Need Ideas?

 Nostalgia:

Food:

'

Fiction:

Time! 

(These also work for people who don't read books.)

History:

Kids:

Leelanau:

Beautiful notecards

by Minnie Wabanimkee

also available --

You can't miss!!!

 

Holiday and Winter Hours

 

It seems the word has not reached everyone yet, so here it is again. Dog Ears Books will be OPEN ALL WINTER this year! Winter hours, already underway in November, are shorter than summer hours, and the week is shorter, too, but here they are: 

 

Wednesday through Friday, 11 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Saturday, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. 

Sunday, CLOSED

Monday & Tuesday, by chance or appointment only

 

A first-time customer recently told me that no reader should ever leave my shop empty-handed. Whether you come to shop for yourself or are looking for books to give as gifts, we have something here for just about anyone, which is part of the reason we celebrated our 30^th anniversary in July. Another reason is that the bookseller here is just plain stubborn and doesn’t give up easily!

Happy holidays!

New Arrivals -- because there will always be "horse girls" and poets and explorers --

Reminder #1: Fall hours extend through October: 

 

      Monday-Tuesday, By chance or appointment

      Wednesday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

      Sunday, CLOSED

 

Beginning in November, we will shift to winter hours:

 

      Monday-Tuesday, By chance or appointment

      Wednesday-Friday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.

      Saturday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

      Sunday, CLOSED

 

Note that Saturday will still be a full day, but Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday will be shorter.

Reminder#2: about audiobooks --

 

If you are a listener, please do not go to the online behemoth. Instead, use libro.fm, a platform that supports independent bookstores. You will find Dog Ears Books in the list. Prices are the same as the behemoth’s! Thanks for choosing us! 

You can even send gift audiobooks through the site – how cool is that?

Coming soon to Northport: Winter!

Bookstore Schedule, Fall/Winter 2023-2024

Fall hours for Dog Ears Books extend through October as follows:

 

      Monday-Tuesday, By chance or appointment

      Wednesday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

      Sunday, CLOSED

 

Beginning in November, we will shift to winter hours:

 

      Monday-Tuesday, By chance or appointment

      Wednesday-Friday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.

      Saturday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

      Sunday, CLOSED

 

Note that Saturday will still be a full day, but Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday will be shorter. And "hours" are always "weather permitting" during Northern Michigan winter.

New, Restocked, and Looking Forward

 

Not only is it late September, but this coming Saturday is Leelanau UnCaged, Northport's big, beautiful annual street fair. This year BATA (Bay Area Transit Authority) is offering FREE BUS RIDES to Northport from Traverse City! And at 4 p.m. on Saturday, poets Fleda Brown and Michael Delp will give readings at the bookstore (a free event, as is the day's music and entrance to UnCaged itself), so please plan to stop by. The weather forecast is for yet another gorgeous Northern Michigan fall day.

Dog Ears Books will be open all afternoon on Saturday until at least 6 p.m. Our dedicated fall hours, remember, are Wednesday through Saturday, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. (with Monday and Tuesday as "by chance or appointment" days), closed on Sundays. And with each passing week, I am ordering new books for the store, restocking popular local offerings as well as bringing in the sometimes unexpected. 

 Definitely here through October. Winter is still up in the air....

Bookstore Fall Hours, 2023

 

 

Dog Ears Books

FALL HOURS

September-October 2023

 

Monday-Tuesday: by chance or appointment

Wednesday – Saturday: 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Sunday: Closed

This is the story for September and October. A winter plan is not yet in view.

Bookstore Highlights: Sure-Fire Summer Hits

A couple books have been bestsellers ever since they first appeared. Trails of M-22 is one such (I’m glad to note that the author doesn’t stop at the top of the M-22 loop but comes through Northport and clear up to the lighthouse), and another is the Lake Michigan Rock Picker’s Guide.

Suttons Bay, Peshawbestown, and Bingham Shores, the second of Kathleen Firestone’s monumental “Meet Me at the Dock” trilogy, is here now, and you won’t want to miss it.  Perfect for the local coffee table to get visitors reading about the area's history.

The public clamoring for another Robert Underhill murder mystery is in luck this summer: Bob's new novel, One Cold Coffee, is here now!

Anne-Marie Oomen’s Michigan Notable As Long As I Know You: The Mom Book, is her latest memoir, and I have a few signed copies on hand, along with two signed copies of an older Oomen memoir, Pulling Down the Barn. 

The first speaker in this year’s Summer Author Series sponsored by the Leelanau Township Friends of the Library is Dave Dempsey, and I have his Great Lakes for Sale now, ahead of his presentation at the Willowbrook, which will be July 11 at 7 p.m.

Dr. Bill Blair, of the Johns Hopkins University Space Telescope Science Institute, Department of Physics & Astronomy, is this year’s speaker in the Belko Peace Lecture series at Trinity Church. Dr. Blair, whose presentation will take place on Saturday, July 29, at 7 p.m. at Trinity, recommends Dacher Keltner’s Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life.  

Finally, just in time for July 4^th, I have Amanda Gorman’s inauguration poem, The Hill We Climb. Not banned in Northport!!!

These are but a small taste of the treasures, new and used, awaiting you at Dog Ears Books, 106 Waukazoo Street in Northport, celebrating its 30^th anniversary this July. I’ll be sharing more book news throughout the season. For meandering thoughts on books, language, and my Up North world, see “Books in Northport”; for images that catch my eye, “A Shot in the Light”; and for random rants and musings from your Up North bookseller, “Lacking a Clear Focus.”

 

Summer bookstore hours are posted here on this blog. 

Happy 4^th, everyone! There will be a reading of the Declaration of Independence on the post office steps in Northport at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the 4th of July.

Bookstore Hours, Summer 2023

 DOG EARS BOOKS

1993-2023

Celebrating 30 years!

106 Waukazoo St., Northport, MI

 

Summer Hours 2023

 

Monday: By chance or appointment

 

Tuesday: 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. (or later)

 

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday:

11 a.m. – 5 p.m.

 

Sunday: CLOSED

 

 

 

Please note:

 

When the bookstore is open,

David Grath gallery 

(accessible from inside bookstore)

is also open.

A Small Package

You know the saying: “Good things come in small packages.” The new Wildsam Field Guide, Northern Michigan, is the example that came across my bookstore desk today. Only 115 pages (with several bloc-note pages in the back for your notes or sketches), it measures just 6-1/2” tall and 4” wide. There are no photographs and only a few two-tone color illustrations. 

 

But what a pure delight! 

 

Northern Michigan contains more history than you would find in the ordinary Midwest travel guide, along with stories by Michigan authors (past and present) and interviews with noteworthy individuals of the region. (Hemingway fans will be particularly pleased with the coverage given their favorite writer.) Pressing issues faced by the area, such as water quality and affordable housing, are briefly discussed. And amid tips about area farmstands and festivals, you will also find introduced to U.P. Hedrick (Do you know that name?) and not just cherries but also wild rice.

 

Places covered or mentioned range from those as far south as Idlewild, east to Grayling, and north to the Straits of Mackinac and beyond, though “northern” focuses mostly on the northwest lower peninsula and Lake Michigan. Older people will recognize familiar names, and the younger generation will come to know those who have gone before and something of the way things used to be. 

 

“Founded in 2012, Wildsam is an American travel brand that sits at the intersection of story and place. The acclaimed field guides go beyond typical travel information, instead revealing a deep sense of place through archival heritage, local commentary, cultural landmarks and inspired writing.”

 

This book certainly lives up to the claim made for the series.

 

Northern Michigan, from Wildsam Pursuits

Paper, $24

Summer Notes:

 

Dog Ears Books is closed on Sundays and Mondays, but whenever the bookstore is open, David Grath’s gallery of paintings is also open. This will probably be the last summer for the gallery, so don’t miss a chance to visit. 

Tour England from your Armchair

 

Have you long dreamed of visiting England's famous Lake District, exploring the Cotswolds, hiking in the Dales or the Welsh or Scottish border but feel that time has robbed you of the possibility? It’s never too late or too arduous for armchair travel, and the “Regions of Britain” series of books, written by various authors and published by Robert Hale Limited, might be just what you’re looking for. 

 

Breckland and Breck are arresting, alien words, suggestive of the stony, barren district they describe. It lies partly in Norfolk, partly in Suffolk, some four hundred square miles which might be roughly circumscribed by a line drawn through Narborough, Castle Acre, Watton, Attleborough, East Harling, Garboldisham and Mildenhall. Within that line the characteristics of the country are curiously like those of the steppelands of south-eastern Europe. For though it is bounded by chalk and peat, Breckland itself is covered by a pall of sand of varying thicknesses, where flowers, birds and insects flourish, some of which are unknown in other parts of England, while others are found only by the sea. Large, flint-strewn open fields and derelect areas are typical of every parish. They are known locally as Brecks….

So begins Chapter I, “At First Sight,” of Breckland, by Olive Cook. Published in 1956, Breckland is illustrated with photographs by Edwin Smith, the author’s husband. 

Cook was born in Cambridge and received her M.A. from Newnham College. She met her husband, artist Edwin Smith, while working with artists through England’s National Gallery, and the two of them collaborated more than once, his photographs accompanied by her text. Cook wrote other books on the English countryside and country houses, as well as children’s books, and earned her own place in the art world with her paintings. 

 

Flints and sand, heaths, warrens, and rivers fill the pages of Olive Cook’s account of Breckland. Open at any page, and you are offered the opportunity to lose yourself in delight. 

 

The rabbit is king of the heath, the animal that flourishes best in Breckland. The very aspect of the warren is due in part to the rabbit’s activities. Where he has cropped it, the heather is as green as grass and so short that it rarely blooms; he keeps the turf smooth and springy, he levels the moss which lines heathland tracks; he tunnels into every slope, kicking out the sand with his strong hind legs....

 

These are but brief glimpses into a single volume from the Robert Hale series. Volumes may be purchased individually, or the 17 volumes I have (thirty-one were published in the series) may be purchased together, at great savings and for lifelong enjoyment. 

Before Memorial Day -- Made It!

 

Sunshine, sparkling water, blooms and blossoms and boats. Northport is definitely the place to be as May's undecided weather settles down to perfection for the holiday weekend. This Saturday, don't forget, is our village's annual Cars in the Park.

And Dog Ears Books in Northport will open for the 2023 season on Friday, May 26, the first day of our 30th anniversary year! There may be a little lingering dust here and there, as well as wonderful items not yet out of boxes (let alone priced and shelved), but we'll be here to greet and supply you with reading material both Friday and Saturday, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. of this holiday weekend.

Blossoms and blooms and boats and books. What else could your little heart desire? 

Top Ten Reasons to Read “Books in Northport”

Frequent star of the show

10. It’s free!

9. You are a family member.

8. You are an old friend.

7. You are a new friend.

6. You stumbled onto it by accident.

5. You can skim quickly or just scroll for pictures.

4. There is usually at least one dog image.

3. Occasionally you’ll find something about books.

2. [Make up your own reason.] 

1. You get everything you paid for. (It’s FREE.)

Check it out today -- Books in Northport! (Coming to you this winter from Cochise County, Arizona!)

Arizona cows