It’s August, my favorite month of the year, because this month independent bookstores celebrate Romance books and all things related to its writing, publishing, and selling. There’s all sorts of statistics and data I could share on the popularity of Romance, the rise and evolution of the content, and much more. Instead, I’d like to focus on the fact that many wonderful, popular, Third Place staff-loved titles straddle genres. Chances are, if you’ve loved what we have recommended in our stores, there’s a Romance for your tastes.
Do you miss the days of checking off a book for summer reading? Do you want to reclaim those days where you had to read during your summer break off from school? Do you just need an excuse to read? Well, you're in luck! Seattle Arts & Lectures and the Seattle Public Library announced on May 25th the squares for this year's Summer Book Bingo.
Growing up I was fascinated by popular culture featuring obsession. The 2004 film Phantom of the Opera was viewed many times in my household. Helga’s obsession with Arnold in the Nickelodeon series Hey Arnold! was and is one of my favorite television plots. My cousin and I must have watched the 2009 masterpiece Obsessed starring Idris Elba, Beyoncé Knowles and Ali Larter (in which Ali Larter’s character is obsessed with Idris Elba’s character who is married to Beyoncé’s character) a dozen times. I was obsessed with obsession!
If you've graduated from something, there's a good chance you received a certain book. And if you're trying to find a gift for a current graduate there's also a good chance that someone else has already bought this book.
Here are some different ideas.
Happy first week of Dracula Daily for those who celebrate!
For the uninitiated, Dracula is an epistolary novel, told via letters, diaries, and telegrams that are all dated between May and November. Dracula Daily is a Substack which sends you an email with the content that occurs on each appropriate day. As a result, you read Dracula a little at a time over the course of six months, right in your email.
In honor of Earth Day, we collected some books about climate change, apocalypse, and saving the world.
We’ve all hit a wall at some point in our reading lives, right?
Sometimes a book is so good it’s impossible to follow up. Sometimes, a book is so bad we forget that reading is fun. Sometimes a book is good but I’m not in the mood to read it and now I’m 139 pages in and I refuse to put it down because no really, it’s very good, I just don’t want to read it right this second, but I will tomorrow hopefully, or maybe the next day.
My point is that there are any number of reasons you might find yourself struggling to pick up any book at all.
Last year I made a haft-seen for a book display and blog post. I received immense support from staff and customers. It made me so happy watching people take photos of the table and asking me about it. So this year it was a no-brainer to make another one.
Now it holds more weight with the crisis occurring in Iran.
Recently I’ve been trained to work on what is sometimes called the “Buy Counter” at Ravenna, where we take a look at the books customers bring in for store credit and that we may choose to buy for our store inventory. I’d never done that kind of work, and it interested me a bit, but the best part was that as the Children’s Book lead at the store, I could help determine which kids used books will do best for our customers.
Reading “classic” books never goes out of style, and there are so many reasons customers come in looking for a new copy of an old favorite. Check out these gorgeous and affordable new editions:
