Taking Stock — and Putting Stock in Truth and Books

Although winter is still far in the future, there is a rich, fecund aroma of autumn in the September air, and the inevitable lull following the Labor Day weekend seems like a good time to take stock (before "going forward," as it seems we must say these days, adding that phrase to anything having to do with the future). So here is my very general report on the 2019 season for my life, my bookstore, my authors, and for bookstores in general in the United States. How’s that for biting off more than anyone will feel like chewing on a rainy Tuesday morning?

Our pack of three got through the busy summer without catastrophes of any kind. We kept up (if barely) with laundry and mowing grass and got enough sleep most nights that morning’s arrival did not bring excessive dismay. June, you may recall, was cool and wet (that’s when the grass grew at jungle speed), July and August more summery but only rarely too warm. It was a beautiful summer, really. 

Old Sarah, now 84 in dog years, staggers a bit from time to time but can also still run like the wind and jump like a steeplechase champion. Her dog mom and dad — that’s me and the Artist — have slowed down, too, but then we don’t even try to keep up with the pace of former years. Visits from family and friends are less strenuous, because our plans for the time are less ambitious. Being together is enough.

It was a good season in the bookstore. Being closed on Sundays was a good decision, and opening at 10 a.m. most days, instead of the officially stated 11 a.m., worked out well, too. (No one minds when a business opens early.) Having TEA events (Thursday Evening Authors) every other week, for a total of five, was a manageable and successful plan that I’ll repeat in 2020. And taking credit and debit cards for the second year in a row was a life-saver both for my business and my customers.

My authors! I would be nowhere and nothing without them! Here are the nine top-selling titles for August at Dog Ears Books:

1. From the Place of the Gathering Light, by Kathleen Stocking
2. Beautiful Music, by Michael Zadoorian
3. Downstream From Here, by Charles Eisendrath
4. The Leisure Seeker, by Michael Zadoorian
5. Letters from the Leelanau, by Kathleen Stocking

(Do you see some repetition of author names in the list so far? And we’re not done yet.)

6.  Dune Dragons, by Gretchen Rose, tied with Lost Tiki Palaces of Detroit, by Michael Zadoorian

7.  The Marsh King’s Daughter, by Karen Dionne

8.  Lake Michigan Rock Picker’s Guide, by Bruce Mueller and Kevin Gauthier

9.  And in a 5-way tie for ninth place we have:

Even in Darkness, by Barbara Stark-Nemon

Jim Harrison: The Essential Poems

Leelanau by Kayak, by Jon R. Constant

Long Arc of the Universe, by Kathleen Stocking

and

Trails of M-22, BY Jim DuFresne

I’ll not continue to tenth place, because there are far too many in that position to list.

And now for the general state of indie bookstores across the United States, for those readers who may be interested. 

I had to do some digging on the question, and what prompted my quest was yet another wanderer one day last week bemoaning the disappearance of bookstores. His wife had given him a time limit of 10 minutes to look at books. He proclaimed that time constraint as he entered, along with his love of bookstores -- but then, instead of using his precious time to peruse the shelves, he came and planted himself in front of my desk and demanded to know: “How do you stay in business?” 

I really hate questions about business from curiosity-seekers! I love questions about books! I even welcome questions about other bookstores! But inquiring about the health of my business is like asking a cattleman how many cows he runs or querying an investor about the returns on her stock portfolio. (NYOB!) You’re here, in a bookstore! It’s open! The shelves are filled with books! I want to say, “If you truly love books, you won’t be able to keep your hands off them, and if you’re not interested in books, why did you come in at all?”

But back to his question: “How do you stay in business?”

My answer was brief and to the point: “I sell books.”

He then starts into a long “yes, but” routine about bookstores closing right and left, and I ask him where he lives, if he visits bookstores there, and if he buys books in those bookstores. He says he does. “Well, that’s how they stay in business,” I tell him.

Unfortunately for me, though, he happened in during a quiet afternoon lull and could not let go of his curiosity, so fixated on what he was convinced is the sad, sorry state of American bricks-and-mortar bookselling that he was blind to my treasure-filled shelves. Sigh! If my business were in decline — which it is not — he and his ilk would not be the cure!

But what how much evidence does he have for his belief? And what is the truth of this widespread belief, anyway, the claim I have heard so many times over the years and, yes, this past summer, also, that bookstores are vanishing from the American scene?

Each issue of my daily e-mail “Shelf Awareness” newsletter brings me news of various independent bookstores opening, moving, offered for sale, bought by new owners, and closing across the country. If I look beyond the newsletter, it’s fairly simple to find statistics on how many bookstores have closed during a certain time period, but I don’t find similar stats for the new bookstores that opened. What is the bottom line? Are we indie booksellers an endangered species, like the hawksbill sea turtle, and I just haven’t gotten word yet of my imminent demise? 

Here’s a surprise: There are more bookstores in the United States today than there were in the 1930s. When you stop to think about how much closer to home in general people shopped back then, that seems counterintuitive, which goes to show once again that what “makes sense” to us isn’t always how things are or ever were.

Next surprise: Between 2000 and 2007, over a thousand American bookstores closed their doors, for one reason or another. But between 2009 and 2015, the number of indies rose by 35%! 

Another surprise: Sales rose 9% in indie bookstores from 2017 to 2018. Who expected that back in 2007?

My view from the bookstore counter goes back now 26 years, and during the very first summer,1993, in the little shed right down Waukazoo Street (long gone now) from where I sit this morning, over and over I heard visitors to my little treasure island lament upon entry, “No one reads books any more!” Mind you, they were not referring to themselves but to people they took to be the majority of Americans. They, of course, did read, and that's why they were delighted to find a bookstore while on vacation. Some had very extensive private libraries  at home that held many more volumes than my then-tiny shop had on offer. But time and time again I heard the mournful refrain: “No one reads books any more!” 

Well, if that had been true in 1993 or if it had become true in any of the intervening years since, I would not still be a bookseller, because my business is not a hobby. There’s no secret trust fund behind it, paying expenses and buying inventory. What I told last week’s curiosity-seeker was my bottom-line truth: I stay in business by selling books.

Maybe we readers are tempted to think of bookstores as endangered and of books as disappearing because it seems to add value to what we love and allow us, as readers, to feel more special, perhaps even elite. I can kind of understand that, but at the same time I want to push back against it and object, albeit gently and lovingly, as follows: 

Dear friends, 

Personally written and illustrated, printed-on-paper, well-produced books are special, but it is not their scarcity that makes them precious. Books are part of our common human heritage, the earth’s history and cultures that have made us and continue to make us who we are. The more of us who share in that wealth, the richer we all are! Is that a paradox? Nonetheless, I believe it to be true. And you, my readers, my bookstore customers, are very special people, every single one of you! Thank you for another wonderful summer of books in Northport!

Love,

Pamela

The Speeding Blur That Is Summer

When I reply to the “How’s summer” question with my standard answer — “It’s a blur!” — many of my friends nod in ready agreement. Business owners, workers, locals entertaining family visitors, and hosts of volunteers staging events are all feeling the pressure as the second week of August nips at our heels.

My next-to-last Thursday Evening Author event was an absolute delight. We had an excellent turnout for Michael Zadoorian, and he won over the audience completely, including the Artist, who is immersed at present in Second Hand (Zadoorian’s first novel) and eager to read all of the author’s work. Now, only one more TEA to go this season, Charles Eisendrath on August 22nd. Seems only yesterday I was lining up the season's guest list of authors….

Spring and early summer rains have dried up, and thirsty gardens are panting in the sun. Cherry festival is a month past, tart cherry harvest finally underway. Very late this year. Ah, the relentless festival season! It sometimes seems that everything is happening at once, but the Northport Wine and Craft Beverage Festival, formerly (as Leelanau Food and Wine Festival) held the same Saturday as Northport’s dog parade, has been moved to the following week. Seems like a good idea — one weekend much more family-oriented than the other. See township event calendar for dates. 

Even in the most blurred, most swiftly flying days of late summer, by neglecting certain household and yard chores I am managing to carve out some morning and evening reading time. Top of the stack at present is the late Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon: “He closed his eyes and threw his arm over his face to keep the light from overexposing his thoughts.” How did she do it? Genius.

And oh, yes, don't forget to look for meteors in the sky this coming Sunday and Monday nights. 

I Said, He Said

The little notice at the top of today's post is something I taped outside my bookstore door a couple weeks ago. Originally I had it inside on the bulletin board, but my helper, Bruce, thought it needed to be bigger, so Bill Coohon made me a full-size printed sheet (now on bulletin board), and the little original moved to its current location, where people see it as they reach to open the door. 

Another small notice on the door itself provides information on when the bookstore is open. I list my hours as 11-5, though I’ve generally been open by 10 this summer and often don’t get away right at 5, either, if the store is full of (ahem!) browsers. (No one minds when a store opens early and closes late. They do mind if it opens late or closes early!) As for those Mondays, I've been open regularly on Mondays, but yes, my bookstore is closed on Sundays this year. Having a day off preserves my sanity and helps me be happier in my work.

This morning I got to town earlier than usual, because Wednesday’s early morning errands get me on the road before 8 a.m. I wasn’t all that surprised to see a note taped beside my door: sometimes a friend stops by before I get here or a delivery person makes an unexpected early morning stop, or maybe someone I don’t know is leaving greetings from a mutual friend faraway. Today’s note was different, however. The writer, though I’m not sure why, seemed to take exception to my browsing instructions. Here’s what I found:

I admit I was puzzled. Could the writer not see through the windows that the space inside was furnished and stocked? Did the writer expect the bookstore to open before 8 a.m.? I have been serving my Up North market — locals, summer people, tourists — since 1993. Had the writer ever seen me crying over online shoppers? No one has ever seen that, because it doesn’t happen.

While my own note beside the door does not bear my name, people generally make the correct assumption that I am its author, and if they ask I say, yes, of course. The note left for me, on the other hand, was anonymous. (Wouldn’t you know?) Without a clue to the anonymous writer’s identity, therefore, other than handwriting (very neat printing, actually, using good ink) and the kind of blue masking tape used by painters, I’m going to hazard a guess. 

I could be wrong, but I’m guessing that Anonymous is male. I’m guessing further that he is relatively young. As I say, I could be wrong. 

Here is the background assumption behind my guess: Young people, and particularly young men, often think they have figured the world out much better than their elders. They are eager to proffer sage advice — and yet, not always eager to enter in dialogue. Those seeking the last word prefer the exit line zinger. Better yet, the anonymous message.

I wonder if Anonymous has ever read Nietzsche. Poor Nietzsche! He was so eager to have the last word that he larded his later writings with off-putting remarks about how no one alive could possibly understand him, how he was speaking to the future when, presumably, humans would have evolved the higher intelligence he himself already possessed. Ah, the Myth of the Elusive Last Word! The world has not yet ceased interpreting Nietzsche, and it never will as long as his works persists, so he didn’t have the last word, after all, and neither will Anonymous -- and neither will I, for that matter. The world spins on, opinions multiply. Whatever we say, however carefully we say it, someone will find a way to object. 

Well, sorry! I digress.

Anonymous left a second note written in black magic market on his blue masking tape. Or maybe this was his first note, the inked list his second? Anyway, here's the shorter message:

I don’t know if you can read that. What it says is, “Also, Respect Your Customer.” Then below that it says, “WTF? Nice Joke,” with an arrow that pointed down (before I removed it) to my browsing instructions. 

My first response to “WTF” was “NVN!” (By that I mean Not Very Nice.) But it’s so hard to interpret the rest without context or facial expression. By “Nice Joke,” was he saying he appreciated my humor (as do most people coming through the door)? Or was he being sarcastic? Well, no way to know, is there? As far as respecting the customer goes, though, I’m proud to say I have an excellent track record, but don’t take my word for it. Ask around. I'm not hiding behind anonymity. 

And now, enough of that nonsense. It was fun for a while and good for a laugh to start the day, but let’s not get completely distracted by anonymous note-writers or bullying tweeters, because the more we can talk to each other face-to-face, the better our lives will be. 

Also, whatever you do, do not lose track of my Thursday Evening Author series, with two more events to go this summer! Next week, Michael Zadoorian! Read about his new novel here, and come meet him on August 8! 

Where Did YOU Go to High School -- and When?

“I don’t think I want to go to high school,” I finally confess to my mother as we sit at the kitchen table two nights before school starts. She’s in a pretty good mood, so it seems like the right time to bring it up.  

My mother stubs out an L&M 100 in the hubcap-sized ashtray we keep in the kitchen. I make a note that it’s due to be emptied. She looks at me, exhaling the last pull of smoke almost away from me, but not really. “Excuse me, what did you say?” 

- Michael Zadoorian, Beautiful Music

Literary critics call a novel like Beautiful Music a Bildungsroman. The term a combination of the German word Bildung, meaning "education," and Roman, meaning "novel." So a "bildungsroman" is a novel that deals with the main character’s formative years, especially psychological development and moral education. Here in the U.S. we generally call these books “coming-of-age” novels. 

In Beautiful Music we meet Danny Yzemski and his parents shortly before Danny begins high school (didn’t you know he wouldn’t get out of it that easily?), and as we read we travel with him along his particular, sometimes frightening and occasionally exhilarating, path through 1970s urban adolescence.

Danny has not been looking forward to high school. He’s not even excited about learning to drive and would have postponed getting behind the wheel indefinitely, if not for his father’s insistence. In fact, Danny might have been content to hide away in the basement forever building his model cars, if he’d had his way. High school — well, that’s an obstacle course of dangers and pitfalls.

At school, I master the art of not being seen. Even though I’m not so tall and slightly wide, I’m very good at working my way through all the different kids in the hallways without making any contact. While I’m weaving through the halls, the other kids are only blurs to me — white blurs, black blurs (more every day), pretty blurs who see right through me, smart blurs who I work the hardest to avoid. I bend my body, weave and wiggle between them, like walking between raindrops, taking care to never touch or look at anyone. If I brush anyone at all, that’s a point against me in my head. Touching or being seen also makes me more vulnerable to the mean blurs who torment kids like me. That’s why it’s best to keep moving. The faster I walk, the less they see of me. I’m a bat, flying low through the halls, using my sonar to find the spaces between the other kids….

Danny’s parents do not have the happiest marriage in Detroit, but they are together, and his father looks after his pretty obviously depressed and alcoholic wife as best he can. And both of them love Danny, which is a big plus. But it’s the boy and his father who are close buddies, without having to put their closeness into sentimental words — and that makes his father’s sudden and unexpected death all the more traumatic for Danny, already feeling at sea in his transition from boy to man.

What saves his life, basically, is music, though I’ll leave the what and how of it for you to discover in reading the novel. And seventies rock doesn’t solve every problem or answer every question. It certainly make Danny’s mother stop drinking or bring his father back to life. But it does give him a reason to get out of the basement. Something to hang onto. Eventually, it opens a few doors for him into the larger world. 

Sometimes Danny uses music to stop thinking, but he’s too smart to cut off his thoughts altogether, and one of the theories he develops has to do with bad dreams. Parents, he reasons, “build a bubble around you” and tell you that a bad dream is “just a bad dream, nothing to worry about…,” instead of what he now thinks it is, “your own creeping awareness that you … are going to die.” He wonders how childhood might be different if adults didn’t distract kids with “tooth fairies and Easter Bunnies and Santa Clauses” but told them the real truth about the world.

That people do bad things. They beat you up. They say horrible mean words to each other, even when there doesn’t seem to be much difference between them. That dads don’t wake up and moms stop taking care of you and start going crazy. That nothing is going to turn out like you think. 

Even if a young person were told these truths, though, hearing the statements would not be living the experiences — surviving, becoming stronger, and finding a way through to a reasonably happy and fulfilling adulthood in an imperfect world. At the end of Beautiful Music, although for his sake we wish his path were easier, we think Danny is going to do all right. 

The music of the Seventies grounds and surrounds the story. It is the friendliest part, for him, of the world Danny inhabits. More than that, it is his salvation. The uneasiness of race relations in that decade of Detroit’s history is mostly in the background, except for a few incidents, but then, Danny’s life has been very quiet and protected and narrow until his father’s death — he has never had a date and doesn’t hang out with a “crowd” — so for me the fact that he doesn’t dwell more deeply on racial issues is just part and parcel of where he is in his growing up. He’s an adolescent white male, a loner who has lost his father, and he is naturally preoccupied with his own personal problems.

Only once time did the narrator’s language depart from what I thought a high school boy like Danny would naturally use. The use of the term “cross-stitching” (or was it “cross-stitched”?) stuck out in one sentence. But that was all. On every other page I believed every word came from a teenage boy, albeit it one who is something of a “nerd.” 

Beautiful Music is a novel for adults, but I can also see it being read and enjoyed by teen readers, especially those interested in “what the Seventies were like.” It wasn’t even my era (I was a Sixties teen) and have never lived in Detroit, but Zadoorian made the era and the protagonist come alive for me. 

Michael Zadoorian will be my Thursday Evening Author on August 8, when I look forward to meeting him and hope you will be able to join us. 

“How Doth the Busy Little Bee…”?

Can you believe it’s practically the middle of July already? Is summer half-over? Vacation just starting or still a few weeks in the future? Anyway, the marsh marigolds have given way to daisies, yarrow, and sweet peas along the roadsides, and while coreopsis and St. Johnswort were a little late this year they're now making quite a showing, as are garden roses, making up for the iris performance that's over for the season. Cherries are ripening. Hay is being cut and baled and transported from the fields.

It was another very busy week in your Up North bookseller’s life (making hay while the sun shines) -- so busy I’ve already forgotten what happened on Monday. Tuesday, I know, brought Barbara Stark-Nemon to the library with her new novel, Hard Cider; Wednesday our little reading circle escaped vicariously to Vienna for a couple of hours (with the help of a couple book and three special guests); and Thursday, of course, Kathleen Stocking was my Thursday Evening Author at Dog Ears Books, where we had, as I had anticipated, standing room only in the Artist’s gallery, with audience spilling over into studio and bookstore. I have to thank the versatile Artist, David Grath, not only for letting us use the space but also for setting up chairs and for his beautiful painting on the cover of the guest author’s book! Sorry I don't have better photos -- I mean, really, sorry I don't have good, illustrative photos at all of the evening. There was just no room to maneuver.

As it was, I had to elbow my way past the overflow crowd to get the above.

Kathleen Stocking is, to resort to a word I generally consider overused but one very appropriate in this case, iconic Leelanau. On this particular occasion (she seems to have a different twist for every appearance) she brought along children of a friend to perform a skit illustrating the history of the universe! Who would have expected that? And after her talk, copies From the Place of the Gathering Light: Leelanau Pieces flew off the sales counter. 

Whenever I’m tempted to say the weather is or was “hot,” as it was on Wednesday, I am always reminded of a friend (you are gone but not forgotten, Chris) who forbade the use of that word in northern Michigan. He would allow his friends to say “warm,” when summer finally came after a long northern winter, but no complaining, ever! Whatever you call temperatures in the 90s, I was relieved when a cold front moved in Wednesday evening, so that the Artist’s gallery space on Thursday, even filled to overflowing, remained comfortable. 

If you missed the event, a few signed copies are still available, along with signed copies of Stocking's previous book (her third of four), The Long Arc of the Universe—Travels Beyond the Pale, which I highly recommend you read, also. In short, it was a glorious evening!

[Note on refreshments (skip if not interested): The event series is still called TEA, but I’ve switched to punch this summer. We had “library punch” for Jennifer Clark (Vernor’s and white grape juice — always good), and for Kathleen I modified a punch recipe that is so good that it needs a name of its own. Nancy Giles makes her punch with frozen orange juice, frozen lemonade, pineapple juice, 7-Up, water, vanilla extract, and almond extract. My modification was the substitution of Vernor’s for 7-Up, and because of that change I omitted the almond extract. Sorry not to include measurements here, but I kind of winged it on those, reducing the amount of Vernor’s and water and trusting on melting ice to make up for it. Tip on Note: Don’t add all the carbonated liquid at once, but add a more gradually as the ice melts to keep the kick in the punch.]

Friday morning was beautiful, too, and, with Bruce opening the bookstore for me, I treated myself to a leisurely late rising and unrushed garden-watering session. Forget Shakespeare’s sonnet about June — it’s July that is bringing perfect days to northern Michigan this year. Perfect morning for farmers market on Friday. Perfect evening for Music in the Park. Perfect all day long for strolling around the village to admire garden blooms.

Perfect days for relaxing with good books, too, so steal the time, one way or another. I look forward to these future TEA guests at my bookstore in Northport.

Authors and books still to come this summer

P.S. Today's title was taken from this poem. 

What the Weather Is Saying To Me

One day last week I had a few hours away from the bookstore. Having Bruce at the helm (i.e., desk and sales counter) gave me a chance to accompany the Artist on a trip down to the landfill south of M-72 — kind of a tradition with us, that trip, though it’s gotten much, much more expensive over the years. Still, we enjoy the drive and a stop in Cedar for ice cream on the way back. Then, since Bruce likes to leave by 4 at the latest to get back to Traverse City by 5, the Artist and I got ourselves up to Northport together to finish out the day. 

The day (it was Friday) had turned cool and cloudy, with a fallish breeze ruffling the goldenrod along the roadside, and I remarked to the Artist, “I don’t mind this kind of weather at all. It seems to say, ‘Slow down. Take it easy.’” He said he felt just the same. And so we slow downed and took the evening easy after a simple supper, big bowls of ramen with spicy pork and vegetables. Overnight it rained at last, and the weather, wordlessly, told me I could take time off from watering the garden and should hold off hanging laundry out on the line, too. The grass doesn’t need mowing, the météo added, again without words. I got the message. Since then, of course, we’ve had more rain, including one really big overnight storm. No, make that two more big storms now.

In the late 1980s, I lived for two years (minus the summers) in Cincinnati, Ohio, and before leaving my apartment to walk to campus each morning, I made a phone call to an automated service that delivered that day’s weather predictions. If the day would be turning cold before my walk home in late afternoon, the forecast warned me, without saying so explicitly, to take a warm jacket. However clear the sky at sunrise, when rain was in the forecast I carried an umbrella. Cincinnati’s hilly terrain and European architecture make for fascinating walks, but all walks are best enjoyed when the walker is prepared for the weather. 

Weather. As people say, we talk about it but do nothing about it. I can't help thinking that's part of our love for weather talk, forecasts, predictions, and after-the-fact reports. In general, we are not called upon to do much about it, and not being called to action for a change can be quite a relief.

As much as I enjoyed slowing down a while (and I’m still “on vacation” from watering, even in Northport, where the rain has done that job for me while the awnings are down for cleaning), it’s time to pick up the pace once again, because this week is our last Thursday Evening Author event of the 25th-year anniversary season. Please join us at 7 p.m. for geology, poetry, and live music from Thomas Hooker of Texas and Cherry Home, Northport. (If there is such a thing as a part-time local, that’s what Tom is.) This is our last TEA! And Labor Day is right around the corner!

Gifts of August Come Our Way

On one back road this week I noticed goldenrod beginning to flower and was startled this morning, on a more travelled road, to see bracken fern turning yellow and brown. So soon! Summer is still here, however, and the beauty of prolific coneflowers in my meadow attests to that fact. When the last of the coneflowers begin to fade, I will mourn their passing, sorrowing over their brief bloom, but then blue and purple and lavender and pink and white asters will take their place and gladden my heart in their turn.

Our TEA guest this past week was heart-gladdening writer Karen Anderson, who brought leaves from “God’s begonia” for audience members to take home and root. There is a lovely story in her book, Gradual Clearing, about Karen’s “missionary” work with a begonia that has, in her words, taken over her life. I look at the single innocent leaf on my front porch table, resting quietly in a water-filled cream pitcher, and wonder how much of my life it may grow to fill. Should I be alarmed? For now I am simply grateful to have met Karen Anderson at last, after hearing her on the radio for so many years and gratified that she was willing to come to Northport and that she was pleased by her audience at Dog Ears Books. I asked her to sign a stack of books for bookstore customers yet to come, as it is the perfect birthday, thank-you, or holiday gift.

Friday is slow-down time for me. Bruce is back in the shop after a couple weeks away for family reunion, and I celebrated my Partial Day Off (PDO) by hanging laundry outdoors at a leisurely pace (rather than in my usual predawn rush), followed by al fresco lunch under green leaves rustling in the breeze. Then clean sheets on the bed, clean tablecloth on the porch table, and small pockets of my little world gradually become more orderly. What a lovely gift it is to pause for half an hour on a quiet August day and do little more than watch leaves toss gently in a refreshing breeze! How would I ever have survived 25 years as a bookseller without the occasional backup of my loyal volunteer?

And now, already, tomorrow — Saturday the 11th of August this year is dog parade day in Northport! Can you believe it’s that time already?