{"id":271,"date":"2016-01-20T00:55:36","date_gmt":"2016-01-20T05:55:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/?p=271"},"modified":"2016-01-20T00:57:46","modified_gmt":"2016-01-20T05:57:46","slug":"the-closing-of-a-landmark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/?p=271","title":{"rendered":"THE CLOSING OF A LANDMARK"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Faye holding her latest book HALLEY\u00a0 and wearing the Moonbeam Silver Medal for Young Adult Fiction.<\/p>\n

My latest book, HALLEY, awarded 2015 Jefferson Cup Honor for Historical Fiction. Awarded the Moonbeam Silver Medal for Young Adult Fiction. \u00a0 (see the following web address for more information)\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 http:\/\/www.newsouthbooks.com\/pages\/2015\/10\/20\/halley-wins-moonbeam-awards-silver-medal\/\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Available at: NewSouth Books:\u00a0www.newsouthbooks.com\/halley and Amazo<\/p>\n

While out of town for the holidays I got the bad news by email: my favorite bookstore ever is closing its doors.\u00a0 Going out of business.\u00a0 Sure, we have a couple of big chain bookstores in town.\u00a0\u00a0 Birmingham has several and Auburn one or two. But none that I know of can begin to replace Capitol Books in the Cloverdale area of Montgomery.\u00a0 It even smells like a real bookstore–a amalgam aroma of wood floors, book bindings, and stuffed chairs for reading comfort.\u00a0 The people who run it love books as much as their customers do, and the inventory reflects that.\u00a0 I have never gone in that I didn\u2019t find at least one author new to me and well worth reading.<\/p>\n

And the children\u2019s room!\u00a0 What a wonderful place.\u00a0 For my grandchildren I have bought books of magic, books on nature, stories of trains, and charming explanations of how machines work.\u00a0 Then there are picture books–amazing fantasies that tell timeless stories for all ages.\u00a0 My husband and I even dared take our grandchildren there to choose their books when we only had three.\u00a0 Now we have six grandchildren, and they are all bookaholics like us, so we might have to take out a mortgage if we turned all six loose in there at one time!<\/p>\n

I have to say it–the room that draws me most is the sale room.\u00a0 I never fail to find books I can\u2019t say no to–books I might have never found if they hadn\u2019t been collected together and marked half price or less. My husband gets as carried away as I do and we lose track of each other as we drift from shelf to shelf, from room to room.\u00a0 He usually finishes ahead of me and checks out first.\u00a0 More than once we have gotten home to discover that we had both bought copies of the same title!\u00a0 Fortunately, the proprietors have been kind enough to let us swap the duplicates out.<\/p>\n

There is no more cozy place to be when the rain is coming down outside.\u00a0 Somehow it is the best time of all to be in a house filled with good books and people who love them.\u00a0 It\u2019s the best time to curl up on that overstuffed couch with the stack of eight or ten books that I am hoping to narrow down to six or seven before time to check out.<\/p>\n

I must not forget the author signings.\u00a0 As far as I know, Capitol Books is the only place in the area to have real author events.\u00a0 They do it up right with cookies, nuts, cake, and punch.\u00a0 They are prepared with plenty of books to sell for autographing too.\u00a0 And when it happens to be a lesser known author (I speak as an authority), they treat that writer\u00a0 like a celebrity of the first order.<\/p>\n

Perhaps best of all, Capitol Books has been the perfect place to run into other people who love books.\u00a0 It\u2019s like finding true love when you meet someone who shares your enthusiasm for a favorite author.\u00a0 Almost as wonderful is hearing their raves about an author you never heard of, and realizing right away that you will love this author too.\u00a0 I call that a Gold Strike!<\/p>\n

Yes, my favorite bookstore is closing, and I fear we will not see its like again.\u00a0 Montgomery\u00a0 and surrounding areas are poorer for the loss.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n