Tricia Hughes, Downtown Augusta Hero, humbling herselfby getting down on the floor and reading to young customers.
I snapped this photo tonight at First Friday where we had an amazing crowd for the four short hours we opened. Aside from fudge tastings and hot wassail warming our gullets, we started selling off our overstock for $5.00 or less per book. Saturday we’re open from 10am – 6pm and the overstock stacks will be out front under our tent and inside the store in every nook we can find. Plus all our regular inventory will still be 30% off including new, used and rare books along with chocolate, fudge, ugly dolls and stationary. The only thing not marked down right now are DVD’s, special orders and employees (none of them seemed eager to match our inventory discount with a pay cut).
Thanks to everyone who has rescued books this week. We’ve got nine more days to go before The Great Book Burning consumes the tares & chaff and perhaps a few noteworthy titles too. The responses to our pronouncement range from unspeakable consternation (though somehow they found words) to “could you please burn my high-school journal?!?” We’ve even had numerous complaints filed against us with various state and federal authorities so next Saturday promises to be more exciting than I’d anticipated. Please plan on joining us to witness our protest and proclamation.
Regards,
David Hutchison
The Book Tavern
The Book Tavern has too many books and the best way to get rid of books is fire. So we are pulling everything we can find out of the warehouse and on January 9th we’ll set fire to it all. Then, like a Phoenix from the ashes, it won’t be long until we recover from the GREAT BOOK BURNING of 2010!
Rescue these poor and needy books! Everything in the store will be 20% OFF starting the day after Christmas. Everything! New books, used books, rare books and even chocolate! We want as many souls to be spared the flames as possible.
Visit often as we count down to the fire. Special opportunities to save books will arise. Watch your inbox, Twitter, and Facebook. For the next 15 days, you can make the difference in the life of these books!
Though only in its second year, the Savannah Book Festival attracted a very respectable group of authors. We Only attended two of the lectures: Ferrol Sams and Bailey White. The former charmed us with a number of good stories concerning what can’t be captured in ink and paper. Coming from the dialect rich south, where, as Dr. Sams tells us, even families have distinctive intonations, it is easy to understand how certain vocal qualities are difficult to transliterate. Some have made the attempt, notably Joel Chandler Harris with the Tales of Uncle Remus. After he was finished he took questions from the listeners. Gabi and I found his reply when asked how he knew Miss Helen was the woman for him particularly delighting to the soul. While his story style does it more justice, simply put, he told her he was more his true self when he was with her.
When we left Trinity Church, we immediately walked to one of the open air tents where Bailey White was getting ready to speak. Unfortunately the sunshine was calling us away and though her lilting voice was alluring, it did not draw us out of the light like a siren into the cool, shaded tent which seemed to much like Sheol. So we only stayed long enough for me to strain my ears and eke out enough to be satisfied I had heard Ms. White in person. Later, I was undeservingly rewarded when at a coffee shop a lady approached my wife with complements for her coif. She and her friend had noticed Gabi at Dr. Sams lecture and now, could not resist speaking to her about it. As I turned around to meet Carol she introduced herself and her friend, Bailey White. We exchanged pleasantries but, Ms. White, I must apologize for being seduced by the sun. I swear to you some future hour where I shall be entranced by naught but your voice!
On a somewhat mundane note, the port-o-johns were unbelievably plush. If you followed our Twitter @booktavern you saw a picture. Unfortunately this lavish urinal was unmatched by the vendors. Telfair Square is not particularly large, yet it was rather unfilled by merchants. A very small selection of publishers and booksellers were there and most disappointingly, the main vendor for the signings was Follet, one of the large corporate interests which routinely exacts usurous prices from college students. I expected a local book festival to use a local bookseller, of which there are two well situated both within a half mile of the event.
Despite any minor disappointments, we had a most excellent time. Savannah hosts a great number of fine shops and eateries so there is plenty to do in and around festival events. We will definitely be returning next year!
Defiance by Nechama Tec
Praise for Defiance:
“Zwick based the movie on Nechama Tec’s excellent book, of the same title, which chronicles, in great detail, an anomalous corner of history.
—David Denby, The New Yorker, January 12, 2009
“The excellent source material is Defiance, by historian Nechama Tec”
—Rolling Stone, January 22, 2009
“Suspenseful and inspiring.”
—Publishers Weekly
About the Book:
In 1941, a group of Jewish resistance fighters—men, women, and children—established a community in the forests of western Belorussia. They offered protection to all Jewish fugitives who could find their way to them. It was the largest armed rescue operation of Jews by Jews in the war—perhaps in any war ever. Their leader, the charismatic Tuvia Bielski, told his story to author and Holocaust survivor Nechama Tec two weeks before he died in 1987.
