Category Archives: Bookstores

WordCamp Birmingham is This Weekend!

One of my favorite events of the year is this weekend. It’s the annual WordCamp Birmingham! The schedule is jam packed with great presentations and even a “genius bar” styled workshop. So I hope to walk out with some uber-cool ideas and improvements to the site soon.

Of course, topping the cool chart this year is the State of the Word address by Matt Mullenweg and the closing keynote by Esra’a Al Shafei, founder and exec. dir. of MideastYouth.com.WordCamp Birmingham already has an active Twitter feed and you’ll be able to follow all week and weekend with the hashtag #wcbhm09.

See you there!

Four Bookish Dealings of a Timely Nature

I just wanted to take a moment to make sure that some of these things are on your radar, as they all have deadlines and dates attached to them. I think it would be fun if everyone promoted and participated in these events! Let us know of anything else cool going on that we could follow.

This week (September 14-18) has been Book Blogger Appreciation Week. Many, many cool blogs have been mentioned and awarded. Congrats to all who participated and won! My RSS reader overfloweth now. Too many great new blogs to keep up with

Publishers Weekly has declared November 7th as the first annual National Bookstore Day. They promise lots of industry coverage and hometown events are in the works. So I’ll pass along any bookstore specific events I hear about here in Birmingham.

Also, head over to Fictional Stimulus site. It’s a new reading-online experiment that kicks off on September 22nd. I honestly have no idea what is in store there, but I’m excited. Basically, you sign up and they send you 12 emails over four weeks which are designed to dole out “introductory tasters” for digital reading. So if you’re curious about the future of reading, books and publishing, you should check it out. It’s a ning site, so let me know when you get your profile set and we can connect. I do hope it’s good. Lots of potential there!

You have just 13 more days to take advantage of the JCLC’s Food for Fines program. That is, for every canned food item you donate to the library, one dollar will be subtracted from your ‘overdue materials’ fines (up to $10). I think all Jefferson County library locations are accepting the can goods donations. It runs through the end of September.

The British are Coming!

United Kingdom-based BookDepository has opened up shop on our virtual shores. The BookDepository has been raking in awards around the world as a leader in the online bookselling world and seems to be the only current site that can compete with Amazon and B&N.com on price.

I price compared three titles that I would like to purchase soon and they were all cheaper on BookDepository, with a price difference ranging between a penny and 62 cents. So not major savings (they do claim free shipping worldwide though), but it sure is nice to have someone else trying to be competitive.

One thing I really do like is that they are using Google Preview API on their site. It’s nice to be able to read enough of a book that you know you’re making an informed purchase. It’s not as nice as being in a real bookstore, but the extra preview pages are the next best thing. Let us know if you’ve had any experience buying from them.

Books, Beans and Candles MS

Books, Beans and Candles MS is in an old Birmingham house going up 20th on your way to Vulcan. It’s on the righthand side, just after you pass the “Y-split”. Owners Mitchell and Darby Hagood have been at this location since August 2008, though they’ve been in business for two and a half years. Ever since seeing the sign out front (it starts with the word books!) I’d been trying to find time to stop in and see what it’s all about and finally was able to make it in and get some photos.

The view from the street.
The view from the street.

Mitchell Hagood sums up the shop with one word… “metaphysical”. (photos after the jump)

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