The Keeper of Secrets

I don't blog. It's been a year since my last post. I leave the blogging to the people who are much better at it than I am like The Book Lady's Blog.

But once in awhile, like in my last post, I feel a need to talk about what it means to be a bookseller...and what it means to create a place, a bookstore family, where people feel at home. Maybe they feel more at home with us than they do with their own families.

For probably the tenth time in my bookselling life, a customer came up to me with a question she couldn't even share with a family member: Where are your books on abusive relationships? I gently said "We don't have a bunch, but what kind of abuse are we talking about? Physical? Verbal?"

"Everything", she said. She was shaking.

I gave her a list of books I recommend. I gave her a list of hotline numbers to call. I gave her directions to the library nearby and the women's shelter. I touched her shoulder.

People will go look for a book sometimes before they call the cops, seek a shrink or talk to a friend. It's a first step. And a reminder that all of us as booksellers are doing an important job every day.

If it's placing the trashy vampire book in the hands of a stressed-out corporate executive, selling a book on pregnancy to a single mom, slipping some silly sci-fi to the supreme court judge...it's all safe here brothers and sisters.

Your secret is safe with me. And all my staff.

Want to know what Sir Anthony Hopkins reads? I ain't tellin' ya. Wonderful customer for a couple of years when he was filming here, but his reading choices are his business.

Besides...if I told you...he might eat my liver.

All kidding aside...

Want to keep your reading privacy safe? Indie bookstores and libraries are the only places with a record of caring about that. Consider a donation to ABFFE, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression. They protect your privacy in the age of the Patriot Act...which has a lot of good things in it, but a not good thing is access to your book purchases and library loans. Reading a book is not a crime. No matter what that book is about.

And with regard to my customer from Friday...I hope she got a start to some answers. I hope I made a difference. I'm glad she felt that she had walked into a place where there was someone she could trust. And that moment makes every minute of the last 22 years worth it and important.

1-800-799-SAFE (National Domestic Abuse Violence Hotline)

Thankfully Reading Weekend

This is the best idea I've seen in awhile...

The Fountain Bookstore is a little wonky as a retail establishment as we're not all that busy on the weekends being in a downtown business district.

That means that I have weekends off most of the year to read!

So, unlike my fellow retail warriors, I will be able to participate in this event enthusiastically and without guilt for not being in the shop.

Join me!

"Welcome to the very informal Thankfully Reading Weekend. Jenn from Jenn's Bookshelves gets full credit for coming up with the idea. She happened to tweet that she was going to have a fairly quiet U.S. Thanksgiving weekend and was hoping to spend much of that time catching up on her reading. Almost immediately Jen from Devourer of Books and Beth from Beth Fish Reads chimed in, saying what a great idea that was. And thus the birth of Thankfully Reading Weekend, which will start on Friday, November 27 and end on Sunday, November 29." Read More Here...

I'm looking for suggestions for a big, fat, new novel to swallow whole that weekend. I've already read Wolf Hall and loved it, so that's out as is the new John Irving which is great if you're a John Irving fan...probably not as fun if you're not.

So, post here or come by the shop and tell me what you'll be reading. I'll post to #thankfulreading on Twitter.

Now you have an excuse to spend a few moments away from your family (they'll be watching football anyway) and have some quality YouTime. Your bookseller approves.

Lee Bros.: Will You Marry Me?

...or (in order to keep from violating several state laws and generally accepted social conventions) maybe you could just come sign at my shop?

I got a preview copy at the store a few months ago and have since purchased a hardback for myself and it is definitely my present of choice for this holiday season.

Perhaps I should just list the top 10 reasons for my devotion....

1. Lemon and Cucumber Pickles
I think I went through about 8 quarts of these myself this summer. I also took jars to garden parties for friends. (great on a grilled burger!)

2. Celery Julep
Refreshing! About the only summer libation I prefer as much is The Green Lantern.

3. Cheese Relish
A variation on pimento cheese made with Swiss, capers and banana peppers rather than cheddar and roasted red peppers. Is it good for me? No. And I don't care.

4. Radish Butter
So weird I had to try it. Lovely on rye toasts. Pretty as the magenta picture you painted. Stunner for entertaining.

(have I said thank you yet for the fact that none of the recipes so far take more than 10 minutes to prepare?)

5. Oyster Soup
While it will never replace the traditional oyster stew that I eat every Christmas morning (a deeply simple recipe from my mother that just means Christmas to me), this charmer of a dish will be a staple for the rest of the year's special occasions.

6. Skillet Green Beans with Orange
Boring old green beans for dinner? Not anymore! Inexpensive and gorgeous in a plain white bowl.

7. Pimento-Cheese Potato Gratin
Say goodbye to mac and cheese. This is my new comfort food. How do you two stay so svelte? Dancing on that porch you're always mentioning, I guess.
Whoa! Just checked my Facebook mail and there's a thumbs up there for this recipe from an editor of Blackbird Magazine (and confirmed foodie). That's almost a little creepy.

8. Smoked Shrimp with 3 Dipping Sauces
Now I know why I bought that stovetop smoker!
(It's an illness...I know...I'm trying to stop...but honestly a stovetop smoker is absolutely a necessary item for any kitchen...along with the 10s of dozens of other random items I seem to have accumulated....well, maybe not the quesadilla maker with the handle shaped like a chili pepper...I told you...I'm sick.)
And you're so conscientious for kindly giving instructions to make your own MacGuyver-style if people don't have one.

9. Fig and Bourbon Compote
Equally versitile as a dessert topped with lightly sweetened whipped cream or as an condiment for roast pork. Yum.

(cue the angel chorus)

10. Whole Roasted Chicken with Potatoes and Onions
Sounds boring, right? I thought it did, but the true test of any cookbook (or any cook) is the humble roasted chicken. Mainstay entree of the suburban family and the single bookseller. Affordable, available, and so, so easy to $#&* up...usually by trying too hard.
My 99 year old Eastern Kentucky Granny gave me her cast iron skillets when she quit cooking (and you fellas know how important a gift like that is...it was the only thing I asked for when she moved to the home). The bird sits proudly in one of those coal-black, seasoned beauties and looks (and tastes) like a million bucks. Genius.

So, I apologize for missing our two first dates:

• BookExpoAmerica 2008 Fried Chicken Party (I was stuck in a cab on the Brooklyn Bridge)
• SIBA (Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance) Trade Show 2009 dinner...I was supposed to be at your table, but I got the flu

Let me make it up to you by hosting a party for you and every foodie in Richmond. Trust me. I know them all.

Cheers, Boys. And thank you.

Vampires Pay My Electric Bill

I don't come from a literary background if you're talking about my education. I spent my college years learning how to feed beef cattle. I was an animal husbandry major.

One of the things that makes me most proud of my bookstore is that it's a place where you can feel free to read anything and not be judged...(sorry, snotty English majors...there's no jobs for you here). Yes, we've got an English major or two on staff, but they enjoy fantasy, action novels and the whole host of stuff you love on vacation and in your favorite curled up reading chair.

I think a lot of people don't frequent indie bookstores because they think they're supposed to be picking up Proust and pretending to enjoy it. Take a look at our staff picks and you'll see that we're reading what you want to read.

Nothing wrong with trying to be well-read, but I'm never going to tell a single mom who has three kids and two jobs that she's a lower person because she doesn't feel like reading Hawthorne. (In my opinion, one of the best things about being an adult is that no one can ever force me to read Hawthorne ever again!)

Any reading is improving your life.

That being said, I had a bad bug last week...so bad I was on enough drugs I couldn't read.

My friend Jean loaned me (actually, she kind of tossed the dvd to me in an effort not to touch me) the first season of True Blood when I was sick last week. Charlaine Harris signed at Fountain the day she got the HBO contract.

Super fun. The books are awesome too.

If you want to read the classics, I applaud you. I read a few a year...I love Colette, Faulkner, Camus, Orwell.

The rest of the time I read stuff that entertains me. I love action novels where lots of things blow up. So do my booksellers and I love them for it. I'm currently reading a great mystery with a drag queen detective from Turkey.

Come in and play with us. Reading is our play.

God bless the vampires and the zombies...dead though they may be, they definitely contribute to the Fountain bottom line.

Come see Maggie Stiefvater on Wednesday...she does werewolves and killer faeries. She's a Virginia author who's enjoying great success so we hope you'll come celebrate with us.

See you at the shop. Our booksellers are waiting to serve.

The Best Job In The World

Everybody's job looks better from the other side.

And I used to wish for the life of my friend Shelly. She's a marvelously talented and well-known painter. Having not one iota of artistic talent, the goal was unrealistic in the extreme.

Spent a bit of time with her tonight and talked about peaches.

Peaches. Peaches. Peaches.

She was recently doing a still life class on them. Her house was filled with peach pie, peach ice cream, peach tarts, peach sorbet, and yes...Bellinis.

And fruit flies.

You can have too much of a good thing.

So, yes. I do have The Best Job In The World.

And here is my favorite primer on art....this book will teach you how to tell the difference between the Impressionists and there's even a great architecture tutorial inside. It's a classic for a reason. Very happy it's still in print.

A Country Girl is Revived

In starting this blog, I wanted to say a little about how I feel about books. Because I am not a writer, I often find that someone else has expressed something much better than I ever could, and this day is no exception.

So I'm giving over the podium to one of my favorite writers who has managed to say in his blog what I've spent a couple of hours fighting to articulate.

Thank you Silas House.

From the blog "A Country Boy Can Surmise"

"I love books. I love reading them, but there is even more than that.

Touch. I love how cool the pages are when you first open them in the mornings. Or how warm the pages are if you’ve left it out in the car for awhile in the summer, like something baked the exact right length of time. The endpapers and the spine and the little letters that are sometimes imbedded in the cloth, a kind of Braille for book-lovers.

Smell. The new ones: people talk about a new-car scent all the time, but what I love even more is a new-book scent. They should make little deodorizers of that aroma to go under one’s car seats. And the old ones: they smell like history, and rain, and the skin of all the people who loved them before, and every room wherein they lived.

See. Yes, of course we see them when we read them, but I love seeing them on the bookshelves, too. Or lying about, covering every available surface, stacked on the stairs, on the nightstand, on the kitchen table, on the kitchen counter, on my desk, a haphazard pile beside my desk. I once had a guest room whose walls were completely lined with bookshelves full of my favorite books. My guests all said that they had the best sleep there, and inquired about the mattress. I told them it was the books. Now my dining room table is surrounded on three sides by bookshelves. They make any meal better by their very presence. They are the best décor, and multi-purpose at that.

Hear. Taste. I could go on with the other two senses, but that’s a whole different ballgame (because if you’re a true reader you can hear the stories even long after you’ve finished the book; and sometimes you can taste the tang of the ink, even if you don’t try), and besides, the touching, smelling, and seeing are enough. Books are enough to sustain us, period."

See Silas' books here.