James Whitcomb Riley

Riley Rhymes

a program based on the works of

Indiana's beloved Hoosier Poet

Jeff Keel appearing in character at

Words & Images,

home of The Train Place

19040 Main Street, Metamora, IN

Saturday, May 5, 2 PM

Cat in the Hat Birthday to Benefit First Book

The 50th Birthday of The Cat in the Hat is an opportunity to support First Book. Visit the Cat in the Hat website and click on send the cat a card to participate.
www.CATINTHEHAT.com

Used Books on the web

Chief Marketer-a business enewsletter I subscribe to in my workaday career-has an issue devoted to the book trade. Of course the first article I clicked through on was the one concerning the impact of the web on the used book trade. Go to
http://chiefmarketer.com/cm_plus/web_book_business

Sinclair Lewis cited by Joe Canason

You never know when an old tome that is rarely referred to in current time will pop up. All the more reason to keep those old books available.

Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here is cited in the new work by Joe Canason, It Can Happen Here. An excerpt published in Salon is here.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/02/19/conason/?source=newsletter

Here is the Lewis material as taken from Salon:

To Sinclair Lewis, who sardonically titled his 1935 dystopian novel "It Can't Happen Here," "it" plainly meant an American version of the totalitarian dictatorships that had seized power in Germany and Italy. Married at the time to the pioneering reporter Dorothy Thompson, who had been expelled from Berlin by the Nazis a year earlier and quickly became one of America's most outspoken critics of fascism, Lewis was acutely aware of the domestic and foreign threats to American freedom. So often did he and Thompson discuss the crisis in Europe and the implications of Europe's fate for the Depression-wracked United States that, according to his biographer, Mark Schorer, Lewis referred to the entire topic somewhat contemptuously as "it."
If "it" denotes the police state American-style as imagined and satirized by Lewis, complete with concentration camps, martial law, and mass executions of strikers and other dissidents, then "it" hasn't happened here and isn't likely to happen anytime soon.
For contemporary Americans, however, "it" could signify our own more gradual and insidious turn toward authoritarian rule. That is why Lewis's darkly funny but grim fable of an authoritarian coup achieved through a democratic election still resonates today -- along with all the eerie parallels between what he imagined then and what we live with now.
...
The question that we face in the era of terror alerts, religious fundamentalism, and endless warfare is whether we are still the brave nation preserved and rebuilt by the generation of Sinclair Lewis -- or whether our courage, and our luck, have finally run out. America is not yet on the verge of fascism, but democracy is again in danger. The striking resemblance between Buzz Windrip [the demagogic villain of Lewis's novel] and George W. Bush and the similarity of the political forces behind them is more than a literary curiosity. It is a warning on yellowed pages from those to whom we owe everything.
From "It Can Happen Here" by Joe Conason. Copyright (c) 2007 by the author and reprinted by permission of Thomas Dunne Books, an imprint of St. Martin's Press.

Book Store Sales Down!

Bookies of the world, take to the streets and visit your favorite bookstore!

From PlanetRetail this morning is a story on the recent release of information from the US Census Bureau indicating that bookstore sales in 2006 were down almost 3 percent. While total book sales were up 6. I know that I've done my part for both sides of that report.


http://www.planetretail.net/default.asp?PageID=EAlert&Article=52945&Date=2007-02-15
US Census Bureau says bookstore sales fell in 2006
The US Census Bureau has released preliminary results for bookstore sales in 2006, saying that they fell by 2.9% to USD16.1 billion. The Bureau said that the drop was affected by poor holiday sales, with December showing a fall of 8.8% to USD2.0 billion. However, the news for book selling was not uniformly bad in the US, with total sales for book retailing rising by 6% over the course of the year.

American Revolution

The last two books I've read have both dealt with early American events, The Whiskey Rebellion and Benedict Arnold. The Lantern Guy is still working sporadically on The Longest Raid of the Civil War.

Little Engine That Could

We now have The Little Engine That Could, with illustrations by Cincinnati artist Loren Long, in stock at Words & Images

Forbes Special Issue on BOOKS

Forbes magazine has a special BOOK issue on line.


http://www.forbes.com/2006/11/30/books-publishing-internet-tech-media_cx_mm_mn_books06_1201book_land.html

I enjoyed Cory Doctorow's article on giving away his work.


http://www.forbes.com/home/2006/11/30/cory-doctorow-copyright-tech-media_cz_cd_books06_1201doctorow.html

Festive Shop Decoration

Here are some better pictures showing our lovely bows.

Christmas Walk Photo

One of our visitors last weekend took a photo that happens to include Words & Images' storefront. If you look really close you can see our huge tartan plaid bows over each window.

http://www3.photosig.com/go/photos/view;jsessionid=az5rSb9Pxc94IjgiO8?id=1882021&forward=

Cathal Liam Book Signing Dec 9

Cathal Liam will be at Words & Images on Saturday, Dec. 9th from 2 to 8 PM to chat with visitors and to sign books. All three of his titles will be available for purchase: Consumed by Freedom's Flame, Blood on the Shamrock, and Forever Green.

This event will be during the third weekend of Metamora's annual Christmas Walk, a celebration of the old-fashioned joys of Christmas. Lights and festive decorations, holiday music, Santa in his cabin, are all featured during this traditional festival of the season, now in its third decade.

Cheerio for First Books!

I couldn't help myself.

Cheerios(R) Cereal is offering books as a premium in their packages and giving people the opportunity to participate directly in First Books through on package information.

Cheerios® Spoonfuls of Stories® Celebrates 5th Birthday By Giving the Gift of Reading: Five Million Award-Winning Children’s Books Free in Cereal Boxes this Fall!

for information on First Books go to:

http://www.firstbook.org/site/c.lwKYJ8NVJvF/b.674325/k.9BF9/About_First_Book.htm

Cathal Liam's Blood on the Shamrock

Words & Images now has signed copies of Cathal Liam's Blood on the Shamrock available for sale, as well as his two other works--Consumed by Freedom's Flame and Forever Green.

Visit Cathal's site at www.cathalliam.com


Cathal Liam
Born of stout Irish, Scottish and English stock, Cathal Liam writes short stories, poems and Irish editorial commentary for publications in the United States and Ireland. Those familiar with his work know he writes from an Irish point of view that is imbued with nationalist underpinnings and republican overtones. Through Cathal enjoys speaking and reading to interested groups, he carefully guards his privacy, preferring 'the quiet life.' When not involved in some research or writing project, he reads, travels, gardens and spends time with his wife in their present-day Cincinnati, Ohio home.
His successful first novel, CONSUMED IN FREEDOM’S FLAME: A Novel of Ireland’s Struggle for Freedom 1916-1921, initially published in hardcover in January, 2001, was reprinted three months later. In 2002, the title was printed twice in softcover and a third time in October, 2004. The story weaves fact and fiction around the exploits of a fictional young Irishman, Aran Roe O'Neill, and his friends, both imagined and historical, during twentieth-century Ireland's most dramatic and historically significant five-year period. As part of ForeWord Magazine's 2001 Book-of-the Year honours, the book received a bronze medal for historical fiction.
In June, 2003, his second book, FOREVER GREEN: IRELAND NOW & AGAIN was released. This collection of writings ofters a rich stew of imaginative stories, political commentary and original poems. It has since been reprinted.The book's stunning cover, a painting by renowned Irish-American artist Edmund Sullivan, captures the timeless beauty of Ireland. It won ForeWord Magazine's honorable mention award for Travel Essays in 2003.
His newest effort, BLOOD ON THE SHAMROCK: A Novel of Ireland's Civil War, is the sequel to CONSUMED... It resumes the chronicle of Ireland and of Aran Roe O'Neill during that most divisive yet politically momentous period, 1921-1924. Though the Irish Civil War was only a tragic ten-month episode, its build up and aftermath still sullies Ireland's dearm of national unity. Besides describing the dramatic historical particulars underpinning this internecine conflict, Cathal Liam's book takes issue with Eamon de Valera's contradictory role during the run-up to the Civil War and regards Michael Collins's contributions in helping create the modern Irish state as fundamentally important.

Horwitz's Longest Raid of the Civil War

Lester Horwitz, author of The Longest Raid of the Civil War, will be at Words and Images for a book signing event on Saturday, Oct 7th.

October 6-8 is the annual Canal Days festival in Metamora, Indiana. The town will be filled with vendors of all sorts, antique dealers will line the Whitewater Canal while handcrafts are situated in the Gazebo Park.

Music Festival, Metamora, Indiana

The 8th annual music festival went off smoothly. The weather was not the greatest on Saturday but the musicians played on, workshops were held, and everyone seemed to have a fine time. Rick Henly and Rich McConnell gave their Music Americana presentation four times in two days at the Metamora Grist Mill, and then wrapped up Sunday with a session on the canal boat.

Read for the Record August 24 2006

Read for the Record is featuring The Little Engine that Could with new illustrations by Loren Long. A special edition is available for purchase at Starbucks.

Read for the Record website
http://www.readfortherecord.org/events/

Loren Long's Little Engine
http://www.lorenlong.com/little-engine/little_engine_that_could.html

Metamora Music Festival Labor Day Weekend

Eight years ago Jim Wendel, pictured here, decided to have an old time music festival in a meadow area he owned near the Henry Pond house. This area happens to be the subject of a painting by T.C. Steele of the Hoosier school, who boarded at one time with the Pond's according to local lore. This would probably have been about the same time that he was working with J. Ottis Adams at the Hermitage in Brookville. Later he settled in the Brown County area.

On Saturday and Sunday of Labor Day weekend free workshops on dulcimer, harp, and mandolin will be offered. Free performances will be held the afternoon and evening of Saturday and Sunday afternoon. Pete and Sara Walthery, Tom and Missy Strothers, and John Gates are all returning for another year of fun, song and fellowship.

New this year! Thanks to a grant from the Indiana Arts Council, we will be hosting Music Americana, a review of American history done in story and song by Rich McConnell and Rick Henly. They will be appearing twice each day at the Gristmill, thanks to the Whitewater Canal State Historic Site and the Indiana State Museum for agreeing to partner in this.

Food concession at the site will be provided by the Metamora Lions Club.

All the regular canal boat rides, train rides and carriage rides will be going on in town as usual.

kerosene lamps

This is a nice summary of kerosene lamp information from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

http://www.abc.net.au/treasurehunt/s967236.htm

Reading Roundup

Did one quick read over the weekend of a collection of Roald Dahl short pieces. "Lucky Break" was the story of his start as an author, on the advice of C. S. Forrester, and his working pattern when he is writing. Also included was his first story "Piece of Cake", an autobiographical account of being shot down during his RAF service.

Started a Faulkner biographical criticism but haven't gotten too far in it yet.

At home I'm reading a locally published oral history of Whitewater township in Franklin County Indiana, The Stories We Have to Tell. Full of photos as well as the pre-1950 stories collected from residents.

Over the weekend we had the first version of the new "Canoefest" in Brookville, IN. I learned that the Franklin County Historical Society is republishing Reifel's History of Franklin County, Indiana. It will be $75, which is reasonable when you consider that you can't find a copy of the last reprint under $100 and finding an original edition on the market is almost impossible.

Metamora Grist Mill

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/AB/20060614/LIFE01/606140308/



The Metamora Grist Mill, part of the Whitewater Canal State Historic Site, was featured in a story in the Cincinnati Enquirer on Wednesday, June 14th. The paper is doing a year long series leading up to a HomeGrown Thanksgiving. Each month a local foodstuff is featured, in November they will all be pulled together for a complete Thanksgiving meal.