Book Adventures, Part I

On the second weekend of April, I convinced the hubby to take a road trip up to Burlington, MA.  The purpose: Talkbooks Author Signing Event.

I had two of my authors there: Cali MacKay and Jen Davies. And there were several other authors there I'd either heard of or read. 


So we headed up on Saturday afternoon, with the plan to stay overnight and head back in the morning. We got there late enough in the afternoon that the early birds had cleared out. In fact, Cali was pretty much out of books by the time I showed up:

An almost empty author's table

 I found Cali right away, and funny enough, Jen was across the aisle from her!  They'd actually talked a bit before the show started and it turns out they aren't that far from each other.

I got to meet Jen (finally!). Her book The Witch's Heart is a nominee for the RONE award (Reward of Novel Excellence). If you want to support an indie author, go ahead and register to vote!



As I walked around, I purchased some books, talked to some new authors and some favorites (I got to tell Julia Kent how I stayed up until 1 a.m. reading her Shopping for a Billionaire, pretty much laughing my butt off) and made plans to have dinner with Cali (and our husbands).

Somehow, I didn't get a photo of me and Cali, but I did get a picture of my dinner at the funky place she suggested, The Friendly Toast.

Breakfast for dinner - you bet!

We sat and ate, and talked, and talked and talked.  We were there for two hours, and I think Cali & I could have spent another two hours there without running out of things to talk about!

But the hubby and I had decided to check out The Black Panther, so off we went. I have to say, it was a pretty good movie, and I suspect watching it will help fill in some blanks for the next Avengers movie.

If you ever get a chance to attend a book signing, I'd encourage you to do so. As an author, it's a great chance to meet fans or gain new ones. As a reader, it's so cool to see the people who write these stories that entertain and enthrall us.

Book Adventures Part II

Okay, okay...careful readers of the blog will realize there hasn't been a Book Adventures Part I. There will be, I promise.  But that was last weekend, and I wanted to share my book adventures from this weekend, so I'm jumping ahead.  Hey, haven't you heard...you should start your story in the middle, right?

So, this weekend the hubby and I took a bit of a road trip.  I've been wanting to check out the Niantic Book Barn. (Technically, there are four locations.) And considering he wanted to take a long-ish drive in his new car, a plan was hatched.

This was the first warmish weekend this spring, so it was a nice ride up. And the Book Barn was pretty easy to find - not far off the highway exit. So I went in while the hubby fussed around with his car.

Like any good used (and even new - hey, I won't discriminate!) book store, here are the cats.  They were comfy-cozy when I saw them, so I left them to their own devices. This particular couch was upstairs, where I wandered into the Books/Publishing/Wordsmithing section.  I've never seen them before, but here's actual copies of the Chicago Manual of Style - both the 12th and 14th Editions.

When I started editing, the 16th Edition was in use (now the 17th is out). It was kind of cool to see the changes between editions.

I found a few other gems, too:

Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing

 

 

 

 

Euphemania

I, of course, purchased them.  I had to buy something, right?

But that book barn was actually not the main book barn.  About 30 seconds down the road, on our way to find lunch, we found the main location.  Food could wait, we figured.

This was even bigger and better than the first one we stopped at. I mean, they had a panda poster:

Live goats (okay, not my best photo...but I never claimed to be a great photographer!)

Interesting and unique outbuildings

A decent selection of romance (okay, I might be a bit biased when they have a nice selection of Barbara Freethy books - even ones I haven't worked on).

Water features:

Hey, there's a cutie here, too!

Gargoyles and wind chimes:

But hunger prevailed.  We found a cute place (between the book barns, so it wasn't that difficult) called East Coast Taco.  It was kind of busy, but the food was pretty good. And the place itself was pretty cool, too.

I mean, a place with license plates from Aruba, Virgin Islands, and the Cayman Islands is not what you typically find in a New England town.


All in all, it was a pretty good day. And...considering we were only twenty minutes away, somebody decided we should go have a donut at Krispy Kreme. (Hint: it was not me.)

Anybody need a paper hat?

My and the hubby at Mohegan Sun...location of Krispy Kreme (and just a few poker machines).

So if you are ever in Niantic, CT, check out the Book Barn (any of the four locations) and enjoy a great day out!