Guest Post: Dellylu's Favorite Bookstore

My favourite bookstore ever is Berkelouw Books.

               

 It reminds me of my gram's house because of its smell. I don't know why though.  

                                       

                                           

  I bought a gorgeous drawing book there. So I'm non stop drawing.

Anyway, It doesn't only have books, it also has a little section with little trinkets like, pretty journals, nice smelling candles, book bags, pencils, and lots more.

I spend hours there, and I like looking at the little shops around there.

TTFN (tata for now) Dellylu :)

PS sorry for not posting in awhile!

Independent Bookstores: Copperfield Books

(Repost of a missing post as yet unrestored by Blogger)

When people go to drink wine in California, most of the time they think of Napa County, an area just north northeast of San Francisco, but given a choice, I'm going to go where most people aren't, in this case, that place is Sonoma County, which lies due north of San Francisco, one imaginary line away from it's "sexier" neighbor.  

I love Napa County, and Sonoma County isn't exactly deserted but when I see limousines pull into a grape farm, I get the distinct feeling the experience is more Hollywood than Healdsburg, and I'll take Healdsburg over Hollywood anyday.

Hollywood and Vine:::::::Matheson and West

 Healdsburg is Andy and Aunt Bee's Mayberry with good restaurants, cute shoes and a Copperfield Book Store, one of the reasons I fell in love with this small Sonoma county town.  

The lovely thing about opening your own chain of book stores as Barney Brown and Paul Jaffe have done, is that you can make each one an experience unique to its surroundings, not that there's anything wrong with comforting homogeneity, but when you have to leave a bookstore to go see what town you're in, maybe a little shakeup is in order.

 Bovolo is one such shakeup.

There are any number of bookstores where you can get Corporate Coffee at five bucks a pop, but how many book stores will sell you a salted caramel affogato at 9am.  

The unbelievably good restaurant attached to the bookstore, Bovolo will do so.  They also offer things like hot apple fritters served with a maple crème fraiche dipping sauce, but I was shocked to find there are limits to how much sugar I can eat before noon.
    
Healdsburg is also in an area that smart rich authors flock to for its physical beauty and for the short hour drive from San Francisco so you're likely to get a signed book like the one my husband picked up, though in the case of his book, I doubt the physicists who signed his copy of ? are rich.  

They may be famous, just not to me.  

Have I mentioned my husband is an extreme geek? 

 In fact, I'd give you the title of the book, but he's not here right now and neither is the book.  He carries it with him in his briefcase.  I'm not sure why. It's not very helpful in his job but maybe the laugh factor is.  

There's a chapter on why the government insists your wine be radioactive or you can't buy it.  Turns out radioactivity is the only way the government knows how to tell your wine was made from grapes instead of crude oil, which suggest government employees should drink more wine.  

I think the DMV experience would be vastly improved should they decide to take up my suggestion.  I know mine would if I was drinking.

By the time I write my own bargain book adventure for Bargain Book Bonanza, I'll try to get it away from him long enough to share it with you, but until then, if you're wandering around north of San Francisco, stop in at one of the Copperfield Book stores and hug someone.

If you stop in at the one in Healdsburg, have an affogato while you're there.

The nice smart people who make it for you will even explain to you what you're drinking, unless it was just my clueless facial expression which led to this largess.

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Independent Bookstores: City Lights

The kindle has changed my book buying experience irrevocably.  

Gone are the days when I would wander through the shelves of the "big book store", and you know who you are. In fact, since I started using my kindle, I'm ashamed to say I haven't even walked inside a library.  

There are too many free books to be had for this e-reader to use what little time I do have in the pursuit of what may or may not be a decent book.

All this changed two weeks ago in San Francisco.

I went inside the veritably hallowed ground of City Lights Bookstore for the first time in years and remembered something about what a book store is and why I should take myself into them.


 For the young or the underexposed, City Lights began as a periodical and became a book store when poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter Martin joined together to publish small works, by little known and at the time very unpopular authors, unpopular with the police in particular.

Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac are two of the most commonly known of the group, but their attitude defined and inspired a generation of young people who were tired ( beat , thus beatnik ) with the status quo. 

I do not, in any way miss the "big book store", but I truly do miss places like City Lights.  

It even motivated me to buy an actual bound three dimensional paper book and in the future I'll be talking about more of them, the books and the places that love them as much as we do.  

WON'T YOU TAKE ME TO FUNKYTOWN...

Oh, won't take me to FUNKYTOWN! (Is that nice and stuck in your head now? Goood!)

Now you know, I likes me some books. However, my situation is such that my book allowance is generally quite, um, small. For you not so hep to subtlety...I am poor.

My preferred method to get my "fix" is the library. And we have a great library system! But sometimes, a great book comes along. And you just have to have it. A totally unnecessary, gorgeous book. So, where does a poor bookworm go? Why, to Half-Price Books, of course! (No, this is NOT a commercial!)

My store, bay-bee!

All of the HPB stores are great. They sell books - you guessed it - half price. There are a lot of previously loved books, but there are also a lot of brand-spanking new ones as well! And they do have the best sellers and all that. I don't really care, though, about that stuff. 

There are some fantastic finds here - tantalizing treasures, bizarre biographies, mesmerizing mysteries, and just plain beautiful books that I would never have seen in a typical bookstore! Here they display the funkiness. Ah, yeah.

I mean, really - "Jitterbug Perfume", "Susan Klegg and Her Neighbor's Affairs" (THAT sounds good), "Using Japanese Slang", "India, Then and Now"? I would never have checked these out normally. (Especially the Japanese slang one...I can't afford books, how am I gonna go to Japan??) But don't these sound good?

Each aisle displays some cool finds!

They even have a collectibles and nostalgia section- "Black Beauty", The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and some vintage Dr. Seuss!

The bargain bin

Do you see any old favorites?

Now. There are two Half Price Bookstores that I frequent. One in the artsy part of H-town (Montrose) and one in Rice Village. My fave? The one in Rice Village. It's been here since '89. And it still retains that FUNKYVIBE (sing it, girl!). There are brick walls, a winding staircase, and that old familiar smell of, well, books. Much loved books.

This winding staircase leads to business, foreign language, horror, romance, and games. (There used to be the COOLEST light fixture at the top...all retro-y. It's gone. I'm dealing with it. Progress, you know.)

Scarlet may just come sashaying down...with some books.

But what do you need as you look at books? A place to sit! And should it be one of those squashy sofas that sit so low to the ground that you have to roll out?

At the top of the stairs, sit a spell.

Well, of course not! No, it should be a nice comfy armchair that you can ACTUALLY GET OUT OF! This place has neat little reading spots all over. 

I just looove the children's area (Surprised? Yeah, I know! I even drive a minivan!). It is so bright and cheerful and there are books....

 

...books...

...and more books!

Dinosaurs, trains, and butterflies...all the subjects I look at these days!

I have been coming to this store since '93. And it has seen me through some major stages and events in my life. There were the lovely journals I had time to fill as a single chica, bought gifts for my friends, and then found Spanish lessons and travel guides before I moved to Mexico. I purchased wedding planning books, then pregnancy books, baby name books, potty training books, beginning readers...vegetarian cookbooks, mysteries for roadtrips,  browsed though their vinyl records for my hubby, and old magazines for school projects. I've even sold a few of my lesser loved books to them! Everyone is super friendly and helpful and knows what they are doing(!).

Bet I could find Funkytown here

Yep, it's a real treat for me to come in here, and I can get lost in here for hours.  Hope it stays here another 20 years!

Find Your Nearest Half-Price Books!

Rachel Lehrberger, the manager of Half-Price Books in Oklahoma City, kindly informed me that her bookstore is still in biz. Woohoo! And very tactfully informed me that I had been shopping at the 75% off bookstore in OKC all this time-- that is the store that closed. Doh! Another bookish goofy doofus moment to add to my coffer of goofy doofus moments.

What a ditz! Now I am so mixed up-- Was the Branson outlet bookstore a Half-Price or a 75off store? Which one did I go to in Plano, Tx? An online search shows both are in Plano. My bookish in-laws always squire us around so maybe I've been in both stores. You know what is really bad? I've been in all these stores multiple times.

Despite my mix-up, Half-Price Books is a great bookstore for deals. They are located in sixteen states. Please check the store locator--- maybe there will be a Half-Price Books in your neighborhood.

If you are wondering about the 75% Off bookstore, it seems they are only in Texas? But please don't hold me to that! ;o) I couldn't find a company website-- just one website for the Plano store and few addresses on google for other locations.

Half-Price Books?

My Memorial Day company left today so here I am getting in my long overdue book blogging fix. Oh my, so many bookish thoughts crowding my mind-- just like in my pre-bookblogging days. Honestly, I must not go over a week without talking books again-- my head may explode!

Last week, the CozyBookNook family spent a few days in the Ozarks at a resort on the shores of beautiful TableRock Lake near Branson, Missouri.

Fun-filled days at Silver Dollar CityNo, it isn't the setting of a slasher film or Steven King novel! It is a pioneer themed amusement park!

After overdosing on hair-raising rides, artisans, banjos and barbeque, our evenings were spent on nature walks and cooling off at the resort's Island Oasis.

Perfect kingdom for a mer-mama and mer-boy! Plenty of unruly and unsuspecting subjects were transformed into sea cucumbers by the Neptune infused power of our trusty noodles!

Branson is mainly traffic and jam-packed touristy tackiness so only one day of our trip was devoted to town fun. Go-carts, Shrek and shopping! Wonderful wonderful shopping! Why am I so excited about shopping? Because sad to say, locally, I only have access to Walmart-- So getting to visit not one, but two, outlet malls made me quite dizzy with delight.

Can you guess my favorite store at the outlet mall?

What a disappointment that it is no longer in business! I have such fond memories of that store. The running special was always four paperbacks for ten dollars and I always took advantage of it... especially back in my historical romance reading days. I also discovered one of my favorite thriller authors, James Rollins, there. I read my copy of Subterranean several times before passing it on to DeLynne's hubby.

It is always sad when a bookstore closes but I'm actually quite perturbed. You see, I noticed on my last trip to Oklahoma City that the Half-Price Books I shop in while hubby visits Guitar Center is also out of business. Are your Half-Price bookstores closing down too? Or is it just mine? Have I offended the book gods? If my Half-Price Books in Texas has closed, I am going to get worried!

What a relief! I do have more bookish adventures and musings to share but my mind already feels better! So out I go to tie up tomato plants and rip weeds out by the roots... and add to my expanding chigger bite collection... over twenty at last count. If none of my bloggy friends have ever experienced chiggers, I am more than happy to share. ;o)