Submitted by bookshelf on Wed, 12/05/2012 - 2:33pm
We know shopping during the holiday season can be rough: the crowds, the prices, the deadlines. Because the holidays aren't supposed to be about hustling and bustling through the long lines at the mall, we're here to offer our expertise and our favorite gifts for 2012. We've paired some great in-store product with the books we love, and all week long, we're sharing our ideas on Facebook. (And we've listed our favorite books for you down below!)
Feel free to join the conversation and tell us what you're buying this season for friends and family, then come visit us in-store to pick up your presents and get everything wrapped -- for free!
Don't forget, too, that when you spend $100 locally, $68 goes back to your community. Shopping locally is a lot less stressful and a lot more fun, and it's better for your local economy.
Submitted by bookshelf on Wed, 11/28/2012 - 12:20pm
I’m a cracker. Read that, not as a confession for a proclamation, but an excited self-realization of someone who has long bemoaned her lack of cultural identification. So perhaps it is that cracker identity that makes me feel so drawn in to Janis Owens’ American Ghost. It is the same southern historical story-telling that made Pat Conroy (and us) swoon over Owens’ earlier novel, My Brother, Michael.
In American Ghost, Owens weaves a romance between Jolie Hoyt, daughter of a Pentecostal preacher, and Sam Lense, a Jewish anthropology student, around a lynching that the fictional town of Hendrix, Florida, would rather not remember. But like a ghost that lingers long after its time, the town continues to be impacted.
Based on the horrific lynching of Claude Neal in Owens’ hometown of Marianna, Florida, the story is haunting and yet, way too familiar.
Meet Janis Owens this Saturday, December 1, at 4:00 p.m. at The Paisley Cafe for a book talk and signing. Refreshments provided by Paisely Cafe.
