Goat Days!

We are very proud to be a sponsor of this community event : Goat Days. If you haven't made it up to the park to see the goats there are still 2 days left. Today there is also a goat petting area for kids from noon-2pm.

Robert Sindelar, Managing Partner of Third Place Books

The Running of the Goats

A Bookseller Gives Back

One of our outstanding booksellers, Annie, has been spearheading a project to provide books to a great group of people.

Publisher's send bookstores like our Advanced Reader Copies (ARC's) of books that will be published sometime in the next 6 months or so. The idea is that we will read them, love them and then be ready to sell them when the books finally arrive in our store on the publication date.

While many of these books find homes on the shelves of the libraries of our staff, there are often too many for us to take home. We have always struggled with positive things to do with these books. We can't sell them. We can't bring ourselves to destroy them. What to do?

Annie saw this problem and came up with a great solution.

 

"The idea just sort of came to me randomly. I'd been thinking about all the ARCs in the break room and what the store does with them when the book is released. It occurred to me those ARCs could help a lot of people who are going through treatment for cancer at Virginia Mason Medical Center's Floyd and Delores Jones Cancer Institute. I myself went through treatment there from May 2008 through March 2009 for Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. I still go there for check ups and testing to make sure my cancer hasn't returned.

"The thing that's stayed with me is the kindness of the doctors, nurses, techs, schedulers, everyone there works hard to make a frightening and terrible experience a little easier to bear. These people did a lot for me and they do a lot for all the other patients who come through their doors. So I wanted to help them with their job.

"My treatment would take a full day, during which my family would entertain themselves, and sometimes me. Part of that entertainment was books. But going through chemotherapy also means you - and likely your family and friends - don't have much energy left to seek out comforting things to help you escape what you're going through. So I thought if I could bring these ARCs to the patients and their families, that's one less thing they have to think about trying to do. And one more thing that can provide comfort to everyone, the staff included.

"I bounced the idea off several of my coworkers, who were very positive about the idea. I got in touch with Pat Lively, a social worker who works with cancer patients. Between the two of us, we've got a nice collection of free books in the Meditation Room of the Cancer Institute that people can take. It's an amazing feeling giving back to people who helped me through so much, and provide them with another way to help ease others' discomfort.

"I get teary each time I drop off the ARCs."

A huge thank you to Annie for sharing her story, and our ARCs. A solid reminder that the smallest things in life can make the biggest difference, that we are surrounded by overlooked resources and unrecognized opportunities to pay-it-back and pay-it-forward everyday. More importantly it is a reminder that amidst so many stories of a lack of love in the world there really are just as many, if not more, that demonstrate the opposite.

10 Sure Fire Father's Day Gifts (Books and More)

Here is our Father's Day gift philosophy : Don't get him a tie. Don't get him socks. Get him something he would never get for himself that once he has it, he'll wonder how he ever lived without it. Here are 10 items we sell that we think fit that description :

For the Carnivore : Steak Saws (set of 4)
Give him the joy of his workshop right at the dinner table.











For the Adventurer : Demon Fish by Juliet Eilperin 
An amazing look at sharks around the world.
 










For the Grill- Master : Blink Ketchup and Mustard
Why do they close their eyes when you pour these condiments? Is it pleasure? Is it pain? Are they just tired? Having a hot-dog just got philosophical.

 











For the Inner Geek : The Geek Dad's Guide to Weekend Fun by Ken Denmead
Is he the kind of guy who would enjoy making his own "Mini-Me" out of a lego action figure? Of course he is.











For the Lodge-Man : Moosehead Mobile Device Stand
His smart-phone has never looked classier.

 










For the Cowboy : The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt
Did he get just a little too into the movie True Grit? This hilarious, violent and action packed homage to the classic western should get him back in the saddle.











For the Outdoors-Man Stuck at Work : Red Snapper Screen Cleaner
His monitor will never look better.

For the Beer Lover : Craft Beers of the Pacific Northwest by Lisa M Morrison
Simple - If he drinks beer, he needs this book.

 For the Envious of His Kids Star Wars Toys : Lego Yoda Alarm Clock
Like it he will.

 








  



For the Sports Junkie : Those Guys Have All the Fun by James Andrew Miller
All the ESPN he can handle.













All on our shelves now!

Two More Days for 25 cent ebooks

The great literary publisher, Unbridled Books, has made 25 of their best books available for $.25 each. These books are available for purchase on our website. the offer is good through then end of June 11. Here are some of our favorites from the list (just click on the title to purchase) :

Song of the Crow Layne Maheu

Yes this is a novel narrated by a crow. It is alsoa lyrical meditation on the relationship between humanity and the heavens Recalling both the magical imagination of Richard Adams's Watership Down and the spiritual richness of Anita Diamant's The Red Tent, Layne Maheus Song of the Crow is a soaring debut.



Sometimes We’re Always Real Same-Same by Mattox Roesch

Troubled Cesar is in the middle of nowhere, Alaska, because his Eskimo mother has moved home where she hopes they can both carve out a fresh start. It is the surprising story of a young man finding his way and his place in a world that can seem both too large and too small.



 
Shimmer by Eric Barnes

This is a thriller set in the tech world where a seemingly unstoppable software genius is on a meteoric rise to the top, except that his entire enterprise is a lie, a Ponzi scheme that is about to come crashing down around him.




Here is the rest of the list :

Conscience Point by Erica Abeel
The Islands of Divine Music by John Addiego
...Panopticon by David Bajo
The Unnatural History of Cypress Parish by Elise Blackwell
Green Age of Asher Witherow by M. Allen Cunningham
Breath and Bones by Susann Cokal
The Journal of Antonio Montoya by Rick Collignon
The Good Doctor Guillotine by Marc Estrin
Wolf Point by Edward Falco
Small Acts of Sex and Electricity by Lise Haines
The Distance between Us by Masha Hamilton
Stranger Here Below by Joyce Hinnefeld
Vanishing by Candida Lawrence
The Evolution of Shadows by Jason Quinn Malott
The Singer’s Gun by Emily St. John Mandel
The Pirate’s Daughter by Margaret Cezair-Thompson
Captivity by Deborah Noyes
Hick by Andrea Portes
The Wonder Singer by George Rabasa
Taroko Gorge by Jacob Ritari
Phantom Limbs of the Rollow Sisters by Timothy Schaffert
Rain Village by Carolyn Turgeon