A Month of Winter, A Month of Reading

We finally had a big snow. Plows were at work for days and days. Is what we are experiencing now simply a late January thaw, to be followed by another couple months of winter? Mother Nature doesn’t seem any surer than we are – and feels as ready as we are to welcome spring. But no ice fishing? No ice boating? Can we call it winter at all? Some are wondering, saying, "It doesn't feel right."

I didn't make a New Year’s resolution, but I did decide that instead of publishing bare lists of books read, either by the year or the quarter-year, in 2024 I will give the lists monthly and annotate lightly. Don’t look for full reviews here (when I have written more elsewhere, I will include a link), just somewhat a little more indication than ‘fiction’ or ‘nonfiction’ of what you can expect to find inside the covers if you look for any of these books. 

So here they are, the books I read this January 2024:

1. Straight, Susan. The Country of Women (nonfiction). I characterized this elsewhere as “a long love letter addressed to her three daughters, telling them everything she knows about previous generations on both sides of the family.” I love this author!

2. Brach, Tara. Radical Compassion (nonfiction). A how-to text for getting below and beyond anger, knowing ourselves better, and loving others better.

3. Mosley, Walter. Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned (fiction). Of all Mosley’s novels, this is my favorite, a book I consider absolutely perfect. The HBO film version is excellent, too, no doubt thanks to the author’s involvement in the production. 

4. Picoult, Jodi. My Sister’s Keeper (fiction). The only novel of Picoult’s I have read, I found it well written and compelling but was disappointed in the ending, which seemed unnecessarily contrived and over the top.

5. Johnson, James Weldon. The Autobiography of an Ex-colored Man (fiction). Johnson was not only a writer but a real VIP: Broadway lyricist, the first Black lawyer admitted to the bar since Reconstruction, consul to Venezuela and Nicaragua, university professor, civil rights activist, and head of the NAACP for ten years. This work should be more widely read than it is today.

6. McCullers, Carson. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (fiction). It was only coincidence that I read this novel, featuring the deaf Mr. Singer, right after reading Johnson’s novel with another fictional Mr. Singer. Both are classic American stories, and both highlight the loneliness often found at the heart of the American Dream.

7. McHugh, Laura. Arrowood (fiction). This semi-Gothic, cold case story was more engaging than I expected, and I am interested now in reading the author’s The Weight of Blood, set deep in the Ozarks, as the first few pages included following the end of Arrowood gave a vivid sense of place that I did not find in the novel I read.

 

8. Clymer, Eleanor. The Trolley Car Family (fiction – juv.). A charmingly written and illustrated children’s story set in the early post-WWII period, with streetcars, milkmen, and small family subsistence farms. Never didactic, often rough-and-tumble, a summer in the country provides adventures and lessons for the Parker children.

9. Deaton, Angus. Economics in America: An Immigrant Economist Explores the Land of Inequality (nonfiction). Deaton explains what it is that economists do, inside and outside the academy, and explores ways that American systems (such as healthcare) and American expectations and beliefs differ from those in Europe and the U.K.

10. Van Dyke, Henry. Little Rivers (nonfiction). Author, diplomat, educator, and clergyman, Van Dyke appears in these reminiscences as a travel and fly-fishing aficionado. Although he generally has guides and camp cooks and paddlers to do the work out in the wilderness, he keeps them behind the scenes, and he does plenty of tramping himself from place to place.

11. Anselmo, Anthony. The Spirit of the North Wind (fiction – YA). This novel from a member of the Sault Ste. Marie Ojibwe tribe combines, in a thirteen-year-old’s vision quest, both happy modern family life and elements of magic realism.

12. Foster, Elizabeth. Gigi in America (fiction – juv.). No, not the “funny little girl” from Paris. This Gigi, male, began life in Vienna, and he is a merry-go-round horse. Until they grow too big for the horses’ saddles, children who ride the merry-go-round horses can enter into conversation with them, and several children help Gigi return to the first little girl he loved, now grown up with a daughter of her own. World War II intrudes but only in rather vague, subtle ways. Gypsies are for the most part portrayed in a positive light.

13. Hopson, Nasugraq Rainey. Eagle Drums (fiction – YA). Expecting another vision quest, I was taken much further by this retelling of the Inupiaq society creation myth, small family groups learning from golden eagles how to live together in harmony and pass on their history in song and dance. Mesmerizing and important work.

14. Cott, Jonathan. Wandering Ghost: The Odyssey of Lafcadio Hearn (nonfiction). Excerpts from Hearn’s own writings are so numerous and so lengthy that he deserves to be called a co-author on this volume, but in the end I have no complaint with either man’s contributions. Cott is sympathetic to his subject, and Hearn so completely himself, that the result is superb.

15. Hesse, Hermann. Autobiographical Writings (nonfiction). The selection takes him through life into old age, and he doesn’t hide his feelings. His likes and loves, agonies and peeves are all expressed. He would not have wanted to meet you or me, but here he is, revealed to us all.

16. Meis, Morgan. Ruins: Selected Essays (nonfiction) Surprising. Meis, Ph.D. in philosophy, is a man of catholic interests and thoughtful opinions on such diverse subjects as art, literature, “ruin porn,” the freedom of private life in formerly Communist East Berlin, and the public commemorations of tragedies. I was particularly fascinated by the essay on David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King. Though I doubt I will ever read that novel, unfinished at the time of the author’s death (I have read Infinite Jest and many of DWF’s essays), I look forward to reading more essays by Morgan Reis. 

17. Campbell, Bonnie Jo. The Waters (fiction). Since this was my second reading and the first was not long ago, I was able to appreciate anew and in much greater depth countless details on almost every page of this novel, some having to do with the setting, others foreshadowing events or, often, borrowing from or echoing familiar myths and fairy tales. The Waters is not a simple “retelling” of any one particular older story but contains timeless worlds within itself, even with a setting that could not be more local to southcentral Michigan. And her characters are true to the bone. So proud that she’s a Michigan writer!

18. Straight, Susan. Aquaboogie (fiction). I’ve already written that Susan Straight and Bonnie Jo Campbell have a lot in common. Both write of real people in real places, such that you are pulled irresistibly into a world you may never have encountered before. This volume of Straight’s, her first published book, is short stories and is the fourth book of hers I’ve read, following two novels and a memoir. Highly recommended author!

19. Berger, John. Ways of Seeing (nonfiction). From oil paintings to photography to advertising images, Berger pursues a thesis of the power of wealth and its message to the rest of us. “Glamour cannot exist without personal social envy…. The industrial society which has moved towards democracy and then stopped half way is the ideal society for generating such an emotion.” 

Again and again, I echo the words of Christopher Morley’s fictional Roger Mifflin: “Thank God I am a bookseller!” I don’t promise my customers that they will become happy and glamorous, desirable and envied when they buy books from me. Instead I offer them food for thought and hassle-free armchair travel to worlds real and imaginary. 

 

One last thought for today:

 

Have others besides me noticed how often businesses “need” our feedback these days? There are no more simple transactions, it seems, in which what we paid for is delivered to us and that's all there is to it, but an ongoing, endless plucking at our sleeves, a kind of needy attempt to establish a “relationship.” I might be inclined to thank salespeople in person (or on the phone) or send a grateful note, but I find these endless requests for e-mail feedback unnecessary and annoying, not only because there are so many of them but also because they ask formulaic questions and provide answers from which I must choose. 

 

I don’t and won't do that to my customers! When I mess up (which I try not to do very often), I apologize! On the other hand, frequent repeat customers make me very happy, and many have become my friends over the more than 30 years I’ve been in business, and that did not happen because I asked them to "rate their experience” on a scale of 1 to 5 or 6 or 10. 

 

Do we understand each other? You don’t have to answer that, because yes, I think we understand each other!

 

 

Winter Days Are Here

Clouds delayed sunrise that day.

The sun doesn’t top what I call the Eastern Woods until about 9 o’clock these days, but daylight is sufficient to get me out with my dog an hour before that, and since morning coffee time usually begins for me at 5 a.m., Sunny Juliet is more than ready to go outdoors by 8 o’clock for a good, hard run. She loves to play with frozen apples or -- even more exciting -- the battered, torn remnants of an old boot that still excites her every time she finds it again. 

Sunny practicing her Zen patience --

 

Between 5 and 7:30 a.m., though, Sunny stretches out long and patient beside me on the bed or draped over my feet (she is on top of the covers) while I read, write in my journal, write a letter, and look at news and Facebook on my phone. Checking in with friends on Facebook reminds me of my mother’s long telephone conversations with friends and neighbors when I was a child, except that she could only talk to one person at a time, and those were the days of “long distance” telephone charges, so her daily chats were confined to nearby friends, whereas I can keep up with loved ones anywhere in the world. Of course, there’s always that book I was reading the night before, too, waiting for me before dawn….

 

Northport was deadly quiet on Friday, streets empty. Holiday season or not, this is winter in a summer tourist town. Many, many years ago, a successful Leland entrepreneur told me, “People always want to take their businesses year-round, but the key to a successful seasonal business is to keep it seasonal.” I can hardly complain about anyone spending the winter elsewhere, as I have done so myself many times. Staying in place this year, of course I would be happy to have more regular local customers, but I am grateful for those I do have. And having been in business for over 30 years, quiet winter days do not surprise me. It’s an old story.

 

Saturday was livelier. Even though the horses arrived so late that they kept driving around the village until 9 p.m., I had enough browsers and book buyers to make my day, plus the chance to catch up in person with a local friend whose summers are no doubt as busy as mine. Fun to visit with friends old and new over books!

 

When I go home to Sunny Juliet after a bookstore day (this works better on the short days when I close at 3 than it does on 11-5 winter Saturdays), she is ecstatic to have me back again – and to get outdoors for another ramble before dark. I’ve put her agility equipment away for the winter, and we won’t be going back to class until spring, either, but we are outdoors every day, whatever the weather. Our most frequent path takes us uphill between woods and orchard, where before the big snow Sunny would run and leap and pounce like a fox on dry, skittering leaves and tease me with apples she dropped as an invitation and then grabbed up again herself. Now even the apples are frozen and mostly buried in snow – but she is a girl who enjoys a challenge! 

Woods on Saturday morning 

Deeper snow on Monday morning 

Beautiful red apples in snow 

 

Foraging dog 

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t come to the bookstore on Mondays, but the last part of my new book order hadn’t arrived on Friday, so here I am until the big brown truck comes. What fun Sunny and I had this morning, though! And how beautiful all the trees looked, both around home and on my drive to Northport, every branch outlined and weighed down by snow! My new snow tires did the job, too, even without the driveway plowed yet.

So let it snow! It is, after all, December in northern Michigan. And I am well supplied with books.

Seen from indoors through window and screen on Sunday 

Up close and personal, outdoors on Monday 

Sunny in the snow 

Now, WHAT was that new subject I had in mind? (Ah, yes! “Work and Play”!!!)

Smoke from distant fires --

A few disparate items had been tumbling around in my head, and for a few moments they seemed to come together under a topic heading. What was that heading, though, and what were the thoughts I hoped to connect? I’ll just start tapping away while waiting for a return phone call or e-mail and see if anything thoughts fly back….

 

-- I’ve got it! I’ve got it! (So I went back and added it into today’s post’s subject heading.) Work and Play!!! That will, I hope, tie together some thoughts on dogs, art, me, women in general, jobs, and business. The return e-mail came, too, so everything is back on track for the moment. Remember, though, that the moment is always fleeting....

 

 

Work and Play: Dogs

 

Sunny Juliet is an Australian shepherd, and many friends assumed (and still do) that her breed is the only explanation needed for her demanding puppyhood, but Sunny was something else! Yet, “She needs a job,” people kept telling me. 

The idea that herding dogs “need a job” has entered the general American consciousness and is wisdom now repeated even by people who have no dogs of any breed. But practically perfect Sarah, hybrid border-Aussie, was “something else” in the opposite direction of Sunny, laid back and easy going almost from the day she came home with us at four months of age. Peasy, that beautiful Aussie boy with his tragic issues, learned quickly and was compliant in ordinary matters; his problems flashed out as unforeseeable exceptions. Sunny Juliet? I have never had such an opinionated dog in my life! She has settled down hugely in the past year, however, and we now live together in harmony most of the time.

 

Sunny loves to be outdoors. She loves to go rambling with me, exploring the world, and she loves to play, chasing tennis balls or a Frisbee or a stick or anything else I throw for her. We have yet to get back to the agility lessons, but she remembers “Jump!” and “Tunnel!” and does them beautifully on command. 

 

The question is, does Sunny need a job? That is, does she need sheep or cattle or, at the very least, a flock of ducks to move around? 

 

Here’s my answer: What Sunny needs -- probably what any herding dog needs and no doubt what most dogs need – is mental stimulation combined with physical exertion. 

It doesn’t matter at all to Sunny if she “accomplishes" anything or not by chasing a tennis ball (or jumping a hurdle). Her little mind goes on high alert when she sees me preparing to launch the ball, and she readies her muscles to spring, run, and catch -- or run, chase, and retrieve. Which way will the ball go? Where can she interrupt its trajectory? Will there be a bounce first, or will she catch it in flight? This is more than a game to her. It is an opportunity to use her skills, and she loves it. Her eyes tell the story. If she were herding sheep, the same mental calculations and decisions about speed and direction would come into play. “Into play” = working. 

 

You see my point? I absolutely believe that herding dogs do not differentiate work from play. They love activity and problem-solving, and they seem to love doing things with their humans. Right now Sunny is lying at my feet, waiting patiently for something to happen, some move on my part that gives her a reason to follow me curiously wherever I might go next. 

 

 

Work and Play: Art

 

Marsh marigolds, just because.

Many years ago, a guitarist in my life noted, “Other people work. Musicians play.” We do use those words. (“I have to go to work in the morning.” “Our band is playing at Music in the Park.”) And yet a musician, every bit as much as a carpenter or a nurse, has to learn and practice to acquire skills and keep them sharp. 

 

Is it society’s failure to value musicians and other artists sufficiently that their work is seen as play? Or is seeing art as play a good thing, reminding the rest of us to find joy in our daily lives?

 

“How long did it take you to paint that?” someone would ask the Artist from time to time, and he would answer, “My whole life,” and when we were in the car, slowly driving our favorite county back roads, he was always “working,” in that he was taking in the colors and lines and shapes and richness of the land. When sitting quietly, he might be thinking through an idea for a painting, but when standing at the easel, he would tell me, “You can talk to me. I’m painting, not thinking.”

Photograph of David Grath by David Brigham

 

Work and Play: Me

 

Someone at the recycling center north of Northport saw me the other day and asked, “What are you doing now that you’re not doing?” I was nonplussed. “Not doing”? It’s true that I took six months of seasonal retirement (maybe for the last time!), but I’m certainly doing plenty now! Cleaning and organizing my house after having to empty out the Artist’s studio last fall before I left; getting my yard and gardens in order; preparing to open my bookstore for the season – and that’s only a general outline, with none of the myriad details. 

And now we have a couple more cold nights coming....

Do I differentiate between work and play, or am I more like a herding dog, needing physical and mental activity but not separating it into work/play categories? That’s my question here.

 

Cleaning is definitely work. I won’t say that no thought and planning goes into it or that there’s no satisfaction in seeing the fruits of my labor, but I only engage in it as a necessity. Yard and garden tasks are different. Definitely work (my muscles make sure I get that straight!), but my outdoor projects are ones I choose, not burdens imposed on me, and even mowing grass is work I enjoy. 

I will be open as soon as possible -- but when? When the Fates allow!

My bookstore is chosen work, too (though not the cleaning part: that’s imposed by entropy, a fact of life). No one would start a bookstore and run it for thirty years without a love of books, and my bookstore is a world I have created over time, but it’s certainly more than play. I’m not “playing store.” Bookselling is my livelihood. 

 

Robert Gray wrote a piece recently in the e-mailed book business newsletter, “Shelf Awareness,” about how annoyed he gets when anyone thinks booksellers just sit around and play with their cats all day. You can follow this link and look for the last article in the issue if you’re interested in what what else he had to say. 

 

 

Work and Play: Women

 

I’ve often noticed that women tend to characterize their experiments and trials in the fields of arts and crafts or gardening as “playing around,” in situations where a man would never use such language. Do women (in general) take their activities less seriously than men? Are men (in general) more concerned with having their activities respected? Is “playing around” – with ideas, concepts, designs, arrangements – a belittling and overly modest way of speaking, or does it connote a joyful, playful, open approach to life?

Just because I love them!

 

Work and Play: Jobs and Business

 

A job, even when a necessity, can be chosen work, and a business had better be chosen if the business owner is going to be happy in it!

 

While either jobs or business can involve pleasure and even love, though, they generally need to be taken seriously, and I’d say this is especially true of a business. A job you can quit. Give notice, turn in your keys, and hit the road. Closing and then dismantling or selling a business isn’t so simple. It's more like giving up a home. – And before I am besieged with questions, No, I am not thinking of closing or selling my bookstore! I’m just thinking of ways that a starting a business and keeping it going are a pretty serious commitment.

 

 

So what is my ‘play’?

 

If my business is my work, and this blog is related to my work (sometimes very peripherally, I admit), and if the outdoor jobs I love are work (albeit happily chosen), and since I don’t play bridge or softball, do I not play at all? That would be pretty pitiful, wouldn’t it? 

 

Walking in the woods with Sunny, exploring and observing the natural world, my country drives and photography –all those I experience as play, so much so that I often feel as if I’m “playing hooky” from all work that awaits me in my house and my bookstore. 

 

But no – you know what? Learning and appreciating the natural world is something I feel a joyful obligation to do -- as if it is, more than anything else, my life’s most important work. My way of practicing gratitude for the gift of the world. So I guess, in the way I approach life, I’m quite a bit like Sunny Juliet!

 

Informational Postscript: You wouldn’t guess from the foregoing that I am in the middle of an infrastructure disaster at home, a combination electrical/plumbing crisis. If my bookstore isn’t open on Friday, as I’d hoped, this is the reason. Wish me luck, send good vibes, don’t ask questions! My plate is full enough as it is! Thanks --

Fleeting May! These blossoms are already gone!

 

Did you ever -- write a letter to a stranger?

Patience on a comforter

 

Good morning! And no, to answer a question about my question, politicians don’t count (although writing to them is always a good idea). I'm thinking of writing to someone geographically distant whose story you read or heard somewhere, and you’ll never run into each other at your local grocery store, but you thought, We have a lot in common. I’d like to know him-or-her-or-them. (There. I’m practicing using they/them as a singular pronoun. I need practice with that, I guess.) Have you ever done that?

 

Occasionally I receive notes in the mail from people I’ve never met or encountered so fleetingly that no memory image remained, because I have had a bookstore in Up North tourist country for 29 years and counting. (Thirty next summer!!!) Because some of my annual visitors keep track of my life on this blog. Or because someone ordered a book or books from me years ago, and we fell into correspondence for a while.

 

But it doesn’t always work out long-term.

 

Once, for example, I had a book order from a Frenchman who was teaching at the time in an agricultural lycée on an island in the Indian Ocean. We were both devotes of the entomologist Jean-Henri Fabre. He had ordered a Fabre book I had listed online (back when I did that sort of thing) and explained the reason that his mailing address was France: all mail went there first, then came to the end of the island where the airfield was, and eventually worked its way to the other end of the island where the school was. He sent me a little package of vetiver, one of the island’s chief exports. 

 

I sent something back (I don’t remember what), and things were going along swimmingly until I shared an idea I had: When he and his wife returned to France, we should set up agricultural exchange visits! I imagined having my French visitors stay in our old farmhouse and touring them around Leelanau County, introducing them to cherry growing culture and farmer friends in my township and beyond. They would have so many questions and would love northern Michigan, wouldn’t they? Then they could host an agricultural visit in return. We might have several of these from one year to the next -- as I imagined the concept growing.

 

But after sharing my brilliant idea, I never heard from my distant friend again. In retrospect, I think he must have thought I, personally, was angling for a free country place to stay in France with my husband, which wasn’t at all the idea, but I never followed up on whatever misconception or misunderstanding there must have been, and there ended our exchange. 

 

Another correspondence was more successful. My distant customer was a woman who ordered several books of old dog stories, and as it turned out, she was also a writer. When her next book came out, she sent me an early copy. Wonderful writer! That was years ago, and we are still in touch, albeit infrequently. 

 

So now, this morning, I’m kind of on the fence. Does a woman-woman letter-writing connection between strangers work better, especially when the women are roughly the same age? Or is there any chance at all that a young(er) male Scottish bookseller (my son’s age) would welcome hearing from an aged female colleague in the wilds of northern Michigan? He and my son have the same birthday, but surely the fascination of that coincidence is only in my point of view and would mean nothing to him. 

 

Really, don’t I already have enough to do without launching – no, attempting to launch – another pen pal relationship? That was a rhetorical question….

 

Happy Labor Day weekend! And remember to join us at Tuesday evening’s open house at the Leelanau Township Library, where you can have Sarah Shoemaker sign a copy of her new book for you, beginning at 7:30 p.m. 

 

Hello and Goodby! Coming and Going!

 

And no, I do not mean presidents! Don't you want a break? I sure do, so while we're waiting for the count, I'm stealing some bookstore news -- "industry" news, it might be called in other lines of work -- from articles in today's “Shelf Awareness” newsletter. 

 

Countless events take place in the world without generating screaming headlines. Comings and goings of indie bookstores take place all the time across America, whether you see them happening or not. How many times have visitors from elsewhere come through my bookstore door exclaiming that there’s nothing like Dog Ears where they live – or, more often, bemoaning the disappearance of bookstores in general. And yet, while it’s true that somewhere a bookstore is always closing, it’s also true that somewhere else a new one is opening. Statistics for openings vs. closures would be interesting to see, but every story is particular, as every independent bookstore’s identity is individual and personal.

 

So here are a couple of stories, but keep in mind that every week there are more stories like these:

 

New kid on the block: I’d love to pop in for a visit at the new Beausoleil Books in Lafayette, Louisiana. The only time I was ever in that town, I was delighted to find it (much more than New Orleans) a true francophone community, so a bookstore in town stocking French books along with English titles seems long overdue. Among Lafayette’s other charms: how many universities do you know with an alligator pond behind the Student Union? ("Pond" not at all the word I want, but I'm drawing a blank here. Help!) And dancing, every evening, all ages, to live Cajun music between dinner and sensible early bedtime. Road trip, road trip! Beausoleil Books, we wish you un succès fou!

 

Veteran’s farewell: On a sad note, however, the Book Nook in Monroe, Michigan, is closing its doors forever after December holidays, the “heartbroken” owner writing sadly on her Facebook page that after 50 years of weathering challenges from the Internet in general, the Online Behemoth in particular, and a fire next door, she has finally made the tough decision not to go "further into debt.” She adds bluntly (speaking of presidents), “I don't think it is ‘smart’ to not pay my share of taxes or file bankruptcy or stiff local vendors. I wasn't raised that way.”

 

My heart goes out to honest, hardworking bookseller Janet Berns, who asks for patience from her customers at this time when her emotions “are running the gamut from sadness and despair to anger and frustration to nausea and grief.” I can imagine myself in her shoes, with that roiling stew of feelings, and I hope her next chapter will have the brightness and rewards she has certainly earned after a half-century in her bookstore!

 

And so it goes. They come, they go, and nothing is forever. 

Some booksellers, of course, look forward to retirement. Book Nook owner Janet, though, was clearly not ready, and that troubles my heart.

 

Remember Tinker Belle? If children no longer believed in fairies, she would die, but if enough believers clapped their hands, she would live?  With bookstores, clapping your hands and saying you love them isn't enough. Only sales pay the bills -- another case of actions showing much more convincingly than words what people believe in and value. So to all who have kept Dog Ears Books solvent for over 27 years, please know that I appreciate each and every single one of you and look forward to picking up again in the spring in Northport for what I hope will be a busy, happy, healthy 2021 season. 

Meanwhile, be safe, stay healthy, keep reading -- and remember to shop local with my literary colleagues at Leelanau Books in Leland, Bay Books in Suttons Bay, Cottage Book Shop in Glen Arbor, Horizon Books in Traverse City, and Landmark Books in Traverse City. And if you must shop online, try alternatives to the Online Behemoth. 

Thank you, all you reader customer friends, for your support! You keep us going!

 

Everyone Here Is Behaving Very Well!

Home, sweet barn! I got used to isolation....

If you know me or if you’ve been reading this blog for the last few weeks and months, you’ll know I was very nervous about re-opening my bookstore, and I was not alone in that, either: a dear friend retired from the bookstore business was worried about me, too. So preparation, planning, and precautions were in order – as they are these days for all of us, whatever we’re doing.

First came a curatorial cleaning, in which I was helped and outright directed (I needed direction!) by a friend experienced with the care of collections. Following that came a week or two (I forget already how long the next phase lasted) where customers could stop by to pick up special orders. And then on July 1, with all due care (masks required, hand sanitizer for those wanting to handle books, limit of six customers at a time in the shop), I re-opened my bookstore to the public for the first time since the Saturday following Thanksgiving 2019.

And so far it's been going very well!

I have been pleased with and grateful to people who have visited Dog Ears Books during our first week back in business. Not one single person has complained about the mask requirement! In fact, not one person has even stuck an unmasked face through the doorway! Yesterday a couple paused at the door to ask if there was room for them in the shop, and, since they were #5 and #6, I invited them on in, whereupon another man said he would pay for his book and leave to make room for someone else. Consideration for others, wonderfully, is the order of the day in my bookstore.

Also, more than one customer has told me that one of the hardest things about the long weeks of stay-at-home/quarantine was not being able to browse in bookstores, and I sense a new realization on the part of the public that being able to visit a bookstore is not as certain as every day’s sunrise and sunset. Relief and gratitude translates more easily into sales now than it might have a year ago, too. We’re here now, but none of us can see the future, so today is the day to buy that book found so serendipitously!

I sold my last copy of Kathleen Stocking’s From the Place of the Gathering Light: Leelanau Pieces, and who knows when that book may be reprinted? Not this summer, I’m sure. Another woman was looking for something positive and encouraging and was happy to purchase Emita Hill’s Northern Harvest: Twenty Women in Food and Farming. Those oral histories are certainly encouraging stories. Other readers are grappling with difficult issues in American history – or turning to fiction for a pleasant, if temporary escape.

There are many different kinds of books and an almost infinite number of individual titles desirable and/or pertinent and/or enlightening during this strange and unsettling, very unsettled summer of 2020, a time of pandemic and a time of national reassessment. I’m glad to be here, with books available (and new orders going out and new books coming in every week), and I hope the consideration and safety of our first week continues through the rest of the summer. Thanks, everyone!