Required Reading for Women's Studies Class

One of my co-workers is taking a Women's Studies class in college. Here is her required reading list for the class:

THE HANDMAID'S TALE
by Margaret Atwood

THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS
by Rebecca Skloot

PEYTON PLACE
by Grace Metalious

A WOMAN IN BERLIN
by Anonymous

THE INVENTION OF HETEROSEXUALITY
by Jonathan Ned Katz

The only book on that list that I've read is THE HANDMAID'S TALE, which was dark and wonderful.

It looks like a great reading list! The one that interests me the most is THE INVENTION OF HETEROSEXUALITY. I believe that we are all on a continuum of of sexual preference, some of us strongly preferring one gender or the other, with many of us are somewhere in the middle. I'm interested to see how this author addresses hetero- and homo-sexuality.

     

Maybe I'll ask her if I can borrow it after she's done with the class.

This is the first blog post using Barnes and Noble's affiliate program links. Thanks again to Observant Co-Worker, who reminded me that I really needed to start representing Barnes and Noble since I work for them. Clicking on the underlined book title will take you to Barnes and Noble's page for that book. Clicking on the picture of the book cover will take you to Amazon's page for THE INVENTION OF HETEROSEXUALITY, as I don't know how to make links with book covers through Barnes and Noble. Yet.

Thanks for stopping by the blog!

Back in the Saddle

Ahhhh...I am sitting in my favorite coffee shop (Longbottom Coffee Roasters in Hillsboro, Oregon). I love coming here, it's dedicated time for me to work on the blog, plus they have an amazing bumblebee latte (there's some delicious combination of honey and lavender in it).

It's been weeks and weeks since I've been here. The holidays at the bookstore have been incredibly hectic. It feels a little strange, as though I don't quite have the mentality to settle in. The only way to get back in the swing of things is to do it.

I've started brief drafts of blog entries, taken notes on what I want to write about, new customer events happen almost every day, it's a new year (shouldn't I be doing a "best books of 2011" or "books I'm looking forward to in 2012" post?); I'm a little overwhelmed and scattered thinking about what to write about.

Right now, though, it's really good to be here.

I have many things pulling to be written, but for now...IndieBound posted on the blog's facebook page (NOT the New York Times Book Review) about World Book Night...

http://www.us.worldbooknight.org/about-world-book-night/what-is-world-book-night

(And I apologize. There is a way to add a link on the blog post creation page, but it doesn't seem to work. So you'll have to cut and paste.)

I'd never heard of World Book Night before this morning and it sounds like a wonderful idea. It's interesting to me that World Book Night is on April 23. Not only is April 23 the birthdate of Shakespeare and the anniversary of the death of Cervantes, it is also St. George's Day, a holiday celebrated in Spain. It is a day on which you give your loved one a book and a rose. (J., the manager of my store and I commented a few years ago about St George's Day. We wondered why our bookstore wasn't all over this, a holiday specifically FOR giving books? It seemed like a pretty perfect opportunity to get people to buy more books.)

Maybe World Book Night is the next iteration of St George's Day, or a U.S. expression of it. In any case, it's a great idea, getting books into the hands of people who don't generally read all that much. I'm going to keep my eye on this event. I hope you'll check it out as well.

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Other bits and pieces...

I did sign up with Barnes and Noble's affiliate program. I haven't set up any links yet, but will very soon. (Thank you again, Observant Co-Worker, for reminding me to do this.)

The other day I posted on facebook that I sold my 100th copy of SCENT OF THE MISSING by Susannah Charleson at my bookstore! We'd been given a challenge, to select a book and try to handsell 100 copies of the title. I am the first in my store to make it to 100 - beating the next person by about 50 books! (not that I'm competitive). And it is pretty darn satisfying. Not only did I beat the challenge, but I know that (at least) 100 more people will be learning more about Search and Rescue. I am grateful to have had such an easy book to sell!

Some blog post ideas I am considering...

-more customer stories
-books I really liked in 2011 (I actually have a draft of this one started)
-books I'm reading right now
-other book reviewer/lover blogs
-next 100 handsell challenge pick

I really appreciate your comments and encouragement...either here on the blog or on the facebook page or by email: 2of3Rs(AT)gmail(DOT)com. Thank you for stopping by!

And still more parenting in the bookstore (or lack thereof)

Sunday must have been Bring Your Screaming Child to the Bookstore Day, because we had a lot of them. Throughout the day I heard children screaming in different areas of the store. Sometimes I was able to see what was going on, sometimes not.

One mother came to the information desk with her son, who looked to be close to two years old. He wiggled and squirmed and shouted and would not stay where she told him to on the floor. She finally sat him on the counter in front of her, where he promptly grabbed the store's computer monitor screen and pulled it as hard as he could toward himself and started mouthing the corner of the screen.

"Oh, stop doing that," the mother said, as I grabbed the sides of the monitor to prevent him from pulling it over. He was still chewing on the corner. She sighed. I held on. He kept pulling.

"This is what no-nap-today looks like," she said. "Well, he slept about 15 minutes." She paused, trying to contain her young son, who had golden curls and a miniature bow tie on a black and white plaid shirt. While she was trying to manage him, she was also asking about children's book titles. I don't remember what books she was looking for. I was more focused on protecting our computer equipment.

Later, I was standing at the cash register area with J. We were chatting in between helping customers. We could hear a child screaming close to the Nook display. This child had been screaming for a long time. We couldn't hear what he was saying, just that he was throwing a major fit. J. and I made a comment that maybe it was time to take the screaming child home - or at least out of the store.

After the screaming stopped, S., who had been at the Nook counter, came over and asked, "Do you know what that kid was screaming about?" When we said we didn't, she said, "He's this little kid, maybe three years old, and he's looking at the Nook Tablet. And he starts screaming, 'I don't WANT that! I want an iPad! Get me an iPad!'"

My mouth dropped open. It stayed open as she continued, "And the parents? They were saying, 'All right, we're not getting THIS one. You have to wait. We're not at the iPad store right now.'"

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We recently sent our dog away to boot camp. She can be a handful (my mother would have said that "she's a pistol"), high energy, easily distracted with strong ADD tendencies. We needed help. We are pleased with her intensive training, and have been working hard with her to make sure that she knows that what she learned at boot camp actually still applies at home too. This, in addition to making sure she gets a lot of exercise and our hectic work schedules plus the holidays, have meant feeling exhausted and overwhelmed.

Today was a rough day for me. Our Christmas company had just left, I felt almost no rest from my brief (oh so brief!) day off, and today was my Monday, starting at 7am. I was feeling tired and not able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. (There is a light at the end of the tunnel, right?)

When I got home after my long day at work, I let the pupper out of her crate. Therapist had taken her out to the field before she went to work. While I knew I didn't want to do an outside runaround with her, I decided to grab the dog trick book we had and see if I could work on anything with her.

       

I found two tricks that sounded fun. Putting her toys away, and playing hide and seek.

We recently brought her toy bin into the living room, and have wanted to teach her how to put her toys away. This book is perfect, giving step by step instructions. Many tricks have several simpler commands incorporated in them. I used what Shelby already knows, to "Bring it back!" to bring the toy to me, and then I added "Put it away!" as I held a treat over her toy bin. When she drops the toy (into the bin!) to get the treat, voila! She's done it! She put her toy away!

Of course, it didn't go quite that smoothly, she was very eager to get the treats and got so excited that she lost focus on what she was supposed to be doing, dropping her toys way before she got to me or the bin. But since boot camp, she has been much better able to stop and refocus. Yay!

We worked on that for a while, then played on hide and seek. Shelby knows "come" and "stay", two prerequisites for learning hide and seek. I had her "stay" on her "base" (which she does quite well). Then I went into the other room and told her to "Come find me!" She raced in and when she found me, I gave her a treat. She loves any game that has treats in it. "Finding" me in the next room was easy for her.

I made it harder. I went downstairs (we live in a three-story row house) and hid in the coat closet. I left the door open a tiny crack. There were no other doors open and only an empty hallway for her to explore. I called her to "come find me!" and she came racing down the stairs. She tried to open the (completely closed) door to the guest room, and she went to the (also completely closed) door to the garage. The closet door was open about half an inch, so I could see her looking around the hallway, trying to figure out where I was. Standing at attention, turning her head if she thought she heard anything, she looked very cute. I gave no signal to let her know where I was. She decided I wasn't down there, so raced back upstairs to the main floor. I heard her run from room to room, looking for me. I called again, "come find me!" She raced downstairs again. She looked around. I opened the door another half inch. She found me! (It was only her second try, I wanted her to have success.)

Then I based her and went upstairs to the third floor, hiding behind our bedroom door, and called for her to find me. She raced upstairs and jumped on the bed (which is okay in our house). She stood at attention. Looked around. Jumped to a different position. Looked around. Didn't see me. Standing at attention, oh so cute. The door closed a little bit with a draft and, she saw me! And she raced over to me to get her treat!

This was a fun game for both of us. I needed a little fun today, and I think maybe, so did she.

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