I don’t have enough time to add pictures or comments on the huge new selection of art & craft books, but OH MY GOODNESS! If you are interested in quilting, weaving, other fiber arts, dollcrafting, papermaking, soft jewelry, etc, please hurry in and check out our new batch. Be sure to ask, we may still have a stack behind the counter waiting to be scanned and inventoried. Time to be creative!
Category Archives: Latest Finds
New in World War II – Complete Time Life Series
If you have been in the store, you know we have an overflowing World War II section. There is just so much written about it, and as a history buff, I can’t pass them up. So why add another shelf full? Because they are so good! Many people have shelves full of Time Life series at home, or our parents do, so you may not take another look. If you have not read them though, they are excellent, easy to read, well illustrated, great for kids or adults… can’t beat them.
This is the most complete selection of the World War II series we’ve ever had. If you are missing a few, or just want to learn more about the War, please come and see our selection!
Local Foods, Local Gardens, Local Books on all of them!
I was thrilled last Friday evening after closing the store to actually remember and then to not have other obligations that required scurrying off somewhere – I got to shop our new Friday Farmer’s Market! Still small, but wonderful all the same. I am glad it is on Friday’s now! I bought beautiful beets from Bishop Creek Farms and spinach from Banner Springs. Their arugula looked great too, but that is flourishing in my garden. I also tasted salad offerings from TheSecretSandwichSociety, yummy. If that society is still secret to you, you need to check out their website and order some lunches to be delivered in Bishop via bicycle. Their menu has vegan choices and is all healthy and conscientious, as well as delicious. Make sure to use The in the web address or you will be ordering from New Hampshire or someplace, which defeats the whole local concept!
We had such a late spring that my own garden is slow and looking a little stunted. Just last night though, we ate our first little squash in a quiche also made with our own ham and eggs. We also had a nice arugula salad, which my kids were not crazy about, but I liked. I get tired and frustrated with my gardening efforts sometimes, but when most of the meal was produced by me or people I know, it really does make me feel happy and a little virtuous. I am also happy, ecstatic actually, to see more and more local food options popping up around the Owens Valley. Check out the UCCE Master Gardener’s of Inyo Mono handbook for a nice list if you’ve missed them. Bishop Creek Farms mentioned a Facebook page as well to check out. Of course you can come by the Farmer’s Market tomorrow night and talk to Master Gardeners in person (you can get started on a fall garden you know) and the other producers as well as craftspeople. Mammoth’s Farmer’s Market is on Wednesday nights if you live to the north.
Do I have a book tie-in? Of course I do! If you have not yet read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal Vegetable Miracle, come pick up the one copy we still have on the shelf. She is just a wonderful writer, and even vegans I know loved her chapter on butchering turkeys! While her current location in rural Virginia makes eating locally (food produced within 100 miles) a little easier than in the Owens Valley, she makes the effort seem worthwhile, or more like essential, and very doable. Plus she includes recipes! Another writer who beautifully inspires us to treasure those heirlooms and regional specialties is David Mas Masumoto, a peach grower in the Fresno area (Fresno is within 100 miles as the crow flies…..). He wrote the classic An Epitaph for a Peach, as well as Letters to the Valley (signed copy on the shelf now) and Harvest Son. Well worth reading. Also pulled from the shelf, Fading Feast by Raymond Sokolov looks fascinating as well. It is “a compendium of disappearing American regional foods”, things like Smithfield Ham, Minnesota Wild rice and abalone from La Jolla. It has recipes and pictures, and is part travel memoir to boot! The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan has been making news for quite some time on the scary science behind the other end of the food spectrum, we also have High Tech Harvest by Paul Lurquin and similar titles if you need more convincing. More fun reading looks like Blithe Tomato by Mike Madison, “an insider’s wry look at farmers’ market society”. I don’t think our Bishop Farmer’s Market has quite reached society status yet, but it is fun and shopping feels like joining a burgeoning movement.
Don’t forget all of the excellent gardening books on our shelves as well, from Sunset Western Gardening to classics on pruning and JI Rodale’s Earthworm’s are Our Friends. I am sorely tempted to take that one home every time I see it, so please come rescue it !
Not sure what to do with some of those beautiful beets? Here is a favorite recipe from Nigella Lawson’s Forever Summer cookbook. Her cookbooks are a pure joy to read, and laugh-out-loud funny at times. (We have her memoir on the shelf too, did I mention that?) She says this recipe is vaguely Scandinavian, to be served with Hasselback Potatoes and salmon, which I of course do.
Raw Beet, Dill and Mustard Seed Salad
big bunch fresh dill (apx 6 T when chopped)
18 oz raw beets ( I have no idea how much is 18 oz of beets, I use about 4-5 med to large beets per recipe)
juice of 1 lemon
2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
2 TS mustard seeds
a spoonful or so of chopped fresh flat leaf parsley for garnish
Blitz dill in food processor to chop. Use julienne or grating disc in food processor to grate peeled, raw beets. (Nigella’s quote here on peeling beets – “I use rubber gloves for this, so I’m not like Lady Macbeth with my incarnadined hands forever.” Personally I never have rubber gloves handy, so live with red hands, it does not last forever!)
Turn beets into bowl with dill and toss. Squeeze the lemon juice over, drizzle in the olive oil and toss again. Use a nonstick or heavy frying pan (cast iron works great) to toast the mustard seeds for a couple of minutes. Add to beet and dill salad and toss again. Sprinkle with some reserved dill and/or parsley for a “final uplifting hit of more vibrant green”. (Gotta love Nigella’s use of language!:)
She says you can use parsley or any herby combination you are in the mood for if you can’t find fresh dill, but I would not give up the dill.
Garden fresh, it is one of the best parts of summer. Along with reading a great book, or reading a great book about gardening. And do you have any ideas for arugula? Come see us.
Newly filled shelves – great summer reading!
The benefit of having SO many books coming in recently is some newly well stocked sections. Need some fun, light summer reading? The Romance corner has been completely reworked and restocked. We have an amazing selection of Nora Roberts, Nicole Jordan, Joan Johnston, Debbie Macomber, Linda Lael Miller, and many more popular authors. Plus the Regency Romance Shelf, the Paranormal Romance Shelf, and the Vintage Gothic Romance section are filled with new titles, although they are still lacking signs, so just ask if you don’t see them!
If you are in the mood for self improvement, Self Help, Spirituality and Health sections have many new titles as well, can’t go wrong there!
Thanks for checking them out.
Children's Book Sale, Plus Great New Stock!
If you are filling up a summer reading bag, now is the perfect time to come in. Our children’s room is stuffed to the gills with new material, especially hard to find Newbery Award winners, high quality picture books, and a wonderful selection of children’s history. While Nancy Drew is still a little thin (on the shelf of course), we have many other great series to investigate. And the best news? We’ve put all Children’s and Young Adult books on sale for June! You will save 10% on any Children’s books, or a big 20% if you buy 8 or more titles!
Here are some of the recent history acquisitions to entice you….
Wonderful Vintage Girls Series Just In!
Most of us (women anyway) grew up with Nancy Drew (although I confess a preference for The Hardy Boys myself), but do you remember The Bobbsey Twins, Happy Hollisters, or maybe Trixie Belden or Cherry Ames? Well the spunky mystery solving girl series are even older than those classics, and we just got a huge batch in of wonderful 1900 to 1930 editions. We have 18 titles from The Outdoor Girls by Laura Lee Hope and about ten volumes of The Campfire Girls series by Hildegard G. Frey. Numerous other authors wrote for the Campfire Girls, but we only have books by Frey.
As summarized in Manybooks.com, The Outdoor Girls series is a product of the Stratemeyer Syndicate and was published from 1913 to 1933 by Grosset & Dunlap and focuses on the various activities of a group of girls who form a Camping and Tramping Club. As a result of the girls’ outdoor activities they become known as the “Outdoor Girls” in their city of Deepdale, a city located on the Argono River in New York. Apparently tramping had a kinder connotation in those decades. Laura Lee Hope, or the multiple writers using that penname, also wrote the Bobbsey Twins series, and while I have not yet read the Outdoor Girls, I imagine they share a similar sweetness and the demonstrations of good characters with those sets of twins. The frontis piece art is wonderful, and portray some action packed adventures, in ladylike bloomers of course! We have 17 great titles to choose from, a few loose hinges and frayed corners, but generally in good or good plus condition.
An ad for the Campfire Girls series from Grosset & Dunlap states:
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I’m not sure how “up to date” these girls will seem now, but they are still charming, and fairly spunky, and apparently clean despite their outdoor lifestyle. Our 9 copies have a few loose pages, but again are generally in good condition with attractive covers and frontis piece art. I particularly appreciate the alternate titles, The Campfire Girls Do their Bit, for example, is alternately titled Over the Top with the Winnebagos. The frontis piece illustration shows a campfire girl rescuing a pilot from a plane crashed into a swamp…Now that title combination is intriguing! Most of these books are priced at $9.00.
Don’t you know someone who would love these series? They are so much fun!
Woodworking Wonders – a great new batch!
For the woodworking and carpentry aficionados, or the wannabees, we have just processed a great batch of books on home building, remodeling, carpentry, tools, and woodworking. There is a nice selection from the Fine Woodworking series, such as Handtools, Proven Shop Tips, Refinishing and Woodworking Machines. 
There are many more interesting titles on hand tools, including Sharpening Basics by Patrick Spielman, and the one I particularly like, Build Your Own Mobile Power Tool Centers, now that is efficiency! For the more philosophical approach, you may want to read Woodworking Book 1; Plane Perfect by Ian J. Kirby, it really is a whole book on hand planes! There are some excellent flyfishing books in this batch too….Fathers Day is coming up!
Road Trip for Spring Break?
Do you actually get to to go away for spring break? If so, you are in luck, we just received a nice selection of fast paced suspense books-on-cd; the kind that will eat up the miles and keep you awake between Lone Pine and Adelanto. Favorite authors in this batch include Iris Johanson, James Patterson, John Grisham, Jonathan Kellerman, and many more.
If you don’t have to drive, how about reading some by the Queen of Mystery – PD James? We have the best selection we have ever had right now, surely there are some you haven’t read! We are also well stocked on another Brit mystery favorite, Martha Grimes.
Writers, Warriors and Warrior Poets
An alert for readers interested in military history, poetry, writing, or soldiers who write poetry …. We just processed a great batch of specialized military history books, including a very hard to find description of the Soviet battle disaster of Kharkov against Nazi Germany in World War 2. (What started offensively by both sides turned into a rout and nearly 300,000 casualties for the Soviets. Details of the disaster were kept secret until the late 1990’s, when this book was written). Aspiring authors should check out some of the new writing books, as well as poetry. Finally, my son finished with his stack of World War 1 books for his history paper, so that section is full again as well. Don’t forget history books are on sale this month too!
Here’s some examples: (if I can get the pictures to load correctly)
What is a Regency Romance?
East Side Books owner Diane and I stand in the Romance section and look at a new display of books.
“These are called Regencies,” Diane says. She shows me the word “Regency” on the spine of a book she plucks from a wire rack. “I thought it was a publisher, but then I discovered that it is a specific type of romance novel written in the Regency period in England.” She flips through the pages.
Feeling slightly ignorant, I ask, “When was the Regency Period?”
“Jane Austin’s time–1830 to 1850 or so.” She straightens a couple books on the rack, and whispers, “When there is a woman on the front cover in an empire dress, I know they are a Regency.”
I look at the rows of books. A high waisted dress, gathered just under generous breasts, on every single cover.
“Oh,” says a customer sitting not far from us, holding a couple romance novels in her hand. “I use to read Regency novels all the time. I loved them! Especially Georgette Heyer. She was absolutely wonderful. Barbara Cartland wrote some Regency romances also, but Heyer was the best.” She sighs happily and smiles. “How I loved those books.”
Curious, upon returning home I googled “Regency romance novels.” It turns out that Regencies are actually a subgenre of romance novels. The requirement to be a Regency is that it be set during the early 1800’s and be a “novel of manners” in the tradition of Jane Austen. Of course, the heroines have to wear empire dresses.
And our customer was right. Georgette Heyer (1902-1974) was the master of Regency novels. In fact, she invented the genre of historical romances and the more specific Regency romances with the release of Regency Buck in 1935. It became a instant bestseller, and Heyer went on to publish over fifty more novels.
Heyer’s claim to fame was the enormous amount of detail that she included in her stories that aided in setting a mood and tone. Since Austen was writing within her time period, she could eliminate the minute details of dress and decor, but Heyer had to include great descriptions to set the Regency atmosphere. Attention to detail became her passion, and it is said that at the time of her death she owned over 1,000 historical reference books. Despite the popularity of her books and accuracy of historical detail, Heyer was ignored by the critics. She, herself once said, “I think myself that I ought to be shot for writing such nonsense…But it’s unquestionably good escapist literature and I think I should rather like it if I were sitting in an air-raid shelter or recovering from the flu.”
Barbara Cartland (1901-2000), “Queen of Romance,” is also well known for her Regency novels although she did not limit her romances to that time period as Heyer did. Cartland, who died in 2000, formerly held the Guinness World Record for the most novels written in a single year–23 in 1983 at the age of 82. She published 883 manuscripts, and over a billion copies of her books have been sold.
Beginning in the 1990s, Recencies began to lose popularity among the romance reading set. These days only a handful of “traditional” Regencies are still published. To help increase readership, current Regency authors throw in a bit more sexuality–an addition that would have shocked Heyer and Cartland, and definitely not fallen within the permissible boundaries of Jane Austen’s world.
But just within the last year or so, Regencies have made a big comeback. Their popularity is on the upswing, and Regency writers such as Mary Balogh, Cathy Maxwell, and Eloisa James as well as Heyer and Cartland are being rediscovered and enjoyed. Since Regency publication has dwindled, the best place to find Regency romances is at your local used bookstore.
So all you romantics, come on down to East Side Books and browse our new Recency rack located in our Romance section. You can’t miss it, just look for the empire dresses, but if you need help, ask one of our staff for assistance.
