Eggs Hatching

Sorry to be so lax with updating the site. I can reveal that we are edging closer to making this a traditional Web site. Watch for announcements here and in your e-mail newsletters.

If you read this blog and are not on our e-mail list, drop me a line at ops@destinationsbooksellers.com and I'll "subscribe" you.

For the Word

With today's editions, The Evening News launches what will become at least a biweekly books column. I encourage you to pick up a copy of Tuesday's paper and check out some tips on hot summer reads.

No word yet on whether The Tribune will also be running it.

We All Got Pottered!

As I look at these pictures, none of them does justice to the party we had last evening. If anyone has pictures, particularly of our outstanding volunteer face painters, I'd love to share them with the rest of our patrons and make a permanent online record of the night.

Here are pics from the night. On a muggy and muggle-y night, everything was cool at Destinations Booksellers. We sold all of our copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and by now I expect a few patrons can tell you how the 600-plus-page book ends.

Everyone seemed to have a great time...all told, I'd guess 200 people dropped in during the night, with perhaps as many as 80 in the store at any given moment. Anne Miller, our potions mistress, kept the festivities going, and our face painters, captained by ball-of-fire Shelby Lewis, added immeasurably to the evening. Thanks must also go out to Terry Kendall, Greg and Glenda Mills, and countless others for making this a tremendous party.

And now your slide show:


Hogwarts house colors rule. That's Ann "Missionary for Imagination" Miller holding a previous Potter volume.


Ann took a rare night "off" from her job and finished the evening exhausted but happy.



Readings from the last chapter of the last book kept a crowd enthralled.


Only wizards and witches were able to see the "Muggle" designation on my forehead. The "snitch," you'll notice, bears my own Tennessee Vols colors.


The potions mistress takes a break, accompanied by a couple of messenger owls and a slithery friend.



Even early in the evening there were dozens wrapped up in the stories.


That's Half-Blood Punch bubbling in the background.


These stalwarts stayed for the whole night!


See the fabric stretched over the history and politics section? That was our little chamber of secrets. Those boxes of Harry Potter books were decoys.

We shut down the store...and here's why

Your local independent bookseller attended the New Albany City Council meeting on Thursday evening. If you were inconvenienced by the store's closing, I extend my sincere apologies.

You may be interested to know that the council approved a bond issue for the downtown redevelopment project known as Scribner Place. If you have the chance, congratulate those council members who voted for the resolution: Jack Messer, Donnie Blevins, Beverly Crump, Jeff Gahan, Larry Kochert, and Mark Seabrook.

A unanimous council also approved funding for a full-time ordinance enforcement officer that evening. This is just the beginning, folks. As our friends at Develop New Albany say, The Renaissance Begins!

We're Open, and We're Reading...

Hi, folks. Just in case you didn't know it, the store is open now and will continue to maintain normal business hours through the holiday. That means we're open Sunday from noon to 5, and Monday, July 4, from 9 to 9, just as usual. You know you're not working, so swing by during your holiday jaunts. I won't force you to buy anything, and I'll even accept a cup of potato salad or a burger. If I don't see you, have a fantastic Independence Day with friends and family. Or even if I do.

I'm particularly excited about a new book I'm reading. It's Divided by God, by Noah Feldman. Subtitled America's Church-State Problem and What We Should Do About It, this new book offers a wonderful mix of the scholarly and the accessible. As history, it is sound in outlining the various movements of the pendulum across the American centuries. More importantly, it offers a somewhat neutral view as it surveys the history.

With chapter titles like "The Birth of American Secularism" and "The Fundamentals, the Fundamentalists, and the Monkey Trial," you can imagine it's the kind of book that will stir all kinds of considerations and debate.

I'm told that Feldman was called on to help draft the interim constitution for post-Saddam Iraq, although I understand he was dismissed when he strayed from the administration line. Still, the book doesn't seem to be political in a way that would offend either side of the debate.

I can count about 30 of you who will want to read this, so I've ordered extra copies. Since everyone doesn't read the blog, tell your friends. Mention you read about it on the blog and we'll give you a $10 Booksense Gift Card with the purchase. You can't beat that, now can you?

Featured Book for Friday, July 1, 2005

NONFICTION

Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time
by Dava Sobel (Penguin, ISBN 0140258795, $11.95)



It's usually not all that necessary to draw attention to backlist titles, and Sobel's book made a tremendous splash when it was published in 1995 by Walker Publishing.

Now it's time for you to familiarize yourself with her previous work, in anticipation of her upcoming book, The Planets. Sobel, who also wrote Galileo's Daughter, is a true talent when it comes to making science and discovery accessible and easy to understand. But this is not a science book.

Longitude is more of an adventure tale as it tracks the trials of John Harrison, the man who made transoceanic navigation safer and cartography accurate. Personally, I can't wait to read The Planets later this year. We met Dava Sobel in New York, and we have serious hopes that New Albany will be part of her book tour this fall. Stay tuned.