My Bookshelf Tells My Story

By Kristin Bivens

Snippets from my bookshelves

I wasn’t always a reader. It’s true. When I was younger, I would try to read books but would often leave them unfinished, the bookmark stuck between the pages forever. Books assigned in school were just that, an assignment. 

But in college, something changed. I started reading all the time. It became a bedtime ritual. It became something I even started doing during the day. I took a summer class in college that was based on reading five contemporary American books throughout the summer. And I loved every minute of it. I started reading so much that I could finish two or three books in a week. I was a maniac. I signed up for a Border’s membership (miss you!) and made the twenty minute drive there almost two or three times a week (they had great coupons). My bookshelf grew. I bought a new bookshelf. I added shelves to that book shelf. 

I read a lot of different types of books. I try to read books that make me look cool. (Except for that one time when I decided I couldn’t resist reading Twilight anymore and took it to every class at Roosevelt I could. I tried my best to hide it from my classmates.) But I often can be found reading a young adult book. I think those are the best.

But what I really take pride in is my bookshelves, the combination of all those bits and pieces of me. My shelves are organized by type of book. I have one dedicated strictly to nonfiction. It is slightly smaller than the fiction. It is organized by subject. I have comedic essays, history books, royalty books, psychology/OCD books. My fiction shelf is divided by series and authors, young adult books and the great classic books.

My bookshelf is bright and vibrant, full of life and quirky titles. The entire set-up is a reflection of me. Only the coolest, non-embarrassing books are allowed. (Except for Twilight, did I mention I have the entire Twilight series?) I judge books by their cover, simply because I need my shelf to look inviting, eclectic and always cool. I will pay more for a better looking copy of a book. I will buy a book with a hipster title because I want people to ask, “What’s this book?”

But it is not just books that line my shelves. It is my life. I’ve always adorned my book shelves with little trinkets people have gifted me or made for me. I have pictures of my father, who died when I was young(er). I have a special frame for my grandma, who died several years back. I have a picture of my sweet puppy dog. There’s a stuffed animal of Sleepy the dwarf that my dad gave me one year for Valentine’s Day. My shelves hold memories, and they hold adventures.

But most of all, they hold me and my interests, my dreams, my likes, my dislikes, my hopes for the future. It shows that I enjoy imagination, and the need for happiness in human life. I like fun and fantasy, the lives of those different from me, and those that are similar. I enjoy the past and the present. I, from the looks of one shelf, hope to really better myself going forward. And apparently, I’m a big fan of Harry Potter.

Do you know what your bookshelf says about you?

Series 2, Post 4: Remembering the Little Guy

By Liz Brossard

I have worked in a lot of places; a lot of restaurants and some retail sprinkled in here and there. However, for the last four years, I have been in a small business environment and I have learned a lot about what drives business and what keeps a company going in such a rough market.

Image courtesy of bplanet / FreeDigitalPhotos.ne

Comparing corporations to small business seems almost silly because they are so vastly different, yet one exists because of the other. In the last blog, the writer discussed small book stores versus corporate ones. I do not have a lot of experience with high-volume bookstore, although I did work in one for a Christmas season during college. It was the largest Borders in Chicago, right off of the Magnificent Mile. 

It has since closed, like most book stores. It was, by far, the worst job I have ever had.  I bring up my past job experience so that I can parallel how vastly different the industries of small versus big business can be. I don’t work in a bookstore, but I work in a small manufacturing company in the suburbs of Chicago doing administrative work, while I still try to start up my Journalism career.

Corporate companies are not always the worst, - other than pushing around the little guy - but in the situation regarding Borders, it was the worst. I have worked in other big corporations, but for some reason Borders took the cake. I can blame most of the nastiness on the customers and the fact that it was during the holiday season, but I probably had ten managers. I didn’t know half their names, but it seemed like every day I had a different manager. Out of said managers, I don’t think one of them actually cared about books; I think they just cared about strategic marketing and selling. 

Now, I am sure that is because upper management pushed to have books sold. My problem was that no one seemed to care about the products, just pushing them out the door. 

Now, as I said, a lot of my hatred came from the customers. You would think that during the holiday season people would be pleasant, but if you have ever worked in retail you know the opposite to be true. People were cranky, pushy and just downright rude. I would stand on my feet for eight hours at a time at a cash register where people bought books, DVDs and the like.

I took away one essential thing from my three months at Borders: People are impatient and they like everything to be easy, cheap and familiar. That is why so many small businesses seem to struggle. Not because they don’t have quality products, but because they can not come anywhere near the price, ease and familiarity that corporations offer.

Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with corporations. In theory, they are the product of the hard work and perseverance of individuals who want to live the American dream. But at what cost?

For the last four years, I have watched my company struggle and fight an uphill battle. But I will say this; we have loyalty that those companies will never find. We have the ability to do special things for customers and the ability to give them something as simple as a discount on a large order, just to make them happy. We may have to pinch pennies in other places, but the customer is, and always will be, the most important part of what we do.

We, at one point, held a very large account with a large manufacturing distribution company in Chicago. We lost that account about seven years ago and we have been fighting ever since. We couldn’t lower our costs enough for them anymore, just so that they could up-sell another 60 percent.

When you buy things for that cheap you are paying for what you get. Quality has gone out the window; that is the biggest thing with small business. Most times you know that you may pay $1 more, but you won’t have to replace that item in six months.

But that isn’t what we care about as consumers, right? We think about what something is going to cost us right now, not what it is going to cost us in the long run.

Our grandparent’s generation understood this, they spent a little more on appliances or the like and guess what, they still have those same appliances and they are still working. I guess my point is that you pay for what you get. At some point, I hope to see the little company fighting back again, and I think that is starting to occur.

Many people, when given the option, will try to support local stores, but when a conglomerate comes in and takes over what other options do you have?

As a small business you can’t compete with the marketing and the prices… it doesn’t matter if your product is superior. I guess my point in all of this was just to say that small businesses need to be supported, without them we wouldn’t even have corporations. Just be mindful of where you are buying things from and take into account whose pockets you are lining. That is my public service announcement for the day.

The Goodwill Series: The Postmistress

By Kristin Bivens

I, once again, found myself at Goodwill a month or so ago for a half off sale and picked up a book called, The Postmistress, by Sarah Blake.

Though the book's cover does it little justice and appears more to me to be a romance novel, it was not. And it was better than I had expected it to be.

I'm extremely interested in the era of World War II and all that it implies. I'm especially interested in women and their role in the war. The Postmistress focuses on three women, all touched by the war, two that live in Franklin, Massachusetts and one that is covering the war in Europe. The books cover the time before the United States joined the war efforts. But, everyone can feel the inevitability of the U.S. joining. 

Iris James is the Postmistress of the Franklin Post Office. She knows Emma Finch, who is married to the town doctor, though to begin with they are not friends. Emma begins simply as a patron of the post office, receiving letters from her husband who after a tragic patient death, leaves to help those in Europe. He meets our third character, Frankie Bard, while there. She's a reporter who has joined Edward Murrow in the difficult job of reporting from the front.

There is a nice mix of personalities between the three women, which I really appreciate. My previous Goodwill book, One Fifth Avenue, had a bit of an issue with that. 

Iris is older, single and courting a man in the village. She is shy and not overtly sexual. Emma is married and pregnant, with her husband away. Frankie is the tough journalist, out to seek the next big story, taking it as far as hopping a train through Europe, looking for the story on the Jews. But she doesn't remain unemotional, like so many tough women do. She cries, she weeps and she struggles to understand the cruelty of the Nazis. She also is un-attached, and none of her focus in the book is on finding a man. 

When I first started reading the book, it took me a few chapters to get into it and know where I was in each chapter, as they switch between characters. But once the stories got going, and I started to get to know each woman separately, I became attached to them, wanting to know what happens next.

Frankie Bard is definitely the woman I was most interested in, as she has the most exciting and interesting story line. She's overseas; people are being bombed, killed. She's hiding out in bunkers and taking trains across countries. She's a very strong woman, but she also is shocked by the man that is short in front of her, and cries when a small child is taken away from his mother at the train station. I also like the way it brings a civilian living in a war zone to your attention.

The book really comes together in the end, which is my favorite part. Throughout the story, we see as all the women become connected in various ways that they aren't even aware of. They are all connected by the war, even though the country they live in isn't even "involved" yet. And when they all finally come together, it makes you realize just how close we are when at one time, we may have been far apart. 

Book vs. Movie: "Vampire Academy"

By Sara E Thompto

I started off buying "Vampire Academy" on a whim. I saw the trailer for the movie, and quite honestly was not impressed. But, I wanted a quick, easy read and tend to like books that become movies so I thought “why not” and gave it a go.

What happened next? Well, it certainly didn’t fit my expectations and, although it was a fairly easy read, it wasn’t as quick as I had wanted. I fell into the rabbit hole; into the world where magic and vampires live, which author, Richelle Mead, painted quite beautifully. I came out on the other side, seven days later, having consumed all six books in the "Vampire Academy" series stunned at the world I had just experienced.

The Book

The first "Vampire Academy" book follows Rose Hathaway, dhampire (half vampire, half human) who is a novice guardian for the Moroi (magical “good” vampires). Particularly she is the guardian-in-training for her friend, Lissa, otherwise known as Princess Vasilisa Dragomir, the last vampire of her bloodline, which happens to be one of 12 royal bloodlines in their vampire world.

The book starts as they come back to St. Vladimir's Academy, an academy for Vampires, after two years on the run. St. Vladimir's not only trains novice guardians in combat and moroi in honing their magic, but also offers protection from the third type of Vampire, the evil Vampire species known as the Strigoi. Everyone wants to know why the two girls would run off the in first place, since St. Vladimir's is meant to keep them safe from the outside world. But, that’s just one of the mysteries that center around the girls in the first book.

Not to mention, Rose and Lissa have to deal with trying to hide a secret magic no one else seems to possess but Lissa, or the fact Rose can't seem to hold back from any fight, whether vocal or physical. Plus, in the end, these two girls are teenagers, which can be a real struggle in and of itself.

For me personally this was the first storyline I read with a strong female lead where it presented her as completely competent and able to handle herself, both physically and mentally. Rose is another Katniss Everdeen, but in another world where she also gets to be a teenage girl. It’s not all about “trying to get the guy” though there is definitely a romantic storyline in the series that grows as the series continues. This first book, however, mainly focuses on friendship, self control, and Rose learning to become a bad-ass guardian-in-training.

After finishing the entire series I could hardly wait to watch the movie, no matter how unimpressive the movie trailer was.

Unfortunately, the unimpressive trailer was a fairly accurate depiction of what to expect from the movie.

Here is why…

The Movie

The first major flaw in this movie was the awful casting. The only character who was spot on was Rose (Zoey Duetch), while almost every other character in the movie didn’t fit the description in the book what-so-ever. At times the poor acting and bad casting choices were so distracting it took away from the plot, which is disappointing since the intricate plot was not so intricate in the movie.

Yes, the movie did follow the same storyline, for the most part, but not a single storyline was fully explored as it was in the book. This left each of the side stories and even the main mystery needing more substance. It’s almost as though one needs to read the books in order to get the full meaning of what is going on. I understand that sometimes scenes in movies need to be skated over, or that bits and pieces need to be cut out all together so the production can fit into a 2 hour time slot. However, some of the most important scenes in this movie were so rushed, they just became confusing or hard to watch. Or, worse, not memorable enough to help connect the pieces later in the movie.

The one thing the movie did do right was keep Rose as independent and strong, though not quite to the point as the book depicted.  

Although I do wish the best for the "Vampire Academy" franchise and hope the movies continue (and hopefully improve with better acting, better special effects, and perhaps better directing along the way) I can’t say I would recommend this movie to anyone right now. I would suggest waiting for it to appear in redbox, and use the rest of your money to run out and buy the book (or all six). Because the books are definitely worth your time and money. The movie - not so much.

Series 2, Post 3: Growing Up and Growing Independent

By Sara E Thompto

There tends to be a common debate - what is better: small independently owned bookstores or big box bookstores. More and more people are slamming large bookstores (or large stores, overall) because large stores can buy in such large quantity that their prices are able to be much lower and can put smaller stores out of business. When you add online stores such as Amazon into the mix where used books can sell for as cheap as a penny, people get even more boisterous with their opinions.


Big Box Stores

Barnes and Nobel, Rochester, MN - Photo by jessicaburkhart.blogspot.com/

When I was young I lived in a small town in Northern Iowa called Northwood. There wasn’t a bookstore in town and the closest place to buy a book was the Walmart or Target, about 30 minutes away in Mason City. I used to love that small section of books. But one day I entered a Barnes and Noble in Rochester, MN and my literary world exploded wide open.

See… this wasn’t any Barnes and Noble… this was magical. The ceiling was a deep blue and lights twinkled all round me, engulfing me in a starry night sky. There was a castle and it was grand. This is the first bookstore I fell in love with. Big box? Yes. But I didn’t care - I was little, it was the 90’s, and I didn’t even know what a big box store was. This was the end all, be all, of bookstores.

After moving to Cedar Rapids my love of Barnes and Noble carried on. Especially throughout middle school and high school where my idea of a good time consisted of curling up on the couch with a good book. I could spend hours sifting through their bookshelves. Barnes and Noble was the catalyst for my love of books.

But then I moved to Chicago for college and my love for Barnes and Noble came to a screeching hault. Because, if there's one thing missing from downtown Chicago it is a decent Barnes and Noble.

Through as act of desperation I “cheated” on Barnes and Noble and stepped foot into a Borders For the first time. The Borders that once existed on State Street in Chicago was my new found infatuation. I could choose a book and people watch from their second or third story windows for hours at a time. The windows were so deep you could curl up next to the glass, book in hand, and be comfortable for hours.

However, as it goes, I was a typical college student and lacked great amounts of money. And if there is one thing Borders lacked, it was decent prices, which lead me to discovering Amazon.

The World of Online Shopping

I never shopped online until college. But, a friend, Sarah, was always receiving packages from Amazon and I became intrigued. I decided “why not” and gave it a go. What I found? Amazon was a brilliant place where I could buy a book for a cheap as a penny! Well… plus shipping and handling of course. As someone who consumed books steadily and always seemed to need a ready supply on demand, Amazon was a God send. Especially during my poor college student phase.

However, just as Borders had their pros and cons, so did Amazon. I missed the smell of a good book store. I missed the atmosphere of roaming around the isles endlessly, lost in a world of people and print. I couldn’t get this with the digital wonderland that is Amazon. No way, no how.

On the other hand, I was growing up and I no longer needed a store I could get lost in. I wanted my bookstore experience to be more authentic. I wanted to be somewhere I could get to know people, and develop more of an experience. This lead me to my next bookstore experience.

Independently Owned Bookstores

After college I moved back to Iowa City, Iowa where the best bookstore around is Prairie Lights; a small, intimate bookstore with a cute cafe included! It was easy to pop in for a book with it being small and conveniently located. It was local, I knew some of the employees, and it just was a “good fit.”

Since experiencing Prairie Lights, I’ve pretty much stayed loyal to independent and locally owned bookstores.

Although I still visit Barnes and Noble from time to time, and occasionally look for a better deal on Amazon (if I really want something I couldn’t otherwise afford)… my main place of book purchases today still happen at small bookstores owned by locals. Not only is it more fun, for myself, to discover little gems that pack small bookstore and boutiques, it also is a nice feeling knowing exactly to whom your money is going.

About a 20 minute drive from my apartment in sacramento is a small bookstore with used and new books call Beatnik Books. Not only are there books, but also small trinkets and old furniture to purchase. Dimple books, another Sacramento area bookstore, has inexpensive books, both used and new. The store is new to Sac. but the owners have been here for years. These type of bookstores not only offer great reads, but also cultivate a sense of community - something I like and appreciate more today.

What I’ve Learned

When it comes down to it, people should be getting their hands on books however it’s possible for them. I started my love of literature with big box stores, was able to afford to continue it with help from online stores like Amazon, and am enjoying it in a whole new way today through independent and locally owned bookstores.

But that’s just my personal journey.

No matter what your arguments are for your preference, the choice is simple: whatever brings you connection with books, is what’s right for you.