I know. I’ve gotten so bad at posting. To keep up with news, info, photos, daily life of all that’s OCUB. Well, it’s not easy doing everything, ya know. 😉
Summer is winding down and for the next few weeks store life slows a bit and gives me a chance to reevaluate, reorganize, and other re- that I can do before foliage season gets underway.
Inventory is always being added. Like today twenty-two boxes arrived. Do I have room? Who knows. But it’s a used bookstore, right? Boxes of books is to be expected. As long as there’s room to walk around. Just don’t come behind the desk. Positively no room. Just barely standing room for me.
This is my first post using my iPhone. Kinda cool. And I just figured out how to add photos.
The most serious charge that can be brought against New England is not Puritanism, but February. – Joseph Wood Krutch
February – the month of love..?!! No wonder the shortest one in the calendar. – Dinesh Kumar Biran
Even though February was the shortest month of the year, sometimes it seemed like the longest. – JD Robb
I used to try to decide which was the worst month of the year. In the winter I would choose February. I had it figured out that the reason God made February short a few days was because he knew that by the time people came to the end of it they would die if they had to stand one more blasted day. – Katherine Paterson, JACOB HAVE I LOVED
Okay, one more!
Terrible, dreepy, dark February weather I remember, and the worst, most frightened days of my life. – Sebastian Barry, THE SECRET SCRIPTURE
So, before anyone says anything at all just know that I truly do not like February. I have always felt it was the worse month in the whole year. Fortunately, it is the shortest, so it does have that going for it. And chocolate. Because one cannot get through the month without a pocket of mini chocolate bars.
And what do I do when faced with a negative? I turn it into a positive. So… the positive here is a Half-off Sale! Yes, all books are 50% off.
I attended a Vermont Antiquarian Booksellers Association meeting a number of years ago and asked the group a question regarding pricing for an upcoming sale I wanted to have. 10%? 20%? What about 15%? Well, Ben, owner of The Country Bookshop in Plainfield, piped up and said have a 50% sale and have some fun. Customers love a 50% sale and it’ll be fun for you. Well, it is easier on pricing. Just deduct half off the penciled price… SOLD! So that began my Half-off Sales that is offered several times during the year. Especially in February. Who needs fun in February? Me!
The sale begins Tuesday, February 14 and goes through the end of the month. Books are all 50%. And there will be chocolate.
February is the border between winter and spring. – Terri Guillemets, YEARS. Well, it’s got that going for it.
I recently had to breakdown and purchased a new laptop. The one in the store abruptly bit the dust. Dragged one from home and, well, I might have had a hand in its demise… At least now I can announce that I’m back from my ‘fishing trip’.
I am currently celebrating sixteen years of owning OCUB. Hard to believe some days but then it seems like a short time ago that I shouted from the rooftops I’m buying a used bookstore.
To celebrate I’m doing what I have been doing for a many number of years. Celebrating with a 50% sale! And as I do every time, I offer a sale I pay tribute to the one who told me about his experience with sales. He offers a half-off sale. His thought is that everyone has fun when books are 50% off. And that someone is, Ben, from The Country Bookshop located way up in Plainsfield, VT. And over the years I found that advice very sound. Everyone enjoys the sale. That’s why Ben is so successful in the used bookstore world. He gives great advice. And has great sales.
The sale will go through to Saturday, December 3rd. Stop in and have some fun!
vellichor n. the strange wistfulness of used bookstores, which are somehow infused with the passage of time—filled with thousands of old books you’ll never have time to read, each of which is itself locked in its own era, bound and dated and papered over like an old room the author abandoned years ago, a hidden annex littered with thoughts left just as they were on the day they were captured. – John Koenig, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.
Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for. Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us. – Maya Angelou, WOULDN’T TAKE NOTHING FOR MY JOURNEY NOW
I think the best vacation is the one that relieves me of my own life for a while and then makes me long for it again. – Ann Patchett, THIS IS THE STORY OF A HAPPY MARRIAGE
Yes, I think it is time I step away and take a few days for me. Nothing special. Just some down time. I know, I own a used bookstore. What’s the stress with that? Well, actually there isn’t any. Things are going swimmingly. But, having a break every once in awhile is needed. Clear my head. A few days of no commitments.
Some think that owning a used bookstore allows time to sit back and read. Talk books with customers all day. Not really. Every day I’m in the store I work. There are always stacks of books to go through. Shelves to stock. Move books around. Sweep. Clean. Sort. Price. Boxes to go through. There is no end. It is continuous. Then I reach the point where I feel I’ve lost my creativity. I’m at that point.
I will be taking off September 6-9, returning to the store on Tuesday, September 13. Hannah will be in the store on Saturday, September 10 to cover for me. (Thanks, Hannah!)
My plans? Nothing much which works out to be just what I need. I’m feeling the need for spring cleaning in preparation for the upcoming winter. I’ve started hiking again so I’ll take some short hikes. The days of reading on the front porch are dwindling so I want to spend some time there too. I have a trip planned for the last few days which I’m looking forward to. And yes, that’ll be all about book shopping. Bags and boxes of used books. A great way to cap off the time away.
That’s why people take vacations. Not to relax or find excitement or see new places. To escape the death that exists in routine things. – Don DeLillo, WHITE NOISE
Happiness. That’s why [used] books smell like. Happiness. That’s why I always wanted to have a [used] bookshop. What better life than to trade in happiness? – Sarah MacLean, THE ROGUE NOT TAKEN
Couldn’t say it any better myself.
Secondhand books had so much life in them. They’d lived, sometimes in many homes, or maybe just one. They’d been on airplanes, traveled to sunny beaches, or crowded into a backpack and taken high up on a mountain where the air thinned. – Rebecca Raisin, THE LITTLE BOOKSHOP ON THE SEINE
We are much more likely to be drawn to a messy bookstore than a neat one because the mess signifies vitality. We are not drawn to a bookstore because of tasteful, Finnish shelves in gunmetal gray mesh, each one displaying three carefully chosen, color-coordinated covers. Clutter — orderly clutter, if possible — is what we expect. – Lewis Buzbee, The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop: A Memoir, a History.
Many have told me there is no way I’d be able to fit in anymore bookcases. Ha! Indeed I have. Two are free-standing and one is fitted within a window and allows light in, views out. Several more bookcases will make their way in soon. Poor Political Science wants out of its box.
Short StoriesEnglandU.S. History
It takes real planning to organize this kind of chaos. – Mel Odom, The Destruction of the Books
A week went by and nothing. But eventually, as they always will, the rumors reached me. And everyone knows you can’t disprove a rumor. – Jay Asher, THIRTEEN REASONS WHY
Recently I found out a untrue rumor was out there. In reference to the above quote, it’s hard to disprove rumors so I’m not going to but through my actions and work ethic.
How do I feel about it? Quite beside myself.
I am very grateful for the friend who came to me to ask if what she heard was true. I really couldn’t hide my displeasure. Then I was faced with the dilemma of how to react to it. This is how: putting my head down and work within my shop to continue to make it the best I can. A comfy spot in town to look over a vast and varied selection of books that will fit into the space I call, Otter Creek Used Books. And I will leave it at that.
Celebrate seven stores in Middlebury VT that feature the concept of reuse.
In the MarbleWorks you’ll find Round Robin Upscale Resale, Junebug, and Otter Creek Used Books. College Street offers Middlebury Vintage and on Main Street is Buy Again Alley. All within walking distance of each other. A short drive south of Middlebury are Hope Charity Resale Shop on Boardman Street, and Neat Repeats on Route 7 south.
Each participating store will hand out punch cards. Visit 5 of the 7 stores to get your card punched and be eligible to win 1 of 3 baskets of gift certificates and other prizes.
If it can’t be reduced, reused, repaired, rebuilt, refurbished, refinished, resold, recycled or composted, then it should be restricted, redesigned or removed from production. – Pete Seeger
Second-hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack. Besides, in this random miscellaneous company we may rub against some complete stranger who will, with luck, turn into the best friend we have in the world. – Virginia Woolf, Street Haunting
Oh, yes. I’ve gotten far away from this website. This site was to reflect the life of a used bookstore lady. Trial and tribulations. Experiences. Books. Books I’ve read, am reading, wanting to read. The ebb and flow of a used bookstore. And then whatever comes to my mind.
But I have to say, I’ve gotten away from working on the website because I’ve been putting more energy into the Facebook and Instragram posts. It’s so much easier. Find a book or a stack, a series or interest, take a picture. Find an appropriate quote. Post. Done. Here I have to come up with a theme to write about, take pics, find appropriate quotes, edit, proofread, edit, spell check, grammar check…. I try to remember what I learned in school. Mrs. Farnham. Mrs. Tatro. I’m sure I’ve disappointed them but it’s really ok. I think that there is leeway on the internet. If not, well, please don’t burst my bubble.
The only news I really have is that I’m walking. Without a cane or a walker. Yes, there was a two week period I was using a walker. But that was at home following my hip replacement. All’s good now. I’m walking upright, head up and redeveloping my stride.
The store has been humming along quite well. Boxes in all the time. Book scouts have returned to bringing books. Inventory is changing: ‘new’ books arriving, cleaned, priced, and shelved, and books are being purchased and walking out. A great flow.
So life here in this used bookstore is chugging alone quite nicely.
I often think . . . that the bookstores that will save civilization are not online, nor on campuses, nor named Borders, Barnes & Noble, Dalton, or Crown. They are the used bookstores, in which, for a couple of hundred dollars, one can still find, with some diligence, the essential books of our culture, from the Bible and Shakespeare to Plato, Augustine, and Pascal. – James V. Schall, On the Unseriousness of Human Affairs: Teaching, Writing, Playing, Believing, Lecturing, Philosophizing, Singing, Dancing
Otter Creek Used Books 