Did you happen to drive by the shop in October?

If you did, you might have seen our mom, Nancy Titcomb, painting the statue of the colonial man in front of the shop a few weeks ago. It’s painstaking work – but it’s a labor of love!

The statue is metal and was created by our brother, Ted, when he had graduated from high school in 1973 and was getting ready to head off for college to study metal arts. Fortunately, the statue (being metal) is quite strong and sits in several tons of cement, so he’s stayed in pretty good shape over time. Every year or so, our mom hauls out her paints and gives the old man a fresh coat! It’s not an easy process – lots of little spaces to get into – and it’s in a rather public place just about 6 feet from the highway. Lots of friends call out hello or give her quick beep of their horns as they pass. He’s all done now, and we think he looks pretty darn good! All set for a Cape Cod winter. Thanks, Mom!!

p.s. A couple of years ago, after a paint update, our “man” showed up with a wedding ring! I think that Mom thought he was getting a little lonely after 30+ years alone and she (apparently) decided it was time he got married.  Wonder who the lucky lady is?

I wouldn’t ordinarily bore people with what-I-did-with-my-kids-today stories…but…this one is a little bit book related! We went to the Museum of Science in Boston yesterday to see the Harry Potter exhibit. This is not a boring “let’s look at things hanging on the wall” museum exhibit. This is a 10,000 square foot installation of over 200 props and costumes from the Harry Potter movies. You can see Harry and Ron’s 4 poster beds, the golden egg, Hagrid’s table and chair and my personal favorite….the fat lady portrait! She  actually moves and talks and tries to sing to break a wine glass!  You will walk into a Great Hall-type setting and see some gorgeous actual costumes worn at the Yule Ball by Hermione, Dumbledore, and a particularly beautiful gown worn by Prof. McGonagall.

The exhibit was definitely worth the trip. The installation was amazing. You can walk into Hagrid’s Hut and the Great Hall and really have the feeling that you are in the movie. I loved seeing all of the nauseating kitty cat plates decorating Dolores Umbridge’s office (complete with her Pepto Bismal pink suit). You will smile at every turn through the exhibit as you see things, both large and small, you will remember. (There is a stack of books by Gilderoy Lockhart!). Oh! Buckbeak is there and he is beautiful! I saw many kids in Harry Potter costumes so feel free to join the fun.

Before you go, make sure you do the math on the price of your visit. It turned out to be cheaper for us to buy a family membership to the Museum than it was for us to use the library discount and then buy non-member tickets to Harry Potter.

Photography is not allowed in the exhibit but you can take a picture in front of the chess piece that Ron rode in the first movie. The chess piece is in the museum lobby.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

(From Elizabeth) For some reason I am one of the last of our staff to read THE HELP by Kathyrn Stockett. I grew up in the South and therefore a number of people were eager to hear what I thought about the book. Why did I wait so long? I have no idea because I loved every word of this book!

So many of the situations prompted memories of my childhood–I was substituting names in the book for names of people I had known growing up in North Carolina.

It is truly one of best books I have read this year. As I hand sell it I suggest that the reader not start it if there is something important they need to do in the next day or two. Let’s hope that Kathryn Stockett is hard at work on her next story.

From Elizabeth: It was an late on an overcast Saturday afternoon when the ladies from Hopkinsville arrived full of laughter and chatter.

I told them they were having way too much fun which of course, just sent them into more gales of laughter!  They told me their book club was on the Cape for a long weekend–that would be the BWC group which stands for Books, Wine and Cheese!

Soon we were exchanging comments such as “have you read this?” and “what did you think of this book?”  I asked permission to take their picture with our colonial figure stature out front and the next thing I know I am taking more pictures with their cameras!  What a delightful group of readers and a very nice way to end the day.  They promised to come back next year and I hope they do.

Members of the 501st Legion really added to the fun!

There are good days, there are bad days and there are incredible days. 10-10-09, this past Saturday, was an incredible day! We held a party, together with the Sandwich Recreation Department, to celebrate the release of the DK Lego Star Wars Visual Dictionary……and about 600 of our friends showed up! That was not a typo.  600. We are so grateful to the Sandwich High School Key Club, Sandwich High School Honor Society and the Cape Cod Fencing Academy members who volunteered for this event. They worked hard and made the day a lot of fun.

Who could blame them? We had Star Wars characters (courtesy of the 501st Legion), Lego activities (build a Lego race car, a one minute Lego tower build contest where your tower had to stand up to the power of a blowing fan, and build a Star Wars Lego mini), crafts, face painting, a fencing demonstration, a costume parade and a giant Lego cake! Thanks to DK, everyone left with a bag full of Star Wars goodies like stickers, posters, pins and more! It was a GREAT day.

Sandwich High School Key Club Volunteers

Volunteers from the Sandwich High School National Honor Society

Look at this cute Princess Leia!

At the crafts tables planned by the Rec. Dept. you could make a picture frame, do a puzzle, make a bookmark and more!

Fencing Demonstration by the Cape Cod Fencing Academy

Our mobile store was busy as people got their first look at the new DK Lego Star Wars Visual Dictionary

Edye's family volunteered to help with the day, they were great!

One Minute Lego Tower Build---see who can build the tallest tower in one minute...it has to stand up to a blowing fan though!

The sneaky Jawa...is the Jawa swiping something??

Get your photo taken with a Stormtrooper!

Edye and her family made a HUGE Lego Star Wars cake to celebrate the day. Her daughter Lucy and niece Katie decorated the cake.

Build a Lego race car and race it down our ramp

Titcomb's staff with the 501st Legion

Books find their way to our attention in a variety of ways. Some because they get hyped in the press months before publication (think The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown), some because they are from authors we have loved in the past (Shanghai Girls by Lisa See), some just because the book cover calls out to us (the paperback version of Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum). Even with all of these ways books can try to grab our attention we can’t read everything! Some of the best books we’ve read have come from customer recommendations. This was the case with one of our favorite books, The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls.

It was just a regular day at the Bookshop about 5 years ago. I was chatting with a customer about books and she told me I simply had to read The Glass Castle. In truth, it sounded depressing. The author’s life sounded horrible and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to read it. Something about the sincerity of this customer’s recommendation stuck with me and I quickly got my hands on the audio book. I was hooked from the first 5 sentences.

I found myself shouting out loud to the CD, yelling at the parents who were neglecting Jeannette and her siblings. I called the Bookshop at least 5 times during the book to say “you can’t believe what they just did!!”. I was so engrossed in the book that I would leave an hour early to pick my older son up at kindergarten just so my younger son would fall asleep in the car and I could sit in the school parking lot and listen to the book. Yes, my son took his naps in the car seat because of Jeannette Walls! I remember yelling in the car at the scene toward the end of the book when her father sends her upstairs at the bar with a man. I am pretty sure that my son lost out on a few playdates because other parents witnessed that scene! Stay away from the crazy lady in the station wagon!

As engrossed and amazed as I was by this book, it was somehow not depressing. Jeannette Walls parents did care about her but they were not able to care for her. Despite hunger and neglect, she managed to create a very successful life for herself and you cheer her every step of the way. I can’t remember reading a book where I have wanted to meet the author more at the end of it. I can’t wait to meet this person who dug food out of the school cafeteria trash cans, fashioned her own homemade braces and went on to be a respected journalist. She’s coming to Sandwich on Wednesday October 28th at 7:00pm. I’ll be there!

Her new book, Half Broke Horses (the fictionalized biography of her maternal grandmother) which comes out tomorrow provides some new insight into her mother and where she came from. Too bad I don’t have any more napping children to drive around!

We are so excited about out upcoming visit with Pulitzer prize winning poet Mary Oliver! I was just working on a press release about the event when I stumbled upon an interesting little factlet…Mary Oliver briefly lived in the home of Edna St. Vincent Millay! She actually helped the Millay family sort through the poet’s papers. What a great experience that must have been to an aspiring poet. Just had to share that little tidbit.

Our visit with Mary Oliver will be on Wednesday October 14th at 7:00pm at the Tilden Arts Center at Cape Cod Community College in West Barnstable. The talk is free and open to the public.

We had a great author event yesterday.   Ann Pieroway came to sign copies of her cookbooks (Taste and Tales of Cape Cod and the Islands, Taste and Tales of Massachusetts and A Taste of Cranberries and Some Tales Too). She brought some cookies baked from a recipe in the Cape Cod cookbook (and I will tell you that white chocolate chips and dried cranberries go VERY well together!).

What made this a great event? Well…not necessarily us! Ann got to the Bookshop before us (we were at a charity road race in Sandwich and didn’t get to the store until 15 minutes before we were supposed to open!).  She happily helped us set up a tent, table and chairs in front of the store where she sat and chatted with customers for 2 hours. Customers enjoyed talking with her (and eating her cookies!) and we enjoyed having her.  She was so helpful and enthusiastic, we felt like making her a Titcomb’s Bookshop employee for the day.   (I actually heard her offer to carry a customer’s heavy bag of books out to her car for her!)

Ann’s working on another cookbook and, yes, we’ve asked her to come back again to celebrate when it’s published!

We had a lovely time at our visit with Tracy Kiely, author of “Murder at Longbourn” on Saturday.  In response to numerous requests…here is the recipe for the apple cake that we served at the event.

Apple Cake
From “Scoops By The Bay” Cookbook (Cape Cod Academy 1989)

2 Eggs
1 cup oil
1 ½ cups sugar
2 cups chopped apple (including skins)
1 cup chopped walnuts
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
½ tsp baking soda

Beat eggs; add oil, sugar, apples and walnuts. Sift flour, salt and baking soda and add to mixture Bake at 350 degrees in a greased small tube pan for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Check with a cake tester. (I use a brownie pan for this recipe and the baking time is more like 35 minutes, but check it often—top will be crispy but inside moist).

BookTv filmed an author visit at our Bookshop and our spot has hit the internet! Lawrence McDonald and Patrick Robinson discuss their book “A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers”.  The backdrop of old books looks fabulous if we do say so ourselves! Watch the video using the link below or watch it on TV on Saturday September 5th at 8:15pm on C-Span2, BookTV.

See the clip