Live music today at the bookstore 3-6pm!

Reisterstown local Nathan Rabe plays folk, alternative and Contemporary Christian music. Cookies and Tea/Coffee/Cocoa will be available.

Tea with Kids' Authors tomorrow 3-5!

Join children’s authors Susan Detwiler, Edith Hemingway, Mona Kerby, and Lois Szymanski. The books range from Kindergarten-ages up to Tweens. Buy a signed book as a gift! Cookies and Tea/Coffee/Cocoa will be available.

Happy Vernal Equinox! Folk Music tomorrow with Steve Haug

Cookies and Tea/Coffee/Cocoa will be available. Steve has an extensive list of songs you can request! You can sample Steve's work at http://www.stevehaug.com/

3-6pm

Race and bookcovers

This was a very thought-provoking post - Alaya Johnson talks about her book cover on Justine Larbelestier's blog. It reminds my why I shelve Sister Souljah and Toni Morrison in the General Fiction section --- and Octavia Butler in SFF.

Good stories are good stories, regardless of the author's or protagonist's supposed skin color.
Lauretta

Amazon and Apple in a Cold War with the public and publishers in the cross-fire

I feel like playing the theme from "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly."

The New York Times reported yesterday that Amazon and Apple are manuvering around each other, using the publishers as pawns. There are three things about this article that catch our interest.

Amazon is threatening to stop selling books for certain publishers again. At issue this time is the requirement Apple wants publishers to guarantee their eBooks will not be published elsewhere for less than the iBookstore price. So the publishers are in renegotiations with Amazon...and its getting ugly.

The Bad: When Amazon refuses to sell a book, the publishers lose out, but so do the readers and the authors. Yes, the prices may go so high the readers won't buy the book, but that effects a market correction. If the prices go so low no one makes a profit, publishers go under, fewer books get published and the reader loses out.

The Good: Apple's iBookstore is actively recruiting the small and medium size publishers, which is great for readers. There is a LOT of wonderful material out there from the smaller publishers and promoting readership via the eBook format will only benefit us all.

What do you think?
Lauretta

Baltimore Free Writers meet this Wednesday, 6-7pm

We'll host the Baltimore Free Writers group this Wednesday, March 17th (St. Pat's Day!), 6-7pm.
Hmn, how many Irish themes can you think of?
I can think of:

The early Irish Church as portrayed by Peter Tremayne's stories.
St. Patrick and the early history of the Romans in Ireland.
Leprechauns. :)
The American and Australian Irish Imigrant experience.

Anything else?
Lauretta

The day the snowbank died!

Today's the day the last of the snow in front of the bookstore will melt...in memoriam, I offer

Snowbank died!
(to the tune of American Pie by Don McClean)
Lauretta Nagel

A long, long time ago...
I can still remember
How th’ snowstorms used to make me smile.
And I knew if I stayed in that I could see those kiddies grin
And, maybe, they’d be happy for a while.

But February made me shiver
With every snowstorm it delivered.
Bad news on the doorstep;
I couldn’t take one more step.

I can’t remember if I sighed
Or laughed in joy when Sun I spied
But something touched me deep inside
The day the snowbank died…

And we were singin’


“Go, go!” to the remnants of snow,
Took my backhoe and my snowplow but the snowbank won’t go
Them icicles were drippin’ water and ice
Singin’ this’ll be the day the bank dies
Singin’ this’ll be the day the bank dies…

Did you lose a pair of gloves and do you have faith in th’ Sun above?
If the weather tells you so…

Do you believe in salt and sand,
Can rock salt save your blistered hand,
And can you teach me how to gently land?

Well, I know that you’re fed up with snow
`cause I saw you yellin’ at the plow.
You just dug out the ca-ar.
For the 40th time so fa–ar…

You were a lonely teenage bronckin’ buck
With a plow attachment and a pickup truck,
But you knew you were out of luck
The day the snowbank died.

And we were SINGIN’ (EVERYBODY IN THE MID-ATLANTIC!)


“Go, go!” to the remnants of snow,
Took my backhoe and my snowplow but the snowbank won’t go
Them icicles were drippin’ water and ice
Singin’ this’ll be the day the bank dies

Thank you. No money will be made, nor was any disrespect intended...
Lauretta

Wine Tasting with Nathan Rabe Friday, 6-9pm

Friday, March 5, 2010, 6-9pm

Join us for wine, munchies, coffee, tea and cocoa. Live music will be provided by Reisterstown local Nathan Rabe.

Finalists for the Indies Choice Book Awards

Your local, independent booksellers (including yours truly) will be voting on the following books for the Indies Choice Book Awards, which reflect the spirit of independent bookstores and the IndieBound movement. The winners, to be announced in April, will be honored at BookExpo America 2010 in New York City. If you see a particular favorite below, please comment or stop in and let us know!

The 2010 Indies Choice Book Awards Finalists are:

BOOK OF THE YEAR -- ADULT FICTION

Border Songs, by Jim Lynch (Knopf)
Brooklyn, by Colm Toibin (Scribner)
The Children's Book, by A.S. Byatt (Knopf)
Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese (Knopf)
Generosity: An Enhancement, by Richard Powers (FSG)
Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel (Holt)

BOOK OF THE YEAR -- ADULT NONFICTION

Animals Make Us Human, by Temple Grandin (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Lit: A Memoir, by Mary Karr (HarperCollins)
The Lost City of Z, by David Grann (Doubleday)
Stitches: A Memoir, by David Small (W.W. Norton)
Strength in What Remains, by Tracy Kidder (Random House)
When Everything Changed, by Gail Collins (Little, Brown)

BOOK OF THE YEAR -- ADULT DEBUT

The Earth Hums in B Flat, by Mari Strachan (Canongate)
The Help, by Kathryn Stockett (Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam)
The Piano Teacher, by Y.K. Lee (Viking)
The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet, by Reif Larson (Penguin Press)
Still Alice, by Lisa Genova (Pocket)
Tinkers, by Paul Harding (Bellevue Literary Press)

BOOK OF THE YEAR -- YOUNG ADULT

Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic)
Going Bovine, by Libba Bray (Delacorte Books for Young Readers)
If I Stay, by Gayle Forman (Dutton Juvenile)
Leviathan, by Scott Westerfeld, Keith Thompson (illus.) (Simon Pulse)
Shiver, by Maggie Stiefvater (Scholastic)
Wintergirls, by Laurie Halse Anderson (Viking Juvenile)

BOOK OF THE YEAR -- MIDDLE READER

Al Capone Shines My Shoes, by Gennifer Choldenko (Dial)
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, by Jacqueline Kelly (Holt)
Odd and the Frost Giants, by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins)
A Season of Gifts, by Richard Peck (Dial)
When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead (Wendy Lamb Books)
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, by Grace Lin (Little, Brown)

BOOK OF THE YEAR -- NEW PICTURE BOOK

All the World, by Liz Garton Scanlon, Maria Frazee (illus.) (Beach Lane Books)
The Curious Garden, by Peter Brown (Little, Brown)
The Lion and the Mouse, by Jerry Pinkney (Little, Brown)
Listen to the Wind, by Greg Mortenson, Susan Roth (illus.) (Dial)
Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11, by Brian Floca (Richard Jackson Books)
Otis, by Loren Long (Philomel)

MOST ENGAGING AUTHOR
(The author who is an in-store star as well as having a strong sense of the importance of indie booksellers to the community.)

Isabel Allende
Laurie Halse Anderson
Libba Bray
Michael Chabon
Kate DiCamillo
Abraham Verghese

PICTURE BOOK HALL OF FAME

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day, by Judith Viorst and Ray Cruz (Atheneum)
Bread and Jam for Frances, by Russell Hoban and Lillian Hoban (HarperCollins)
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, by Bill Martin, Jr., John Archambault, and Lois Ehlert (Simon & Schuster)
Corduroy, by Don Freeman (Viking)
Curious George, by H.A. Rey (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Goodnight Gorilla, by Peggy Rathmann (Putnam)
Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse, by Kevin Henkes (Greenwillow)
The Little Engine That Could, by Watty Piper (Grosset & Dunlap/Philomel)
Madeline, by Ludwig Bemelmans (Viking)
Napping House, by Audrey Wood (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
The Snowy Day, by Ezra Jack Keats (Viking)
Stellaluna, by Janelle Cannon (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
The Story of Ferdinand, by Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson (Viking)

Lauretta