Jean's Jottings

• I'm taking over more publicity work for the stores. This involves lots of training and finessing as I get up-to-speed. I'm doing bookmarks, posters, organizing our events calendars, and doing the customer emails. So if you have any complaints or suggestions-I'm your gal.
  
• I'm taking over the web site. Oy chihuahuas. What a lot to get good at really fast! I'm open to suggestions here too. We want to start posting "Staff Picks" to help you all out when you are shopping. Since Microsoft changed FrontPage to Expression Web 2, I'm hoping it is compatible with FrontPage and that I can learn it fast.
  
• I sent my youngest off to college! Woo-hoo! Go Spartans! Go Kalamazoo Promise! Grocery bill drops dramatically. Peace and quiet reign in the house. Four days later-the oldest kid bounces back. He'll return to U of M, Ann Arbor, in April. Spring can't come soon enough...and I LIKE the kid. I just wanted to be alone with the hubby for a while.
  
• My job teaching computer skills to adults with disabilities, for the State of Michigan, is on hiatus while they upgrade equipment. Blows my budget to heck and back. I just found a new place to hold classes for a while until the situation improves.
  
• I'm moving across town in just under 3 weeks. Like I don't have enough on my plate. Jeez. It will be better once I'm done. Surviving the move is the question. As you know, I LOVE to read! I have too many books. Hence-I have to purge my books. Ouch!
  

It’s a hot and muggy day, here in Kalamazoo. It should hit the 90s tomorrow so we discussed what people did before air conditioning. Apparently the layout and window design of your house was all that separated the comfortable people from sweaty madness! Lee (a dear fellow and Kazoo Books regular) says the T design of his childhood home allowed for windows to be open towards the wind regardless of where it was coming from. I spent part of my childhood in the Mojave dessert (it’s a dry heat) and part of it in northern California’s Humboldt County where we didn’t need air conditioning. Thank goodness for iced drinks!

As part of my self-assigned task (oy, this job is so hard…NOT) of reading a little of everything so I can recommend good reads based on personal experience, I am reading my first book by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Childs. So far, the first 6 pages are really, really good. Honestly, you can’t always tell that early in to a book if it will pan out as being your kind of read, but the signs are all good. As usual, a customer recommended them. In fact, several of you have recommended this duo as writing “real page-turners.” That’s what constitutes a great summer read.

I hope you all get out this Saturday, June 7 to all the festivities of “Super Saturday” here in town. The KIA (Kalamazoo Institute of Art) has their annual juried art show in Bronson Park, the Doo-Dah Parade runs around the park, and the Greek Fest wraps up their annual 3-day festival at the Arcadia Creek Festival Place. The Bank Street Farmer’s Mart runs 7 am to 2 pm. Kazoo Book will be open from 10 am to 6 pm, at both locations.

May 8, 2008: CHARLAINE HARRIS! OK, ok. I’ve been reading lots of Charlaine Harris mysteries in the last week. I got there via Casey Daniels. How?

Well, in the April 23 posting, I mention a new load of paranormal books that came in. I tried two books by Casey Daniels, Don of the Dead, and the sequel, The Chick and the Dead. The main character is Pepper Martin, a young lady whose rich family loses their reputation and money when dad is sent to jail. She gets a job leading tours of an old cemetery in Cleveland. When she trips and hits her head on a mobster’s headstone, she suddenly is able to see ghosts…and the mobster wants her help finding his murderer.

Reading the Daniels books reminded me of Sookie Stackhouse, the main character of Ms. Harris’s Southern Vampire series. I read Book One some time ago but none of you all has been trading any new copies in…grumble, grumble. So I broke down and special ordered the first couple of books in that series and also the first few in the Aurora Teagarden mysteries. Man-o-man! I love her writing! She has a way with character names. She writes character-driven books with nicely intricate plots. And I like an author who can throw words around that I occasionally have to look up. When was the last time you read the word “mufti”? I’m gonna Google it right now.

Wikipedia defines it (for the use Ms. Harris’s character makes of it) as “refers to ordinary clothes, especially when worn by one who normally wears, or has long worn, a military or other uniform. Mufti Day, or civvies day is an event at certain schools in which students are permitted to wear ordinary clothing, instead of the usual school uniform; It is also occasionally found in business environments.” Thank you, Wikipedia!

So-I’m reading books that some of you lent me and other books that some of you suggested to me.

I’m going to be working on the gardens at the Clarendon store. Any suggestions? I’d like to see some nasturtiums, hollyhocks and that purple bean vine that Gloria used to grow near the front door.

March 4, 2008: Harry Potter and Vampires. It’s Tuesday and I left off by writing I was about to enter a Harry Potter jag. It started last weekend with a string of vampire and werewolf movies on TV. I followed that with a Harry Potter movie on Sunday, pizza and the fifth H. P. movie on Monday night and then I started book seven this morning. I don’t know why I didn’t read it last July. Maybe because it’s just SO BIG! I have to lay it on a pillow on my lap because my hands just can’t take the strain. I’m at least an eighth of the way through and it is really, really good. Draws you in from the get-go. So, don’t tell me what happens, I’ve got a teenager for that kind of trick! Two thumbs up for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007).

March 3, 2008: My Busy Reading Weekend. Some gems to share…

In Sci Fi, I read Storm Front (Book 1 of the Dresden Files series) by Jim Butcher (2000). Remember, I like to read sci-fi in addition to romance and mystery. It was his debut novel and well worth the time to read. Harry Dresden is a wizard who lives in Chicago, performs wizardly tasks for money, and occasionally works with the police department. It was very much like reading Laurell K. Hamilton without the steamy sex.

In Romance, I finished a Kasey Michaels book, The Kissing Game (2003), last week and liked it so much I jumped into two more. I am almost finished with both of them and she holds up well. I would describe her books I've read so far as Regency romances with witty dialogue. Speaking of witty dialogue and Regency romances, if you haven’t tried Julia Quinn’s books, you are denying yourself a treat! I have really enjoyed every one I’ve read so far. The latest one I finished is The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever (2007).

Out of the Blue-I came across a book while shelving new intakes and took it home to read. Faces of Evil, by Lois Gibson and Deanie Mills (2005) is a real crime book that tells the tale of Lois Gibson’s journey to become a forensic artist. I was riveted. This is not normally my type of book. I was fascinated by her fight to break through into a new career, recover from her own crime, and her interviews with victims of crimes. Very empowering!

That’s all for now. I’m off on a Harry Potter binge…

Sorry about the tiny font guys! I changed computers and browsers. Let me try again.

February 26, 2008, part 2:  I was feeling the love of old favorites, so I followed up with this gem- from sci-fi writer Anne McCaffrey, Three Women (1990) is a collection of three romance stories-a genre which I didn’t know she ever wrote in until my mother gave me a copy several years ago.  Ring of Fear involves murder and romance on the show horse circuit in the swinging 60’s.  The Mark of Merlin comes with a newly orphaned heroine and her German Shepherd (Merlin), a scarred soldier, an unsolved murder, and the smuggling of treasures from WW2 Europe.  The Kilternan Legacy is set in Ireland in more modern times. Our intrepid heroine is divorced with two teenagers when she inherits property in Ireland. Can she balance nosey teens, a nosey ex, and nosey neighbors…and still find love? You betcha!