Closed -- for the Season Only!

 

Summer and fall 2021 -- what a great business season in Northport, not only for books but also for paintings, and we thank our customers and clients, friends all, for rewarding our passions and endeavors with their patronage. Although November has been (until this morning's hard frost and despite recent snow that preceded frost by about a week) exceptionally mild, we are at least partially launched into our seasonal retirement. Not yet on the road but catching up on odds and ends of business, housework, home projects, and yard work.

We look forward already to seeing you again in Northport when we re-open, sometime in May of 2022. Again, thank you so much for contributing to our successful season!

It Isn’t Rocket Science

Here until the rest of the month

Bookselling, my calling in life, doesn’t require knowledge of higher mathematics, let alone astrophysics, but there are crucial numbers involved in the survival of any bookstore, numbers that can also be called simply “the bottom line.” A recent article in the weekly Northern Express relayed the sad news that Traverse City’s 50-year-old Bookie Joint on Union Street is closing – not due to the owner’s desire for retirement but because the dreaded bottom line figure wasn’t panning out. 

Sad news!

“I was robbing Peter to pay Paul,” said the current owner, who bought the business fifteen years ago. “And Peter was going broke.”

 

The 50-year mark is one I don’t expect to see for myself (as a bookstore owner), but the 30-year mark is only two years away and very do-able, I think. At times in the past I’ve attributed my business success (survival, I suppose would be the more modest word) to stubbornness, but stubbornness alone wouldn’t have kept the door open for the past 28 years. 

People buying books in the bookstore – that is the essential ingredient for keeping a bookstore alive. Not mere compliments or wishes of “good luck” from browsers as they walk out the door. People buying books. That keeps a bookstore in business. 

The end of October is coming up fast, and Saturday, October 30, will be the last day of my 2021 season – but we will be back again in May of 2022 because of all our dear, wonderful, loyal book-buying customers! So please, all of you, know that I am grateful beyond my puny words for your patronage. Still --

 

Thank you 

from the bottom of my heart 

for a wonderful 2021 bookstore season!!!

Stars and Chickadees

 

The director of the International Dark Sky Assocation, Dr. John Barentine, says of author Mary Stewart Adams that her “grasp of night sky lore is second to none.” Nevertheless, this book is one for the whole family. As the images above suggest, there are illustrations and rhymes for the young fry, along with plenty of textual detail for teens and adults. 

 

Now, late summer under dark northern Michigan skies, is a perfect time to pick up your copy of The Star Tales of Mother Goose (“For those who seek the secret language of the stars”), but it would also make a fantastic Christmas present for the whole family to share and enjoy

 

The Star Tales of Mother Goose

By Mary Stewart Adams

Illustrated by Patricia DeLisa

Hardcover, 97pp.

$29.95

And speaking of Christmas, Bill O. Smith from Traverse City has a new book out, Chickadees in December, another collaboration with Traverse City artist Charlie Murphy. Fun! And if a child has an opportunity to open one single book before Christmas, let this be the one. When you read it, you’ll understand why.

 

Chickadees in December

By Bill O. Smith

Illustrated by Charles R. Murphy

Hardcover, $19.35

Designs Carefully Chosen (by me) for Our Neck of the Woods

 

I am pleased to announce

an addition to my bookstore inventory --

these lovely cards featuring designs

by Sarah Angst. 

A couple are for birthdays

(one frog, one dog),

others for any occasions

(including birthdays)

for notes to special friends.

Four dollars each.

Local Author Is World Citizen

 

Soon-Young Yoon, Citizen of the World: 

Soon-Young Yoon and the UN. 

Seoul: Ewha Womans University Press, 2021. 

Paper, 327pp.

$25

For my complete review, please see my post on Books in Northport.

Many Came From Peshawbestown

 

A lot of people ask me for books about the history of Peshawbestown, but other than The Eagle Returns: The Legal History of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, by Matthew L. M. Fletcher, a rather specialized and impersonal view, I don’t know of Ottawa-Chippewa books specific to our township locale. I welcome information from anyone who knows of any I haven’t seen.

 

Meanwhile, I’m happy to stock and offer in my shop Warriors in Mr. Lincoln’s Army: Native American Soldiers Who Fought in the Civil War, by Quita V. Shier. Many members of Company K of the First Michigan Sharpshooters have descendants still in our area, and Shier’s book gives as much detail as she could gather on the lives of these men, both in and outside their military service, making it a valuable contribution to Michigan history and the history of Native Americans in northern Michigan.

 

Warriors in Mr. Lincoln’s Army: Native American Soldiers Who Fought in the Civil War, 

by Quita V. Shier

Hardcover with dust jacket, 555pp.

Illustrated; index.

$39.95

And remember, if you download audio books, please do it through Libro.fm and choose Dog Ears Books as your indie. Thanks!

What is a "perpetual" calendar, and where can you find one in Northport, Michigan?

 

"Isn't Uncle Jim's birthday this month? Or is that in August? Isn't Bob and Edna's wedding anniversary coming up soon?" Keeping track of these and other vital questions is easy if you have a perpetual calendar -- one with spaces to write in recurring events on each date of the year, regardless of the day on which they fall. 

And since we in Northern Michigan like our calendars to be beautiful and regional as well as useful, I am very pleased to carry this season at Dog Ears Books a lovely perpetual calendar with photographs by Minnie Wabanimkee. 

Whether you live Up North all year or only for a few summer months, you need this in your life! Only $15, and you will be glad of it year after year.