summer reading

In between me nagging my daughters to read their assigned books for their honors English classes, I have managed to do a lot of reading this summer. I've almost completed the Flower Shop Mystery series and cracked open the latest title to be published, "Evil in Carnations" yesterday. I think I will move on to the Cleo Coyle Coffeeshop series when I get a chance. I'm also eagerly awaiting the new Janet Evanovich book, "Finger Lickin' Fifteen." I think some bookstore buddies and I have come up with a plan to allow several of us to read the book on only one 'check-out.' Evil laughter should ensue now........I love a good plan!

The bookstore is thriving this summer. We joined forces with the Young Adult department and are the source of their summer reading prizes. We've given away almost 100 books to YA readers. They read for ten hours and they get a coupon for a free book. The ironic thing is most of the books they can choose from were discards from the library's YA section.

Beyond the freebies, sales are UP. Yeah. I was a tad bit concerned when our weekly totals dropped during April and May. We've rebounded and are back to our old sales numbers. Good thing for all concerned. Folks are reading and we are making money.

The head children's librarian told me yesterday they signed up 1400 kids so far for the reading programs, children's and YA. That is a good number, but I can't remember if it is equal to what they've done in the past. Will have to investigate further next time I see her and she isn't swamped with wee ones looking for just that one certain book.

Today we are off to the high school to sell snack foods to the summer school students and raise money for the soccer boosters. Then the girls and I may see a movie, I'm thinking Sandy Bullock's new one, "The Proposal." Looks cute and most definitely a chick flick.

Our water leak was a minor fix and was resolved in less than an hour yesterday afternoon. The Town responded nicely and the plumber arrived on time and quickly had the problem corrected. Keeping my fingers crossed that we don't have any other 'joy of home ownership issues to resolve over the next several months.

what I noticed at B&N yesterday

I took the kids out to lunch yesterday at Red Robin for a special treat. We then went over to B&N since the youngest still had a gift card to use from Christmas. He debated for a while between getting a book and getting a game or puzzle. The store had several tables full of toys leftover from Christmas. He wound up selecting a logic game involving arranging planes on a grid like an air traffic controller would. He loves it, and his sisters are enjoying it too. Priced at half off, it was quite a deal.

What I noticed as we browsed the store were the number of 'sale' tables scattered everywhere. Usually they are clustered in one section by this point in the year. Not yesterday....sale tables in every aisle between the book stacks. Lots of books marked down and lots of other 'stuff' marked down too. I picked up a gorgeous Ravensberger puzzle marked half off for a niece. I may head back and do some other pre-event shopping.

A sideline note here....our used bookstore at the library is thriving. One of the big used book dealers shops us to stock his own store in the major metropolis west of me. He is coming in quite regularly of late, almost every 3 weeks. This indicates to me that his business is up.

It is all about price point. At what price do you let go of the money in your wallet?

Just so you won't despair, we did buy two full price items at B&N....middle daughter had to have the latest in the Clique series and the oldest loves logic puzzles and found a book full of them.

training day

I will be training new bookstore volunteers today. I believe three ladies will show up as two canceled late last week. I don't like to train more than five at a time, the smaller the class the more time they each have with the cash register.

Doing the laundry was the main focus for yesterday. When I have a busy Monday, I have to get ahead on Sunday and I managed to accomplish that.

I've started reading a new book....Carpe Demon by Julie Kenner. The blurb on the cover says the book is about a demon hunting soccer mom. Tickled my funny bone to read that and I commented to one of the volunteers in the store when I found it, that the book was about me! Not that I've been hunting demons of late, but I have done so in the past:) I have the soccer mom thing down pat.

This afternoon it is back to my genealogy work. My uncle emailed me today with a copy of a WWI draft registration card for one of my great grandfathers. I hadn't stumbled on that gem in my research, so it was a nice addition to my online collection of govt. forms.

I also need to run the vacuum today. The dog hair-fur balls are threatening to take over the house. The change in weather has really ramped up Duke's shedding....my pound hound is putting on his winter coat.

chatter and the big squeeze

Went with the hubby to the board appreciation shindig last night at our town hall. Glad I did. It is always a good thing to listen to what people are saying and watch who is talking/mingling.

What I did hear was that the budget will be tight this next year, just like in so many households around the country. Sales tax revenue is down. Building permits are down. The list goes on and on. As a result, town spending will be slimmed to meet the smaller revenue stream.

Of course I've known the Library has been asked to turn in a possible budget cut list. Interesting to me that in a time when library usage may increase, library services and staff could be squeezed.

So, keep using your public library....stats don't lie and they will insure that the appropriate piece of the pie is served.

Of course I'm involved with an amazing Friends of the Library group who make the money to provide the icing on the cake for our library. We may be asked for more in the years ahead.

I had a ball yesterday in the store. Lots of little readers as school was out for Veteran's Day. It is always fun to see what folks buy. I sold a Madeline 'big' book...I have two of them at home. Ones I purchased for my girls when they were very small. We were, and in some ways still are, all about the little girl in Paris who did everything in two straight lines! One of my girls even has a Madeline tee shirt she purchased at Delia's!

I also found a book to read....about an urban werewolf in Austin, Tx. So far, it is quite humorous. I managed to pick up the Stephanie Plum books 2-6 plus one of the 'between the numbers' titles to ship over to my Mom. She is still recuperating from her leg/ankle break.

It was a good, informative and full day.

bookstore news

I spent yesterday organizing my bookstore stuff. I cleaned out my binder, printed off some missing reports and tallied numbers. The store is officially over a year old now. Our anniversary was the week we closed for our big fall sale, but we are having our celebration this week. Cookies for customers begins today and repeats on Saturday.

Some of the numbers I tallied were amazing, even though I knew we were darn close to hitting the mark. Yep, the store raised $35,011.25 in our first year. That is gross sales...but even adjusted for the taxes we had to pay and the few supplies we had to purchase, it is a HUGE number. Our set up costs were under $12,000. We sold a lot of used reading and listening materials.

Our profits are rolled back to the library to buy everything from books to programming for them. What an amazing first year in business.

tightening the belt

The bookstore was busy yesterday. I actually had a customer who thanked us for opening the store. She is a cancer patient and said that we've helped her cope. She couldn't afford a regular bookstore price for books and was reluctant to take library books to the doctor's office for fear she'd leave them. In three hours we sold $75 in used books...that is a lot of books. And the great thing is many of those books will come back to us so we can sell them again, and again.

Went to the debate last night between the aldermen candidates and the three mayoral candidates. Find it so curious that several of them mentioned going to our state capital and DC to get money for our town. Okay, these same people rail against higher taxes and the 'pork' laden bills that leave Congress. Hello? Is anyone home? Where do they think that money comes from, the national money tree?

I finished the latest Betsy Taylor, queen of the vampires, book. With so much going on in my family life right now, I read this book pretty fast and didn't take the time to savor it. It took me away from my thoughts for a bit and on that basis alone, I'd give it a thumbs up.

Up next, The Heretic Queen by Michelle Moran.

book sale week

This week is all about getting ready for our big fall book sale. It starts today with the store, which is closed this week, and swapping out inventory. Going to be a busy four days for me.

Watched episode four of True Blood last night. Darn that Alan Ball...only had a few minutes of Eric on screen. Quite the smoldering, powerful Viking vampire, and I hope next week's episode has him on screen longer.

Speaking of Sookie and co., the interview last week went really well. The reporter and I talked for an hour. It was fun. She interviews Charlaine Harris on Tuesday, so the article should be in the paper later this week. I hope it runs before I leave with the family for the soccer tournament this weekend. Guess I can always check it out online.

No books in the tbr pile. Although I never know what I will find when we start unpacking the stuff for the sale. Sometimes a treasure or two gets stashed away.

sort day

Thursday is the day the Friends group meets at the library to sort, shelve or box the donations. I'm always interested to see what titles are donated to the library. Of late, our nonfiction donations are outpacing the fiction donations. Self help is the biggest nonfiction category we receive. I guess we have lots of people out there trying to fix themselves.

After self help, we receive a lot of books on religion/inspiration. Not sure if that is a reflection of where I live, the buckle of the bible belt, or another larger trend.

We do receive a fair number of professional/trade books. The how-to sort of stuff ranging from computers to management. Quite a few medical books as well.

History books, political science books, travel books etc are also usually represented. We do receive more fiction books than these last nonfiction categories.

I'm not a nonfiction book reader. I read to be entertained, to be taken away, to escape the humdrum day to day routine. Apparently, more folks out there read nonfiction. Or, do they just hold onto the fiction titles and collect them? Right now we need romance books for the store....and for our big book sale coming up in a few weeks. Guess those romance readers are reluctant to part with their books.

used bookstore observations

For the last two weeks I have been helping to restock our used bookstore at the library. This is beyond what I normally do as the 'manager.' I have some very capable gals who normally take care of this on an almost daily basis. One of them, however, has taken a long summer vacation and I volunteered to help the other gal get this very important work completed.

The first thing we do is sort through all of the donations that have come in since last Thursday. You see, Thursday is when the BIG sort happens. I'm talking 10 folks come in each week and sort, box and haul an entire week's worth of donations. On Monday, the store stockers do a presort. They go through and separate all the nonfiction, the hardback fiction, the standard size paperback fiction and trade sized fiction. Any remarkable nonfiction is taken to the storage closet and the store if filled from there. Same thing for all the fiction.

The trick comes in when you are trying to fill the shelves and keep coming across titles that we already have on the shelf. We try to not have duplicates in the store. So, when it seems that all you have is Brown, Baldacci, Grisham, Roberts etc in the store, most likely we have 2-3 additional copies of that title in the storage closet.

Yep, we are heavy on the bestsellers. Coming across a midlist author is like finding a diamond whether it be in hardback or paperback. We look for unknown or lesser known names. We give a shout of glee when we find them. Often I will turn them face out to encourage a customer to at least pick the darn book up and give it a test drive.

For a while our inventory of romance paperbacks was slim. Now we've had a run on trade sized paperbacks. Oh, I have enough Anita Shreve and Ya Ya's to choke a horse, but beyond them, not much to choose from in the storage closet. Still plenty of non-romance paperbacks to stock.

The other thing, our sales are exploding. Not sure if it is summer. Maybe the price of gas is keeping people home more and on the couch reading.

Just a few observations from the trenches.