Bookseller trick or treat!

Possibly the most fun literary ghost story I've come across: AbeBooks lists the top 10 ghostwritten books. You might be surprised by the names of some of the ghostwriters!

There are now four "episodes" available in the Library of Congress's Exquisite Corpse Adventure--part 1 by Jon Scieszka, part 2 by Katherine Paterson, part 3 by Kate DiCamillo, and part 4 by Susan Cooper. Check in every two weeks for more exciting installments!

If you're like me and far behind on all sorts of reading, you may not have had a chance to read the New Yorker excerpt from Wild Things, Dave Eggers' novelization of Where the Wild Things Are.

Not really literary, and also an older article, but it seems like a good time to pull out this story about a scientific study of the odds of humanity surviving a zombie attack. Remember--aim for the head.

DON'T FORGET: For a Spooktacular time tonight (Friday, October 30) - head to Stardust Books for their POE-try Slam. It begins at 7:00, the suggested donation is $1 (all donations go into a pot that will be awarded to the best poet of the evening by specially selected judges) and costumes are encouraged!

Poets: Bring one spooky or seasonal poem and one poem on a subject of your choice to perform for the audience.

We'll start the Slam off with a dramatic reading of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven." It's guaranteed to be a Fangtastic evening!

Happy Halloween!!

Read-a-Thon Wrap-up

For our first Read-a-Thon, in 2008, we had prepared by talking with other booksellers who had hosted Read-a-Thons in the past. We had no particular expectations going in. We were bowled over to have 38 participants, mainly ages 12-17, raising around $830 for Hardwick Head Start.

This year, we'd been through the whole process and had a good idea of what we were getting into. We recruited extra volunteers to chaperone and set some new ground rules to make sure everyone was on the same page as far as what was expected and what was off limits during the 24 hours we'd be spending together in the bookstore.

Yet again, our expectations were blown away--we had 53 participants (including chaperones, many of whom found time to do some reading of their own) and, as of five days later, have raised $1040.98 for Hardwick Head Start and Early Head Start! According to several phone calls, emails, and drop-in visits, we are expecting to reach over $1,100 when all is said and done.

And what did the Read-a-Thonners do to honor the pledges they raised? Reading, of course, played a big part. Just from the participants who chose to keep logs of the books they read, we had a count of 14,063 pages read. In visual terms, that's the equivalent of a stack of 18 copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows--in hardcover! Our winner for most pages read logged over 4,000 pages in her 24 hours here!

Of course, these voracious readers also had an appetite for food, and this is another way in which our community showed generous support for the Head Start programs. Hall's Market donated several bags of fruit; Patchwork Farm & Bakery gave us a discount on delicious pizzas for Friday night's dinner; Connie's Kitchen delivered some fresh baked muffins and cinnamon bread for breakfast on Saturday; and Grand Union gave us a gift certificate that we used towards lunches and snacks.

We also wanted to give people a chance to take breaks from their books from time to time, and activities such as storytelling and Literary Jeopardy were popular diversions. Susan O'Connell--the children's librarian at Jeudevine Library--created a special "library annex" here at the store for anyone who ran out of reading material, and at midnight led a Raid on the Library that let people stretch their legs and stock up on additional books.

A 5 a.m. scavenger hunt through the bookstore found very few takers (two, to be exact), since nearly everyone else was fast asleep.

In the morning, however, they were awake and ready to hit the books again.

A moment of Zen

It's hard to focus on much when it's less than 24 hours before our 24 Hour Read-a-Thon, so enjoy these sleeping kitties until I'm able to write more! Stop by the store this weekend to check out our Read-a-Thoners; I'll try to post stories and photos from the event next week. ~ Sandy

Up all night, read all day

IT'S TIME FOR READ-A-THON 2009!

The Galaxy Bookshop's Second Annual 24 Hour Read-a-Thon is set to kick off Friday, October 16 at 4 p.m. and run through Saturday, October 17 at 4 p.m. The Read-a-Thon is a fundraiser for Hardwick Head Start and Early Head Start and promotes the importance and the enjoyment of reading at all ages. Hardwick Head Start and Early Head Start provide education, nutrition, health, community, and social services to low-income children.

Read-a-Thon participants collect pledges--all of which will be donated to Head Start--and can spend up to 24 hours at The Galaxy Bookshop reading and enjoying a variety of activities. Last year, thirty-eight readers participated in the Read-a-Thon, raising just over $800 for Head Start and collectively reading over 10,000 pages and dozens of books! Head Start used the money raised by our readers to purchase furniture for a reading area and books for the program's students.

Admittedly, Read-a-Thonning is tiring work, but lots of fun! You're welcome to stay for the entire 24 hours (as Morgan, above, did last year) or come join us for a short time. We also invite you to stop in during the day on Saturday--the store will be open for normal hours--to cheer on our readers and make a donation to Head Start.

Kittens at the Bookstore

Written by Sandy

For a lot of people--and I'm one of them--books and cats fit together. That, and a good cup of tea. It's not unusual to find a kitty curled up in some cozy spot in a bookstore; even a library might become a home for a cat. So, when Linda agreed to take in two kittens, there was some excitement at The Galaxy Bookshop about the possibility of adopting a bookstore cat. For a little while, at least, they've found a home in our bank vault, and they are the most adorable things you'd want to see.

The benefits are obvious (at least, to a cat lover): Cats are good company and, on a bad day, can be therapeutic; they attract other cat lovers; a cat would catch any stray rodents or flies that might find their way in; cats are good lap warmers (and it does get chilly in here during the winter.)

Of course, there are also draw-backs, the most obvious of which is that there are  plenty of people who are allergic to cats. We certainly don't want to make those people uncomfortable about visiting the bookstore. We really don't want to cause an unsuspecting customer to have a serious reaction, such as an asthma attack.

I have to admit, it's a bit hard to be objective when the matter at hand is a kitten--they're just SO CUTE! Just look at those tiny faces!



Despite the overwhelming cuteness, our goal is to provide a welcoming place for people to spend time browsing and buying books, and that gives a lot of weight to the "con" side of the debate. Still, I keep hoping to discover the secret to having a cat that won't irritate allergic customers. How do other stores handle that? (Besides adopting a hairless cat, that is. I have a feeling those wouldn't do well here during the winter.)

We had a number of responses to our polls about a bookstore cat, both at the store and on Facebook. If you'd like to weigh in, or have any suggestions as to how we might be able to have a cat and give all of our customers a happy bookstore experience, please share!

Wallace Stegner Weekend

Robert Gray--a bookseller at Northshire Books and columnist for Shelf Awareness--wrote a great article last week about the upcoming Wallace Stegner Centennial weekend at Highland Lodge. With his permission, we're reprinting the article here.

Vermont Foliage Season with Wallace Stegner

A sound like a big crowd a good way off, excited and shouting, getting closer. We stand up and scan the empty sky. Suddenly there they are, a wavering V headed directly over our hilltop, quite low, beating southward down the central flyway and talking as they pass. We stay quiet, suspending our human conversation until their garrulity fades and their wavering lines are invisible in the sky.

They have passed over us like an eraser over a blackboard, wiping away whatever was there before they came.

"Oh, don't you love them!" Charity says. "Sometimes when we stayed late in Vermont, or went up late for the color, we'd see and hear them like that, coming over Folsom Hill. Someday you've got to visit us there."

Maybe it’s just the time of year, but I recalled that passage from Crossing to Safety (not word-for-word, of course. I had to look it up for the exact quotation) when I heard about the upcoming Wallace Stegner Centennial. This "literary weekend" will be held during foliage season, September 25-27, at the Highland Lodge, Greensboro, Vt., a town where Stegner often summered and the model for scenes in his celebrated novel. Featured speakers include Philip L. Fradkin, author of Wallace Stegner and the American West, and Stegner's agent, Carl Brandt, of Brandt and Hochman.

Galaxy Bookshop, Hardwick, Vt., is one of the co-sponsors and will sell books at the event. Owner Linda Ramsdell notes: "Stegner's works, especially Crossing to Safety, do still sell well, and better because of the local reference points. An earlier novel, Second Growth, also has many local reference points. Wallace Stegner was a great supporter of the Galaxy Bookshop, and in an earlier iteration of community collaboration, we were fortunate to sell books at the Greensboro Public Library when they presented him with an award."

Anne T. Molleur Hanson, organizer of the celebration, explains that the genesis was "threefold." Four years ago, the inn hosted a Reading Greensboro weekend, with a focus on Crossing to Safety and the belief that "acknowledging the many writers like Wallace Stegner who have summered or spent time in Greensboro (or even live here year round, like Anne Stuart) would be a wonderful way to celebrate Greensboro's literary legacy." In addition to Stegner, John Gunther and Margaret Mead are among the noted authors who called this village of fewer than 1,000 people their Green Mountain home away from home.

"Our Crossing to Safety night was well attended, especially by folks from here," Hanson adds. "After the event, many people--several from afar--remarked on their hope that we would do another such event sometime."

About six months ago, Hanson and Willie Smith, one of the Highland Lodge innkeepers, discussed hosting another literary weekend focusing specifically on Stegner, "who is known as a Western writer, but who had a clear fondness for the northeast, particularly Greensboro, to which his and wife Mary's friends Peg and Phil Gray (portrayed as Charity and Sid Lang in Crossing to Safety) had introduced the Stegners in the late 1930s/early 1940s. My interest in hosting a Stegner event was in part due to my nearly 20-year long regret that although I grew up here, I never attended a Wallace Stegner reading, which he offered during many of the summers he was here."

The final piece of the puzzle fell into place when Hanson learned that Philip Fradkin, "who had stayed here while researching his biography on Stegner, was, like me, a graduate of Williams College. I e-mailed Philip and asked if he would join us for a literary weekend celebrating Wallace Stegner. Philip agreed. He suggested we find sponsors to help us with the event. At that point I contacted our friend, neighbor, and favorite independent bookseller Linda Ramsdell, to ask if the Galaxy Bookshop would like to co-sponsor. Linda was enthusiastic and immediately on-board."

Ramsdell adds that the "Hardwick area is becoming a model for ways that businesses and organizations work together to do things that no one entity can do alone. Attention has focused on the agricultural economy, but there are many examples outside of that sector too. Especially in this economy, the importance and benefits of collaborating are extremely tangible. The other aspect of the Galaxy area, which differs from many cities with local alliance organizations, is that it is a small place where people know each other and are friends. We have a vested interest in each other's viability and success. It is very easy to see how money stays in our area and benefits accrue when we work with each other."--Robert Gray (column archives available at Fresh Eyes Now)

Is this game tax deductible?

I think that it's safe to say that people who love books are people who love words. For all you word junkies today, some excellent free word games you can play at your desk. On your lunch break, of course.

Although, if you play Free Rice during work hours, it seems like you and/or your company should get some sort of tax write-off. After all, you're earning grains of rice to feed the hungry!

Less altruistic is Must Pop Words, which pits the player in a race against an ever increasing shower of letters.

Lexulous (the game formerly known to Facebook users as Scrabulous until Hasbro sued for copyright infringement) continues as a fair imitation of Scrabble (TM), and is still free. You need to create an account in order to play against other people online and save games, but if you'd rather not have yet another user name and password to remember, you can choose to play solitaire or against the computer in a practice game.

Of course, after realizing how popular the Scrabble-esque game was, Hasbro did launch its own, official Scrabble application for Facebook. (I have to admit, being able to play Scrabble with friends and family in other states is the real reason I joined Facebook.)

From one of the ultimate authorities on language, Merriam-Webster's website offers a number of fun, quick, and of course free word games.

Happy Spelling!

P.S. And now for a commercial announcement: The Galaxy Bookshop now carries Bananagrams! It's a portable, simple word game that people of all vocabulary levels can play together. Come by the store to play a demo game or two with one of us anytime.