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.

Stocked and Restocked -- northern Michigan!!!

 

They won't last forever -- no holds -- first come, first served!

Listening to books....

Remember my recent announcement about how you can order your audio books through libro.fm and support Dog Ears Books at the same time? Here is more information on that option: 

If you regularly download audible books, please take a look at libro.fm and select Dog Ears Books as your bookstore!

And/or, if you can, stop by the bookstore in person and cruise our new book selections, as well as the always-changing used book areas. 

Bookish News from Northport, Michigan

Not literally "bricks & motor," but a real physical bookstore on Waukazoo St.

Although we began with nothing but used books (very good ones!) back in 1993, Dog Ears Books has also carried new books for many of our nearly 28 years of business. We added credit card capability (at last!) in June of 2019 (that has been working out well), and this year is seeing another innovative upgrade to our bookselling ways. Ta-da! Now those of you who are fans of audio books can order them through our virtual audio bookstore at libro.fm. Go to the site, create your account, and “Find your bookstore” (under "Get to know us") to find Dog Ears Books. You won’t pay extra to get your audio books there, but Dog Ears will get a fraction of what you pay for each download, so you can support us from wherever you are. Whether your eyes have trouble reading print these days or tire easily, your hands aren’t as comfortable holding books as they used to be, or you simply enjoy listening to stories while commuting to work, I hope you will take advantage of this win-win for both of us soon and often. And let me know what you think of it, too, please. 

As for new print books in the shop, I am happy to report that we have restocked The Lake Michigan Rock Picker’s Guide, by Kevin Sauvage; Kathleen Stocking’s In the Place of the Gathering Light; Emita Hill’s Northern Harvest, and Karen Trolenberg’s Flight of Megizzewas (signed). I even have a few signed copies of Sarah Shoemaker’s Mr. Rochester, hardcover and paperback.

 

We are also happy to have on hand the new (and long-awaited) Ray Elkins mystery from Aaron Stander, Destination Wedding, as well as The Museum of Everything, a new picture-storybook from local Newbery author Lynne Rae Perkins. We have multiple copies (and expect to have to order more throughout the season) of Fire Keeper’s Daughter, by Angeline Boulley, a YA novel of Ojibwe heritage set in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. And so much more, and it’s going to keep happening all summer.

You Have Waited Long Enough!

 

Wait no longer! It is here at last! I'm talking about a new Sheriff Ray Elkins mystery (or thriller, as the book's cover calls it) from Aaron Stander. Destination Wedding sounds very Leelanau, doesn't it? Or should I say Cedar County?

But that isn't all. Lynne Rae Perkins, our Leelanau Newbery author, has a new book out this season, too, and adventures in The Museum of Everything await you!

New books from two Michigan poets also arrived in today's UPS delivery (It felt like Christmas): Fleda Brown's Flying Through a Hole in the Storm and Thomas Lynch's Bone Rosary. 

I regularly watch a site called "American Indians in Children's Literature" and was excited to find there recently two new books for young people featuring Ojibwe culture, a YA novel by Angeline Boulley, Fire Keeper's Daughter, and an illustrated story for younger readers, Josie Dances, written by Denise Lajimodiere and illustrated by Angela Erdrich.

And finally -- for today, that is; more new books will be arriving weekly, and there are always exciting new-to-you, previously owned books, also -- you certainly don't think I could resist a book about a bookseller, do you? The Bookseller of Florence: The Story of the Manuscripts That Illuminated the Renaissance is written by Ross King, author of Brunelleschi's Dome. It is illustrated, and the typeface is nice and large and clear. Books, history, Italy -- it's all here in one highly readable volume.

Have you been waiting for Dog Ears Books to open? My first customers of the season today, Friday, May 21, were surprised and delighted to find me here, thinking they would have to wait until after Memorial Day. But no, I had ordered new books, and I wanted to ease into the season before summer crowds arrived. 

See you soon here in Northport -- your best excuse (unless you live here) for a beautiful drive!

We Are Back! With a Unique Wedding Present for the Literary Couple This June!

The Works of Charles Dickens – 16 volumes of 21-volume set: 

These beautifully bound volumes were published by the Oxford University Press and produced by the Franklin Library in 1985 as a special limited edition of 7,500, available exclusively to subscribers to the Oxford Library of Charles Dickens. Bound in scarlet and black leather, with all edges gilt, silk endpapers, and scarlet bookmark in each volume, the books feature three raised spine bands and are richly decorated, each with an individual motif to the front panel symbolic of the contents. One volume only (Nicholas Nickleby) has a previous owner bookplate pasted in; all others are absolutely pristine. The books feel as if never opened, let alone read. 

Note that this is the limited 1985 edition of 7500 copies sold to subscribers only. There was another edition, also from the Franklin Library, done in decorative red (without the black), but not nearly as luxuriantly produced. 

 

Titles include:

 

American Notes/Pictures From Italy

Barnaby Rudge

Bleak House

Christmas Books

Christmas Stories

Martin Chuzzlewit

The Old Curiosity Shop

Dombey and Son

Little Dorrit

Master Humphrey’s Clock/A Child’s History of England

Our Mutual Friend

The Mystery of Edwin Drood

Nicholas Nickleby

The Pickwick Papers

Sketches by Boz

The Uncommercial Traveler/Reprinted Pieces

No volumes will be sold individually. They are offered together for $2,000 plus tax. If you give this Dickens library as a wedding (or graduation) present, you can be fairly certain your gift will not be a duplicated!

 

I do not want to ship, however, so please stop in the store on Friday or Saturday or e-mail me at dogears@netonecom.net. Thank you.