to get absolutely anyone and everyone to read the ridiculous book and report back to me. So far, no one has taken my bait.
From The Last Bookstore on Earthy by Lily Braun-Arnold. Copyright © 2024 by the author and reprinted by permission of Delacorte Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House.