Pleasant Living Magazine

Borders Closing, Community-Building and "Shop Local" Movement Give a Boost

First there were the bookstore chains, then Amazon, then digital books, all seeming to threaten the very existence of the brick-and-mortar bookstore. Yet, in the wake of the recent closing of the Borders bookstore chain, a new surge of independent booksellers is rising, seemingly against all odds.

Just before Thanksgiving, Paz & Associates, a bookstore training & consulting group, helped open Mitzi's Main Street Books, an independent bookstore in Rapid City, South Dakota. The owner, Ray Hillenbrand, opened the store as part of a new Main Street Square, which was developed to rejuvenate the area and make it more of a destination. "The opening of Mitzi's bookstore shows how entrepreneurs and developers now regard an indie bookstore as a 'must have' in rebuilding their town centers," Donna Paz Kaufman observed. "Consumer surveys consistently show that locally-owned independent bookstores are one of the most desirable businesses," she continued.

"It's not just the closing of Borders that is fueling the resurgence of independent bookstores," says Oren Teicher, CEO of the American Booksellers Association, "but a more complex array of factors including the growing national acceptance of the "shop local" movement; an extraordinary level of innovative and creative entrepreneurship; a sophisticated use of social networking; easier access to Small Business Administration loans; a willingness to adapt to changing retail trends including selling both print and digital books online; and, most importantly, continuing to be an unmatched source of credible information about books and authors."

Author Gwen Keane will be signing her new book, Swan Wait, on the following dates and locations:

Book Signing at Foxy, 12 E. Main Street, Kilmarnock, Va

On Saturday, November 26, 2011 from 11:30-3:30 p.m.

Contact Point is Kathy (804)435-2200

Book Signing at Barnes and Noble, Merchant Square, Williamsburg, Va

On Sunday, December 18, 2011 from 11:30-3:30 p.m.

Contact Point is Bo Carr

Book Signing at the Rocky Mount Academy, Rocky Mt., NC

On Friday, January 27, 2011 at 1:00 p.m.

Contact Point is Bobbi Weeks (252) 904-7889

Hope to see you there!         

On a crisp morning in September, Thea Marshall sits on her screened porch overlooking Taylor’s Creek. The view is simple, but luminous: rays of sunlight making diamonds in the water, a tiny white sailboat bobbing in the distance. There are no other houses for miles. "What could be more delicious than this?" Marshall laughs, and I’m not sure I know a good answer. After all, it is this very view—so characteristic of the wild seclusion and beauty of the river country—that inspired Marshall, a long-time local NPR commentator, to publish her recent book, Neck Tales: Stories from Virginia's Northern Neck

The book, a collection of commentaries about everything from sixth-generation farmers to the little-known adventures of early American heroes, captures the unique culture of the Northern Neck in a way nothing else in print has yet attempted to do. Around here, Marshall is best known as a commentator for WCVE, broadcast in Richmond and Heathsville, and her original radio commentaries about the Northern Neck served as the basis for the material that eventually became Neck Tales. But like the blue waterways that snake across the Northern Neck, Marshall’s vignettes have a long, winding history.

"The reason I loved radio was because I could be anything I wanted to be: short, fat, tall, thin, ugly, beautiful," says Marshall, who began her career doing voiceover commercials in New York City and St. Louis. "I could change my voice and sound like everything from a child to a computer. It was—it still is—great fun." But despite her big-city background and her tremendous theatrical talents, Marshall assures me that her love affair with the Northern Neck was quite a classic one, if a little unexpected.

A New Swan Story Brightens Bookshelves

For all of us who have admired the majesty of swimming swans, Gwen Keane has written and, her husband, Bill Balderston, has photographed a fascinating story of their encounter with them. Swan Wait is set on Indian Creek, off the Chesapeake Bay in Kilmarnock, Virginia.

This is a story born of a couple’s keen sensitivity to the nuances of interaction between human beings, pets and wild things. In 2006, as a result of a senseless shot by a neighbor, Gwen and Bill lost their sixteen-month-old Augie, a Northern Neck Black Dog. Shortly thereafter, Gwen saw three mute swans swimming in their creek (Mute swans are distinguished by the black flashing knob from the base of the bill to the forehead). As if Mother Nature wanted to help Gwen and Bill heal, a subtle bonding between humans and swans began to unfold.

To understand the genesis of this story, I asked Gwen when she started a diary of the swans' activities. She said, " In 2006 we found ourselves sitting on the dock feeding and talking to the swans as if they understood every word we said. I began to take notes. Bill, being a city boy taken by the beauty of our creek, began to photograph their comings and goings."