All Aboard for Greilickville!

A new book out this season from Kathleen Firestone is only the first in what will be a new series of harbor histories from this dedicated Northport historian. Printed on high-quality paper and beautifully hardbound, the book’s illustrated front board gives a good idea of what to expect inside, and the pages within fulfill the cover’s promise. Photographs from the earliest history of this sheltered Lake Michigan harbor to boats of the present day are accompanied by Firestone’s always well-researched text, sure to fascinate every northern Michigan boater and amateur historian, as well as the rest of us who have simply seen the area change in recent years and wonder what it was like in bygone times. A must for your regional library.

Meet Me at the Dock 

in Greilickville, Grand Traverse Bay, 

by Kathleen Firestone

Hardcover, $40

We Are Back!

We have some wonderful new books for our 2019 season, with more to come soon. One I don't want you to miss -- whether you're a parent yourself or just somebody's child (and aren't we all?) is Hillary Danaher's hilarious Curse of the Purse. Not only is it full of therapeutic laughs for the stressed-out parent, but it also a relaxing coloring book. Really!

See the right-hand column for this season's Thursday Evening Author guests, one every other week beginning in late June.

And don't forget, we always have a tempting selection of previously owned volumes to suit every pocket, with a special sale at present on mystery novels. 

Featured Book of the Last Week of November

No less a literary icon than Kathleen Stocking (my bestselling author of 2016) wrote to me this fall saying, “I distracted myself during the elections by reading HARD CIDER and loved it. I liked her novelistic explorations of the surrogacy issue.” Kathleen also appreciated Barbara’s “depictions of Northport.” So here you have it -- a taste of Northport! If you love our village, you'll love this book!

Note also that this week is the last week of the Dog Ears Books 2018 season and that we won’t be back until sometime in May, so let's exchange holiday greetings while we have the chance.  

Here for the Rest of November!

Wednesday, 11/21: OPEN 11-5 (Take a bookstore break from mixing up cranberry relish and bread stuffing and baking pies.)

Thursday, 11/22: CLOSED FOR THANKSGIVING

Friday, 11/23: OPEN 11-5 WITH BEGINNING OF HOLIDAY SALE: 20% off everything in stock!

Saturday, 11/24: OPEN 11-5. OPEN HOUSE IN BUSINESSES THROUGHOUT VILLAGE. HOLIDAY SALE CONTINUES. VILLAGE TREE LIGHTING 6 p.m. LIVE MUSIC

Sunday, 11/25 CLOSED

Monday, 11/26: OPEN 11-5 for CIDER MONDAY — YOUR LOCAL ALTERNATIVE BY SHOPPING ONLINE! HOLIDAY SALE CONTINUES.

Tuesday, 11/27: OPEN 11-5 HOLIDAY SALE CONTINUES

Wednesday, 11/28: OPEN 11/5 HOLIDAY SALE CONTINUES

Thursday, 11/29: OPEN 11-5 HOLIDAY SALE CONTINUES

Friday, 11/30: OPEN 11-5 LAST DAY OF THE BOOKSTORE YEAR??? Don't miss us! Many treasures -- new books and old, fine bindings and paperbacks, classics, signed copies, history, how-to, escape, etc., etc.

Saturday, 12/1: Who knows? Not sure yet! Friday, 11/30, may be our last day of the season, so don’t wait for December 1st to do your holiday shopping at Dog Ears Books!

Then, happy winter! We'll see you again in the spring!

It Doesn't Have to be Fancy to be Exciting

This is not a fancy book at all. It doesn’t even have a dust jacket. Really, I plucked this particular hardcover story-version of Gian-Carlo Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors (“This narrative adaptation by Frances Frost preserves the exact dialogue of the opera”) out of a box with interest only because the illustrator, Roger Duvoisin, has been a favorite of mine since my son was little and we discovered and enjoyed his Petunia books together. Illustrations in Amahl are not as loosey-goosey as other work by Duvoisin, but the bright colors are definitely his. Anyway, a nice little Christmas book, right?

Musing over what would be a reasonable price, I turned the first leaves almost idly. Publication date was 1952. It was the half-title page, though, that stopped me in my tracks. What were all those names? Each in a different handwriting? None was Menotti’s signature or Frost’s or Duvoisin’s….

I’m not an opera aficionado. I had to look up the names. David Aiken: operatic baritone. Andrew McKinley: operatic tenor. Rosemary Kuhlman: mezzo-soprano. All three were in the original 1951 cast of Menotti’s opera, which was also (written in English) the first opera written for television, commissioned by NBC and broadcast as the first production of the television’s Hallmark Hall of Fame. First Hallmark, first television opera, original cast members — well, now I am very excited! In fact, I can hardly believe what I’m holding in my hands! Since the publication date was 1952, maybe the other names were in the cast of that year’s production? Thrills like this are part of the adventure of dealing in used books. I haven’t decided on an asking price yet. This is a one-of-a-kind item, not something with a lot of “comparables,” but I know the right buyer would be over the moon to have it. What a Christmas present it would make, eh?

Légumes: Vegetable Recipes From the Market Table

Beets! Yum!

Whether your fresh vegetables come from the farm market to your kitchen or from your own backyard garden, it never hurts to find new, inspired ways to prepare them for the table. Pascale Beale's third Market Table book offers more than 100 plant-based dishes, with mouth-watering full-color illustrations.

Légumes: Vegetable Recipes From the Market Table

by Pascale Beale

Illustrated, 256pp

$29.95

What Does It Take?

What does it take, that is, for a Leelanau near-native (her parents came to Leland when she was 12 years old) to make a living and raise a family at the same time, right here in Leelanau, rather than moving away and only returning in retirement? Michelle White is someone who knows the answer first-hand, because she has what it takes. And it makes sense, growing up where she did, that cherries were Michelle’s inspiration. 

Entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone, but readers can learn how one woman launched an award-winning startup here in northern Michigan — her struggles, hard work, determination and perseverance, and the lessons she learned along the way. 

On a Pit and a Prayer: How I Grew a Business, Lost a Business, and Found Faith, Family and Love

by Michelle White

Traverse City: Mission Point Press, paper 154pp.

$16.95