Starting into a new year

Here in Montana, the temperatures are dipping from twenties to single digits to negative numbers (Fahrenheit) within the next week. But it is winter after all, and it is northwest Montana. So I bundle up when going out, and keep piling up books to read, books to add to the bookstore, looking at maps and reaching out to set up the Spring 2023 Traveling Bookstore Tour. Various people mention to me the idea of writing a book about my experiences with a traveling bookstore, but at this point it seems just making a traveling bookstore happen absorbs a good portion of my time. Perhaps someone out there (Chloe Zhao or Jan Svěrák) will decide to make a film about the bookstore one of these days?

The upcoming Spring Tour includes setting up in twelve locations across nine states including brew pubs, an art studio, a community center, a BBQ joint, a university, a distillery and a public library. A fair number of these have been sorted out over the last few weeks, both where the bookstore will be selling books and where I will lay my head at night. I think by mid February, I should have the map completed and all the events loaded onto the traveling bookstore’s Facebook page. And hopefully the bookstore will be setting up some place near you! I should mention the tour officially starts on April 19 with the goal to be pulling back into Eureka, MT on May 11.

As usual, I feel fortunate with all the individuals who help make these tours happen. There are places I am returning to that welcome the bookstore back like Fiction Beer in Denver, CO and Constellation Studios in Lincoln, NE. There are new places and people that work out so well. I reached out to Becky, a Servas host in Arkansas who helped me arrange a two-day bookstore event at the Eureka Springs Community Center. A chance conversation on a flight brought up the possibility of having the bookstore at a BBQ place in Alabama. The tour unfolds, reminding me of water lilies, the process of slowly opening up and their delicate beauty.

Between maps, emails and phone calls, the books piled on my table currently include Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty (dark and so well written), A Geography of Oysters by Rowan Jacobsen (as I recently returned from a coastal trip with a good friend who encouraged us to sample oysters daily), Hopper (a beautiful large format book of Edward Hopper’s paintings that was donated to the bookstore by another friend), and Margaret Atwood’s The Heart Goes Last (which came out in 2015 but as with so much of what Atwood writes – encourages us to face the realities of today and do something to make things better).

Hope to see you on the Spring tour.

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Yes, the season

May this season bring you the joy of being with those you love, numerous new books to read, and the time to read them. At least in northwestern Montana, I’ve had the good fortune to read lots of good books these last few weeks. The weather has been white and chilly. Curled up inside with a cup of tea (or some evenings a glass of Buffalo Trace) while immersed in a book feels heavenly. When it gets dark around 4:30pm, it encourages getting absorbed in a good read and then all at once it is midnight. I know there are some who like to linger over a book, stretching it out over days if not weeks. But for me personally, my favorite way to savor a book is to read it in huge chucks so I forget everything and anything else going on, becoming one with the book.

The season so far has brought me some newer books as well as older ones. Not a quick read but one that sparked lots of conversations with others in my circle who have read it, is Nikole Hannah-Jones’s The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story. I wish every school library had a copy. From 1619, I was pulled into The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, published in 1952 but could have been written in the last few years, as so much unfortunately hasn’t changed. A friend recommended Maryanne Wolf’s Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World but while waiting for that to come in through interlibrary loan, I was able to enjoy Wolf’s Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain. Is it any surprise that someone surrounded by books, as well as a retired teacher and currently obsessed with letterpress printing, would be fascinated by how alphabets were developed and the process of learning to read? Other recent books include The Last White Man by Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid, and Bonnie Garmus’s Lessons in Chemistry.

So now back to a bit of reading (currently the midmorning weather in northwest Montana is 7°F and snowing) and letterpress printing holiday cards. There are people who encourage me to take the traveling bookstore south in the winter, plying my wares at retirement communities in Arizona, but if I did that there just wouldn’t be these lovely stretches of time to read.

What does it mean

I’ve been doing this traveling bookstore business for eight years now, but there are still surprises. This afternoon while scrolling Twitter (and no, I don’t know what’s happening to the #birdsite), someone posted a photo of my bookstore. I won’t bother describing the Tweet in words because here’s a screenshot.

Over two thousand ‘likes.’ I don’t know what this means and, yes, it surprised me. I can’t imagine this many individuals liking my traveling bookstore without first experiencing it in person. They didn’t chance upon it while ambling down a street in White Sulphur Springs, MT or San Francisco, CA or Smiths Grove, KY. They didn’t spy it parked amongst the food trucks at the Brooklyn Book Festival or the South Dakota Book Festival. They weren’t drawn into this van/bookstore with curiosity when it was set up in Lincoln, NE on a summer’s day when it was over 100°F or in Morgantown, WV when it was raining so hard there was a forecast of flooding.

Obviously this traveling bookstore can’t hold two thousand people if they showed up at the same time or even on the same day. It’s something of a squeeze really to have 2-3 people inside at once – unless they are small children in which case it might fit 4-5. And there is no way at all I can manage having a conversation with two thousand people. I mean I try to limit dinner parties to four or five because it’s just plain difficult to seriously talk with more people than that in a gathering. Perhaps the two thousand could form small groups and talk together while I tried to direct individuals to where the art books are located (back of the van on the bottom shelf), or where they might find an Arabic-English dictionary (top shelf to your left).

Perhaps these ‘likes’ aren’t for the endearing photo of the traveling bookstore at all, a photo taken by Jack DeWitt one early spring morning in Kalispell, MT (2015). He told me the light would be good that time of day especially if I drove the bookstore into a field (which was a bit daunting as I was still new to driving it then). I parked, pulled the door open, and set up the entrance as if I were at an event. Then Jack began taking photos, telling me to stand back to not cast shadows. And now here is that photo on Twitter. Perhaps the ‘likes’ aren’t for this particular photo, but for the words, tickling those who love reading, who can imagine going to any length for a good book. Perhaps that means walking through Portland rain to get to Mother Foucault’s Bookshop, or rummaging too long (despite allergies) at a library book sale in a musty warehouse because of all the great deals, or getting nearly hopelessly lost trying to visit The Strand because one must go there when in NY. And, now that I’m off on that tangent, I think of Second Edition Books in Butte, MT which if you are going across on I-90 you really must experience.

Seasonal shifts

In Montana, the snow has started and temperatures have dropped. All at once, any hint of summer clothes is gone and boots, scarves, mittens and heavy sweaters appear. The bookstore is parked until Spring. There are still some bookstore activities though. People drop books off, some locals stop by to buy books, occasional books gets mailed off, tshirts are sent out to fill requests, and, of course, there’s reading. Just finished a few remarkable ones including The Stone Sister by Montana author Caroline Patterson and Harry Josephine Giles’s sci-fi verse novel, Deep Wheel Orcadia. I find it curious how books come into our lives. So there I was within the same week enthralled by a novel spanning the mid to late 20th century, set in Montana, and a novel offered to the reader in both Orkney and English, set in outer space somewhere in the far future.

Besides the usual shift-into-winter activities for a traveling bookstore, there is the rather unusual flurry of publicity this season. You can imagine the perplexed reaction of this bookseller/owner/driver as people approach me smiling, “I saw you on The Kelly Clarkson Show!” And then, as a result of the show, there are emails and messages from people asking me about the bookstore and how they might start one. Where do I begin? I give disclaimers that I don’t have an MBA, didn’t really even have a business plan but just tried to keep my expenses low as I started this bookstore business. And the parts that I find most compelling about a traveling bookstore – the people I meet, the conversations, the places discovered – well, I am not entirely sure how to put all of that into an easy Stephen Covey formula.

I stress the need to be open to opportunities and experiences, to be willing to ask. To ask for a place to park and set up, to ask for a place to stay, to ask for directions, to ask for ideas, to ask for help, to ask for a reduction on fees at larger events because I’m not a food truck after all with long lines of people wanting to eat. It is a small bookstore carrying used books. And to not be afraid. I am not sure if its a result of this decade or the media or a cultural handicap, but too many people seem to focus on dangers. “Aren’t you afraid setting up in cities?” “You drive alone across country?!?” “How can you stay with people you’ve never met before?”

Of course, I’m cautious. I drive at or below the speed limit in the bookstore. I fill up before my fuel gauge gets down to the last quarter. I usually have multiple conversations (phone, email or texts) with the particular places I reach out to for setting up, and to the people I stay with. I don’t think any of my friends would describe me as a daredevil. I do see fear of the unknown as seriously hampering one’s life. Having done the traveling bookstore for eight years, and lived more then seven decades, I have some breadth of experiences and so for those of you thinking about starting a traveling bookstore or doing your own unique adventure of any sort, please don’t let fear hamper you.

The Hungarian Who Walked to Heaven by Edward Fox

Books by Dervla Murphy

My Journey to Lhasa by Alexandra David-Neel

Remember

Just heading back to Montana after finishing up a traveling bookstore gig in Portland, OR. Everything went so well there – from the set up at Cathedral Coffee, to gracious help from Jennifer who brought among other things a typewriter with green ribbon, and then all the individuals who stopped by. There was a family who home schools who appreciated the books available for young people, a man from Hawaii visiting Portland for the first time, a librarian who had curated the Faux Museum in Portland, and a couple who happened to be in town from Arizona. Some Portland traveling bookstore fans dropped books off and we talked about life in Oregon and Montana. A bookseller from Green Bean Books stopped by and we mutually enthused about our favorite bookstores around the US. Miraculously it didn’t rain during the entire time the traveling bookstore was open, and Cathedral Coffee just happened to have sweet potato quiche on the menu that day which was a delight.

After heading out of town to start the trek back to Montana, I stopped off in The Dalles, OR. When looking for a place to easily park the bookstore, ended up near that town’s City Hall. The alley there had a mural of Eleanor Borg, a remarkable individual who was originally from the east coast, had polio as a child, later learned to dance and became a New York City Music Hall Rockette. After getting married, she relocated to The Dalles where she taught dancing and horseback riding to young people for many years. Obviously the community appreciates what she gave by commemorating her with this lovely mural.

Seeing the mural immediately brought to mind Bernice Ende. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this woman, she wrote a book, “Lady Long Rider: Alone Across America on Horseback,” which is available through independent bookstores. Driving the bookstore on from The Dalles, without a passenger or sound system, gave me plenty of time to remember Bernice and lessons I learned from her. Bernice taught ballet to young people, and then became a long rider, riding horseback across country and throughout the west. Her death came too soon. Perhaps that is one of the lessons, to appreciate those in our life while we have them, to accept and appreciate them for who they are, and what they have to give.

Westbound

Sturgis, South Dakota

Pocatello, ID

Heading west with a few more stops on the way home. Today setting up in Sturgis at Red’s Grill. Something of a snafu as Red’s changed their schedule recently due to staffing shortages. I was scheduled to set up there all day but with the restaurant closed, and after speaking with the owner, I decided to open just in the morning and hope for the best. Red’s kindly put out info about the traveling bookstore on their social media so I hope to get customers.

Then into Montana! The bookstore sets up in White Sulphur Springs (population 979) at the public library on Wednesday. I’ve been there before and it was a treat – both getting to hang at the library between customers and then the customers who came to the bookstore. The last time I was there with the bookstore, I remember intense wind all day that felt totally disconcerting. But now coming from Brookings where the bookstore nearly blew away, I think I am adapting to the plains and the weather on this side of the Rockies.

There is so much I want to tell you. And I want to share the depth I feel. Often I’m overwhelmed with the stories and the individuals, the spaces where I set up the bookstore and the sense of place. So I find myself offering lists that don’t capture much but I do want to give you an idea of the scope of these tours.

Traveling the way I do not only affords opportunities to set up in a variety of interesting places (from a brew pub in Pocatello, ID to an art studio in Lincoln, NE; the book festival in Brookings to Red’s Grill here in Sturgis), but it also gives me an opportunity to see friends and meet new people as typically I stay in households while on the road. Alan and Bonnie in Pocatello walked me around the neighborhood, telling me about architecture, stories of people who have lived there, the texture of the town which Alan’s family had been part of for generations. Christiane in Salt Lake City graciously introduced me to her friends who, like Christiane, relocated from France to Utah as young adults. It felt like international travel to have dinner with them – delicious food, long conversations encouraged by bottles of wine, French and English interchanged, no hesitation to bring up politics.

In Denver I had three days with Connie who gave me a glimpse of life in a 55+ community – the camaraderie, the laughter over pool volleyball, the thoughtfulness with one person dropping off a loaf of zucchini bread to us, another bringing me a bag of books. The sense of people having time to listen to each other, offers to help out. And Connie worked the bookstore with me both days that I was in Denver (what a treat!), and then helped me navigate Denver streets/traffic with the bookstore so we could pick up dinner from what is considered the city’s best Thai restaurant.

Lincoln, NE was an opportunity to stay with Hana and her family. Hana and I were colleagues at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. Now I drive a traveling bookstore around the country and Hana leads Czech Studies at the university in Lincoln. Besides snippets of conversations with her two daughters and husband amidst their flurry of school, work and swim classes, Hana invited me to one of her classes to engage with her students – answer their questions about my life, and ask my own about theirs. Hana recommended the Sheldon Museum of Art at the university which was the perfect place to spend an hour when temps were heading to 100 degrees F. She also told me about the International Quilt Museum which was another treat to take in on this trip.

In Brookings, I stayed with a couple whom I hadn’t met before but we immediately found numerous topics to discuss, ideas to share. Of course, I was in Brookings to set up at the book festival which meant long days, but the moment I returned to Phyllis and Jihong‘s house, we would dive in where we had left all.

Before this trip, I had not seriously considered spending much bookstore travel time in the Great Plains and now, as I head back to Montana, I already think about when I might return.

Mountain/Plains Tour

On the road with the bookstore. Setting up in new places that have been delightful. Pocatello, ID (population 56,000) reminded me to appreciate coming into a town, meeting new people, hearing stories from those who lived there all their lives, and those who just moved in. Then on to Salt Lake City (population 200,100) – a treat setting up at The King’s English Bookshop and meeting a fascinating group of individuals at dinners after I closed my bookstore for the day. Reminded by a young environmentalist there is hope but we all must try harder. And I appreciated friendships between people I met who had been neighbors with each other for decades.

A day off yesterday in Denver (716,000) to meet friends, do laundry, catch up on emails. Friday and Saturday setting up at Fiction Beer which is the ideal place for a bookstore gig.  And then on to Nebraska with stops in Kearney and Lincoln! So thoroughly enjoy the traveling bookstore business. Still mystified that more people don’t get a van and start their own bookstore, stopping at towns and cities, meeting people and hearing their stories, having time while driving across mountains, plains to reflect on it all.

And there are so many stories even on a trip that lasts less than a month. A man at dinner explained ham radio and told us about postcards (QSL cards) some operators send to each other they meet on the airwaves. A person described his antique business and all the beautiful glass he still has after retiring. But what will happen to it since his adult children don’t care for it? People tell me about their lives and why they don’t volunteer (my personal default is everyone should volunteer at least a few hours each month if not more). I get to think about differences – I’m content to be on the road for a month, while a woman told me between her pets and job, she doesn’t like to be gone from home for even a week.

I try hard to pay attention to the individuals who come to experience the traveling bookstore. The couple with a small girl, the man a potter who said the bookstore was magic and then his daughter found a book she wanted to give her grandmother.  A young woman quietly tells me about an abusive relationship she left and how her faith helped her find the strength to leave it.

There are times when it feels overwhelming. With the driving and the stories, keeping the bookstore neat and well-stocked, trying to keep it all together. But then the bartender at Fiction Beer brings out samples of Wordless Wilderness which feels like an elixir at the end of the day. Crafted to taste and look like the ocean wetlands marsh from the novel, “Where the Crawdads Sing” by Delia Owens. Blue spirulina powder gives the beer its blue hue. Mildly tart with a splash of marsh salt on the finish, we crafted this Gose with equal parts German pilsner and wheat malts, finishing it with glasswort infused sea salt. A small addition of magnolia blossom infused simple syrup offers a true southern twist of floral and ginger character.

A traveling bookstore life is rather remarkable.

Here’s the scoop

September 11: Portneuf Valley Brewery in Pocatello, ID 12 – 6pm

September 12 & 13: King’s English Bookshop in Salt Lake City, UT 10 – 6pm

September 16 & 17: Fiction Beer in Denver, CO 2pm – 7:30pm

September 19: Barista’s Daily Grind (downtown location) in Kearney, NE 7am – 2pm

September 20: Constellation Studios in Lincoln, NE 2pm – 6pm

September 21: Lux Center for Arts in Lincoln, NE noon – 6pm

September 23-25: South Dakota Festival of Books in Brookings, SD (following festival schedule)

September 26: Red’s Grill in Sturgis, SD 9am – 3pm

September 28: Public library in White Sulphur Springs, MT 10am – 4pm

Yes, I am the owner/driver of the bookstore and I REALLY hope not one more person asks me, “Do you drive that all by yourself?”

Yes, I often travel alone on these trips. Sometimes a friend or two will join up for portions of a trip, but it is unusual for me to have a passenger for an entire bookstore tour of this length. Not opposed to it – most people though seem to like to experience the traveling bookstore business for a few days or a week, but longer than that seems grueling (except to me). I personally like the rhythm of longer bookstore tours.

I have space in the back of the bookstore for about six boxes of extra book stock. I get books along the way (for example, Beth in Denver has already sent a photo of books she is holding for me there). I have never run out of books even on longer tours. No idea why it works this way, but it always has.

I have been doing the traveling bookstore business for eight years now and don’t remember any unpleasant interactions with customers. There have been a few mechanical issues with the van, but people drawn to a traveling bookstore tend to be very nice. In fact I am adding a few more chairs on this upcoming trip so folks have a place to sit if they want to have longer conversations.

The Baltimore Bike Guy

This is a stretch. I hope you bear with me. It does have to do with books. Actually one book I’m finishing up to enter into the Lincoln County Fair (MT) tomorrow. Tomorrow is the day when entries have to be dropped off at the fair grounds before 8:00pm and so, of course, I am trying to get my entries completed tonight (plus get the bookstore in order as the bookstore will set up at the fair for the next three days while I hawk books and talk with people about community).

But this evening the focus is on completing the items I want to enter into the fair: two pieces of art, an artist book, and two floral arrangements. It is the artist book that pushed me to write this.

Baltimore. It must have been 2019. I was staying in Washington, DC as I rendezvoused with a good friend there. Such a good friend that she was willing to schlep over to Baltimore so I could visit the American Visionary Art Museum and go to LP Steamers for hard crabs. Those of you familiar with Baltimore will hopefully understand what an incredible gift that was. And it was! Except for being slightly too hot – and we didn’t have a car so we walked from the museum to LP Steamers.

After an amazing time eating hard crabs, we figured out how to get back to DC which meant catching transportation near a small strip mall. We were waiting there, trying to stand in the shade when a guy rode up on his bike. Parked his bike, went into the cafe, and while he was in there getting something to go – the tire on his bike blew. My immediate thought was the guy would come up, see his ruined tire and assume we vandalized it. But that wasn’t the case. He came out. We told him we had nothing to do with it but the tire was flat. He quickly pulled out a very tiny kit that had everything he needed to replace the tube. While he worked on it, we managed to have a conversation about where we were from and where he was from, and Baltimore (which we both liked) and, because back at the place where we were staying in DC, I had started making an artist book but needed something like thread to hold it together – I asked if I could have the trashed tube. He said yes. We said good bye and that was that.

I did finish that particular book when we got back to DC and gave it to the woman who inspired it. The tube sliced very thin worked perfectly for binding. And now – here we are some years later and I am trying to figure out how to bind the current book (The Saga of a Typewriter That Became a Piano Accordion) and remembered the tube that was partially left. Surprisingly, I found it and finished my county fair entry, although engulfed by memories of that day – the conversations with my friend, the hot city streets, savoring hard crabs piled on brown paper on the table, and the man with the bike. All of this somehow seems to be part of my county fair entry. I hope the bike guy knows what an impression he made.

Be Grateful

We might as well get right to to the point for those of you who want to know the where and when of the September bookstore trip. Of course there are bookstore events here in northwest Montana happening before September, but for those of you in other states – here are places you can stop by to check out the traveling bookstore.

September 11: Portneuf Valley Brewery in Pocatello, ID

September 12 & 13: King’s English Bookshop in Salt Lake City, UT

September 16 & 17: Fiction Beer in Denver, CO

September 19: Barista’s Daily Grind in Kearney, NE

September 20: Constellation Studios in Lincoln, NE

September 21: Lux Center for Arts in Lincoln, NE

September 23-25: South Dakota Festival of Books in Brookings, SD

September 26: Red’s Grill in Sturgis, SD

September 28: Public library in White Sulphur Springs, MT

The hot summer days lend themselves to reading, at least for me. Just finished Horse by Geraldine Brooks,The Camel Bookmobile by Masha Hamilton, and Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. Poised to read some nonfiction while at the Yaak music festival this weekend (bound to be cooler there).

Feeling very appreciative of the individuals who work with me to get bookstore tours set up, folks who graciously provide me with housing along the way, people who give me books, people who reach out to support the bookstore (thanks to Rita Hubbs in NC for her tshirt order!), and the roads that let me go to all these amazing places. I suppose there are things I could grumble about, but there is truly so much to be grateful for.