Where In The World Are You Reading?

"Where In The World Are You Reading" is hosted by Trish of Love, Laughter And A Touch of Insanity, Kelly of The Written World, and Lisa of Books. Lists. Life. with idea to share a piece of your reading world through pictures and/or words. This month's meme prompt was to write about your local bookstore. Local bookstore can be any physical brick and mortar store--one you've visited on vacation or one local to you. The bookstore can be an Indie or Chain.

My local indie bookstore is one you've heard me talk about before - The Bookworm. The Bookworm has been in existence since 1986, moving to it's present location in the Countryside Village in 1999. There's been a bookstore in the Countryside Village since 1964 (back when all bookstores were indies!). I must say that I have kind of mixed feelings about The Bookworm (I'd prefer not to have dogs in the store with me) but they have everything I want in a bookstore and there's even a cafe attached.

The booksellers love to have fun at The Bookworm

 

Notice THE CHAPERONE on the shelf?

My go-to place for seeing authors, including Mary Helen Stefaniak

The Bookworm has eleven in-house book clubs including one for fans of Sherlock Holmes, one for Civil War buffs and even one called Aardbaark (Amiable Adults Readers Discussing Books Almost Always Read by Kids). Plus, they host over 100 book clubs, offering 20% discounts to book club members, and they will even order books just for clubs. If I could only get the members of the Omaha Bookworms to actually buy books!

Best part of The Bookworm? I can get there over my lunch break!

Sunday Salon - August 21

How can we possibly be nearly the end of August (and, therefore, the end of summer)? What a blur this summer has been! I feel like I haven't done much reading but I know by most people's standards, I've read quite a lot. I'd like to think that I'll get more read this fall. But those of you who know anything at all about me by now know that I'm going to spend quite a lot of the next few months in front of a television watching football. My beloved Cornhuskers will kick off their inaugural season in the Big 10 soon and every fall starts with high hopes for my Oakland Raiders. Perhaps I need to work in some football reading this fall.

We went to a wedding last night, the first of Mama Shepp's boys to get married. I can't believe my boys could possibly be grown up enough to be getting married although the youngest of them are all 22 by now, the same age I was when I got married. Still, all of "my boys" will forever be goofy high school kids, hanging out in my kitchen, forgetting that I'm a grownup and making me laugh so hard.

New York Press has a article about mom-and-pop bookstores this week. Much as I love knowing that I can walk into a Barnes & Noble and find almost any book I'm looking for, I love the idea of walking into an indie bookstore and finding a book I didn't even know I was looking for.

"There’s a word in Danish that doesn’t translate to English. Google Translate will tell you that “hygge” means “cozy” or “coziness,” but it really means much more than that. Hygge, pronounced “hue-gah,” is the happy, satisfied laziness you feel when it’s raining outside and you’re curled up on the couch. It’s the feeling of being at home—of being comfortable—that all humans crave.

Hygge is exactly the feeling you get in tiny bookshops that smell like paper and dust and feature leaning towers of good reads. And it’s the feeling on which the owners of those bookstores count to stay in business."

There's nothing but cleaning (and, of course, some reading) on my schedule this afternoon. It might just be a good day to head off to downtown Omaha and visit Jones Street Booksellers.

Happy 90th birthday to Winnie-The-Pooh today! He looks pretty good for 90, doesn't he?!

This week I'm finishing up "Cocktails Under The Tree of Forgetfulness" by Alexandra Fuller (loving this one!) and then I'm actually ahead of reading for my scheduled reviews. What to read next? What are you reading this week?

What's Keeping Me From Reading Lately - Omaha

It's not that I'm not enjoying Markus Zusak's The Book Thief (I really am!). It's just that there are so many other things going on around here lately to pull my interest away from reading. Tonight it was some baseball followed by big fireworks show. I've gotten tired of the driveway displays but I sure do love those big booming shows!

The flooding Missouri River continues to fascinate and horrify me. That road you see on the left? That's Interstate 29, the north-south corridor from Kansas City to Canada. You can just make out Omaha to the south.

I'm not much of a baseball fan as a general rule, but I do like to watch some college baseball and I love to watch the College World Series. It was especially interesting to watch as a massive bow echo line of thunderstorms moved over the city on Monday night.

If Virginia had won last night against defending CWS champions, South Carolina, it would have been a toss up what to do tonight. It will be a beautiful night to spend outdoors and, had VA won, it would have meant a rematch to determine who gets to play Florida in the championship series.  Since they lost, the decision is made for us.

This year marks the 25th year for Shakespeare on the Green and it looks like tonight we'll be heading down to watch A Midsummer Night's Dream. They always do a terrific job but a big part of the fun is having a picnic dinner in the park with a few hundred other fans of the bard while enjoying juggling and wandering troubadours. I'm eager to see Hamlet as well so we may be back down to the Green next weekend.

Perhaps I can work in some reading while I'm stretched out on a blanket waiting for it to get dark enough for the show to start. What are your plans for the weekend?

Sunday Salon - June 19

Happy Father's Day to all of the dads out there and all who have acted in that capacity!

Two news stories coming out of Omaha this week: the continuing flood concerns and the College World Series.  The Missouri River continues to rise, threatening cities, shutting down a long section of  Interstate 29, and devastating farmlands. In Omaha, we worry about our airport, our water supply and, gasp, the sewers backing up and flooding downtown streets and parking lots just as thousands of visitors descend upon our city. So far, so good but more water is being let out from the dam up river and we continue to get more and more rain. 

The College World Series kicked off in its new home (TD Ameritrade Park) Friday night with Fan Appreciation night. It's not the same as the ballpark on the hill and there is something to be missed about the ballpark being set in a largely residential neighborhood. But the new stadium is very nice and the teams seem to like it. We're hoping to get down to a game this week.

On the reading front this week, I raced through Erica Bauermeister's Joy For Beginners (that review on Thursday) and started The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak (for a readalong) and This Republic of Suffering by Drew Gilpin (for the War Through The Generations challenge). Looking forward to discussing The Cookbook Collector (Allegra Goodman) with the Omaha Bookworms this week (my review on Tuesday). What are your reading plans for the week? Are you finding you have more or less time to read during the summer?

Sunday Salon - June 12

What a wonderful, relaxing weekend I've had, filled with plenty of time for family, fun and, of course, reading. Friday night was a default "date night" since we had no parenting responsibilities after we went out to dinner. Saturday we got to see our parents, the Big Guy's sister and her family and we got to meet the newest member of our family, 2-month-old Baby Z. He is adorable! Today we headed downtown with Miss H in tow with a twofold purpose. 

The Big Guy and I have been enjoying the Omaha Summer Arts Festival since we first moved to Omaha 25 years ago. When the kids were younger, we kind of stopped going--it's almost impossible to really look and enjoy the works when you're worried that someone will break something, pick a fight or start whining. In the past few years, we've really enjoyed taking our almost grownup children. Today was the first time in several years that Miss H joined us and what a delight she was to have along. She has really developed an eye for art and a sense of what she likes and why she likes it. We also got to enjoy some funnel cake and great music. They even humored me and let me go into the Friends of the Library tent to check out their book sale.

Then we headed down to the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge, a bridge that spans the Missouri River, connected Nebraska and Iowa. From out in the center of the bridge, we were able to get bird's eye view of this flooding river which is threatening low lying areas of the city and has already caused millions of dollars in losses along it's path. Farm lands are under water, homes will be under water for a least a couple of months, and thousands are now homeless. 

Those trees? They aren't supposed to be in the water. Nearby Harrah's Casino has water all the way up to the building and Omaha's airport is in danger. Festivals in Omaha have had to be moved from the landing that is normally 12 feet above the river. And that water, filled with an enormous amount of debris, some of it huge, is moving so very fast. It was hard to leave the bridge.

On the reading front, I finished Allegra Goodman's The Cookbook Collector today and will start Erica Bauermeister's Joy For Beginners which I'm really looking forward to reading. Tuesday I'm looking forward to meeting with the Omaha Bookworms to discuss The Cookbook Collector. There will be a lot to discuss and it's always good to spend time with these ladies.

What are your reading plans for the week?

Introducing Another Omaha Author - Julie Christensen

Julie Christensen is the author of "Searching for Meredith Love," a women's fiction book that Julie has self-published as an e-book. It's getting great reviews on Amazon. Although Julie lives Omaha, this book is set in New Mexico.

Meredith Love thought her life was just fine. Fresh out of graduate school, she had a shiny new job in the medical office where she used to be a secretary. Sure, she didn’t really like all her co-workers, and yes, her bosses still asked her to drop everything to send a fax. And, okay, she had an irritatingly successful best friend who was always telling Meredith that her life sucked. But Meredith was content with her quiet life in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Then Ben Abel, second-year medical resident, appears on the scene, and Meredith realizes how miserable her life is and what happiness could be. Suddenly, her life looks as bad as her best friend always said and it's getting worse by the minute. Now Meredith is going to have to stand up and fight for the life she wants instead of the life she's got. And even if she succeeds, a secret from her past could ruin everything.

A native New Yorker, Julie studied painting at Pratt Institute and worked briefly in advertising on Fifth Avenue before she realized that her "creative" job was sucking the life out of her soul. Julie worked as a live-in Au Pair in Brooklyn, taught preschool, and lived in Barcelona and New Mexico before finally going back to school to get her Masters in Audiology. She wrote Searching For Meredith Love while living in New Mexico. After graduation, Julie did her fellowship at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota before moving to Omaha to work at a center for pediatric audiology. It was in Omaha that she discovered how hard dating is when you are an old thirty-something. She began writing about her horrible dates to amuse her single friends and make her married friends appreciate their husbands. The Truth About Dating is based on these experiences. Julie was introduced to her future husband by an acquaintance who, after reading a draft of The Truth About Dating, realized that she knew the perfect man for Julie. One blind date led to marriage less than a year later. They now have two children, ages 2 and 3. Julie continues to paint (juliechristensen.net) and write (julielivingthedream.blogspot.com). She is currently at work on her third novel, a mystery set in Brooklyn.

Julie tells me that she's putting the finishing touches on a print edition of The Truth About Dating and once that's completed, she'll move to do the same with Searching For Meredith Love.

Sandra Brannan Is Coming, Sandra Brannan Is Coming!

Sandra Brannan, author of "In The Belly of Jonah" is on a tour of the country that's had her all over the midwest but this weekend she's going to be in San Francisco.  If you've read this blog long enough to know that I live nowhere near San Francisco, right about now you're wondering why I'm shouting "Sandra Brannan is coming."  Because next weekend she's following up a trip to San Francisco with a trip to Omaha.  I love my city but even I have to agree that Omaha after San Francisco could be something of a let down.

So what could make that a slightly less jarring experience?  A huge crowd of mystery lovers and fans of the book coming out to support her might help.  So if you're in the Omaha area next Saturday, please be sure to check her out.  You can catch her at:

Saturday, October 23, 1 p.m.
Book Signing at The Bookworm
8702 Pacific St.
Omaha, NE 68114

Saturday, October 23, 5 p.m.
Book Signing at The Mystery Bookstore
1414 South 13th Street
Omaha, NE 68108

For more information on Sandra, including how Sandra will reward one teen blogger with a trip to the 2011 Book Blogger Convention or how to get Sandra to speak with your book club, check out her website.  Which leaves me wondering how to convince my daughter to start writing a blog--so I can tag along!

Monday Sunday Salon

Whew! What a busy weekend we had! Actually, it started on Wednesday with a Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers concert (their old stuff takes me right back to college!). Friday night we headed downtown to the Summer Arts Festival where we saw some really interesting stuff but walked away empty handed. With so many choices, we just could not make a choice!


We also got to listen to a couple of bands for free, including a really great blues band, while enjoying some kettlecorn and cold beverages. It would have been so much more enjoyable had it not been sooooo hot!

Saturday night we headed out for dinner with three other couples. All of the guys have known each other since middle school so they spend a lot of time rehashing the old days. The wives have known each other since college but we tend to focus more on things that have happened in the past year! Always fun to spend time with people you know so well.

Sunday we headed off to my mom's hometown for a family reunion on her dad's side of the family. Came home, changed, grabbed more food and a bottle of wine and headed off to the annual Shakespeare on the Green festival to watch a musical version of "Two Gentlemen of Verona." Next weekend we'll go back to see their production of "Romeo & Juliet." (picture is of their production of "The Taming of the Shrew" from two years ago.)

The only big thing going on in Omaha that we didn't take in this weekend was the College World Series. We almost always catch at least one game but just haven't made it down this year. There's always tomorrow! Maybe by then I'll have some energy again.

What fun things did you do this weekend?

What To Do In Omaha: College World Series

It's good to be in Omaha this week if you're a fan of college baseball as Rosenblatt Stadium is playing host to the College World Series. We love playing host to the thousands of fans that travel here from all over the country in support of their favorite team and usually buy up the rest of the tickets to ensure a full stadium for most games, adopting a new favorite team each year. 

Last night's game between Virginia and Arkansas was a big fan favorite--Dave Horne, coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks, used to coach at the University of Nebraska and Brian O'Connor, coach of the Virginia Cavaliers, used to play ball at Creighton University which is located in Omaha. The game was what the series is all about. Arkansas was down to their last out and behind by two runs and it looked like they were headed home. Then they managed to tie up the game with a two-run home run and hold the Cavs to take the game to extra innings--three extra innings to be exact. Twice Virginia had the bases loaded but could not score and in the top of the 12th inning the Razorbacks were able to score the game winning run. You couldn't help but cheer for the Razorbacks even as your heart broke for the Cavaliers. On to the next game--play ball!

UPDATE: 
The College World Series has since moved to a new stadium, just north of downtown Omaha. Instead of parking in the yards of all of the small homes near Rosenblatt Stadium, there are now parking lots nearby. Otherwise, much of what made the event such a fan favorite has been transplanted to the new digs - food vendors, dozens of baseball clothing vendors, and concerts. They've even kept a few pieces of Rosenblatt Stadium around, including that statue.

What To Do In Omaha - Joslyn Art Museum

One of the reasons to love the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha (besides the free admission to a work class art museum) is this Dale Chihuly piece. It's actually quite large but my daughter took this great close up. This piece sits in the entry atrium. I think it would be a great place to put a few comfy chairs so readers could enjoy this magnificent piece while enjoying a great book and taking a break from exploring the latest exhibits. 

 The museum has also, just this weekend, opened a new sculpture garden on the front grounds. I'm not sure I can talk them into the chairs in the atrium idea but I know they'd let me sit out on the lawns to enjoy the sculpture while I'm reading. Maybe next Sunday when I'm recovering from a night of the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life....

Sunday Salon - June 7

Yesterday I had the great pleasure of having lunch with my cousin, her friend, my cousin's daughter and my own daughter at the art museum. It was happenstance that we happened to be there when admission was free (yah!) but more importantly, when the museum was hosting an exhibit dedicated to the artwork from Golden Books, the books so many of us grew up on.

I had always thought of the artwork in these books as being of one type, but this exhibit proved that my memory was quite faulty. Among the illustrators shown were Richard Scarry and Hilary Knight (who provides the illustrations for the "Eloise" series of books). Many of the illustrations displayed are from books I still have in my possession and took me back to my earliest recollections of reading. Do you remember reading "Chicken Little," "The Little Red Hen," or "The Pokey Little Puppy?"

On Sunday 4/5 of my family headed off to headed off to enjoy lunch with my parents and usher at their community playhouse's production of "The Producers." They have very good talent in their city and the production was just wonderful. Sadly, like so many theaters, financially times are tough. The next time you're thinking of going out for the evening, why not forgo the movie multiplex and support one of your local theaters?