The Bishop Street of Lights Festivities are this Friday night, and East Side Books will NOT be there – SORRY!  But that is because I will be at the High School Football Field cheering for our Bishop Broncos in the CIF SEMIFINALS, and as much fun as the Street of Lights can be, I really hope to see MANY of you at the game as well!

So, to make up for missing the festivities, East Side Books will be having a storewide sale on Saturday December 4th.  Your entire pile of books, cd’s, movies from in-store stock will be discounted 10%.  So come downtown to the Christmas parade and then stop by the store for a great selection at great prices.  And another bonus – if you show your CIF football ticket stub – we’ll give you 15% off.  Can’t beat that!

Go Broncos!

Most of you who bother to read this, I have to believe, have fairly  friendly feelings towards the store, so I will beg your forgiveness in advance and vent just a little.  Two recent events have just made me shake my head….really people?  Our technology guru, the wonderful Alden Nash, recently fixed whatever was wrong so that our WiFi works and I was so excited to see a customer using it!  She had connected on her blackberry/iphone/whatever and was going around the store ordering books from Amazon that she found cheaper than in our store…..

Tonight I again experienced a rush of excitement to see that someone had actually linked to our site on their blog!  This is so high tech, next we’ll go viral!   (I know, I know, wrong context).  Of course I had to check it right out.  Turns out he was making fun of one book that has been on our shelf “for years”  (he apparently checks every time he visits town) called “Did Jesus Live in 100 BC?”  He is such a techy that he managed to take a picture of the book on our shelf to illustrate this idiocy.  His faithful commentors decided that us having the book on our shelf was related to us discussing fruit recipe’s in our blog….hmmm. 

Moral of the story,  I had better reserve my excitement for the truly exciting events.  Like kids listening to stories, or finding a book for a student’s class, or someone’s favorite author.  Or maybe I should start responding to some of the spam comments that come in, now those promise REAL excitement.

Thanks again to all who make the store a fun place, and sometimes a funny place as well.

Diane

We lost another friend of East Side Books this week.  Derham Giuliani was one of those quiet and unassuming people who amazes you with a many faceted life as you get to know him over stacks of books.  In Derham’s case, it was usually stacks of books-on-tape that he listened to while traveling hundreds of miles to his “campsites”.  Derham studied nature, insects and butterflies, chipmunks and squirrels, all the little creatures that populate the desert.  I know he did field studies for other scientists as well as his own observations, but he never shared or bragged about his official job titles.  I do know he was an expert by any definition.  It always struck me as funny that he listened to so many police procedural mysteries and suspense books, plus a little romance or general literature, focused on the darker or odder side of human life when he was so grounded in the natural world. Then it dawned on me that he listened to those tapes because that is what we had on the shelf….like so many things he made do with what was available in order to do what he really loved, observing the earth’s creatures.  I am glad to know he was doing what he loved until he passed away, and I am happy to have known, even briefly,  a person who truly followed his passions with his life work.  He will be missed.

The river of books is once again in flood stage, and the shelves are bursting….. there is honestly no more room.  So as short as this buying period was I have to stop accepting books as of Monday, September 13.   I will try to open again October 1.

I am considering a new policy in order to minimize the uncertainty that now seems to plague us – Instead of accepting books until we burst, I would start accepting books to buy only the first week of every month.  Estates would be considered by appointment.  I am open to input, so please give me some feedback here or in person.  I would appreciate other ideas as well!

Where do the months go?  It is already September 6,  and I need to wrap up our August comment contests, and announce September’s….

So, for August the Comment winners are Jessica Burchett and Michel Wehrey.  They each won $25 gift certificates for the comments posted in August. 

With the changing seasons, rabbit brush blooming, and kids getting back into the school habit, my thoughts of September are always a little bittersweet and nostalgic.  In that frame of mind, our question for all of you this month is “What is your most fondly remembered book from  childhood, and what do you remember about it?”  If you are still in your childhood, just tell us about your favorite book so far.  If you are in your second or third childhood… well feel free to enter a comment on a favorite from each of those periods!

I really have so many fondly remembered books; how to pick a favorite?  I loved the Little House on the Prarie series, I loved my mom’s old Raggedy Ann storybook and another of her books about a giraffe racing a car with wonderful dramatic illustrations (that is probably a valuable one Mom!), and the book of poetry for children with the Calico Cat and the Gingham Dog poem, and Wynken Blynken and Nod… it is often tough to remember titles and authors, but I sure recognize them again when copies come through the store!  Probably the one book that I carried around the most and nearly memorized was a fat  Reader’s Digest compilation of Fairy Tales.  These were the traditional versions, full of graphic and violent justice (remember the evil stepmother drug in the barrel with nails?).  There was no doubt about whether good prevailed over evil in these pre-Disney stories.  The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen was my all time favorite, and I read many other translations after the Reader’s Digest volume, but have never been able to stomach the calypso Disney version. While I can appreciate Disney’s exuberance and beautiful animation in other tales, this was not a story with a happy ending, and making it one is a complete travesty.  What happened to those tough choices and lessons learned? 

Okay, time to hear about your memories!  Come browse the vintage children’s shelf if you need some help remembering!

Diane