UPCOMING EVENT: COLUMBUS PAPER, POSTCARD AND BOOK SHOW

Hello, Bookies,

I just received this and thought you booklovers might want to make a note of the show and date.

Bookstore George

It's that time again. Please join us at the Columbus Paper, Postcard and Book Show. Sunday September 13, 2009 at Vet's Memorial 300 West Broad St. Columbus, Ohio 43215 Hours are 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM Admission is $6.00 Bring this email and save $1.00.

Satisfy your need for old postcards, paper, books, photographs, stereoviews, maps, view master reels, old documents, comics, trade cards, and supplies to store and protect your paper collectibles. There will be silent auctions throughout the day as well as concessions provided by Vets Memorial.

We have opened a profile on Facebook. Just log onto Facebook and search Columbus Paper Show and sign uP to be a fan. We will be putting pictures and info about upcoming shows on the profile page.

Email to Terry Bigler columbuspapershow@gmail.com or call (614) 206 - 9103 if you have any questions or comments. Thank you for your support and hope to see you there.

Terry Bigler

STUPIDITY TRUMPS TECHNOLOGY, BUT SOMETIMES IT'S CURABLE.

Hello, bookies,

Very good news! Thanks to reader Michael Haynes, I am able to cut-and-paste my bookstore-ies from Microsoft Word directly to this blog-box. Well, I was able to do it before St. Michael's suggestion, but I was too stupid to know it.

Michael came into the store yesterday with daughter Crysta and son Aiden. Crysta, along with her older sister Caitlin, has kept our staff in Girl Scout cookies for years. Michael asked me to show him how the cut-and-paste wouldn't work. Christine and Brahmi were taking care of the customers in the store, so I took him behind the counter. On my laptop, I cut, I pressed "Ctrl" and "V" to paste. And it pasted. What the hell?!! Wish someone would have taken a photo of my astonished face when the text appeared. Michael laughed and said, "I'm glad I could help." Couldn't help shaking my head several times in amazement...and embarrassment.

After thanking him profusely, much to the amusement of his kids who already know daddy is a hero, I began looking forward to seeing if this magic technique would work on my home desktop, where I was originally unsuccessful at the C&P. Voila! It worked at home as well, where my store-ies are filed.

In my next post, I'll begin C&P-ing some of my many bookstore-ies.

Thanks to those of you who made suggestions with this problem -- you know who you are, Liam -- which wasn't a tech prob at all, but my techno-illiteracy: when facing a problem, reboot and try again. Duh.

Bookstore George

BOOK GREED

Hi, readers -- and you Kindle folks, too.

At Acorn we have a customer -- a writer, book-critic, and a serious collector of special books in the field of literature -- who comes in about once a month for at least two reasons: 1/To see if we've lately bought any wonderful books that she might be interested in, and 2/To make a payment on whatever book she has on layaway. There's a shelf in our backroom that has her name on it, and it's been a long time since the shelf hasn't had at least one book destined for her amazing library. Each time she buys a book or two to take with her, we always ask if she needs a bag. She laughs a bit maniacally and clutches her books to her body with both arms and says excitedly, "I want to feel these books right next to me as I walk out of here!"

One evening last week as I arrived home on Riverhill Road in Upper Arlington after an enjoyable day in Booktopia, Linda greeted me with dancing eyes, animated with good news to share. "I went to the UA library today with my summer reading list, and I was so excited when I was able to find most of the ones I wanted! They'll be the ones I'll take on vacation! I couldn't wait to bring them home and with great anticipation take them to my chair, cats all around me, as anxious to spend time with me as I was to spend time with my new books."

Linda is a professor at OSU in the Women's Studies department. As such, she's always got some interesting writing project in process. This summer's paper has been on an unusual topic -- Calamity Jane. That's right, the wildest women of the wild west being written about by the Wild Woman of Riverhill. Last year we fortunately discovered the outstanding HBO series, "Deadwood". And one of the well-done characters was Martha Jane Canary -- "Calamity Jane". This spring, when Lin finished her latest book project -- a critical study of the 1939 movie "It Happened One Night", she turned her attention to Calamity Jane and the Black Hills, the Badlands, where the Old West met the future in notorious Deadwood, where Wild Bill was shot in the head and law and education and religion and barbed wire crept in as taming agents. Where Calamity Jane perhaps experienced some of what she claimed to have done -- a colorful mountain-woman dressed anonymously in never-changed men's buckskin and never-gone whiskey fumes.

Linda has had a ball living with Calamity in books and movies, and as a longtime reader about the West and a lover of old "B" westerns -- especially Roy Rogers, I was pleased with her new interest. We've watched each episode of all three seasons of "Deadwood" again with even more enjoyment than we did initially. We've seen Angelica Houston as Jane, and even Doris Day as Calamity, which just absolutely boggles the brain. This fall Linda will get to travel to Deadwood itself, 120 years after Calamity. Where Calamity delivered glorifying half-truths about her life as a frontier woman, Linda will be delivering a paper about Calamity's life at a literature conference in nearby Spearfish, South Dakota. I suggested that she buy a replica Calamity Jane outfit -- used, of course, and hopefully unwashed, to capture the true flavor of the times. We can play cowboys and cowgirls when she gets back. Now where did I store my Roy Rogers embroidered shirt?

She's just finished the CJ paper, and now it's summer reading time for the professor as we head into the last of summertime. This fall we'll be driving up to Lakeside, Ohio, for a much-needed R-&-R vacation, with no agenda except enjoying the peaceful, old community, founded by Methodists in the 1880s. From our cozy cottage we'll go for walks and bike rides and I'll photograph the beauty and cottages of a waterside community. We'll both work on various writing projects, one of our favorite ways to take advantage of endless hours without committment.

And we'll read. A lot. We'll read mysteries and essays and memoirs. Books with spiritual insights. We might even sample Julia Child's "The Art of French Cooking", inspired by the wonderful movie, "Julia and Julie". We've already begun decorating the dining room table with the first of many possible books to take along. Last year we were a little excessive and took a box of reading material each. You understand.

Running out of reading material on vacation ranks right up there with having your plane land in the Hudson or staying in a sleazy motel in 90-degree overnight heat and a busted A/C, a filthy tub, with yellow stains on the sheets to complement the bloodstains on the floor covering, which once might have been called a carpet. At least in that godforsaken place we had books to escape into.

So Linda's trip to the Upper Arlington library was the first of her foraging for vacation reading. to check out the books she'd had recommended by friends and colleagues and reviewers. Books to entertain and educate, to read as slowly or quickly as desired. To read with coffee in the morning and tea at night, and with an afternoon bottle of water overlooking the water. After dinner I'll pour her a Diet Coke and a single malt scotch for myself for twilight accompaniment. Hmmm, what kind of book goes best with a peaty scotch? Maybe an M. C. Beaton mystery or one of Alexander McCall Smith's Edinburgh-based stories.

Lin's enthusiasm for her just-acquired library books was overflowing. "It's like when I used to belong to a book club," she said, holding a handful with the familiar library markings on the spine. "The mailman would deliver a package of four or five books" -- and Lin made as if hugging the books to herself. "I wanted to grab them all and take them to bed...my treasure.

"It was book greed."

Amen.

For a great book on the old west, you can't beat Larry McMurtry's "Lonesome Dove".

Bookstore George

PS: The photo is of Linda at the grand opening of the "new" Ohio State Library. More on that fabulous new facility later.
Copyright 2009

QUOTES OF NOTE

Hi, readers,

For many years I've been collecting literary quotes to amuse myself. From time to time I'll be posting a few of them for your enjoyment. Feel free to pass them on.

I'll start with one of my favorites, which I take to heart. I was fortunate enough to meet and visit with Bookseller Brent in his Chicago shop in 1994.

* "I had decided to become a bookseller because I loved good books. I assumed there must be many others who shared a love for reading and that I could minister to their needs. I thought of this as a calling." - Stuart Brent, "The Seven Stairs" (1962)

* "All good and true book-lovers practise the pleasing and improving art of reading in bed." - Eugene Field, "Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac" (1896)

* "Almost everyone who reads has been seduced by the charm of a good bookstore." - Frank Brady and Joan Lawless, "Brady & Lawless's Favorite Bookstores" (1978)

* "Books go out into the world, travel mysteriously from hand to hand, and somehow find their way to the people who need them at times when they need them." - Erica Jong

* "I was born in a bookshop or so close to it as to be able to claim the distinction. It was in a bookshop that I first learned the odor of books...and felt the first vague stirrings of envy, admiration and authorship. If I were not a writer of books, I would be a bookseller, selling the dreams and solutions of other writers across the counter. Books to me are the most important things after food, water, dogs, cats, girls." - Vincent Starret, "Born in a Bookshop" (1965)

* "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." - Groucho Marx

* "I am a bookseller...I stand and look down the little avenue of books which is my shop. On each side there are shelves and on these shelves are my books. All day long, I live my life between these two parallel lines, which I know may be extended into infinity, and I am buttressed by those protecting walls." - Will Y. Darling, "The Private Papers of a Bankrupt Bookseller" (1931)

UPCOMING LITERARY EVENT

August 24, 2009

Good day, readers. I hope if you haven't done so already, that you have a book in your hands by the end of the day.

On Friday, September 18, 2009, at 7pm, a book signing and reception will be held celebrating the publication of "Bishop Daniel A. Payne: Great Black Leader". The author is Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop, professor Emerita of Education at The Ohio State University. The place to be is the Gateway Health and Wellness Center Grand Ballroom, 112 North Jefferson Ave. in Columbus.

Bishop Payne was not only a clergyman, but also the first black president of Wilberforce University. He was an activist and a leader of the AME church.

Dr. Bishop has received numerous awards for her work in the field of African-American children's literature. Columbus is lucky to have her among us.

She will also be the speaker at The Aldus Society's February program, celebrating Black History Month, and talking about African-American children's literature, and I'm really looking forward to that. The Aldus Society's program's are open to the public and free. More about Aldus and its programs later.

RSVP to 614-252-2377 if you are planning to attend Dr. Bishop's reading and signing.

Celebrate this new book; celebrate reading every day.

Bookstore George

BOOKSTORE-IES INTERUPTED

Because I've already written so many bookstore-ies over the years, I thought that I'd be able to post them on this blog from time to time for you readers to enjoy. Now I'm finding out that what was written on M-soft Word is not cut-and-pastable. That's a real kick to the ol' Table of Contents.

I wonder if the new national health care plan will cover treatment for someone who unnecessarily has to retype over 150 texts?

Are there any knowledgeable bloggers out there who know how this importing of text from other sources can be accomplished? A $20 gift certificate to the Acorn Bookshop -- applicable to our online listings as well as in-store stock -- to anyone who successfully helps me do this! Please reply to booknman@gmail.com.

Thanks,
Bookstore George

August 20, 2009

As my wife Linda and I exited the theater having just seen the wonderful "Julia and Julie" starring Meryl Streep as the irrepressible Julia Child, Linda turned to me and said, "Now, after seeing that movie, do we go home and cook...or write?!"

Both, as it turns out. She's making pasta with pesto, using fresh-cut basil from our small patio herb garden, while I am determined to research how to blog.

Except that my laptop refuses to be my usual administrative assistant and allow me access to the internet. I hate computers. I love computers.

Recently I clicked on "Upgrade Available" for Internet Explorer 8, trusting last year's computer guru when he told me to allow all possible updates. Yeah, right. Now I can't access the internet just when I'm pumped to get into this newfangled, non-old-school blog business.

I could leave this cozy sunroom with three of our four Siamese cats lounging around and go downstairs to my study to get online at my desktop, but right now the rain on the roof over the patio is such a companionable musical accompaniment that I'd rather sit here and begin a blog entry before I even know step one on how to reach all of you interested in a veteran bookseller's perspectives on books, reading, collecting, bookpeople, cats, life, and love...and baseball.
Besides, the aroma of Linda's ultra-fresh pesto simmering with garlic, pinenuts, parmesan cheese, and olive oil is too yummy for me to go further away from its source. Soon she'll serve it surrounded with slices of our home-grown red and yellow tomatoes for a fine August meal, even if it isn't in Julia Child's cookbook.

I've been blessed to spend more than four decades as a bookseller. I've been known as "Bookstore George" in a wide variety of bookstores -- on the sea, in a mall, on campuses, in an airport, and now for the last 10 years, at the Acorn Bookshop in Columbus, Ohio. The stores have specialized in college textbooks, travel books and maps, business books, current bestsellers, and in the used bookshops, anything that's ever been in print. The variety of my bibliopolic experiences has been awesome.

I was one of the lucky people who find out early in life what they want to do. When my Aunt Peg (more on her as my inspiration in a later blog) asked me in 1968 what I wanted to do with my life, I jokingly said, "Get paid to hang out in a bookstore!" She looked at me intently, her head cocked to one side and one eyebrow equally cocked high, and drawled out, "Well.....?"

Fourteen bookstores have been my professional home since that well-expressed "Well...."
As I've learned from hearing it from so many customers over the years, I was just one of the many whose dream it has been to own their own bookstore. And I won the lottery: bookstore #14 is the Acorn Bookshop, and I'm the co-owner.

Imagine being able to spend your days hanging out in a bookstore, surrounded by people who love to read and/or collect books. A bibliophilic staff and book-oriented customers that choose to spend their discretionary income on reading material. That's my very fortunate life.

"I've got a novelist's eye and a bartender's ear..." sings Jimmy Buffett on "School Boy Heart" on his excellent "Banana Wind" CD.

Being behind the counter in a bookstore is very much like being behind a bar -- you get to know a lot of your customers' lives. As they talk, I make notes, inobtrusively. I've been taking notes and writing stories about my bookstore experience for years, most recently in what I call "Bookstore-ies". Stories about life in a bookstore.

A few bookstore-ies have been published in the quarterly for The Aldus Society, Columbus' bibliophile organization. See http://www.aldussociety.com/ , and click on "Newsletters", then scroll through till you find my column, making mental notes to go back to the other articles of interest.

All told, I have 150-200 store-ies finished, and about half that many simmering in my Works in Progress folder.

I love working in a bookstore.
I love writing about working in a bookstore.

Hope you get to do some reading today. One of the most famous books about a bookstore is "Shakespeare and Company", by Sylvia Beach. Her bookstore in Paris published the first edition of James Joyce's "Ulysses". It's not well-written, but the scene of her asking back-to-liberate Paris Ernest Hemingway to clean out the snipers on the roofs of rue de L'Odeon in the Left Bank is worth the read.

Bookstore George

2009 copyright