This morning I said good bye to a dear friend who has been such a huge part of our store.  Robert Bruce Miller (11/6/1923 – 1/9/2016) passed away  early today very quickly and peacefully.

i can’t really write about this yet.  After leaving the hospital though,  my first thought was to walk down Mandich Street to Sunland as the sun was rising and the ravens called.  This was Bob’s traditional “early” walk, to assess the day and note the trees, horses,  birds and mountains.  This is where he spent hours and weeks drawing the two cottonwoods and many other pieces.  As the hives are traditionally informed when a beekeeper passes, his trees know he is In a new place too.  I’m sure they will spread the word.

Walk in peace Bob.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of our great customers!  It has been a short year, with a lot of progress for the store and more improvement to look forward to.  I’m asked daily how the new location is doing, and I am optimistic.  However,  I’d like to request your continued support in the coming year as we haven’t quite hit a viable level yet.  It certainly takes a village to keep books available in the village, and I know if you are reading this, you have been one of the reasons the doors are still open.  We sincerely thank you.

Wishing all of you a happy and healthy 2016 with plenty of reading time.

Best wishes,

Diane & Dave Doonan, and Courtney, Lindsey, Jill, Celica and Jill

Much has already been said to eulogize local resident James Wilson whose death saddened and shocked the community last week .  All of us here at Range & River Books want to express our sincere condolences to his family and friends.  He will be so, so missed.

I also have a personal note of appreciation in memoriam.  James was a frequent customer, sometimes finding a new old birding book,  sometimes just looking over the stock, and sometimes clearing his own shelves.  I saved up questions to ask him when he came in, like the benefits of being open Sunday, and he fielded them with honesty, patience and genuine interest.  As we considered moving the store, his insights were invaluable and his support for making the move certainly helped inspire the difficult decision. We spent a lot of time discussing what it is that keeps a book store viable in this age of fading interest, and what a new name should be since East Side would conflict with guess which store on Main Street.  Of course, since we were relocating to the building he had occupied in earlier years, he also had both humorous and practical advice on dealing with this old building!

I appreciated his and his wife Kay’s commitment to voting with their dollars, including support for local food at the Jr. Livestock Auction and my offspring’s grass fed beef business, as well as supporting the bookstore. I enjoyed too his glow of pride talking about his own daughter, and then grandchild.  He followed his passions, loved his family, and upheld his values, which is an example for all of us.

In what turned out to be his last visit to our store, he was still trying to brainstorm ideas that would improve sales and keep us afloat.  As he left, he leaned in and said, “you know, a community needs a bookstore”.  I agree James.  Thank you.

I wrote about giving my children Summer Book Bags several years ago, and rereading that post of course brought all those changes to mind that four short years make in a child’s life.  Now my baby is teetering on the edge of adult hood, one child is working out of state all summer, and one has graduated and has his own business.  Big sigh.  But I still have one book bag to get ready,  plenty of graduation gifts, and an isolated son without television or  cell service, so it is time to get busy!

As I wrote before, Summer Book Bags are my traditional gift to my kids as they finish the school year.  I tried to mark  the transition, celebrate their perseverance and hard work, acknowledge their new interests and ensure they had books available that they just might read, and frequently did. Finally, as I wrote four years ago, I give my kids books as a way to celebrate their hard work through the year, but also acknowledge that learning is really their own responsibility, in or out of school.   My daughter included “you made me love reading” as one of her appreciation notes for Mother’s Day (in Spanish, so I’m not sure if that “made” was a vocabulary limitation or as harsh as it sounds, but there it is!), so I think the availability of books worked at some level!  I always cringe a little bit when parents interrogate their children as to whether they will really read this  $1.50 book before they up and  buy it.  Maybe I gave my kids too many books, but really, when you can fill a bag with books under $4 each, and compare it to the price of other treats and entertainments, and expand their little minds at the same time…..well really, are there too many books?

Our shopping bags will make a perfect container for your family’s book bags, and we are happy to help fill them.  We can help meet most any budget, lots of interest areas,  and will even tie on a bow if you would like.  Or, go sign up for the Library’s Summer Reading Program as a tradition with your child, or give a gift certificate if you would rather they pick their own books.  I won’t rant here about the value of reading, and the excesses of screen time, blah, blah, but trust me as a parent of nearly all adult children who I’m pretty proud of, “making” them love reading is not a bad thing.  And if they are not reading, send them outside!

Our kids face so many unknowns, and conditions we have not yet seen in the world.  But the collective wisdom of thousands of years of humanity is still contained in books, and  inspiration, knowledge, empathy, and humor can still be found inside them.  Surely that will help them navigate, right?

Happy summer friends.

Cute, cute, cute!  Come in for our latest craft additon from our very own Courtney McElvogue – crocheted coffee cozies!  I’ll throw in a free cup of coffee if you get one…

We are excited to announce that Range & River Books started an email newsletter this week!  While it will contain links to our blog posts, it will also have interesting new content and store information as well.  Along with book reviews, news of interesting stock, vintage treasures and the like, in books, we will be featuring fun stuff left behind in books, updates on local food and agriculture, historic tidbits, and community activities.

So, if you love books and want to find out all the latest information, please consider signing up for the newsletter.  We promise to never share our email list, and we will not flood your inbox.  The newsletter will only come out once per month with a few special editions to announce events.  Let us know if you have suggestions or comments too!

View the debut issue here:  April E-newsletter: Poetry Readings and bookstore news worth reading