My Night at the Bookstore

I love local bookstores. I am blessed to live and love in a community that has The Northshire Bookstore. I cannot envision a better way to get to know oneself than to take a stroll around the relaxing ambiance, thumbing through books curated by professional booksellers. As their website alludes, These people are "committed to the future of the book.". So am I after a trip there.

I snapped a few photos of the books I am drawn to lately. Usually I find myself migrating toward the classical fiction nook. Maybe because I have a short stack of unfinished books on my nightstand, I couldn't fathom finding another I wanted to dive into. So I strolled around and fingered through some bindings and pages, interested to observe which books popped off the shelves and into my hands.I love the way this place smells. Have you ever inhaled deeply in a bookstore?  Not sure if it is the bindings or the ink or the carpentry of the shelves, but it is kind of intoxicating to me.  Okay, re-reading that...Maybe I need to get out of the house a little more.

For a few years, I've been thinking about Julia Child's 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking'.  I really think this may be a retirement project for me, or something I fiddle around with when my kids are older.  On that note, I found this huge Italian text that reminded me I'd like to learn to speak Italian someday and play with Italian cooking. 

I also have an interest to keep bees; for the honey and to promote the honey bee. They are a social creature who cannot survive long without the structure of their family.

I am not really a bird-watcher, but we have this really intereting family of birds who have returned to the same nests on the side of our house for as long as we have lived here - 13 years.  I wanted to get to know them better.

Pheobes or Fly-catchers are one of the only birds who return to the same nests over and over.  Generations of phoebes have returned to nest and raise their families in mud nests over a couple of our windows.  It is fun to share space with this beautiful bird.  We always get a glimpse of the babies piled in the nests right before they fly off to independence.  They likely winter in Mexico or Central America.

The bookstore has a section like this.  Cute bracelets, scarves, home wares and other doo-dads.  I love the colors.  This day, I picked up the blue pillows you see here to accent a couch. 

An unexpected delight, best selling author Chris Bohjalian of 'Midwives' was speaking, promoting his new novel 'The Sandcastle Girls'.  I scooped up my daughter (who started reading 'Midwives' and also loves to write) and we listened to him talk a bit about the book and his writing process of weaving a fictional tale around the real Armenian conflict and atrocities.  'The Sandcastle Girls' is Oprah's book of the week and debuted on this week's New York Times bestseller list at #7.    Ciao!