Signing and Sighing

Dear Reader -  Well, it's been a week - a whole darn week - since (Ann) Revere Reed's books signing, and we're still having fun watching folks find her book, On a Dime: Senseless in Lewes. I've been wanting to share some photos with you, but, of course, I forgot my own camera and phone last weekend, so I borrowed Grace's, who was minding the shop that night (I was just the resident Pourer-o'-Spanish-Cava for the evening - Grace did all the work).

The night started out quietly, with a fan who had to leave early showing up in time to get her books signed before the crowd started arriving:

She bought five copies, so it took awhile to get them all personalized. Then a few minutes before 7:00, a few more folks showed up to meet and greet the author:

I enjoyed seeing Ann connect with friends and family, as well as other locals who'd read about her work in the Gazette and Countian. By 7:15, we had a nice little crowd going:

And then by 7:30, all happy h__ broke loose, as Rehoboth and Lewes descended on Ann and little biblion. As one guest who stopped in on Saturday put it, "What was going on in here last night? We walked by, but it didn't look like one more person could fit in this shop!" It was a very gratifying and supportive reception for a local author, and we were so grateful to help facilitate.

Ann signed several more copies, which are available at the shop (Mike stopped by just today to get a copy for the Lewes Historical Society's archives - so cool).

Jamie Schneider, whose locally-set novel, In the Shadow of Silver Lake, was a huge hit last summer, has released his second book: The Highest Burden of the Law. He dropped off several copies this week, and he's planning a signing here for early August (which, as it turns out, is dependent on Miss C's schedule - we'll confirm the date/time later).

And we have two other local-author signings on the back burner, awaiting final scheduling info from their publishers.

Sigh. While I love, love, love everything about used books, I am beyond thrilled to be able to have books by local authors be our only new titles offered here - it just seems to fit with the spirit of this little town and our little shop. This instinct received the warmest of confirmations last Friday, as I watched folks who'd grown up here with Ann and her family stop by to support her. Thank you, dear Reader, for joining us in supporting these authors, too.

Contentedly  - Jen

Reminder: Book release/signing today!

Dear Reader -  Hope you can drop by this evening to raise a glass and say "huzzah" to Revere Reed on her new book, On a Dime: Senseless in Lewes. She'll be at the shop from 7-9 p.m. See you then!  - Jen

 

The artists are coming! The artists are coming!

Dear Reader -  You may remember when I wrote about St. Peter's Art Show round about this time last year, as we were in the throes of the final preparations for the 45th annual event (see The Love of My Life post, if you're curious).

One of the many things that I gave up this year to spend more time with Miss C was chairing this event - after five years, it was time anyhow. Not surprisingly, a stalwart and committed group of volunteers has picked up the ball quite ably - 'cause that's what the folks at St. Peter's do.

A diverse and talented cadre of fine artists and fine crafters are due to descend on little Lewes over the next couple of days - some of them long-time participants, some of them brand-new. As you can see from this awesome photo that I picked up on the Internet (that's a whole other story, Reader - my hard drive has crashed - irretrievably - not a happy turn of events for an editor!), all 140 of them will be a stones throw from the shop, so we can't wait to stop by with Miss C and do our shopping!

It's one day only - running from 9 to 4; there's a free shuttle running constantly from Shields Elementary School to the show, so parking's not an issue; there's an huge silent auction, so bargains are to be had; there's an art project for the kids, as well as a face painter, so they won't go too insane; and the ladies of St. Peter's ECW are producing their Famous Turkey Salad lunch (available for eat-in or take-out), so it's easy to make a day of it!

Come out and join us! Vive la art!  - Jen

Small-Town-Americana Run Amok

Dear Reader -  Having a bookshop in Lewes is kinda like being an adjunct visitors-center-information-booth-public-safety-patrol-realtors-association-restroom-locator-restaurant-reviewer-town-ambassador-yadda-yadda-yadda - in short, whoever's working is Julie on the Loveboat. And one of the phrases that I'm heard saying about little Lewes over and over again that it's the quintessential small-town-American run amok. There is some sorta festival somthin' happening just about every week for locals and visitors alike to dive into.

Now no day embodies this reality here more than July 4. As Miss C'd say: it is so adorable.

The day kicks off around 9:00 a.m. with the Old Fashioned Children's Games:

  

We shut down Second Street and let kids loose on it for the entire morning to do every manner of goofy game - sack races, ice-block pushing - there even used to be a greased pole contest, but I think that had to be ca-bashed with the new streetscape a few years back. It's a blast and a half for everyone - the families who participate and those of us who just show up to goof on it.

(An Aside:  For years, the event was run by Larry McLaughlin and Gilbert Holt - two City of Lewes employees [Larry ran the Streets Department and Gilbert was at the Board of Public Works]:

They both loved the tradition and were fantastic about making it fun for us all - giving selflessly of their time and energy to bring it to life. Tragically, Larry was killed in an accident on the evening of July 4, 2010, and we mourned the loss of Gilbert this past year. Because of their efforts, the games are a tradition that is strong enough to survive their loss, but I can't help but feel a little bittersweet at the remembrance of them today.)

The next big thing is the boat parade down at the dock at 2:00 p.m.:

 

 

It's typically a whole lotta flags and a whole lotta waitin', but it's a whole lotta fun, too!

And then, late in the afternoon - at an -ish-ish kinda time around 5:30-ish, the most un-grandish of traditions commences - the Doo-Dah Parade:

 

 

Everybody and their dog (literally) shows up to be part of this ad hoc parade, that legend has it started as an adult beverage run from the Shockley's. The parade sports everything from the most organized of organizations to the last-minute-inspired-by-the-small-town-Americana-spirit visitor. It has become one of the most beloved of traditions for it's untraditional traditionalness. We love it.

So come on down to Lewes and get your own heapin' helpin' of Americana (and a little glass of somethin' while Doo Dah-ing with us this afternoon at biblion)!

Vive la Independence!

Amok! Amok! Amok!  - Jenny

P.S. And a couple perfect doses of that Americana tradition to close . . . 

Best Quote of the Day: June 30

Dear Reader -  Yesterday's quote of the day came from a young couple who were hanging with me during siesta-time, as we listened to Bombay Bicycle Club's _Flaws_ (the perfect siesta-time album):

"This is probably the coolest store I've ever been in," she said.

"Yeah," he replied.

Contentedly  - Jen

The Glamorous Life of an Independent Bookseller (or My Adventure with Captain Underpants)

Dear Reader -  You know you got something special goin' on when you say to your dog and cat, "I'll be right back, ladies! I have to go on a mission for Captain Underpants . . ."

Spot and Nellie were riveted at the prospect.

Rewind a tick, I was on the phone with Linda (who was filling in on Wednesday evening for Zac [who's away at an economics conference {you know, I really gotta do a posting on our little biblion family - we have some really-super-cool-not-your-garden-variety-cliched-hipster-snob-bookstore-employees who work with us}]) about an electrical matter when a crisis arose in the shop: a kid who'd been in earlier in the day and had seen two Captain Underpants books was back, only to find them gone - and, you guessed it, some other kid was probably curled up reading them that very moment. He was bummed - and who would be? Captain Underpants is singularly awesome.

I thought I might have more up in the sorting room, so hung up with Linda (who was gonna go search biblion's stacks, just in case), made my aforementioned declaration (I really am in danger of becoming the crazy pet lady when Miss C goes off to school, talking to the pets like that - and she's only been gone a week this time around!), left Nellie and Spot, and headed up to pile through the boxes of kids' books. Sure enough, I came up with two. First I found the classic, Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants:

And then I found a bit of an outlier - a rare find, so to speak, in the Underpants world, The Captain Underpants Extra-Crunchy Book o' Fun:

And who doesn't want their books o' fun to be extra-crunchy?

I called Linda back. Predictably, she'd had no luck. I told her of mine, but then I confessed my next obstacle: I'd changed from socially-acceptable clothing and was now wearing the most ratty PJs that a respectable crazy pet lady would wear - some Capri bottoms with dubious elastic in the waist and a crew shirt donated to me by my friend Emory. I knew that time was critical (a boy can only wait so long for Captain Underpants), so I scooped up Nellie, walked outta my house onto the streets of Lewes as if nothing was amiss, and drove my ratty-a__ self a couple blocks over to the shop - tossing the books out to Linda as we did our drive by.

Man, it was a here-I-come-to-save-the-day moment if ever there was one - one that deserves a little Andy Kaufman in its wake:

Socially-acceptably, if not glamorously, dressed  - Jenny

Save the Date: Revere Reed Book Release/Signing

Dear Reader -  On Friday, July 6 from 7-9 p.m., Ann Revere Reed, a biblion regular who grew up in Reho and now lives in Lewes, will be at the shop for the release of her first novel, On a Dime: Senseless in Lewes.

biblion's resident "local author reader," Ellen Hollingsworth, loved this book. I gave it to her one afternoon to review (a member of the biblion family reads every book we're asked to carry), and she brought it back the next day, exclaiming that she couldn't put it down. "It was a real page-turner!" she said.

Like Ann, Ellen has lived here forever, and she characterized the book's local settings as "spot-on." I was thrilled to hear that - love it when we can carry a book in which locals and visitors alike can enjoy reading about places that they recognize.

Keep your eyes out for a great story about the book in the Cape Gazette, and please plan to drop by and show her your support (it takes a lot of guts - and work! - to put yourself out there creatively!).

And if you see her around town, tell Ann congrats and that you'll see her on the 6th!

Sensibly  - Jen

P.S. And while you've got your calendar out, be sure to save the afternoon of September 15 for Taste the Fruit of the Vine from 3-6. This year Chanell and Chris Dagesse, who own Lewes Auto Mall, have kindly agreed to host the garden party/wine tasting/home tour benefit for the Sussex County Community Outreach Program.

Their Lewes home has been completely (I mean completely, from head to toe) renovated, and it's just stunning - their level of thoughtfulness in design and attention to detail is really impressive, with every corner of the home reflective of them (plus they're super sweet people, so that makes it even cooler). So plan to come and enjoy the party - taking a tour, digging some live tunes, and enjoying fine vintages paired with select bites from The Buttery's talented chefs - all for an awesome cause! Just for fun, here're a couple of casual pics that I shot when I was trying to figure out where the best light was for their photo in the Gazette . . .

My "year off"

Dear Reader -  I'm not quite sure how it came to this; but, somehow or another, we've ended up with a perception of "real" that connects most tangibly for many of us to the ethereal world of the digital. Things aren't really real unless we feel like we can touch them all the time, no matter where our fingers lie.

Now our little shop is situated on the main street of what's too often called "the first town in the first state." There's a whole'lotta tangible going on here in Lewes. But there's a whole'lotta ethereal, too, what with our grip on history and legend and tradition. biblion skitters around the edges of all that. We live in the only Italianate building here in Sussex County (per Lewes's leading historian, Hazel Brittingham) - a building where a myriad of beloved businesses set up shop, where members of the Coast Guard took their meals during WWII, where the Brittinghams fed Lewes's teenagers in the 50s, and where pre-teens hid behind St. Peter's walls and threw odd things at the bigger kids as they went to hang out at Mitchell's in the 70s (per Ed and Dickie). History happened here - big H and little h.

 

(photo by Mike Mahaffie)

But mostly we embody the whole present tense, "bricks and mortar" thing. We're all about the magic that can only happen when we're physically together in a space - together with each other, together with books, together with ideas. The five of us who work here see it every day. Magic.

As Ricky Ricardo would say, I've got some 'splainin' to do: it's been a long, long while since I've given much attention to this ethereal, digital world. But I didn't realize just how much our online presence was missed 'till two things happened: I stumbled across our first "review" on the Internet (which kindly apologized for our pathetic Web presence and said that we were cool anyhow - thank you Leah, K, for your kind words and for taking the time to share your thoughts!), and I had a guest all but beg me to come back to blogging (not really sure what I could've been saying that'd warrant that, but it was nice to know I was missed). These encounters made me realize that I'm ready to be "real" on the Internet yet again.

So where have I been? I've been riding through what has turned out to be my 13-year old daughter's last year at home. You see, Miss C is heading off to boarding school next year for her freshman year (or 3 as she'll be known at her high school).

You don't often think of going through the "empty-nest" thing at 13, but here we are. Miss C had an amazing year visiting schools, taking her SSATs, getting into schools, and choosing the one that was most C-like. She's in heaven. And I'm in heaven for having chosen to drop out of everything non-essential (even the things that I thought were essential, like musical performance) and having spent the year with her - mostly doing "nothing" together. Heaven, indeed.

She "graduated" from The Jefferson School a couple weeks back and is spending this week at her other home in Brooklyn, so I have a bit of elbow room to get back into the groove of writing to you. So much has happened and is going to be happening - so much fun, so much good. We're blessed, and I'm looking forward to sharing it all with you.

Commencing (with Miss C)  - Jenny

P.S. And in honor of Miss C's grin at her photo-snapping mama and just 'cause we can't help but share some of the tunes that we love to play at the shop (and I've been playing the heck outta his album), here's some tunage via Mr. Rawls . . .

Happy, Happy Birthday, Nellie!

Dear Reader -  Today is Nellie's first birthday!

It's hard to believe that she's only been with us for these few, short months - she feels so much a part of our lives here at biblion and Casa J&C.

We're celebrating the day with a little "sale" in her honor - giving an extra 5% off to anyone who spends $21 or more!

Here's the first picture I ever saw of Nellie (she was Penelope then - safe in the arms of her breeder, Candice Kane):

Her eyes turned out to be just as compelling in person, if not more so - and, as you may remember, it was her eyes that brought her to us, as mentioned in my first mention of her back in June (what kind of insanity makes a newly-minted retailer decide to get a puppy just before the resort summer hits, and then to save that darn kitten to boot? - ah well! - Nellie and Spot have become the best of friends, wreaking havoc on our household [and especially the other cats {yes, I'm in danger of being dubbed a crazy cat lady, gone beyond my two-cat minimum - I've decided that because Miss C and Nellie are part of the equation, we haven't tipped the scales, yet}]).

She has turned out to be an awesomely awesome shop dog, save for her tendency to bark (okay, she yaps, it's embarrassing really; we try to tell her that nobody likes a yappy dog - that it's simply unattractive - to no avail) at other dogs. Here's a shot that I took of her with my iPhone to share with one of my card reps the other day. She spends most of the day sleeping under my desk, coming out to greet the guests who want to be greeted:

So, stop by if you can and join us in wishing Nellie a happy, yappy birthday!

Celebratorily yours  - Jenny

A worthy reason to get back up on that blogging pony, sister!

Dear Reader -  I've missed you. And I feel like my life's awash in a sea of biblion stories that're just aching for a place to funnel 'em.

But what's brought me here today is the 10th anniversary of the start of our War in Afghanistan, an action precipitated by the attacks less than a month before and followed up a couple years later with the Iraq War.

Right about the time of the art show this summer I received an email from a local author named Terri Clifton:

Hello. My name is Terri Clifton and I am contacting you about the book A Random Soldier.
My son Chad was a 2003 graduate of Cape Henlopen High School. He joined the Marine Corps that summer and went to Iraq in 2004. Before he left he made me promise to tell his story if he didn't make it home. Chad was killed in action in February 2005.
I wrote and self published his book, but have only in the past year regained the energy it takes to attempt to bring the book forth. It is available at Browseabout but I stumbled across your store (while having dinner with my husband at Agave) and wondered if you would be at all interested. Both Chad and the book are easily googled.
Thank you for your time,
Terri

I totally remembered her son. biblion's Memorial Day commemoration included pictures and brief bios on all of the men and women from Delaware who'd been lost in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and Chad's strikingly youthful face was hard to forget:

I also remembered how the young people at our church were devastated the day that we heard of his death.

Terri and I eventually connected after the fray of the art show, and I immediately began carrying her book (it's worth noting that Terri is not selling her book for profit - she's just looking to cover her self-publishing expenses - to that end, biblion isn't profiting from it either). As Terri'd mentioned, she hadn't yet put much energy into marketing the book, for understandable reasons, and I began noodling on how we could do more to get Chad's story out than simply having it out in the midst of our shop.

And then it hit me, the tenth anniversary of September 11th was coming up and, of course, the Afghan War started shortly after. Sure enough, I went to Google it and found that October 7 was the date. Given that the "drumbeat" of 9/11 anniversary coverage was already audible this summer, I expected that the media'd have a field day with the war. As such, I thought that a low-key reading by Terri would be a nice counter-point to all of the Sturm und Drang of the politicized coverage on the 24/7 news networks.

Boy, did I turn out to be wrong.

At first I thought that the fact that I wasn't hearing anything about the anniversary was because I'm watching/listening to the news so infrequently these days, caught up in the Sturm und Drang of the happy fray of my own little life. But then I started doing Google searches and found virtually no mention among the major news outlets. Thousands of lives lost, tens of thousands of lives shattered, and no words.

But enough of my dismay . . .

Terri agreed that doing a reading on that date seemed apropos, so we put it on the schedule:

Friday, October 7

6:00 p.m.

Reading

Saturday, October 8

10:00 a.m. to Noon

Meet and Greet with the Author

What I love about Terri's book is that it gives the reader a direct, unfiltered, and unapologetic perspective on one soldier's experience of war - and likewise some sense for what it was like for his family and friends. Since I didn't have any personal experience with war myself, having no friends or family who'd served, I found Chad's words and Terri's reflections truly enlightening and compelling. And from what I've seen at biblion, those who have served or been part of military families have had a different experience with the book, often finding it to be a bridge of understanding between the service members and their stateside families. I also love that there's absolutely no political agenda in it - no romantic war-related ideals, no anti-war drumbeats. It's just about a young soldier and the people whom he loved:

 

So it you have a pocket of time on Friday evening or Saturday morning, come on down and mark the day with us at biblion. We'd love to see you.  - Jen

P.S. I've had an issue with getting the word out about this earlier in the Cape Gazette (got the wrong deadline from a new guy, per Bernadette), so I'd appreciate anything you all can do to help folks know about this - I think that Terri's words could be a real help to many families as they live the realities of war.

P.S.S. I thought I'd find a way to work Chad's dad into my stream of consciousness-ness above, but the flow took another path. That being as it is, I still wanted to share Rich's incredible work with you - seeing that he has two such creative and extraordinary parents speaks to how much we've lost in losing Chad, too. Rich is a nationally-know wildlife painter:

You can see more of his work here at www.RichardCliftonWildlifeArt.com.