Building a new kind of bookstore business
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October 29, 2011

There’s a new bookstore in Athens, Georgia, with a different kind of business model. After four years of planning, learning, getting financing in place and finding the perfect location at 493 Prince Avenue, Janet Geddis opened Avid Bookshop this month. Last Friday night’s grand opening celebration crowded customers into tight corners and out the doors into the streets like a festival. Listen to this podcast… [Read More]

The Fallback Plan
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October 27, 2011

After the endless commencement ceremony, the cap toss, and the droning luncheons with family and friends, comes the panic-induced question asked by the college graduate: What next?  Debut author Leigh Stein accurately captures this bewilderment and sense of loss experienced by so many Generation Yer’s post-college in her first novel The Fallback Plan (Melville 2012) due out in January. Esther Kohler- Stein’s Juno-esque protagonist- graduated… [Read More]

37 Sketches by Gwen Marston (Six Mile Creek Press)
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October 25, 2011

Tuesday’s Gone Local columns have featured “local” bookstores and publishers. This past year opened with Six Mile Creek Press signing a publishing contract for my clients’ manuscript, Dear Friend Amelia. Mary Jordan and Joyce Hatch collaborated with Ron Ostmun and Harry Littell at Six Mile Creek Press here in Ithaca to produce letters and images from the Civil War in a beautiful book. Six Mile Creek Press approaches… [Read More]

Social Media Round-Up: learn, think, laugh, share
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October 22, 2011

One of the best features of social media is how quickly content spreads. Articles, essays, videos, and blog posts that would have been overlooked become valuable sources of information. They keep me informed and aware of the world’s activity, from the complex to the inane. I find links all over the place, relying upon Twitter and Facebook as well as my e-mail inbox. I subscribe… [Read More]

Foyles: For the Love of Books, Across the Pond
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October 18, 2011

Even the toughest cosmopolitans have a soft spot when it comes to their city’s most beloved bookstore. New York City has the Strand, Paris has Shakespeare and Company, and London (my favorite city of them all) has Foyles. In the last few years’ cinematic odes to NYC and Paris – New York, I Love You (2009) and Paris, Je T’aime (2006) – I was disappointed… [Read More]

Authors, bookstores, and social media, oh my!
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October 14, 2011

Cathryn Prince and Andrew Kessler came to Ithaca on the 10th and 11th of October for two book events. As authors of new titles related to Mars and meteorites, Prince and Kessler found Ithaca a town of stargazers and skywatchers. On Sunday, Bob Proehl hosted the authors for a reading and book signing at Buffalo Street Books. Cathryn Prince read an excerpt from A Professor, a… [Read More]

Guantanamo Boy
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October 13, 2011

Guantanamo Boy (Albert Whitman, 2011 reprint) is the story of a teenager in the wrong place at the wrong time in a dangerous political climate. It’s a story of closed ears, fearful eyes and silent mouths. A story in which the small kindnesses buried deep in the heart have the power to keep a person alive, like the power of a good book (a Reader’s… [Read More]

Kathryn Stockett’s The Help
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October 13, 2011

I first picked up The Help while on vacation this summer. I was in need of lighter literary fare so snatched the sensationalized book club favorite from my mom’s nightstand. What’s all the fuss about, anyway? Five-hundred odd pages later, I see why Kathryn Stockett’s divisive work has been the object of so much scrutiny on both sides of the color line. Set in Civil Rights… [Read More]

Featured Local Bookstores: Autumn Leaves
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October 11, 2011

Autumn Leaves, Ithaca’s beloved source for used books, boasts “60,000 books, 10,000 records and a café, all under one roof.” In the heart of the Commons (115 E. State Street), the basement of the bookstore contains Angry Mom Records, the ground floor contains the main bookstore, and the second floor doubles as the Owl Café (fair trade coffee, of course) and a space for the… [Read More]

Frosty A.K. Warms to Social Media
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October 8, 2011

I admit it: I’m an alta kocker who is loathe to learn new tricks, especially social media. Towson University professor, Andrew Reiner, expresses my sentiments exactly  in the March/April 2011 edition of AARP Magazine. (I told you, I’m an old fart.) Reiner fears obsolescence in the digitized world and he mistrusts media in which people continuously hawk “brand Me” online. Like Reiner, I don’t want… [Read More]