tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74991842867325115552024-03-13T21:29:47.639-07:00Lamplight Bookslamplight bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09752965900769613215noreply@blogger.comBlogger51125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499184286732511555.post-10640631263607851362013-08-16T13:18:00.001-07:002013-08-16T13:18:07.996-07:00Hope is the thing with feathersWhen you hear the call you have to answer, unless you are in the middle of a really good book, I guess, but even then, would you want to take the risk of missing out on a really good opportunity?<br />
That's why I neglected the audience of this empty theatre, but then again, it is summer time and everybody is out there anyway,playing beach volley ball or making sand castles, with the exception of maybe one afecionado or two sitting in the back seats, underneath the balcony, smoking a cigar while on stage the piano player is playing a melancholic tune with the ashes of his cigarette falling on the key board...<br />
The call I could no longer ignore was to go back to poetry in general but the way it happened made me start from Tennyson and Emily Dickinson, what a duet.<br />
And this is how it happened.<br />
I recently started taking an interest in asking people what's the story behind the choice of their tattoos and so far I have been collecting very interesting accounts.<br />
Yesterday it was a peacock feather with the words: Hope is the thing with feathers, tattooed all around it:<br />
<br />
"Hope" is the thing with feathers<br />
that perches in the soul<br />
and sings the tune without the words<br />
and never stops at all<br />
<br />
and sweetest in the Gale is heard<br />
and sore must be the storm<br />
that could abash the little bird<br />
that kept so many warm<br />
<br />
I've heard it in the chillest land<br />
and on the strangest sea<br />
yet,never, in Extremity,<br />
it asked a crumb of Me<br />
<br />
Emily Dickinson, poem 254, ca 1861<br />
<br />
The very same day, few hours later I bought a book entitled: Hope is the thing with feathers, a personal chronicle of vanished birds, by Christopher Cokinos so I thought that was a loud enough call to re open a poetry book but I was wrong.<br />
Few days later two young girls approached the counter wanting to purchase an old copy of Tennyson's poetry which was the book where a month earlier one of the two girls hid a note for her friend to find right here at Lamplight Books, the book was still there in the poetry section with the note in it. She had taken a chance and she was lucky.<br />
A little poetical treasure hunt. <br />
Time to read some poetry people!<br />
read onlamplight bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09752965900769613215noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499184286732511555.post-42646888472460745802013-05-17T00:08:00.001-07:002013-05-17T00:08:12.458-07:00Cow's headToday I brought up the subject of May, explorers' month, to S. who was buying Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca's account of his years in the newly discovered Americas: The shipwrecked Men, also my last volume of the adorable Penguin editions, the Great Journeys.<br />
The conversation spiraled into the unknown and intriguing territories of the brain and I am going now to trace it back to where Cabeza de Vaca meets the brain because the link is not as stretched as it sounds.<br />
It all started when, talking about traveling and exploring in a very general and broad way, we observed how strong of an impact the encounter of different cultures has on our mind (brain), in fact so strong that we constantly need to keep going back to our own point of reference in order not to lose our mind, especially if exposed to those differences for a prolonged amount of time.<br />
S. pointed out how some cases of schizophrenia were diagnosed in several immigrants coming to the United States in modern times from very far away places; basically they came they staid they went nuts. The brain just could not process the massive amount of incomprehensible information and lost its ability to operate normally altogether. A bit like a long stay on Mars, where Mars were inhabited by aliens who not only spoke to you in their alien language but expected you to walk hopping on a tail you don't have and using those extra pair of legs to keep up the pace; after a while you just want to get the hell out of there.<br />
Our friend Cabeza de Vaca was the only survivor of a shipwreck, the last one of four men, after having started a journey to the Americas from his mother land, Spain, with more than 200 men. And once he survived fate's tricks eating his horses and burning their shoes to make tools, he was captured by the Natives and that is where his real journey began and his brain had to change.<br />
From a prisoner and a slave he became a trader for the Natives and from a trader a traveler trader who met many tribes and finally he even became a Shaman. His brain must have found a way to adapt and cope with life on Mars holding on to his strongest point of reference: religion. He convinced himself and consequently everyone else that his survival was part of God's intention for him to be a healer, so from slave they elected him a Shaman. He built an identity for himself among the Natives and therefore found a way to create a recognizable system that helped him survive.<br />
Identity and lack of...a whole new chapter. <br />
To make the story short, he ended up back in Spain where he died in poverty, so I guess if you go up to Mars and manage not to go crazy, don't come back down to Earth cause you will then.<br />
Travel on...lamplight bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09752965900769613215noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499184286732511555.post-30178554902938212622013-05-14T16:45:00.001-07:002013-05-15T14:38:42.687-07:00carpe diemAfter the traveler woke up from his or her repose under the generous shadow of the contorted olive tree's slender leaves, he or she spat (probably a he then) the chewed up stem of wheat, lifted up the dusty back pack, looked up at the cloudless sky following the apparently random flight of a sparrow and continued his journey across the land of the written words....<br />
The names came to his mind as he was strolling along the trail (the inspiration is in the movement)....Gertrude Bell, T.E. Lawrence, Sir Richard Burton ( our traveler must be of English descent)...and as he was pulling these names out of the brain archive he suddenly realized that a month is not nearly a speck in the universe enough to walk through those paths, but what impressed him even more was that it is a fact that dogs bark, cats meow, fish swim and human beings explore and we do it in all sorts of ways; another form of Play, that essential activity we seek after, from the cradle to the grave, (a topic brilliantly explored by Diane Ackerman in her book "Deep Play") sometimes rough sometimes not, at times good at times not, but that in the end always accomplishes what all the other animals already know how to do: be here, now<br />
more to come....lamplight bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09752965900769613215noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499184286732511555.post-39195413121457560182013-04-30T13:50:00.000-07:002013-04-30T13:50:04.825-07:00moon shineLet's welcome the month of May,explorers month, the month during which we celebrate famous explorers, travelers and adventurers, by chance or by profession, by choice or by circumstances; those who after pushing the boundaries of the known not satisfied, jumped into the unknown, who faced scylla and charybdis, who discovered new lands thinking they were ancient lands, who made roads out of valleys, who drank indigenous potions, who never came back.<br />
No? May is not explorers month, typically?<br />
Well it is at Lamplight Books, thanks to our honor member of this blog, Easy Runner, who, with his comment to the previous post, gave me the idea and already contributed with two big names:<br />
Freya Madeline Stark, her books are hard to find in the used world and they hardly see the shelves once I do find them before they get bought...she lived up to 100 years, so now you know the secret of longevity: do the unthinkable like being a woman of the mid 1900's and traveling to Afghanistan by yourself.<br />
Bruce Chatwin , (In Patagonia and The Songlines ) of which I have just found a compilation of letters entitled: Under the Sun ( included the correspondence with Paul Theroux).<br />
I am going to leave you with one more name suggested by the purchase of J.K. (you know who you are), a regular at Lamplight Books who always comes in with the typical look of a book lover: secretively happy to come in trying to tell himself :"I'll just have a look today", and more often than not finding a book he cannot leave behind, and sure enough today he walked away with Marco Polo, The customs of the kingdoms of India,in the cute Penguin edition, Great Journeys, telling me he is in the middle of Wilfred Thesiger, Arabian Sands, where the author spends 5 years traveling around the Arabian desert with Bedouins...<br />
...and while I am sitting here thinking, talking and writing about travelers and adventurers, an adventurer from Virgina asked me if I carry books on Moon Shine, and forgive my ignorance if I didn't know it is that distilled corn and apparently illegal drink ( a Virginian version of the Irish Pochin ) and I guess I would have known had I been a great explorer myself....<br />
more to come<br />
<br />
<br />lamplight bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09752965900769613215noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499184286732511555.post-56877486518370157122013-04-18T15:44:00.002-07:002013-04-18T16:05:59.860-07:00Pouring-rainiaHappy new year!<br />
Have you ever been to Hyde park? yes? have you ever stopped and really listened to the famous preachers, monologue shouters, yellers, story tellers? I bet the answer is no and neither have I.<br />
Well if the big web of the net is Hyde park and those preachers or story tellers are me, I can now grab my little stool and start the monologue in front of you, passers by, confident that nobody is going to hear me since I have neglected the blog for so long....<br />
And did I say Happy new year and happy new round of reading, in any shape and form.<br />
Like with every new start, it is always wise to go back and ponder on the origins and initial intents and see if we are going in a desirable direction.<br />
The original intent of this blog was to give a little insight into the anatomy of a bookstore and the life and adventures of its shop keeper (intent from which I strayed a little) and then, hopefully to show how alive and constantly going through metamorphosis this organism is.<br />
So, that said, let's go back to the original sin:<br />
The house of the knowledge pursuers. A life.<br />
According to several of the lovely yelp reviews that this house received, this house has stacks issues, is jammed to the brim, not always organized but nonetheless a gem.<br />
There is still a lot of work to do towards smaller piles and neat displays so yelp reviewers and non yelp reviewers fellow readers bear with me as I attack those piles.<br />
Bear in mind though:<br />
picture Hyde park and its well groomed green English garden and then think of the Pacific Northwest forests; where are you most likely to find the wonders of the wilderness?<br />
So the adventure begins again and I will tell you here what treasures I find when,with a lawn mower in one hand and a hatchet in the other, I will trim the hedges a bit so the explorers can walk through the woods, although you know that everything grows back eventually!<br />
peacelamplight bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09752965900769613215noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499184286732511555.post-90256522279305592882012-09-28T21:05:00.003-07:002012-09-28T21:08:08.015-07:00overload<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ke8a5E4MPbI/UGZrn6oyWgI/AAAAAAAAAO0/hVlogWuJDZo/s1600/SAM_7437.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ke8a5E4MPbI/UGZrn6oyWgI/AAAAAAAAAO0/hVlogWuJDZo/s320/SAM_7437.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
What do these 5 books have in common?<br />
Me and my new found madness.<br />
Do you remember being a child of, let's say, six or seven years of age, holding a packet of gums in your hand and wondering what would happen if you stuck all the gums in your mouth at the same time and tried to chew them? No? Just me? The madness must have started early.<br />
Anyhow, just as the above described thought, acted or not, comes from deliberate mischievousness, so did my latest experiment, utterly immoral and absolutely irreverent.<br />
I decided to find out what happens when you read 5 completely unrelated books at the same time. Even though the analysis of the data is still a work in progress, I can tell you the following with relative certainty:<br />
DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME.<br />
Suddenly you start feeling as if the authors laid in bed with you, a stern look of disapproval on their face for having to be shared with 4 other professors of non-fiction expertise.<br />
As if that wasn't enough, you realize you are giving yourself an overdose of unrelated information and so your brain intuitively wants to find the common denominator that will put order into the chaos.<br />
The bees and their incredibly fascinating way of producing honey will go well with the History of food, but besides that, I have to make a great effort linking them to the book of dead philosophers and how their lives and ideas can help us accept the idea that we are going to die and most likely biodegrade, with the little book of language and how important it is that we do use that ridiculous and high pitch tone with newborns, with Anne Fadiman ex libris and her essays on books and reading.<br />
Come to think of it, now that I am writing this I can see that invisible string that ties them tight together. It is that human instinct that started all the trouble right from the beginning, the curiosity to know, the drive to explore the mystery, the impulse to jump into the unknown and find things out.<br />
Only, maybe, jumping off one bridge at a time might actually be less fatal.<br />
Read on<br />
<br />
The book of dead Philosophers<br />
Simon Critchley<br />
Vintage<br />
<br />
Ex Libris<br />
Anne Fadiman<br />
Farra, Straus and Giroux<br />
<br />
A little book of Language<br />
David Crystal<br />
Yale<br />
<br />
Robbing the Bees<br />
Holley Bishop<br />
Free Press<br />
<br />
Near a Thousand Tables<br />
A history of food<br />
Felipe Fernandez-Armesto<br />
Free Press <br />
<br />lamplight bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09752965900769613215noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499184286732511555.post-31201917150704728192012-08-29T17:06:00.002-07:002012-08-29T17:06:43.627-07:00hyacinth pinkOne of my favorite things is to have a customer tell me about their favorite book from childhood; a book that usually is out of print and impossible to find, worldwide, webwide, librarywide and so on and so forth.<br />
Today I learned about a little girl who goes by the name of Hyacinth Pink, we are in London, 1947, right after the war, her wicked step-mother sends her to buy bloater fish and tells her not to wander, not to play, not to dream ( I am quoting the lady's description pulled out of at least a three decades memory), but of course Hyacinth goes to the cinema ( Pinocchio teaches!) and when her step-mother enters the theatre in an outrage, she jumps into the movie and finds herself living it....and the story goes on...now I want to read it but I cannot because this little gem is a rarity not to be found and I am left to wander and play and dream...maybe I will jump into a movie myself.<br />
<br />
Hyacinth Pink<br />
by Stella Mary Pearce<br />
illustrator, James Fittonlamplight bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09752965900769613215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499184286732511555.post-73064049361300140392012-08-12T11:34:00.000-07:002012-08-12T11:34:45.018-07:00Under a summer sky of shooting stars at night and on a hot sandy beach during the day, the summer read of August 2012 is Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett Good Omens, the nice and accurate prophecies of Agnes Nutter,witch.<br />
I am 12 years late(published in 1990).<br />
I try not to laugh out loud but it takes an awful lot of self restraint, just like when I watch a Monthy Pyton show.<br />
I have no idea how authors sit down and write a book together and it is even harder to imagine that it was possible for these two to accomplish such a task without loosing themselves night after night in each other's company and that of a good bottle of some strong spirit (Terry Pratchett's little bio on the back of the book quotes:Pratchett lives in England,he has drunk enough banana daiquiri,thank you.It's G&Ts from now on).<br />
The ideal scenario to read the book is exactly where I am on: a beach towel, holding a gin of any kind, possibly on a deserted island where you can laugh out loud.<br />
What is your summer read?lamplight bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09752965900769613215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499184286732511555.post-80170473263418131522012-07-11T17:38:00.003-07:002012-07-11T17:38:37.384-07:00Dreams of terror and deathLast night in my dream I was posting a blog entry that went on and on filling an infinite amount of pages.<br />
In order to stop that stream of consciousness I had to tell myself it was all just a dream and woke up. Exhausted.<br />
I do not recollect the subject matter otherwise I would have had an endless source to utilize for the real blog.<br />
Nonetheless, the books themselves and the location of the store offer an infinite amount of stories and the one I am sharing today belongs to the horror section ( Lovecraft, Koontz, King....)and it is called:<br />
Dreams of terror and death ( borrowed from the master of terror, Lovecraft).<br />
Once upon a day, yesterday, a curious but cautious bookseller, me, made a house call (I went to somebody's house to hopefully purchase some good books).<br />
As I was running through the inventory's titles trying to communicate coolness and keeping the eager espression out of my eyes, I was also over hearing the conversation that the owner of the books was having with her lady friend and this is what I have heard:<br />
I am now down to cookbook number 200; I cut the pages, scan them on my computer and throw the books away...<br />
I suddenly found my spine under the grip of an icy fist that wrapped its grasp around it tighter and tighter. My breathing drastically shortened to the point where I started feeling light headed and ready to pass out. Fortunately I managed to pull myself together, suck the tears back into the eyes' tear pockets and just uttered a little shriek.<br />
The life of a bookseller is sometimes visited by nightmares from which you wish you could wake yourself up from.<br />
However,our loyal friend Memory, will turn this experience into a faded dream to be told around the camp fire, under a starry sky, with a good book waiting in the tent.<br />
Sweet dreams...lamplight bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09752965900769613215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499184286732511555.post-78313416836759524752012-07-04T08:55:00.002-07:002012-07-04T08:59:18.444-07:00savage dawn<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xftLX4chvqA/T_RjvT2vHvI/AAAAAAAAAOo/ckWvObKBi1c/s1600/SAM_7355.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xftLX4chvqA/T_RjvT2vHvI/AAAAAAAAAOo/ckWvObKBi1c/s320/SAM_7355.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Excuse the blur but, even though it was not intentional, I decided to post the fuzzy image anyway since it is healthier not to see these covers too clearly.<br />
<br />
However, the purpose of this picture is to introduce a breaking news which, in my view is cause for celebration:<br />
not only amazon recently bought out avon romance ( or a similar publisher, I am not sure, one of those anyway) but also Dorchester publishing, to whom these covers belong to.<br />
Everything is fine: the bad books to them in the e- form, and the good ones to us, still in paper, still real.<br />
The expansion of the giant into the market of muscly grabs and frail looks, will give me nights of restful sleep, reassured by the fact that when you shoot for quantity and not quality we are not in the same business.<br />
<br />
As a side note: I recommend you google translate Easy runner comment on the last post, it would be a loss not to have read it and I could promise you here that Id translate it to share it,but who knows when that would get posted!lamplight bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09752965900769613215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499184286732511555.post-42778938102508784462012-06-11T14:58:00.001-07:002012-07-04T08:37:58.832-07:00Home Libraries<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-c6mb6RJrWQA/T_RjOb-YRvI/AAAAAAAAAOg/uAEqzUKJDJo/s1600/SAM_7353.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-c6mb6RJrWQA/T_RjOb-YRvI/AAAAAAAAAOg/uAEqzUKJDJo/s320/SAM_7353.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
The ostrich's head is finally out of the hole.<br />
I will face my responsibilities as the publisher of this blog and make a public apology for my lack of commitment.<br />
(wouldn't you be glad to hear this from the wall street gang?)<br />
Anyhow, as in all apologies, the excuses follow:<br />
(but it was for the Greater economic Good)<br />
I was busy re-arranging my Home Library, yes capital H and capital L, because Home Libraries are an institution and being a book seller you can imagine the amount of homework.<br />
My first thought was: how will I arrange it? like the bookshop? A through Z and by category? or will I go wild and re-invent the laws of classification: by color, by order of purchase, by the mood I was in when I bought the book ( Twain goes on the happy shelf, Sartre goes on the sad one) by my intentions towards the book( Henry James on the "will never read again" shelf next to my friend Ernest, Faulkner and Proust keeping each other good company in the "I will get to you, I promise" shelf, Descartes and Kierkegaard on the "what was I thinking" shelf and so on and so forth ).<br />
The method of classification will determine the nature of the Library, and the possibilities are infinite:<br />
your library can be your map, your diary, your painting, your consciousness, your wall of shame, your passport, your portfolio or resume, your sculpture, your treasure chest, your dowry, your retirement plan, your stove burning material, your building blocks, your memory....and all you have to sacrifice for it, is having handy help at hand reach when you move, because your friends know and they are all busy that week-end.<br />
I acquired a book for my library today:<br />
Homer's Odyssey, translated by Allen Mandelbaum, with twelve engravings by Marialuisa de Romans, California Press. A book about one of the greatest journeys of literature narrated by one of the most wonderful characters ever created. Everyone should have a copy of it in their Home Library. It will go on the shelf of the Giants.<br />
Now I have it too, and, like every book that sits on my shelves, there is a story behind it:<br />
I hunt the book with my bow and arrow ( remember?), I opened it and found the business card of a fellow bookseller, Peter Miller, I showed it to him stating the obvious: look Peter, it's the cycle of life,they bought it new from you, gave it as a gift that was discarded and now I found it and went on asking how could people part with such treasure and pointing out the beautiful dedication:<br />
June 1991<br />
dear Jason,<br />
all of the rules,<br />
they are all here<br />
Peter.<br />
Peter says with a hint of disappointment in his tone: hey, this was a present from me to a twenty one year old friend of the family, exactly 21 years ago....<br />
Sometimes that is how it goes....we dismantle our Home Libraries....<br />
So I handed the book to him asking him to make the gesture of giving it to me as a gift with the promise of never getting rid of it and so he did adding a new dedication below the 21 year old one:<br />
almost a true journey, as this<br />
book of order finds its<br />
proper home. I could not<br />
be more thrilled.<br />
Peter.<br />
Ask me if I got rid of it in 21 years,<br />
the answer will be no.lamplight bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09752965900769613215noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499184286732511555.post-69139316042138839852012-03-30T11:53:00.004-07:002012-03-31T21:18:07.521-07:00while at work...<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nU1NpjONXQA/T3fWotVT3LI/AAAAAAAAAOY/6muPseTjd84/s1600/SAM_6044.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nU1NpjONXQA/T3fWotVT3LI/AAAAAAAAAOY/6muPseTjd84/s200/SAM_6044.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5726281446076964018" border="0" /></a><br />I stumbled on a sentence out of George Sand's book, Horace, while pricing it, because it was highlighted in yellow (sometimes I do make exceptions, especially when I simply buy without flipping through):<br /><br />"But the sweetest of all human emotions,the one that is nourished by calamities and mistakes as well as by greatness and heroic acts, the one that spans every stage of life, that begins to develop in us from our very first sensation of being, and that endures as long as we do, the one that parallels and actually lengthens our life, that is reborn from its ashes and that reties itself as tightly and just as firmly after being broken; that emotion, alas! is not love, as you well know, but friendship"<br /><br />Do you remember your very first friend? the one that you met when you were beginning to develop the sensation of being?<br /><br />I do. I don't remember her name, but I remember being on a bridge that crosses over the river next to the house I grew up in and we were both crying because neither of us wanted to part to go home for dinner...but we were no older than three or four and that was only the beginning...lamplight bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09752965900769613215noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499184286732511555.post-19416913549210494052012-02-18T10:31:00.002-08:002012-03-19T22:45:52.734-07:00coriandoli<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-D1WpGr8n32I/Tz_v_PiqoYI/AAAAAAAAAOA/XbpCzcBTjhU/s1600/SAM_5978.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-D1WpGr8n32I/Tz_v_PiqoYI/AAAAAAAAAOA/XbpCzcBTjhU/s200/SAM_5978.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5710546722311807362" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zvWWBRlrN-0/Tz_vRSJF3oI/AAAAAAAAANo/IYxo22SYw4s/s1600/SAM_5980.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zvWWBRlrN-0/Tz_vRSJF3oI/AAAAAAAAANo/IYxo22SYw4s/s200/SAM_5980.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5710545932735864450" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fWqtxcwCUyY/Tz_vjtVyUUI/AAAAAAAAAN0/d2aBVwivayQ/s1600/SAM_5977.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fWqtxcwCUyY/Tz_vjtVyUUI/AAAAAAAAAN0/d2aBVwivayQ/s200/SAM_5977.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5710546249274511682" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Coriandoli are little, tiny, coloured, round pieces of paper that people throw at each other during this wonderful season called Carnevale. Coriandoli goes in pair with Stelle Filanti, a tube of striped paper that will unravel by blowing air in the whole. So at the end of the celebration, which consists of a parade in costume throughout the village all the way to its final destination, the square, you are left with a town paved with coloured dots and stripes.<br />The book featured here celebrates the most famous Carnevale there is, besides the Rio one in Brazil, Il Carnevale di Venezia, which happens in the month of February every year.<br />Coriandoli by Carlo Fabre, 1985, depicts the origin of this celebration ( which goes back to Medieval time) through its photographs:<br />it is during this Marquerade that the poor becomes rich, the peasant becomes of noble origins.<br />It is now that the "you" becomes "other", anybody or anything you want, and for one day have the illusion to live a different life and for a moment laugh out loud at that whimsical, cruel, blind Godess that Fate is.lamplight bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09752965900769613215noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499184286732511555.post-25715667272143892822012-01-19T16:47:00.000-08:002012-01-19T17:25:13.793-08:00Digging<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-z3Odhi4hPkE/Txi6B56YocI/AAAAAAAAAMs/qcJNJqVfGPQ/s1600/SAM_5973.JPG"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 221px; height: 165px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-z3Odhi4hPkE/Txi6B56YocI/AAAAAAAAAMs/qcJNJqVfGPQ/s200/SAM_5973.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5699509870325703106" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-19q9_n93zwQ/Txi7GXKrIzI/AAAAAAAAANE/a6I8g9LCY1w/s1600/SAM_5943.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-19q9_n93zwQ/Txi7GXKrIzI/AAAAAAAAANE/a6I8g9LCY1w/s200/SAM_5943.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5699511046409757490" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xo3hVVPYn2Q/Txi7dwa_RMI/AAAAAAAAANQ/kAnKtRHGfJY/s1600/SAM_5944.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xo3hVVPYn2Q/Txi7dwa_RMI/AAAAAAAAANQ/kAnKtRHGfJY/s200/SAM_5944.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5699511448326063298" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />When your town is suddenly covered in snow and the city budget cannot afford snow trucks and salt to clear the streets, the result is that, being stuck indoor, whether that is home or your workplace, you start digging. You dig the kitchen cup boards, you dig into the never before explored bottom of your wardrobe , you dig under the sofa, and if you are a bookworm, you inevitably dig into your bookshelves and rediscover long lost treasures along with that sock you thought forever gone.<br />I read Queneau, Exercices de style, in college and remember nothing of it except for ,maybe, that it is a SUPERBE exercise of translating images into thoughts and then into words.<br />Anyway, the copy I digged out of the French Language section has a lovely dedication worth sharing ( first in its original language and then humbly and clumsily translated by me):<br /><br />Peut-etre idiot quelque fois (oops!)<br />ou bien tout simplement ginial,<br />Ce livre est une fantaisie.<br />Prends-le, ouvre-le et lis-le<br />dans le sens que tu voudras,<br />comme-ca, au hasard de te<br />propre fantaisie<br />to my friend Jen<br />with love<br />Agnes<br />France: november 25, 86.<br /><br />Maybe idiotic at times (oops!)<br />or rather simply ingenious,<br />this book is a fantasy.<br />Take it, open it and read it<br />in the way that you want,<br />like this, at the whim of your own imagination<br />to my friend Jen<br />with love<br />Agnes<br />France: november 25, 86<br /><br />And after the digging always comes the reading<br /><br />Cheerslamplight bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09752965900769613215noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499184286732511555.post-55261310158920629732011-12-21T12:17:00.000-08:002011-12-21T13:16:09.075-08:00So you like HemingwayI have been agonizing over the sense of guilt for not appreciating one of the pillars of American classic literature for weeks now.<br />Hemingway.<br />Hence the prolonged silence.( sure!)<br />Until today.<br />It is ok that I could not finish, The Sun Also Rises; it is perfectly fine that its short and journalistic matter of fact style does not sit well with my preference towards lyrical prose and a more psychological introspective approach.<br />And I can write that in black and white thanks to two people:<br />Harold Bloom and Arthur Turnbull.<br />In "How to read and why" Harold Bloom, who likes Hemingway, refutes Frank O'Connor's idea that Hemingway's stories "illustrate a technique in search of a subject", which might not be the same reason why I do not gear towards Hemingway's prose but at least it stands as evidence of an academic debate and it gives me reason not to blame my mental stiffness.<br />The second reference is interesting because it all starts from a typed correspondence I found this morning in Arthur Turnbull biography of Scott Fitzgerald I sold.<br />On September 10th 1962 Mr Turnbull writes to the 43rd mayor of Seattle , Mr Langlie asking him information regarding Fitzgerald during his staying in Seattle, for the biography he was writing on the writer.<br />In one of the letters he writes:" I agree with your analysis of Hemingway and Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald, I think, dug deeper into himself and was more interested in the human soul as such. Hemingway, was more apt to be triggered by situations of violence and death into which he fitted his people. Where Fitzgerald usually takes off from personality, Hemingway usually begins with action or mood, another way of saying that Hemingway was essentially a short story writer, while Fitzgerald was more the temperament of a novelist."<br />And reading Hemingway's "Hills like white elephants" made me agree completely.<br /><br />May your holiday be filled with written words<br /><br />Peacelamplight bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09752965900769613215noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499184286732511555.post-79340434125485417152011-11-21T22:23:00.000-08:002011-11-21T22:54:05.241-08:00Lamplight Books is greatful for...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vm8n-1asZQU/Tss__EJJW5I/AAAAAAAAAMg/cEl7Po_6k7U/s1600/SAM_5886.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vm8n-1asZQU/Tss__EJJW5I/AAAAAAAAAMg/cEl7Po_6k7U/s200/SAM_5886.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5677702107907054482" border="0" /></a>As Thanksgiving approaches and we are all asked to consider what to be thankful for, Lamplight Books, without any hesitation is thankful for David Grossman having found his way into the store.<br />It was November 11th 2011, a rainy autumn afternoon, when all of a sudden but with all the humbleness and grace of a gentle soul, the Israeli writer must have popped out of two of the many books he wrote and that were resting on the shelf ( See under: Love and The book of intimate grammar ) because I certainly did not see him walking through the door.<br />The memory of the pleasant event ( pleasant is a conservative term ) has already modified the shape and form of the exquisite encounter, to the point that only this picture confirms the reality of it.<br />However what I can say without a shade of doubt is that meeting one of the greatest living authors in the bookstore that day, felt like surfing on the wave of contemporary history, our history, the one that is not on any text book yet, the one that is still shaping the human species of the second decade of the new millennium, a history that might teach us and the future generations that the intellectuals and the visionaries and the poets and the philosophers should really be given a chance , along with the lawyers and the business men and the generals and the rich , to guide us in the search for real, permanent and cooperating coexistence.<br />If I triggered your sixth sense, curiosity, and you decide to read some of the words that Grossman wrote and spoke in his fiction and non-fiction, you will discover a cocktail of high and refined intelligence mixed with profound humanity and delicate sensibility, you will encounter a true gentleman, a modern renaissance humanist whose existence and presence gives us Hope, which goes hand in hand with Thankfulness.lamplight bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09752965900769613215noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499184286732511555.post-5589077500840780662011-11-09T22:01:00.000-08:002011-11-10T00:09:33.900-08:00Packingtown<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UX_4XTV-4gU/Trto1QD2phI/AAAAAAAAAMU/udDx3tIbG5s/s1600/SAM_5859.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UX_4XTV-4gU/Trto1QD2phI/AAAAAAAAAMU/udDx3tIbG5s/s200/SAM_5859.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5673243419656758802" border="0" /></a>It does not happen very often that when you go to your local butcher, you stumble into a book in a cage.<br />To be honest it was not exactly stumbling;<br />BB Ranch Butcher just opened next door to Lamplight Books and every morning, on my way to insert the keys into the doors of perception, knowledge and tales, I would see Upton Sinclair 's The Jungle, caged up on the meat counter, next to beef jerky and the pork ribs.<br />One does not need to have read the book to understand the intended reference, however Curiosity elbowed me between my ribs to address William the butcher on this matter and to my " nice display" he unraveled his story.<br />And Curiosity never fails to reward.<br />William is a middle aged man, in his mid fifties; he is a butcher, stout and strong, intense blue eyes that really see you when he is talking to you because he has nothing to hide, because he does not pretend.<br />William has never read an entire book cover to cover in his entire life, he candidly tells me, he is a street person, a people person. Until one day a friend hands him The Jungle and he reads the entire book and he weeps at times and this book became partially responsible for the way he sees and approaches his job.<br />He will never forget, he carries on, the image of the steam coming out of the slaughtered animals fogging the slaughtering house of a freezing Chicago in the middle of an early 1900's winter season. He will always remember the description of the workers chopping chunks of the animals' frozen blood, off of each others ankles and taking the chunks home for cooking purposes.<br />As The Jungle stands in front of the next customer who may or may not notice it or may or may not know it, William is cutting and serving meat that he made sure belonged to animals properly raised by local farmers and handled by workers fairly treated, because that is his belief.<br />Reading pieces and bits about Sinclair 's book, I did stumble on an article published in occasion of its 100 years anniversary (1906-2006) on Mother Jones Magazine. The article quotes the author's first reaction to the political effect that the book had when published, "I aimed at the public's heart and by accident I hit it in the stomach", and, Curiosity again, after the stumbling inevitably came the landing and so I landed on the comment of an erudite reader who pointed out the fact that the quote was actually being borrowed directly from Karl Marx 's Capital, in the chapter describing the report of a royal commissioner on the condition of the journeymen bakers of London. Books are like that: they are the only place where time and space do not matter.<br />If there ever was a meeting point between meat, poetry and philosophy I believe it can be found in William the butcher.lamplight bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09752965900769613215noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499184286732511555.post-43967660460359604652011-11-02T21:28:00.000-07:002011-11-03T21:52:36.806-07:00Bibliomania<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5_jbUEj4TG0/TrJK-Myvd7I/AAAAAAAAAMI/qwcA7qUlS2c/s1600/SAM_5856.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5_jbUEj4TG0/TrJK-Myvd7I/AAAAAAAAAMI/qwcA7qUlS2c/s200/SAM_5856.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5670677313259272114" border="0" /></a><br />It is well established by now that reading this blog is the equivalent of squatting down with your ear attached to a World War One style radio, trying to tune in cracking and rebellious frequencies that cannot hold it steady for more than a minute, in the equation of the big picture.<br />Given that, in the equation of the big picture, the ramblings of a bibliomaniac equal to the whisper of a flower shaking the dew drops off of its petals, I can comfortably rest assured nobody went deft.<br />Do not let the title mislead you, this post's intent still is to describe what happens when a bookseller buys books; a bookseller is, de facto, a bibliomaniac in disguise. Buying for the bookstore is just an excuse.<br />There cannot be a bookseller without a book collector and if you ask any bookseller, are you a collector of books yourself? ( a gentler approach to the cruder: are you a bibliomaniac?) they will immediately lower their eyes to hide an expression full of embarassment and they will timidly reply with a sheepish yes. Their house is packed with books up to the ceiling, they have books in storage and they recently invaded their mother's basement with boxes full of the result of their obsession.<br />Given this context, whether the destination is their own private shelves or those overstocked bookstore shelves matters little because the bookstore is an extension of their need to collect.<br />The need to collect will never fade away or be replaced; there isn't such a place as "bibliomaniac anonymous" to go and get treated, and the consequences can be devastating, especially financially, but as Jeanette Winterson so perfectly puts it in her essay "the physiometry of books" I recently stumbled on and highly recommend:<br />it is all a matter of priorities and the way you look at it: your broken window was skillfully and hermetically sealed with plastic so that you could afford your next fix.<br />From a practical point of description, when out in the jungle, the book scout is a full on hunter: all the senses are in the alert mode, dueller's squeezed eyes, the hands ready to strike, their mind pushing away every unnecessary thought ( why didn't I use the bathroom before ).<br />From a psychological point of view, million thoughts travel through the hunter's brain's nerves at the speed of light: Hal needs " reading literature like a professor" and " In the heart of the sea", here they are, good shape, mission accomplished; I already have eight copies of "Little Bee" I'll better pass on this one; if I only found a copy of that Hunger Games series everybody want right now, for the life of me I can never find that book used anywhere; Devil in the White City, yes, Time traveller's wife, deceased ( yes, some books die), help, help, The Help, Jody Picoult, nope, Vocabulary of Chinese medical terminology....mmmyes, dear Millenium series isn't it a little too early for you to die?; oh look a beautiful hardback copy of Stendhal's travelogue to Roma, Napoli and Firenze, I am keeping this one.<br />And so on and so forth...lamplight bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09752965900769613215noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499184286732511555.post-67825292485667151772011-09-08T22:14:00.000-07:002011-09-08T23:07:43.479-07:00Uncle Jim<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Y2bOh-BYpgM/TmmhEssseGI/AAAAAAAAAMA/Kme6RUVPPxw/s1600/SAM_1260.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Y2bOh-BYpgM/TmmhEssseGI/AAAAAAAAAMA/Kme6RUVPPxw/s200/SAM_1260.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5650224309603170402" border="0" /></a>It might sound banal and obvious but I have to admit that I recently came to the conclusion that buying, selling and reading books are three distinct categories, separate realities ruled by different forces.<br />Selling involves psychology 101, decent timing, good imagination and a lot of patience.<br />A customer today asked me to recommend her a book for Uncle Jim who is an avid reader. What does Uncle Jim like to read? She cannot tell. What book made Uncle Jim particularly excited? Cannot recollect. What is Uncle Jim like? he watches CNN and is a retired commercial pilot. Not much to work with Clueless Niece, but damn it I'm going to find you a book for Uncle Jim! What would you recommend, Hopeful Reader? (granted somebody is still reading this blog!)<br />After squizing my brain like a lemon and rolling my eyes to the four top corners of the store in search for any plausible ideas.....bang....why not, it's a shot in the dark but so is Clueless Niece when it comes down to describe Uncle Jim's reading taste, so the apple might not fall too far from the tree:<br />The wisdom of the sands, by Antoine De Saint-Exupery. Aviator, explorer, author of the Little Prince.<br />The recollection of his trips and adventures will feed Uncle Jim's CNN consumption, being the author an aviator will make the retired pilot identify with the character and what sealed the deal was the fact that he wrote a classic children story, with which Clueless Niece is not familiar, but trusted my word for it, and we all love a good fable.<br />But most important: it was on the shelf.<br />Et voila': SOLD.<br />Now, as far as planet Buying and galaxy Reading go.....to be continued.....lamplight bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09752965900769613215noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499184286732511555.post-32202826479876364072011-07-06T22:14:00.000-07:002011-07-06T22:49:20.199-07:00I got mail<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wNf6AHJhybk/ThVBDxXV46I/AAAAAAAAAL4/fyxmo5d6xw8/s1600/SAM_1130.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wNf6AHJhybk/ThVBDxXV46I/AAAAAAAAAL4/fyxmo5d6xw8/s200/SAM_1130.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5626474842515956642" border="0" /></a><br />Few other pleasures equal to the one of receiving a book in the mail, by a friend, while at work.<br />I have never read any of her books, but apparently Andrew Wilson's shortlisted for the Whitbread award biography of Patricia Highsmith is a good start because it reads like a novel and because it includes her letters, diaries and notebooks found after her death.<br />Although Graham Greene described her as the "poet of apprehension", and Gore Vidal as one of the finest American modernists writers, her novels found a warmer welcome in Europe than her homeland and maybe the Dictionary of Mystery writers can in part tell us why it was so when , under Highsmith, we read, quote: " It has been said that Highsmith's work evokes horror, fear and guilt, but the guilt is all in the mind of the reader; it is the lack of guilt that makes the stories horrifying." As she said in her 'Plotting and writing suspense fiction' , she felt that, quote: " Art has nothing to do with morality, convention or moralizing".....interesting gal.<br />It should be an interesting read.lamplight bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09752965900769613215noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499184286732511555.post-60460938768552594432011-06-27T22:46:00.000-07:002011-06-27T23:15:10.008-07:00Demain, et . . .<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-q6KLNe_tM3Q/Tglq7xwF15I/AAAAAAAAALw/zA5a_ujMzsE/s1600/SAM_1123.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-q6KLNe_tM3Q/Tglq7xwF15I/AAAAAAAAALw/zA5a_ujMzsE/s200/SAM_1123.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5623143184948647826" border="0" /></a><br />Je suis tombe' aussi.<br /><br /> Je t'aime.<br /><br />Demain, et . . .<br /><br /><br /><br />Books carry gifts in them.<br />Sometimes a book can bring you the gift of wisdom, sometimes its story will change you forever and will always be part of who you become, sometimes it leaves you in the company of a character that you wish to meet one day, sometimes it can save you from lack of resources and make that coffee table work just fine.<br /><br />And sometimes....<br /><br />Sometimes, tucked in between the pages, quiet and patient, waiting to be found, you can find a love note, like this one: so succinct and yet so powerful.<br />The words are simple and exact in their simplicity and the punctuation is the work of a master in the way it frames the sentences and makes them definite and not arguable with the use of the period and it then stretches the reading rhythm with the comma and time dimension with the suspension points.<br />Please, don't let me get carried away with the speculation around who wrote it, male , female, why tomorrow and not today, in french therefore...we could write a whole book on it.<br /><br />I also fell. ( to fall in love? I also fell for you? )<br /><br /> I love you.<br /><br /> Tomorrow, and . . .<br /><br />Say no more. I am in love.lamplight bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09752965900769613215noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499184286732511555.post-23582986250673948342011-06-14T21:54:00.000-07:002011-06-14T22:39:54.063-07:00Thank you Kiddos<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RpUAd9jZgNA/Tfg7OhKVGeI/AAAAAAAAALY/G-PnKOEt7yk/s1600/SAM_1068.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RpUAd9jZgNA/Tfg7OhKVGeI/AAAAAAAAALY/G-PnKOEt7yk/s200/SAM_1068.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5618305655750597090" border="0" /></a>This week Lamplight Books hosted its first "book reading" for children.<br />Fifteen extraordinarily well behaved five years old kids from a pre-school in north Seattle sat on a blanket, nose up and mouth open , listening to one of those children books even adults enjoy re-reading a thousand times.<br />The missing Piece Meets the Big O. By Shel Silverstein.<br />Usually the triangle missing piece ends up being interpreted with a high pitch tone (<span style="font-size:78%;"> I think you are the one I have been waiting for</span>)while the Big O is obviously played by a baritone (<span style="font-size:180%;"> But I am not missing a piece </span>).<br />The lively aspect of reading this book to children is that the adult can really let his/her creativity run wild on a huge variety of noises to keep the attention going: the rolling, the bouncing, the flipping and the flopping are very "noise inspiring" themselves<br />Not to mention the pages that bear no text, then you can press play and have the soundtrack going ( see the scene where a pac-man like piece is bumping along a flowery field with the missing piece in its mouth, any mumbled song in the style of Chariots of Fire will do ).<br />The kids had a terrific time and the reader was left completely dehydrated and voiceless for the following hour but loved it nonetheless.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7YG3O0I43vI/TfhCUjECcAI/AAAAAAAAALg/U8GmNbLVWwo/s1600/SAM_0978.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7YG3O0I43vI/TfhCUjECcAI/AAAAAAAAALg/U8GmNbLVWwo/s200/SAM_0978.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5618313455921688578" border="0" /></a>Last but not least, this year Lamplight Books was glad to be part of the initiative " Walk for Kids" ,as one of the sponsors , promoted and organized by The Pike Place Market Child Care and Preschool, that took place June 4th 2011.<br />Both the bookstore and the preschool hold dear at heart the concept of high standard education, whether that be in the form of self-education through books from a bookstore or with the help of great teachers that you remember for life at the preschool, it is a privilege and an honor to be part of such a caring community. Thank you Pike Place Market! And thank you Kiddos!<br /><br />Read onlamplight bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09752965900769613215noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499184286732511555.post-67584076723885599282011-05-28T21:50:00.000-07:002011-05-30T21:23:08.668-07:00if wednesdays are waky fridays are freaky<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DdApqNbkxRg/TeRq9F4vHnI/AAAAAAAAALM/aVHhFcRA724/s1600/SAM_0962.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DdApqNbkxRg/TeRq9F4vHnI/AAAAAAAAALM/aVHhFcRA724/s200/SAM_0962.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5612728633395191410" border="0" /></a><br />Freaky friday saw the piles<br />elevate through the miles...<br />the piles of books are rising to heavenly heights, their towering looks make me feel like I am in a temple in Athens, praying to the Greek Gods that one of these days I will have all the books into their places and off the floor.<br /><br />Friday was a very strange day, for a couple of reasons; first of all an old Texan man wearing his Texan accent and Texan hat, purchased an old beat up copy of "the joy of cooking" telling me that a long time ago he used to know the lady whose name was written inside.<br />Not only he managed to find the book, rummaging into the various sale boxes that were laying outside, but he was as surprised as me when I told him that the reason why I had that book was because my neighbor is that woman's grand son, who took me to her house to pick up her books.<br />The other interesting coincidence happened when a customer asked me where he could find a bookstore by the name of: "This is not your grand ma bookstore", in the vicinities.<br />To my baffled expression followed my negative reply:<br />not only I am not aware of such a bookstore being in the vicinities, but I have never heard of such a bookstore in town at all.<br />However for some obscure reason the name rung a bell that drove me crazy for a couple of hours, until I realized that the day before , while cleaning up some books and looking through the pages to see what kind of treasures I might find, I happened to find a bookmark slash business card of a bookstore named " this is not your grand ma bookstore", located somewhere in the States I cannot remember where.<br />Freaky Friday ah?<br /><br />Quiz of the post:<br />what is the most frequent reason why people have to re-purchase a title?<br />A. the previous copy was water damaged<br />B. the previously owned copy was smeared with coffee stains and/or baby food stains and/or wine stains<br />C.The previous copy was chewed by a mouse and/or a cat and/or a giraffe<br />D. the previously owned copy was lent to somebody and never returned<br /><br />the correct answer is D.<br />If you got it right you just won a groupon and/or coupon and/or advantage card to redeem at the store so that, if you are the one who never returned that copy of The catcher in the rye, it is now your chance to pretend you have never lost that copy and you've also read it and loved it,<br />and if you are the one that never got their college copy of David Copperfield back , you might find it at the store,with your name in it still.<br /><br />Read onlamplight bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09752965900769613215noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499184286732511555.post-74516508267025363212011-05-15T01:39:00.000-07:002011-05-15T01:50:25.353-07:00open sesame<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_SfjW-AE1FU/Tc-SyHRjnEI/AAAAAAAAALE/GDiDzafHeY8/s1600/SAM_0951.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_SfjW-AE1FU/Tc-SyHRjnEI/AAAAAAAAALE/GDiDzafHeY8/s200/SAM_0951.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5606861450743356482" border="0" /></a><br />Extra extra, read all about it!<br /><br />Come in , look around , get lost in the dusty shelves , because now you can:<br /><br />Lamplight Book is open for business.<br /><br />The magic word has been said and....voila', the doors of the secret cave opened to lead you straight to the treasures....<br /><br />Enjoy !lamplight bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09752965900769613215noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499184286732511555.post-1992328875164790812011-05-08T22:19:00.000-07:002011-05-08T23:08:08.232-07:00timing is everything<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hTM3NUnb_CU/Tcd9jNoG3vI/AAAAAAAAAK0/HfQm87FSgJ4/s1600/SAM_0918.JPG"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hTM3NUnb_CU/Tcd9jNoG3vI/AAAAAAAAAK0/HfQm87FSgJ4/s200/SAM_0918.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5604586305192648434" border="0" /></a>And so now the cells have stopped multiplying themselves erratically and are doing what they are supposed to do, each according to their own function: shelves up, most of the books on the shelves, lights on, counter delivered, cables plugged in.<br />It is now the beginning of the subtle and delicate phases: the art of displaying (hence the empty shelves you see) and the task of detail-caring...like my gypsy friend says : I am in the process of fine-tuning the store.<br />Just like at the Opera house when, right before the start, the orchestra is creating that beautiful chaotic melange of fine-tuning sounds of the instruments, mixed with the last acceptable bursts of cough and aborted laughing shrieks of the audience, before the conductor comes in:<br />This category works better there, let's move it...oh wait, now I have to move this other category as well because it does no longer make sense here...<br />This process has been going on for a week now and If I did have an audience waiting at the door for me to be ready ,they would have started rioting by now.<br />The time to start the show is close, very close, but not quite there yet; the books and I are a bit impatient, but we know that in order to perform well, timing is everything.lamplight bookshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09752965900769613215noreply@blogger.com2