Our Shared Space

We're sharing our store with some interesting businesses this month.

The Sheridan School Mountain Campus is hosting an open house this month at their amazing camp near Rileyville, VA off about 5 miles from Luray. The camp is 130 acres of woods, mountains, water, adventure and serious fun. If you're planning on sending your kids to summer camp this year, don't miss out on the opportunity to check out Sheridan. Next time you're in the store pick-up their brochure at the front counter. Your kids will love you for it! (can you picture a 500ft zip line?)

Our Meet the Locals guest for March is Hands to Create ~ a bead and pottery business owned by Tammy Coffman, located on Main St in Front Royal. Tammy's shop is full of beautiful, colorful beads and ceramic supplies. She does classes, camps and workshops as well as hosting all manner of parties. Stop in to see some of her work and pick up information about upcoming events.

April is shaping up to be a busy month at the store - we're planning a children's bookfair for April 1,2 &3 - there will hundreds of new and nearly new childrens and young adult books. Plan now to stop in - and watch your email for updates!

Book Clubs

     Get ready! In the next couple days we'll be sending out this years Book Club suggestion list.
The list will cover ideas for book club reads for all ages and genres.

     You still have time to help put the list together! If you've read anything recently that you think would make for some lively discussion - send it along to me! It doesn't have to be a new book, it just has to be a book that you you've probably already told friends about, or had discussions about. You can send your suggestions by simply posting a reply to this Blog below.

     While we're on the subject of Book Clubs.... if you belong to one  and would like to advertise for more members, send us the info - when you meet, where, what you're reading, etc.... and we'll be happy to post the info at the store and in our newsletter!

     Thanks in advance for your help!

Judy

 

When I Wasn't Looking - I Got Old!

On the 17th of February my son whacked into a milestone, he's 29 years old. We did what families do for such events - everyone came to dinner, ate too much, sang the happy birthday song, teased him about getting old and had a generally cheerful time.

At some point, it occurred to me that if he's old at 29 ~ which is what everyone kept saying ~ what the heck does that make me?? I hit one of those milestones myself this past September - only problem is, my milestone is quite a bit further along (yes, I'm actually 50!), so I suppose that makes me ancient?

Funny, I don't feel 'old', at least not most of the time. I'm rather enjoying my current age - my kids are mostly grown, I have a wonderful business, free time to spend as I wish, hobbies I enjoy and good health. If this is how it feels to get 'old' then I'm glad I finally got here and I hope the rest of you get to be 'old' too!!

Cheers for us old folks! - Judy

The Woes of Snow - with a Bassett

Unless you live in a cave you've probably heard about the snow we had this weekend. Here in my little town in Virginia it measured about 20" - a ton by anyones standards, except maybe Alaska. We've had a truckload of snow this winter, which normally I don't mind too much. I get more reading done, catch up on chores and projects that I don't normally have time for, that sort of thing.

The worst thing about 20" of snow is that we own a 14" dog. Lucy, our bassett hound, is over 3.5 feet long measured nose to tail but only stands a little over 14" at the top of her back. She weighs about 65 lbs - we consider her to be the platypus of dogs.

She loves the snow - mostly, she loves to eat snow, but snow romping is very high on her list of fun stuff to do. Yesterday morning when we went to look for our cars and driveway, of course Lucy had to 'go' too. It quickly became obvious that Lucy was going to have an issue finding a suitable spot. Within seconds she had completely disappeared, she tried hard to eat her way out but to no avail! So, in addition to shoveling out two cars, 60 ft of driveway, sidewalks and a path to the trash cans we had to shovel out a poo room for the dog! While she whined and bayed instructions and demanded that we hurry!

For those of you who live in the northern climes - you must deal with this every winter - is there an easy solution? are you all up there digging out poo rooms? how do you find your short dogs in over 12" of snow? Send us your winter 'poo' solutions and we'll send you a $5.00 gift card for the store!

I'm going back to reading my book now.

We are Booksellers ~ Oh, the Power!

We sell escapes to great places, far away lands, exotic locales.
We sell encouragement, advice, wisdom, help and instructions.
We sell happiness, laughter, good times and good feelings.
We sell introspection, spirituality, philosophy and visits with God.
We sell death & dismemberment, murder & mayhem, horror & monsters.
We sell space exploration, time travel, aliens and new worlds.
We sell history made and in the making, war and triumph.
We sell romance, love and courtship - human and alien.
We sell thrills, chills and excitement for young and old alike.
We sell what you're looking for.


Visit us - you won't be sorry!

What?! No, we're NOT Barnes & Nobel!

One of our customers asked me if I wanted to be like Barnes & Nobel - I think I might have been insulted. Something I learned a long time ago - don't go where you're not wanted! I have no desire to be one of the 'big box' stores.

What I do want, and have been striving to attain for the last fourteen years is to be exactly what people want in a used bookstore! I think I have it a pretty good idea of what you guys are looking for -

This                                                                                                                            Not this

I'm feeling like we're pretty close to having what you want *big grin!* -- If you need\want anything else you'll let us know, right?

We Love January!

     January at the bookstore is a great month - all the people who got gift cards for Christmas come in to collect their loot. People buying stuff with someone else's money is truly a fun thing to watch!

     January is also our time to make changes to the store - we go through the inventory - clear out the old stuff, rearrange the stuff that needs more (or less!) space, add new stuff and generally check the lay out. I love this part of the job because it makes everything seem new again.

     The other good thing about January, it's when I start to look for new authors to read. I don't want to get stuck in a Reading Rut ~ only reading one or two authors that I love and waiting in frustration for their next book to come out. I read reviews, talk to the customers, listen to the book channel on my XM radio in the car and visit all the bookstores. The goal is to find at least five new authors - these can be authors who have been around a long time or the newbies on the bookshelves.

     So far this year's list is shaping up pretty well -- 

Jenna Blum ~ Those Who Save Us
John Hart ~ The Last Child
David Liss ~  several titles of historical mysteries (I can't wait!)
Nancy Taylor Rosenberg ~ legal thrillers that I love!
Jasper Fforde ~ The Eyre Affair (and other really crazy literary mysteries)
Belva Plain ~ I know, been around forever -- but I've only read one!
Stephanie Laurens ~ historical romances with humor & hunky guys (whew!)

That's a good start don't you think? If anyone has any great ideas or suggestions to add to the list - reply to this post - you should share!

Cheers!

Judy