Our Parking Lot Rocks!

The side parking area at Titcomb's Bookshop

This is one of the beautiful things about having a blog.  You can write down and share what you are excited about. People may not share your excitement, but you get the satisfied feeling of having “told the world” about your whatever-it-is.

I love our Bookshop, don’t get me wrong, but you have to admit our parking left something to desired.  Am I right? In the rainy mess that is Spring, our side yard, where many people parked, was a morass of mud!  You should see the morass now! It is a lovely gravel parking lot with actual defined edges. It is a thing of beauty!

Come to the shop, pull easily off to the side parking area, step out of the car and feel the satisfying crunch of firm stone under your feet. Go ahead Tropical Storm Danny. Bring it on this weekend, rain all you want…..we’ve got new gravel!

Richard Russo Visit

We had a wonderful visit with Pulitzer Prize winning author Richard Russo on Saturday. Such a treat to find out that an author whose writing we admire is also charming, funny and genuinely pleased to meet all of his fans!  After a day of running all over the Cape to sign books (and fighting the worst traffic snarls we have seen on Cape Cod in quite some time–which is saying something!) Richard Russo and his wife Barbara chatted with guests at a dinner reception we held as a fund raiser for the Sandwich Public Library and then quickly drove over to the Sandwich High School auditorium to read from “That Old Cape Magic”, answer questions and sign books for over 350 of his fans! Whew, what a day!

Here is a picture of Richard and Barbara at our Table #17 we set up at the dinner reception (you are going to have to read the book to get that joke!) and a view of the long book signing line at the high school.

Book Review: Shelter Me by Juliette Fay

I don’t know if it is due to the weather, but I have been in the middle of an incredible book drought. I have started many books and finished almost none! The books are OK, but in the busy months of the summer, none has held my attention. None is carrying me away, you know? Does that happen to you?

Shelter Me by Massachusetts writer (yeah!) Juliette Fay is the first book in months that has had me looking forward to coming back to it. I have been in bed at 9 pm three nights in a row, just so I could read this book! Now that’s a good book!

Shelter Me is the story of Janie LaMarche. Janie suddenly finds herself a widow with two very young children after her husband dies in a bike accident. Several months later, a contractor shows up to build her a screened porch. The porch was surprise her husband had planned and paid for before he died. Janie struggles to face each day and care for her children. She befriends the contractor and the young parish priest at her church and they help her get through these tough times. There is romance here! (I won’t tell you where

Janie is no sweet, shrinking violet widow. She yells at almost everyone and can swear like a thug if the need arises. Her temper just seems to make her more real, more human. I found the book was funny, sad, romantic and moving. It reminds me of how I feel after an Anne Tyler novel (and I love Anne Tyler). You sink into someone’s life in such intimate detail, it’s a little hard to leave it at the end.

Shelter Me is Juliette Fay’s first novel.

Mr. C-Span, We’re Ready For Our Close Up!

This isn’t really a secret….but if it were, we wouldn’t be able to keep it!  C-Span is coming to the bookshop to film one of our author talks for Book TV!

They are coming on Sunday August 16^th at 4:00pm to film Lawrence McDonald and Patrick Robinson as they discuss their new book “A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers”. How cool is that?

It should be a very interesting talk. Lawrence McDonald is a former Vice President at Lehman Brothers and will share his insights into what happened at Lehman Brothers and how it effects the entire financial system.

So come on over and to hear the inside scoop on the Lehman Brothers debacle.  You will also provide us with much needed moral support…there will be cameras about!

The only thing more exciting would be if they were filming “The Inside Story of 40 Years of Titcomb’s Bookshop”!

Best Sellers of the Summer (So Far)

Here is a look at what people are reading (or buying anyway) at Titcomb’s this summer. The list is in order of sales (highest first) from June 15, 2009 to August 9th, 2009.

1. The Red Leather Diary by Lily Koppel

2. Galway Bay by Mary Pat Kelly

3. That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo

4. The Hakawati by Rabih Alameddine

5. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

6. Sarah’s Key by Tatiana De Rosnay

7. Bats on the Beach by Brian Lies

8. Hello Cape Cod! by Martha Day Zschock

9. Bats At The Library by Brian Lies

10. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows

Are There Really 40 Different Toppings For Ice Cream?

What if you threw a 40^th birthday party and nobody came? Luckily that was not the case for us, hundreds of people came! Sunday we celebrated our 40^th anniversary with a birthday party complete with cupcakes and ice cream with 40 different toppings! Kids made crafts, got tattoos and some of the grandchildren made balloon hats and swords for them too. (They made balloon hats until they could no longer resist the call of the pool in the backyard!).

People came, ate their ice cream under the tents we had set up in the driveway, sat and worked on a jigsaw puzzle and just visited. We even got presents! You can see a picture of a young boy named Tony who made us a present. He decorated a beach rock for us and did a terrific drawing of our statue. How cute is that?

We did indeed have 40 toppings for our ice cream. If you ever have a need to do something similar, or you doubted we could find 40 toppings, here is the list of what we had!

Chocolate syrup, Strawberry syrup, Carmel syrup, Maraschino cherries, Crushed pineapple, Blueberries, Strawberries, Rainbow sprinkles, Chocolate sprinkles, Walnuts, Peanuts, Pecans, Sunflower seeds, Trail mix, Coconut, Chocolate chips, Butterscotch chips, Peanut Butter Chips, Andes mint bits, M&Ms, Heath bars, Oreos, Chocolate chip cookies, Oatmeal cookies, Sugar cookies, Reese’s Pieces, Gummy bears, Gummy worms, Sour Patch Kids, Marshmallows, Yogurt covered raisins, Chocolate covered raisins, Granola, Pretzels, Yogurt covered pretzels, Cocoa Krispies, Whoppers, Cinnamon & Sugar, Nutmeg, Crystallized ginger