Dear Booksellers and SinC Members,

 

It has been such a pleasure to serve as the Library and Bookstore Liaison for Sisters in Crime. I've truly enjoyed the opportunity to engage with booksellers and bookstore owners. Since 2021, when I first joined the board, and alongside former WLB Awards Coordinator Robin Agnew, we've awarded a total of $11,500 in We Love Bookstores Awards to bookstores in Canada and across the United States. With the help of the WLB and WLL News editor Gail Lukasik, I’ve looked forward to sharing the WLB News with you and connecting with Sisters in Crime members, who contributed more than thirty articles highlighting their favorite bookstores in the United States, Canada, and the UK. My term will conclude on October 1st, and I am excited to hand over my responsibilities to the new board members, who will introduce themselves in the next issue of the WLB News!

 

In this issue, I am thrilled to share Jenny Milchman’s delightful article about Square Books bookstore in Oxford, Mississippi. Jenny will also be serving as a panelist for SinC's upcoming Reading Like a Writer Book Club event on September 27th. See details below. 

 

I am also pleased to announce the September We Love Bookstores Award winner is Bards Alley Bookshop in Vienna, Virginia!

 

SinC members don’t miss the next Reading Like a Writer Book Club, which will focus on Ira Levin’s classic of horror fiction, Rosemary’s Baby. The virtual book club event is scheduled for September 27th at 2 PM ET and will help to get you in the mood for Halloween. The panelists are Jenny Milcman, Kimberly G. Giarratano, Layne Fargo, P.M. Raymond, and Sandra S.G. Wong. I will be moderating the discussion. Register on SinC’s website, here.

Square Books by Jenny Milchman

"You have exactly thirteen minutes," the host said when I arrived at the dimly lit, pulsing-with-life space that had speakeasy vibes and seemed way too cool for me. "Think you can do that?"

 

"Sure," I said, with very little idea of what I was agreeing to do.

 

I was on the southeastern leg of what Shelf Awareness would go on to call "the world's longest book tour" and had just arrived in Oxford, Mississippi. If you're a reader or writer or book lover of any sort, then you know that this corner of the world comes with an august literary stamp and Square Books lives its history while marching joyfully into contemporary times as well.

They host a program called Thacker Mountain Radio, consisting of a live band, banter, and one featured author. In 2013, as a newly minted debut suspense novelist, I got to be that author, and I had thirteen minutes in which to do it. After that, the music swelled and more fun was to be had. I don't remember what I said that night, though I do know that it came in at something like twelve minutes, fifty-nine seconds (but who's counting? Or, more precisely, who counted?)

 

And I also remember that the bookseller, Lyn Roberts, took my then seven- and nine-year-old children to Square Books Junior, the children's branch of the bookstore in an adjacent building, and gave them an after-hours nighttime tour, which to them ranked roughly as high as a trip to a castle and which they remember to this day.

 

Bookstores are magic places, able to transport trespassers to a near infinite number of locations, as many as there are books on the shelves and imagination in our hearts. Sometimes our experiences there are dramatic, as this one was, and sometimes they are just quiet perusals and then a trip home with a treasure.

 

But they are always eye-opening in some way, and it's the booksellers, I find, who have a way of opening doors we didn't even realize we needed to walk through.

 

Website: https://jennymilchman.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jennymilchman

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jennymilchman

The We Love Bookstores Winner – Bards Alley Bookshop in Vienna, Virginia!

Bards Alley owner Jennifer Morrow is pictured with novels by SinC member authors, Louise Penny, Sujata Massey, and Cara Black.

 

Established in 2017, owner Jennifer Morrow named the bookshop Bards Alley to evoke classic literature and popular fiction, with the first part of the name, “Bard” for William Shakespeare, and “Alley,” which refers to Diagon Alley from Harry Potter.

 

There really is something for everyone with more than 5,000 titles lining the shelves and the twelve book clubs that include the Mystery/Thriller Book Club, the Men’s Book Club, and the Badass Women’s Book Club. Bards Alley’s mission from the store’s website is to offer “carefully curated literature and whimsical expressions of life. Our goal is to create a village of kindred spirits in support of our local and global communities.”

 

Website: https://www.bardsalley.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bardsalley

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bardsalley

 

It is easy to apply for the $500 Sisters in Crime We Love Bookstores award. Winners are selected every other month. Find details and the application on the website.

 

Would you like to write an entry for We Love Bookstores News about your favorite shop or something else? Did you put together or see an amazing bookstore display? Submit your ideas to librarian@sistersincrime.org 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Library and Bookstore Liaison: Susan Hammerman, a former rare book librarian, is the Library and Bookstore Liaison and coordinator of the We Love Libraries program. Connect with Susan: www.susanhammerman.com and, Bluesky, Instagram or email: librarian@sistersincrime.org

 

WLL and WLB News Editor: Gail Lukasik’s latest book is What They Never Told Us: True Stories of Family Secrets and Hidden Identities Revealed. It’s the follow up book to her best-selling memoir, White Like Her: My Family’s Story of Race and Racial Passing, which was named one of the most inspiring stories of the year by The Washington Post. She’s also the author of five mystery novels. The Darkness Surrounds Us is her first gothic, historical mystery. Gail appeared in the documentary, History of Memory, which is available on Amazon Prime. https://www.amazon.com/What-They-Never-Told-Identities/dp/1510780181

 

Find our members' books through a searchable database on SinC's website.