Happy 2-Year Anniversary to Us!

Wow, I can’t believe it’s been two years since we officially opened our doors on Artwalk night in October 2018! When I first realized I’d be able to open this store, I remember thinking the day would never come; I was so excited to share with you my vision and the stock I’d accumulated that summer.

Along the way, we’ve made many new friends and regulars, as well as adjusting the stock selections based on your preferences. Two years ago, it was just me operating the store, and now I have Alex on full-time, and Candice and Courtney part-time. We also now have a bookstore cat, Mr. Bingley!

We also have an honorary employee in Ms Coco, who shares her artistic vision each month by decorating one of the display windows for artwalk, though we had to postpone that during the months we were closed. She’ll be unveiling a new window this Friday for the first time since March!!

I couldn’t be happier with the community that we have created with all of you, and we certainly wouldn’t be still here without all of your support along the way!

It’s such a pleasure to come in every day and talk books with our customers and to hear the excited squeals of kids when they see we have a fave. We still have so many more exciting plans that we haven’t been able to implement, but we’ll get there.

Thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you!

Angela

 

New Release Tuesday – New Hunger Games and more!

It’s Tuesday! That means we have new releases in today! The biggest is the newest book in the Hunger Games series, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which takes place twenty years prior to The Hunger Games. We have embroidered patches for the first couple of people who buy the book from us!

I loved Beach Read, which will probably end up being one of my faves of the year–a Romance novelist and a literary fiction author both suffer from writer’s block in houses next to each other on a beach. They decide to take a turn on writing in the other’s genre as a bet. Endearing and eloquent, it makes for a great escape!

Also, a novel whose premise is imagining Hillary Clinton’s life if she’d never married Bill, as well as a new thriller by Chuck Wendig, a new historical fiction and more!

We got in some board games, puzzles, and playing cards

We’d heard that folks were having a tough time finding games and puzzles, and the like, so we grabbed some from our distributor to help keep boredom at bay while you’re staying safe at home! We can do curbside or home delivery for these and are grouped under a new category on our website to make it easy for you to shop.

Delivering curbside and porch in my Ravenclaw robe!

It’s been a tough week keeping my spirits up while hanging out in my bookstore with my employees working at home and without y’all to brighten my day. Seeing upcoming event stuff now sitting forlorn in corners… Reading the news… Trying to get work done… Stressed and worried. Last night as I went up to the readers lounge to eat a frozen dinner I actually broke down and cried. This morning though, I had an idea — I’m going to do all my home and curbside deliveries wearing my Ravenclaw robe! Sure it won’t do anything practical to help fight the coronavirus, but if it helps lighten my customers’ day, in a time when we’re all hungry for anything bright, I’m all for it!

How deliveries work:

Go to my website and browse my selection of books and place your order into a cart. Before you hit checkout, choose whether you want to do curbside pickup or home delivery–if curbside, select “pick up in store” under fulfillment options; if home delivery, leave it at “ship order” and when checking out, use the Home Delivery shipping option! For more details, see my Ordering FAQs page on my website

 

Chat With Candice, Sat. on Twitter, 1:30 PM CST

Need picture book to teen and everything in between recommendations? Kidlit haint Candice will be taking over the Haunted Book Shop twitter account this Saturday from 1:30 to 2:30 CST. She’ll answer your questions, give personalized book recommendations, and, as a mom of two, offer tips on learning from home.

Boxes to unpack. So many boxes.

Soooo I’ve been swamped this week pivoting our store to online w/ deliveries and working on a shared doc for my employees to work from at home so they can still be paid and the deliveries have stacked up! This gives you an idea of how many NEW books arrive every week that we process and put on the shelves. Raided some today to get special orders fulfilled. Some are for a book signing that’s been cancelled. Some are new releases for this week and next week and some are for book clubs. Many are just restocking what’s sold etc. Also in these is that cute-as-heck Dogman standee that was for Independent Bookstore Day that has now been postponed. These are from since Monday

Reading on the Cheap

From the comfy reading spot!

Book nerd Alex here. Looking for something to read? Or maybe you want something different? Here’s some some resources to get you through these hard times, legally available for free!

The Mobile County Public Library allows you to check out e-books and audiobooks, among others. Find out more here at their page: http://www.mobilepubliclibrary.org/resources/

Project Gutenberg is an online library dedicated to putting classics and out-of-copyright works for free online. Maybe get around to reading some improving literature you’ve wanted to, or maybe you’ll go for classic pulp magazine stories. Whatever floats your boat, we don’t judge. Their catalog is here: https://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/ but they also have a list of their Top 100 if that’ll help you get started https://www.gutenberg.org/browse/scores/top

Similarly, Wikisource puts up public-domain writings, but maybe you like how it looks better. Their main page is here https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Main_Page and check out their Literature portal here if you’re itching for some fiction: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Portal:General_literature

Now that some broad resources are out of the way, here’s some more specific favorites of mine.

Fantasy author Brandon Sanderson has a PDF of his novel Warbreaker on his website. https://www.brandonsanderson.com/warbreaker-rights-and-do…/… Politics and intrigue abound in a court of the gods: https://www.brandonsanderson.com/…/Warbreaker_hardcover_1st…

Fantasy author Ursula Vernon serialized a novel called Summer in Orcus, it’s available on her website. A very poignant story about a girl helping to fix a poisoned world. https://www.redwombatstudio.com/portfolio/summer-in-orcus/

Ursula Vernon also wrote and illustrated a webcomic called Digger, which won her her first Hugo award. Highly recommended as a good read. https://diggercomic.com/blog/2007/02/01/wombat1-gnorf/

Another excellent, and still ongoing webcomic, is Girl Genius Online. In an alternate history where mad scientists–and their egos–can break the laws of physics, a young woman finds out her heritage. http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php…

If you prefer to listen to your entertainment, I haven’t forgotten you. Try out the Magnus Archives, a horror anthology podcast about an organization in London that studies the paranormal. The first three seasons (forty episodes each) are available on YouTube, and there’s more on the various podcast apps, look it up. https://www.youtube.com/playlist…

Do you have any recommendations? Post yours in the comments below, let’s try to put each other on the good stuff!

Chat With Alex Live Thurs 12:30-2:30 CST

Alex has been working at the Haunted Book Shop for a year and he’ll be at the helm of the Haunted Book Shop Twitter account tomorrow from 12:30 until 2:30 CST. So be sure to head to http://twitter.com/HBS_Mobile during that time! He’ll talk about a year working in a bookshop, answer questions, and give personalized book recommendations!

The Haunted Book Shop featured on WKRG News-5

Starting this past Monday, we felt that in order ro protect our customers and the community we needed to do our part to help flatten the curve. To see my full statement regarding our response to Covid-19, see my Covid-19 page on our website.

Today, we were featured on WKRG News-5 about how we’re finding creative ways to still serve our customers and pay our staff!