Buy Green, Save Green, Win Time on the Green!
Buy green, save green, win time on the green!
Starting Monday, March 12, buy anything “green” at our HPB store in Humble and enter to win a golf package that includes: 4 to 9 holes of golf at Humble Oil Patch Golf Center, a bucket of golf balls, a golf shirt and an HPB Gift Card. Drawing to be held on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17 at 7pm. Need not be present to win. Offer good at this location only. See store for details.
Another Cozy Coffee Read
Title: Roast Mortem
Author: Cleo Coyle
Publisher:BerkleyPrime Crime
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Length: 350 pages
Buy Roast Mortem
If you haven’t noticed, I’m a sucker for cozy mysteries. Although I loved them as a child (and had read everything Sherlock Holmes related that I could get my hands on by the time I was ten) I didn’t begin revisiting this passion for whodunits until my post-college years while working as a bookseller at Half Price Books.
Cleo Coyle’s On What Grounds was actually the first of this popular genre I’d ever read and she got me hooked! After discovering her, I dug into the same author team’s Alice Kimberly Haunted Bookshop series and then began branching out to other pleasantly clever authors like Rebecca Kent and Laura Childs. They are fabulous guilty pleasures, and I love the added feature of some series that provide me with baking tips and recipes.
The ninth in the coffeehouse mystery series, Roast Mortem is the first one that I haven’t waited to find in paperback in a bookstore, I couldn’t wait for my lazy browsing to turn up the next installment after doing a blog post on Holiday Grind a few weeks ago. I procured this copy in hardback from the public library across the street, but having read it already, still plan purchase at a later date to make my set complete.
I highly recommend this series, although I must admit that this one frustrated me in a way the previous books have not in the number of typos I discovered. I don’t blame the author, as a writer I am well versed in having moments when your fingers are trying to desperately keep up with your brain resulting in dropped r’s off “yours” and silly errors like “with” getting typed in place of “would.” But I would have expected editors from the Berkley Prime Crime crew to discover those and fix them. At least, I hope that if I get a book published one day, someone has helped me correct my little mishaps before its set before the public eye.
All in all, another fun piece from the Cleo Coyle writing team!
Live Shows at Half Price Books Humble
So, if you follow my blog at all, you know I’ve been coordinating events for Half Price Books in Humble, which by the way is a complete blast! In February, Christine Hand came to town and serenaded the store for two hours (Friday, the 24th between 7 and 9 pm).
Adam Jones and Christine Hand Jones at Half Price Books Humble for a Live, Free, Unplugged Show
For those of you unable to make it, or who don’t know who Christine Hand is, you should know that the very next day, she discovered her Bob Dylan cover was being played on the radio in Dallas. I happily brag about this to let you know that we book great musicians, and when you hear about Half Price Books having live artists in the store – you should definitely take time to stop by so you don’t miss a rare and great opportunity to meet the artists of the future!
If you did miss that last performance, no worries! I’ll do my best to make it happen again. And as a sign of good faith, my lovely customers, I’ve booked Tito Ortega for March!
Tito Ortega is another Dallas local making a special trip down to Houston to play at the Humble store. He, too, writes his own music in a fun, low-key and soothing style. A testament to his great songwriting is the fact that Eric Tipton, a recent contestant on The Voice, did a cover of his song Something Beautiful on his cd Straight From the Couch (that album is a personal favorite of mine, check it out here: http://www.myspace.com/erictipton).
Check out Tito’s site at TitoOrtega.com, and follow him on twitter @titoortegamusic.
We’ll see you at the show on March 24th (Saturday) 7-9 pm! Come ready to enjoy an intimate show and purchase digidownloads or cds.
Books, Music, and mostly Nostalgia
My favorite things in the world are books, coffee, and music, in no particular order. So it goes without saying that in college I spent many a hour journaling or reading in coffee shops around the DFW area. Many times, my collegiate friends were on stage or tucked in a corner with a guitar serenading me. They were happy times in a time when my life was mostly hectic and stressful: full time student, part time employee to multiple employers, to date or not to date, and finding out where I fit in the world all rolled up into a girl who for many a semester suffered from insomnia.
So now, as an event coordinator for my favorite bookstore, it’s a pleasure to host musicians I have always enjoyed listening to at a time when I can hang out, read a book, have a coffee, and not be simultaneously thinking about what assignment is due next, how I did on that last test, and how am I going to make rent and feed myself without flunking for skipping class. It will be nice to enjoy a few hours of peace without worrying about whether I made the right choice when I chose not to date so and so, and if it was a bad idea to kiss whats-his-name, all while trying to decide if getting married one day is even something that matters to me. School is enough; worrying about the career you want or don’t want after the fact is just exhausting. Now, I am married, I’m done with school, I work about 20 hours a month or so from home, and I write.
That’s why, I’m pleased to share with the world, the first musician booked at Half Price Books Humble, is Christine Hand. Although Christine has been in the same pocket of friends and social circles as me since I was eighteen, the truth behind why I booked her his pure pleasure and nostalgia. Christine was the one who serenaded me the most often. When I think back on all those evenings at coffee shops, I hear two voices: Christine Hand and David Ramirez.
David Ramirez is booked elsewhere at larger venues right now, check out his site here: http://www.davidramirezmusic.com/. But Christine has taken time out of her busy schedule and life to appease my nostalgia, and play at the Half Price Books in Humble on February 24th, 7-9 pm. Come revel in my past life, I’d love for you to join me.
The Enrichment of Eric Carle (at Half Price)
Today is Wednesday. Wednesday has a new ring to it now that I’m hosting story time every week at 10:30 am on behalf of Half Price Books in the Humble location’s Half Pint section.
It was a quiet crowd today, only three children munching on the provided snack, listening to Duckie Duck by Kate Toms and Mister Seahorse by Eric Carle, to name a few. It is always a pleasure seeing the younger crowd fall in love with books and enjoy a calming sit down with the work of our favorite authors, but today I found myself doing what I used to love best about working in a bookstore again – I was educating.
Kids and parents alike enjoy someone guiding them in their discoveries, just as when I am shopping, I too love for retailers to point out their favorites, clerks to tell me what they’ve been reading lately. Today as I read Mister Seahorse, I got to share the fact that Eric Carle has a museum in Massachusetts, a fact few families seem to know down here in Texas, but almost all respond with wide eyes and dropped jaws. ‘That sounds amazing!’ I often hear people saying. I agree, and I plan to take my daughter there one day on a vacation.
The beauty of The Eric Carle Museum, which feeds my desire to take my child there, aside from the art itself, is their mission:
The mission of The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art is to inspire, especially in children and their families, an appreciation for and an understanding of the art of the picture book. In fulfilling our mission, we aspire to build bridges to an appreciation of art of every kind and to provide an enriching, dynamic, and supportive context for the development of literacy. We deliver this mission by collecting, presenting and celebrating the art of the picture book from around the world and by providing interactive experiences and programs that are engaging and educational.
Humble HPB Half Pint Section
That same mission, building a bridge of art appreciation and developing literacy, is how I choose my child’s books in the first place. It’s not enough to have an amazing story but boring art, it’s also not enough to have amazing illustrations and a terrible story. The building blocks for enriching a child’s mind are in a smooth marriage of those two things and Eric Carle has always seemed to manage that joining.
I hope, by choosing books to read and presenting them to children each week as part of my Event Coordinating duties, Half Price Books can be a venue for which I can share these kinds of books with new minds, and this mission with other parents – at half the price.
The Beautiful World of Bookmarks
Most avid readers I know are exceptionally prone to stuffing anything handy into the pages of their books to mark their place. Receipts, clean napkins, Christmas cards, baby announcements, these are the usual suspects at my house. On rare occasions I’ve been known to dog ear something, but it’s a cardinal sin I always regret later. But, once a year or so, I treat myself to shiny, new, beautiful bookmarks intended for marking books.
When I go about hunting down my treats, my usual haunts are: Bryan Collins, Barnes & Noble and Half Price Books.
Bookmarks by Bryan Collins
If you’ve been reading my blog for longer than five minutes, you are well aware of my stalker-like obsession for all Bryan Collins art. And as I don’t always have the money I’d like to spend on his art, I do the best I can to advertise its wonderfulness every chance I get. One of my favorite things about his endeavors as an artist, is that if you are really broke, you can always get some of his really amazing work in a bookmark format, which is cheap… as in have a great value. They’re about $4.00, but they are pretty sturdy. I bought some a few years ago and they still look minty new. What I like even more is that they have a matte finish, not a cheap glossy finish. They’re fabulous and you can buy them here: http://www.etsy.com/listing/57026432/bookmark-of-if-only-she-would-have. I also have a link on the right, below my blog roll, to his Etsy site, so if you want to find him later, you don’t have to sift through all my blog posts to do so.
My other bookmark purchases are those magnetic bookmarks, the ones that clip to the page with a magnet and usually feature great pictures. I’m a little obsessive and like to make whichever one I’m using match the theme of the book if I can. This is a fun idea when they are brand new, but by the end of their days, its more of a “Which one is still in tact?” issue. You can get those on Amazon.com
Finally, I’m in love with the tasseled bookmarks available at Half Price Books. They are 49 cents and wonderful. Classic, simple, great designs, inexpensive. You can’t go wrong and they’re usually right by the register. I recently picked up one with a cute, little owl illustration. How do you pass up a cartoon owl?
So book-aholics! Treat yourself to a bookmark, and throw away those tattered sheets of paper, even if its only for a week before you find library due date slips stashed between the pages of your #FridayRead, its worth the occasional cleanse.
A Lovely Event
Typically, I’m not a huge fan of Valentine’s Day. Its a day that is seemingly invented for sheer consumerism. Many people find this ironic, because I am very happily married to my soul mate and love. The thing is, though, usually I’d rather curl up with a good book as I snuggle my honey, and not worry about what’s going on in the outside world as everyone else worries about things like “Is she going to like this gift?” or “What can I do for him that wont say too much and scare him off?”
You're Invited!
But this year, its been put in perspective of things I love and things I can do to make it more fun. This year, I’m an Event Coordinator for a bookstore I love and I get to make it what I want. This year, its about celebrating some of my favorite stories of all time (books like The Scarlet Pimpernel and Time Traveler’s Wife will absolutely be featured, as well as biographies on people like Nicholas and Alexandra and so on) and celebrating a fabulous little Italian restaraunt in Humble that I’ve grown to love. This year, you can come to the Humble Half Price Bookstore, buy your favorite love story and upon purchase be entered to win a dinner for two to Italiano’s in Humble. How much fun is that?
What’s even better? We’re doing it on the 10th, not the 14th, so people who already have big plans, or have to work because they are in the retail or service industry, or just don’t want to fight Valentine’s Day traffic can have a low-key but intimate date night with us. On top of that, some lucky couple will get to do Valentine’s Day, or some other special day they choose, practically for free!
My hope is that if we get a lot of people in the door, next year more businesses will donate gift cards and the year after that even more people! We could maybe one day build Valentine’s Day up to a bookstore extravaganza so that even the most non-Valentine-date night people ever, like me, will look forward to the month of February.
So, if you’re in the Houston area, come celebrate Valentine’s on February 10th with me as we bask in the loveliness of books – our mutual true love.
Brick and Mortar vs. The Online World
Featuring the Best Bookstores inTexas
Despite being an Amazon.com affiliate, I truly believe in being a patron of a brick and mortar bookstore. In my mind, online sales are a necessary evil for the true bibliophile who cannot afford to travel toWalesfrom theUnited Statesto pick up a copy of the next book in the Scarlet Pimpernel series. (I shop abebooks.com every three or four months for this exact purpose.) Online sales are for that student looking for the cheapest textbook because its that or don’t eat for a month, and where not eating for a day or two is fathomable, not eating for a whole month would counter the act of trying to improve your mind. I shop online if I’m gravely ill and cannot expose my disgusting germs to the outside world for a few weeks and am dying to read that biography that is just obscure enough that my favorite stores wont have it in stock for months anyway. I shop Amazon.com for Paul Collins books on the regular, because they are readily available there, but most his stuff is out of print and isn’t carried by Barnes & Noble (I really like the one at the Woodlands mall) and rarely seen at most used stores.
For this reason, I am signing paperwork on Tuesday to be an Event Coordinator at my local Half Price Books (Humble), my favorite family owned bookstore in the country and the easiest store to shop inTexas. I’d like nothing more than to generate traffic at a place I love while mostly still being a stay at home mom, as this job is only 20 hrs. a month and is a bit like a consulting gig.
That being said, Half Price Books isn’t the only great bookstore inTexas. I’m also a huge fan of Murder By the Book inHouston, mostly for the fact that they have become world famous and still manage to be the coziest place in the world. Murder By the Book is right around the corner from a Half Price Books, and though I stop at HPB first, if they don’t have the latest and greatest in stock yet, I have no problem popping over and buying a current pub if I have to. The real life story to this hypothetical scenario being when Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s Angel Game was first released.
Murder By the Book is great, but they are a bit of a drive for me. So when I want the same cozy atmosphere, comfy chairs, and intimate shelving units, but not the drive, another favorite place for me is Good Books in the Woods in Spring, off Oak Ridge, almost to the Woodlands. It’s a quiet little gem tucked away literally in the woods, a house turned bookstore. They have their own book clubs and writing workshops. They specialize in first editions, signed copies, and all that is old and interesting, but there are some run of the mill things you can find there too. It’s a bit more expensive than HPB on most days, but sometimes worth it if HPB doesn’t happen to have what you’re looking for and you’re too impatient to wait for it to be shipped to you. I say “a bit more expensive,” but their prices are always reasonable, I’m just used to my beloved HPB clearance section. (Visit Good Books in the Woods here: http://www.goodbooksinthewoods.com/)
As I’m headed back home, often severely hungry because I’m always hungry, on the southbound side of 45 you can also find Once and Again Books, often mistaken as an HPB because its quite similar. Honestly, I only shop there because its next to my favorite food joint: The Olive Oil, fabulous Greek Food. And it’s on the way home. But its nice, its clean, and in good order.
Now for myDallaspeeps:
I’m absolutely, positively in love with the Recycled Bookstore inDenton. The entire shopping experience happens, literally, in layers. There are stairs and cubbies and closets, all brimming with organized, clean, lovely used books. They also function in an old school fashion and will negotiate prices with you, something most stores just can’t do anymore. For my every day Dallas shopping, I stick to all the near by Half Price Books locations peppered all over the city, but on special day trips up the highway, a bookstore in an old Opera House is just the thing.
As for Dallas Half Price Books locations (and there are quite a few!), my favorites are of course the flagship for its enormity and coffee shop, and the Cedar Hill location for having been my college haunt and my first introduction to Half Price Books at all.
Now, Texans, really… with all these just moments away, why would you go online to shop unless you absolutely had to? Amazon.com, abebooks.com, hpbmarketplace.com, all those fabulous .com bookstore – are tools when you need them, not your first go to.
Gift Ideas for the Masses
Half Price Books has these fabulous little polar bear reuseable bags for $1.98 and all these cool odds and ends (like cards and calendars) to go with them. My idea: buy the bag and stuff it with goodies and put a big matching bow on the top. You’ll probably save lots of money (only buy one bag per person on your list) and you wont have to wrap a thing.
What I plan to do with the bags I buy (shhh, don’t tell my friends and family – good thing they don’t read this!):
Find a book at Half Price that you think they might enjoy, its Half Price – so it wont cost you much! Find a movie to match the theme of the book. Ie: if you buy them a copy of Atonement by Ian McEwan, buy them the movie with Kiera Knightley as well!; if you buy them a Civil War Coffee Table book, get them a documentary too! For kids, maybe get books that have Polar Bears in the story or on the cover: Pullman’s The Golden Compass series and maybe the movie to go with. Obviously, there’s still space in these reuseable bags. Bake some cookies, fudge, or candies (don’t know how, I bet Half Price or Amazon has a book on that too!). You might also want to add a small bit of artwork from Bryan Collins, he has small easily frameable prints for sale at bryandrinkscoffee.com. This will make these gift bags more personalized and family friendly – and you’ll still save lots!
Anakalian Whims 