Well, not exactly bold, but I signed on to telephone and internet service from 24-7 TelCom.  It wasn't a hard decision to support our local service and abandon ATT.  The ATT agent was so hard-sell and irritating and tried to tempt me with a 1-cent 3G iPhone.  Of course it's tempting and would be fun to have a smart phone, but I have no good use for it and the monthly service is not cheap. I have a hard time using 500 minutes a year on my pre-paid cell phone, so a smart phone is a toy that is hard to justify.

Some new titles that fit in well with Black History month are bestesellers in the past year, including The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks story, a moving multi-genre book--part biography, part medical research history, part cultural history. The Help contributes to racial consciousness too in its post WWII portrait of African American servants and their white employers, a middle-America version of the upstairs-downstairs class divide.  Some old-favorite children's books are worth rememberiing too: Come On Rain and Just like Josh Gibson have African American girls as the focal point and Laurie Halse Anderson's Chains about a slave girl won a national book award several years ago.

For a committed Victorianist, Alex Grecian's The Yard is a great find. I got it in my monthly box of advance reader books and seized it immediately. It's set in the aftermath of the Jack the Ripper nightmare. Scotland Yard is on edge and still reeling under accusations of incompetence. It's becoming more professionalized, using new forensic investigatory techniques and the techniques of fingerprinting to find criminals. Grecian is spot on with details about late-Victorian London and he seems to have learned a lot from Dickens to develop an array of characters.  The "dancing man" seems straight out of Bleak House, the boy Fenn an amalgam of many of Dickens' mistreated child-characters. Mr & Mrs Day seem plucked from David Copperfield and so on. The multiple murder plots are enough to satisfy any mystery-lover.

If paper books are challenged by digital books (and they are), so is paper advertising.  Most of us use Google to search for just about everything, where to find something, where to buy it, what something means, who someone is, where someone lives, what happened today, yesterday, last century, and so on. And websites, Facebook and Twitter seem to be the media we have to use to get out our message and attract customers if we are retailers.  For those of us challenged by older ways, let's face, our age, using the new media can be hard, time-consuming, frustrating. Where is a third-grader when you need one?

A movie, not a book, but a movie loaded with writers and artists that is a treat, a parfait of delightful decadence. To start, the movie is shot off-color and looks like yellowing color prints that befit the theme of romanticizing a by-gone literary era. Owen Wilson is perfect as the muddled "Woody Allen" character, a writer whose creative world is haunted by the vision of Paris 1920s as a golden era. Can you re-recreate the past? Gil, the writer, wants to give it a try. And so the movie gives fun, terrific scenes of Parisian parties with the Fitzgeralds etc.:  Kathy Bates as Gertrude Stein speaks lovely French, the actor channeling Hemingway is gorgeous, Adrian Brody as Salvador Dali is a hoot, Toulouse Latrec looks terrified, Picasso gets dumped by his girl firend who ultimately finds the 1890s as the golden era of Paris. Carla Bruni, now the First Lady of France, plays a museum guide and seems to enjoy the role very much. For readers whose literary tastes were formulated in the mid-twentieth century, this movie feels like going home again.

Every now and again I read a book that makes me wish I had written it or could write one like it. Sarah's Key is one such book. It's composed of layers of stories that present the unforeseen effects of uncovering the past. There is the Holocaust story that is central, the deportation of Jews from Paris in July 1942. As is the case of most Holocaust stories, this is a compelling account of incomprehensible horrors and inhumanity, but the book concentrates on the survivor and a modern journalist who unravels Sarah's secret sixty years later. So it is a story of discovery and also the toll that discovery takes on the discoverer.  It's a story that stays with you.

Forgot to take down my "open" sign and lock the door while painting a shelf at the end of the day. Late shoppers came in. I want to go home, shoppers want to dawdle. Bookstores could be open 24-hours a day, like 7-Elevens.  Someone would always come in to while away the hours.

Sister Cleo Schoenbauer, OSB, Nov. 1, 1929 - Dec. 14, 2011

My oldest sister suffered a hemotoma in 2007 leaving her unable to talk or walk. Usually she seemed to be understanding who was present and what was being said but it was impossible to know what was going on in her mind.  So death seems a blessing for her but it is still a loss. Something that was is no more. Grief is mourning the past that can never be retrieved.  When an older sibling dies it is a reminder of one's own mortality and an assessment of what life amounts to anyway. 

Cleo was a happy person, fun-loving and sociable.  She was a high school cheerleader, a Homecoming queen, briefly a beautitian and then a nun for 61 years. Suriing those years she was a teacher, a prioress, and a parish assistant, the favorite part of her life. She loved family and remembered birthdays and anniversaries of siblings, nephews, nieces, and cousins. She did a great job of tracking down our family history from its American start in 1858--how quickly memory of one generation fades when another begins. We've missed her in these years when her functionality was diminshed and we will miss her more now. Rest in peace Cleo.

The books about past presidents keep rolling in.  Taft 2012 is a brisk satire on the current state of presidential politics. Pres. Taft reappears, Rip Van Winkle-like, on the White House lawn, all his girth and whiskers intact. His granddaughter is in congress and Taft himself soon beomes a national sensation and is swept into presidential primary politics--as a one-term president, he's elgible to run. This book probably won't become a great seller, but it's an entertaining story, a quick read, and a delightful comment on the current state of things.

Stephen King and Chris Matthews both have new books on JFK. King's is a long history-bending a tour de force. Matthews' biography has amazingly fresh material on the president and his family that gives Kennedy a human dimension both respectful and poignant. This book is especially welcome for those of us who still remember being inspired by him. 

I'm embarrassed to admit how little I know about Lincoln's assassination, so the O'Reilly-Dugard book has taught me a lot about the conspiracy, the assassination and its aftermath. The attack on Seward and his family had entirely escaped me, but reading about it now makes it hard to believe they all survived the vicious stabbings and beatings. Perhaps Killing Lincoln sensationalizes it--describing blood and grey matter oozing out of head wounds makes it hard to believe someone could not only survive but function as a cabinet secretary after that. Of course Congresswoman Gifford is in sort of a similar situation, so there are modern parallels. But the most fascinating part of the story is the suggestion that the conspiracy included Sec'y of War Stanton. How widely such a probability is taken seriously, I don't know.  The book mentions a number of inexplicable actions on Stanton's part including his keeping Booth's diary for two years and when forced to produce it due to the publication of his having it, it had 18 pages missing. 

The book gives a very humanizing portrait of Lincoln, starting with his being virtually on site during the last few days of battle, just before Lee's surrrender, riding into Richmond, sitting in Lee's study, at his desk, in his chair, just hours after Lee had left, hoping to get to the Carolinas and avoid the ultimate fate of surrender. There are anecdotes about the Lincoln marriage and brief descriptions of his governing style. The book whets my appetite for more about Lincoln.  I'm grateful for this popularized account of the last weeks of Lincoln's life as a entree to a broader history and biography.

Once a month the American Book Assoc. sends a box of Advance Readers, i.e. uncorrected proofs of books soon to be published. Some of the proofs are essentially ready to go, others are in dire need of editing. I have on occasion given my advice to the publisher on needed editing and have gotten a grateful reply. Mostly, I recommend a few books for upcoming Indie Next listings. The November list includes my blurb for The Puppy Diaries by Jill Abramson which I shamelessly include here:  "While there seems to be a new dog or cat book every month, what this one has going for it is the author's track record as a popular blogger about dogs. Part memoir, part manual, part investigative report, The Puppy Diaries continues Abramson's intrepid and intelligent reporting on all things canine."

There are several new books about nineteenth-century presidents. The best is probably the one about Garfield, called the most extraordinary man ever elected president but then asassinated six weeks into his term.  Another new book, The President and the Assassin, is about President McKinley, another is about Grover Cleveland who kept his cancer surgery a secret, and then one about the assassination of Lincoln by Bill O'Reilly. It's a great season for readers who love history and biography.

There are also several wonderful new books about Wisconsin.  Two are about vintage gardens and the contributions of early immigrants to gardening.  There is a fabulous book of photographs of taverns--one is in Boyceville, three in  Durand and other towns in our part of the state.  My favorite book from the Historical Press this season is about the Ho-Chunk.  It's a gorgeous book full of vintage photos, most fairly formal portraits, but not the stiff, sober type so familiar in old photos. There are smiling families, laughing young women, people clearly getting a kick out of being photographed.  And they are beautiful.  The Ho-Chunk, at least those featured in this book, seem particularly favored by nature.

The annual Midwest Trade Show was the best of the three I've attended. First the new venue--the former Milwaukee Road train depot in Minneapolis, now a nice meeting space and hotel--was really nice. The old depot waiting room has been transformed into a very nice conference/dining space and the pavillion where train tracks once stood is bright and perfect for publishers' displays. The author events were interesting, as usual. It's great to meet both successful, well-established and debut authors. And the torrent of new books, well, it's fantastic. But numerous as they are, I no longer feel intimidated by them now that I have a sense of what appeals to my customers. I also get a chance to pick up some titles for myself like the new book about Copernicus by Dava Sobel who wrote Galileo's Daughter, a book that captivated me a few years ago.

Today I was invited to talk about editing--I've edited two books and of course the other published writing I have done has been edited. I'm not sure I was able to say much that the audience didn't already know. Editing isn't an exciting subject in itself, but is an important part of writing. Other eyes are needed to see what you don't, what you overlook because you are thinking of content and don't see typos or don't see that what the new reader is going to see. Before editing, there is writing which is more fun and what I prefer. Writing is creative, editing is housekeeping, a necessary task that is a bit tedious but is rewarding for its results. People often ask me when I will write another book. Probably never. I'm old, I've the bookstore, I don't have anything to prove and maybe not much of interest to say? I blog, that's probably enough.

Eight high school classmates came to visit yesterday. I'd seen them at our fifitieth class reunion a couple years ago right after I bought the store and they vowed to come visit. And they did. It was a beautiful early fall day, a two-hour drive for most of them. Some have lived in our hometown all their lives, some have returned there in retirement, some live in the greater TC area, none far geographically from Menomonie. I got out my best china and silver and served salmon on my favorite fish platter. There is a level of comfort in being with people one knew in grade school and high school. You know one another at the core, even though you might not know much about the flesh of their life that developed after those early years. It's the sort of theme in books like The Girls from Ames and what's behind so many memoirs.

A wonderful new book in the store, Unlikely Friendships about inter-species friendships. The photos themselves are remarkable, probably the most endearing being a monkey cuddling a kitten. The look of love on the face of each animal is extraordinary. Well, humans love many sorts of animals, so we are used to inter-species friendships but not without humans involvled. It's a heart-warming little book I feel connected to because of my recent deer-in-my-garden experience. I went out to pluck my just-ripening Concord grapes and a deer was nibbling at a shrub about 20 feet away. It took a step back when I approached my vine, but I looked away, went about my grazing and the deer did the same. When I went back to my house the deer never flinched, obviously recognizing in me a fellow wild-feeder who wasn't threatening its own meal.

Summer reading is often touted as light "beach books," but summer is also the season for big, important books.  Several recent, interesting biographies and political books fit this latter category.  At the moment, former Vice President Cheney's book is getting widespread coverage.  Some joke that he knows how to hype a book to produce good sales, but on the other hand, his version of his role in the Bush presidency is as provocative as he was as VP.  He makes no attempt to soften his appraisals of members of the Bush cabinet nor the image many have that Cheney was the real power in the Bush presidency.  He continues to support the use of torture and waterboarding as effective despite these being widely discredited and criticizeid as illegal and immoral. As a result, he adds fodder to the continuing controversy surrounding the Bush White House.

Things do not always go as planned, a rule we all know but easily ignore. So: the electrician didn't come to install the lights on Friday and everything got pushed back. The lights and ceiling tiles should be installed by the afternoon on Monday and then there is a massive clean-up needed. The old paint from the tin ceiling had been dripping on the old tiles for about 50 years and ended up on the floor as flakes and dust. Everything in the store had been shrouded in plastic, but still, everything will have to be wiped clean and vac-ed.

The paragraph on the makeover somehow got deleted from the previous entry. New ceiling tiles and energy efficient lights will be installed this week and the store will be losed Thurs-Sat to do that. The store is getting a fresh coat of paint. The peg board and some of the smaller items have already got their new color. The walls will be done in the next few weeks. The toy & children's book area have been re-organized and some shelving has been moved. The makeover should be complete before the beginning of the school year.

The August newsletter has just been posted on the website.  It aways gives me a feeling of accomplishment to do that, and the writing of the newsletter itself is an interesting activity.  It gives me a chance to write about the bookstore, books and downtown. Manipulating the Micrsoft Publisher template is an entertaining challenge too, sort of a computer game.

The past few weeks have been very busy. Processing and orgainizing for sale several hundred books from the private library of a pastor from Bloomer has taken probably 40-50 hours.  The sale lasts to the end of August and I hope many of the books will find new homes.  It's an assortment of books on religion, counseling, current events, humor, and literature. 

Sweltering heat, humidity so high the windows in air-conditioned buildings get steamed up. Not so in the bookstore. It faces northeast so doesn't get much direct sunlight and didn't get above 80 in the sstore today. The air conditioner doesn't work so well but a good fan keeps the air moving and it was bearable. When it's hot outside, what's cool to read? Harry Potter and a lot of teen sci-if and fantasy -- the Fablehaven series, Clement's series, the Uglies, Pretties, Specials, Extra series are popular right now.

Into the third year as Bookends on Main, it's time to slap a new coat of paint on the walls.  I picked out a color that seemed lighter but when I hold it up to the wall, it seems the same.  Maybe it's the lighting.  In any case, the bookstore will have a fresh coat on the yellow wall, the peg board will become "lemon drop" yellow, the latch board burnt orange, the chairs and music bookshelf dark green, the love seat and chair new covering, and the toy section will be re-organized.  The vintage book section will have some added shelving

Another month has passed and a new newsletter has just been posetd on the Newsletter page.  Tomorrow I will email it.  It's always a feeling of accomplishment to produce a document and the newsletter is quite fun to do.  Microsoft Publisher provides templates and I chose one that matches the color scheme of the website and store signage.  It is easy to go out to the web and copy images of books to insert in the newsletter, so every book has its cover in color beside its description. 

I don't know why I haven't blogged oftener in June as there has been a lot to write about.  My landlord has decided to put in new ceiling tiles and lighting, then I will paint the wall and tag board, so that will give the store a fresh look. We etalked about restoring the old tim ceiling that is above the acoustic tiles, but that idea has been scratched due to the expense and time needed for the restoratiuon.  There are a few pieces of tin missing, old duct workl would have to be removed, old paint laboriously removed, new lighting installed.  It's a major project and would make the space quite wonderful.  The bookstore was a restaurant in the 1940s.  It's been a drug store, a Hallmark card shop, and a frame shop in more recent years.  What was in the space from the 1890s to the 1940s needs to be researched.

The book titles customers order contantly intrigue me.  A beautiful book on the varieties of salt along with recipes using them especially fascinated me this week when it arrived.  Beautiful food and cookbooks are among my favorites.

What to read next after a book that sticks with you? I've settled on Cutting for Stone, a novel recommended by many book lovers and read by several book clubs. It has much to recommend it in characters, setting and themes and besides is laden with factual material, so popular in the best of current novels. I'll write more after I finish...it seems to be a book to savor. Another novel that is enjoying continued readership is Room.  I'll get to it soon too.
 

What a story! The Chicago World's Fair was an exercise in grandiosity, an effort to better the Paris fair which Mr. Eiffel made famous for his tower.  Chicago wanted its fair to be bigger, better, grander and to showcase Chicago as a premier city. These goals were accomplished. The Ferris wheel was the answer to the Eiffel Tower, and the architects and engineers responsible for designing the buidlings and developing Jackson Park made a lasting contribution to the design  of American cities.  But the monumental side details of the story also linger--all that steel, the tons of manure from all those horses, the thousands of workers unemployed once the fair was over. Then there is the story of the psychopathic Dr. Holmes who may be one of the worst mass murderers ever. Larson ingeniously links Holmes' story to the same impulses behind the building of the fair in his exercise of power and grandiosity. But Dr. Holmes kept me awake. I had to read his chapters first and bury him so that I could enjoy the fair.

Another month and a new newsletter has just been posted on the website.  Tomorrow I will send it our to my email list.  Writing the newsletter has become enjoyable, but manipulating Microsoft Publisher is sometimes annoying.  I'm gettng better, i.e. faster at it. 

It's the end of May, Memorial Day weekend, starting off cool but promising to end hot.  That's welcome after such a cool, wet season so far. It's high school graduation time and that means lots of parties, congratulations, gifts, endings and beginnings. The end of the school year means drawing a line, adding things up, settling accounts, so to speak, and moving on to vacation activities.  For me, a life-long teacher, it seemed natural to buy the bookstore in spring.  It's two years now since I did that and embarked on a transition from retired English teacher to bookseller. It's an identity change that has had both personal and professional surprises. These two years have been filled with learning bookselling and running a business, both quite enjoyable and essentially stress-free. The hardest part is deciding what books to stock.  Catalogues arrive every week, and emails everyday advertising new books.  I'm always disappointed when a customer wants a new book I have failed to stock or is out-of stock.

A couple "new" used books that have entered the inventory recently have captured my attention. The unusual title of Sima's Undergarments was enough to get me to take a closer look,and the Brooklyn setting of a lingerie shop in a Hasidic Jewish neighborhood makes it seem exotic. That, and the fact that the main character is about my own age add to its appeal. It's a sad, sort of a coming-of-age story in that a woman near retirement deals with a secret buried since her teens. Younger and older readers probably respond to this book differently.  A side effect of this book--it made me go out and buy some new lingerie!

The second new/used book I have just started is I, Rigoberta Menchu about the Guatemalan peasant woman who won the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize. A UW-Stout prof. uses this book in his class and one of his students who probably didn't appreciate as much as I expect to, having just spent a week in Guatemala, sold it to me a few days ago.

Jeanne Foley's talk on her book Shooting Two was a great success. Her slide show covered a brief history of girls' basketball and some personal history all of which provided her with the inspiration and motivation to write Shooting Two. We learned about the pioneer sports-loving women who, interestingly, were also associated with higher education, and Title IX that has  had such a big impact on making sports available to all who want to participate. We had an appreciative audience of boosters!

This is the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War. There have been quite a few new histories of published with this anniversary in mind.  We have several at the bookstore.  There is a bubbling controversery about the Civil War, some politicians being accused of re-writing history by ignoring de-emphasizing slavery as the cause of it.  A new movie about the role of the woman co-conspirator in the assassination of President Lincoln is being released right now.  New and old novels on the Civil War continue to be widely read--from Gone with the Wind to Schaara's more recent novels on the war.

Ok, not exactly a book-related blog, but I watched Morning Glory last night and was both entertained by and admiring of Diane Keaton and Harrison Ford who both are great actors and also look great. They are probably too old for the roles they played, but who cares.  There is a cameo scene with Bob Schiefer, Morely Safer and Chris Matthews that throws in more senior bait.  Of course the younger generation of actors were also fine. Anyway, the movie was a welcome respite from the unrelenting grim world and state news.

An advanced reader book, Mothers and Daughters,  arrived at the bookstore this week and today I saw a review of it in the MPLS newspaper.  It's set in Madison, focuses on three generations of mothers and daughters and several types of mothering/daughtering.  It would be a good book club book.

It's taken me a while to do this, but I finally started a bookstore newsletter which I've named Book Bites.  It's online right now. Just click on the Newsletter page over on the left and then the newsletter icon.  This will open up the three pages of bookstore news, notes on books, upcoming store events, and an invitation to get involved.

Putting the newsletter together was the easy part; dealing with the technology took time, but now I've learned the ropes, so next issue will be easier.  I used Microsoft Publisher to format the newsletter and added images of books to give it a pleasing visual appearance. Wouldn't you know, after sending it out I found several typos.  At least I found them before I put the newsletter online.

Another problem is that some people can't open the document because they use a Mac or don't have Publisher on their computer.  The bookstore computer has a problem with adobe, so I sent the newsletter to my home computer where I can save it as a PDF file. Now I can send the newsletter out as a PDF file which most people will be able to open. 

A big challenge to booksellers right now is e-books and so I'm off today to a conference to learn how to get on the Google-e-books bandwagon.  I know I'll have to update my website, get a license and then figure out how to attract e-book users.  I made a small start earlier this year by buying an e-reader for re-sale.  I got the brand available locally at K-Mart and priced it competitively. It's a really nice device with lots of capabilities.  Stop by to check it out--it's in the window display.

A new book being celebrated by Indie bookstores is Wingshooter which is set in central Wisconsin. The story is about a girl with a Japanese mother, American father, her grandparents and the all-white town where they all live. It's a great book club book and a story that resonates strongly with readers.  You'll like it.

 Daylight Savings time 2011 started today. I forgot to set my clock ahead last night, so when I discovered my error today, part of my morning plans had to be scuttled.  This is the second time in my life I've missed "spring forward."  The first was many years ago when I was teaching and appeared for my 8 A.M. class an hour late.  My students weren't perturbed, as I remember.

It's the beginning of Spring Break here in Menomonie so it feels like vacation, a break in routine.  Last year Spring Break was a very busy time at the bookstore--not everyone leaves town. There is time to go downtown, shop, go out for lunch and so on.  In Sweden (from which my husband hailed) everyone has a winter break sometime in February.  Businesses, schools, and government offices stagger the vacation time so not everyone is away at the same time. The sun starts returning strongly in February in northern lands and lots of Swedes use the winter break to go skiing.

So many of the bookstore customers are retirees, people who have time to read, time to catch up on the reading for leisure and information that eluded them during their busy work years.  The ILR--Institute for Learning in Retirmenent--has a book club and courses that have book tie ins.  Justice is again being used for a course on current issues starting in April.  The book club has a monthly book, every one of which is fascinating--for example one called The City of Our Final Desination, another a new biography of Bonnie and Clyde set for the spring.  So many books, so little time, as the saying goes.  It's hard for me to keep up with all the books that appeal to local readers. Often I order an extra copy for the store of these interesting books special ordered for various reading groups.

Many students are studying classic books this month.  Included in Children's Lit are Where the Wild Things Are, Skellig and Morning Girl.  Art History students are using novels with settings that allow them to add context to their studies--from Da Vinci Code to Memoirs of a Geisha Girl, Girl with a Pearl Earring, and I am Madame X (a fascinating back story for one of Sargeant's controversial paintings).  Business students read How to Win Friends and Influence People.  Wouldn't you love to have written that book which remains important for more than 40 years?  These and many other class books are at the book store.  Check them out--10% discount on class book titles.

A couple new books in the store have had a lot of press recently.  One is Amy Chua's Hymn of the Tiger Mother which has been really controversial. Chua's strict, you might say draconian mothering style has been harshly criticized yet she makes some good points about the over-softness of American parenting, a lack of discipline and expectation for hard work. Maybe we have gone too far in the high self-esteem model when everyone gets a trophy, win or lose and so on. Chua gets a conversation going, that's for sure.

Another new/old book is a re-issue of Water for Elephants in anticipation of the movie. I love this book and anyone who missed it first time around should pick it up now.  It's a great story with an unusual set of characters and circus setting.

True Grit, the book, is a good read.  The Western genre has its devotees, almost entirely men of a certain age who buy half a dozen at a time, trade with their friends, and every now and then buy a new stack to read and trade.  But other readers will enjoy True Grit for its interesting characters and story.

President Reagan's centenary has inspired books by each of his sons and interest in some of the older biographies.  Reagan's reputation seems to have grown and he is currently being heralded as the father of the modern conservative movement. Could be.  Conservatism in the form of religious fundamentalism is a world-wide phenomenon at present which makes all this sort of complicated.  Someone is probably writing a book about it right now.

As art, I think The Soloist movie is head and shoulders above the book. The movie depicts the miseries of mental illness and homelessness as well as music as therapy vividly.  The book does this, but one wants more, some depth of perception or analysis.  In particular I'd like more about Lopez, his motivation or more self-awareness.  The book is very simply written, all description.

To my delight, another Tainter has stopped by the bookstore.  The latest visitor is a student and is part of the Native American branch of the family.  It's a pleasure to have this vicarious connection with local history.

The frigid temperatures recently have kept people indoors.  Time for stay at home folks to read a good new book or finish those Christmas gift books. However, there are so many things going on downtown at this time, good programs at the Mabel Tainter and the library's events associated with The Soloist, the choice for the Menomonie Read this year. On Thursday there was a showing of the movie.  After a day at the store I hesitated to go out at night but I'm glad I did.  The movie turned out to be different and far better than I imagined from all the trailers I saw when it first came out.  The music, all that Beethoven, Bach and so on, make it a gorgeous movie, a surprising impact since the images of homelessness and mental illness are wrenching.  Everyone should read this book and see the movie, one or the other if it's hard to do both.

Hello Friends! Not long ago, I (Julie) snatched up a used copy of The Poisonwood Bible that Susan had in the back of the store. I just finished it last night. Wow. The book has so many layers of meaning and imagery that weave together the stories of a missionary family and the Congo. Reading this book was a wonderfully satisfying experience. I wished I'd read it with a few friends for discussion's sake. I'm just sorry it took me so long to make time for it. I kept thinking this book would make a great movie, and I found a movie trailer on the Internet but couldn't find a release date. Does anyone out there know more?

Mark Twain's Autobiography, Volume I, is a big hit. I've sold ten copies so far, a bestseller for Bookends on Main.  At 720 pages, it's a big read which should take most people through the cabin fever days this winter. The book is physically big, about three inches thick, so you feel like you are getting your money's worth.  Granted, it's not all Twain--there is a long introduction  by the editor and many pages of notes at the end.  Some readers will skip those but I've always been one who likes notes, often the interesting side comments that don't quite fit into the book itself. Something that makes this long book an easy read is that it can be read a bit at a time because it is in a series of anecdotes, remembrances and the like.

Cleopatra is the second big book of the year.  It's not long, about a third the length of Twain's Autobiography, but it's a big book in terms of content.  Cleopatra, an icon for a couple thousand years, has a complex story, and the author makes her live up to her reputation as one of the most fascinating and significant women in history. 

Cleopatra and Collins' Mockingjay have been designated the "Best of the Best" books of 2010. Mockingjay ends the Hunger Games trilogy that has an enormous audience from middle schoolers to middle-aged moms. These books are thrillers about a dystopian world with the battle between good and evil at their core.  They are influenced by Classical mythology and Roman history, have many layers of meaning and can be read at many levels.  I had the opportunity to hear Collins speak about her books.She impressed me with her personal brilliance and ability to turn that into brilliant books.

No one will be disappointed by taking up any of these three big books!

It may be a little late for New Year's resolutions, but to use a cliche, "it's never too late."  So I resolve to blog and update my bookstore Facebook page at least once a week. I just looked at my personal Facebook page for the first time in three weeks and as usual am amazed.  Some people write often and I enjoy their socializing.  I can't think of what to write which isn't surprising as casual conversation is often hard for me. 

What's new at the bookstore: This semester it's ten percent discount on classbooks teachers have ordered and that discount goes to anyone who buys the books designated as classbooks.  Science fiction dominates this semester.

Almost two months since I've blogged!  Well, the bookstore has been busy and we were open seven days a week in December and had longer hours, so blogging took a back seat.

Memorable this season: the surprise hit, Mark Twain's monumental, 720 page autobiography.  Time is up for the papers he said couldn't be published for 100 years.  There are about 40,000 copies on back order but I managed to get half a dozen by ordering one or two at a time and as a result have some grateful customers who tell me I scooped Borders.

An after-Christmas personal special occurred yesterday when one of my former Honors English students stopped by.  He's now an English teacher and spoke kindly of my class and others he took at UW-Stout before he transferred to UW-Madison. It always feels special to meet a hometown kid who has made good and remembers his roots with fondness.

Today is inventory day at the bookstore.  Julie and her daughter are coming in to count books.  This activity looks forward to tax time, of course.  Then it's removal of Christmas decorations and on to the next seasonal offerings.  For Bookends on Main that means Cabin Fever Times with a nod to Valentine's Presidents' Days.

I (Julie) have thoroughly enjoyed reading Faceless Killers and The Man Who Smiled by Henning Mankell. I could kick myself for watching the PBS versions first! PBS and Kenneth Branagh have done an excellent job of bringing Inspector Kurt Wallender to life, especially as Wallender's life seems about to unravel at any moment. But, the complex plot and character cannot quite be matched in a one and a half hour movie. Plus, it is simply a pleasure to read Mankell. I enjoy both, but will not watch the Wallender I have taped until I read the book!

The October 28 Witches Night Out was a big success.  Many women came out in costume--lots of big, fun witches hats were visible.  Here at the bookstore 129 women registered for the baskets of gifts and everyone seemed to be having fun, despite the strong wind and chill in the air.  But we live in the north, so late October means winter is not long in coming.  Today daylight savings time ends -- more morning light, but not for long, and of course earlier darkness.

People are already shopping for Christmas, so it's time to announce our extended hours November 22- December 24:  Mon-Thurs 10-6, Fri 10-5, Sat 10-4. Sun 12-4.  The big box stores have had their Christmas displays up for a long time, but here on Main Street we are a little more traditional and wait until Thanksgiving to do that. A bit of traditionalism is what sets us apart.
There is a good selection of new biographies for a variety of tastes: Gen. Custer, Pearl Buck, Al Capone, Henrietta Lacks, Walter Mondale, and Edith Wharton for example.  The Wisconsin Historical Press has some new books, too, including Penny Loafers & Bobby Pins and a very handsome volume on historic houses.

Several weeks ago I went to a small bookstore in Wayzata, MN to hear Susan Gilbert-Collins read from her novel, Starting from Scratch, recently published by Simon and Schuster. Susan and I met when she was in graduate school at the U of MN (1992? 1993?). As time permitted, she'd write and had several short stories published in literary magazines. She relocated to the East Coast and we mostly kept in touch via Christmas cards. I knew she was working on a manuscript but was tickled when she phoned to tell me about her fantastic publishing news. To my delight, Bookends had a copy in the store. I thoroughly enjoyed Starting from Scratch, which tells the story of an adult daughter coping with her mother's death. I am probably a bit prejudiced, as I know the author, but I found the story engaging, funny (at times) and surprising. Friends of mine shouldn't be surprised when they receive copies as gifts!

Book and movie tie-ins sometimes are surprising as in the case of two new movies.  One is Howl based on Allen Ginsberg's little iconoclastic book from the Beatnik era, well not iconoclastic anymore.  I want to see this movie.  When I was in graduate school at Indiana University Ginsberg and his friend Peter Orlovsky did a reading to a very large, packed auditorium and years later Ginsberg read at UW-Stout, stayed at a faculty member's house where there was a huge party after the reading.  Those sorts of literary events don't seem to happen at UW-Stout any longer.

The other book-movie is Freakonomics.  The book has been on the bestseller list for 60 weeks! Quite a run. There is always a burst of renewed interest in books after a movie based on them comes out.