I know you've had this experience: you've read a book that's so good, that has consumed you so completely, that you just want to tell everyone about it. You carry it with you and show it to people. The most tenuous connections bring it to mind in conversation. You become an evangalist for the book. Booksellers have this happen and book lovers get it too.

 

Have I got an event for you! On April 23rd, people across the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany will give books to other people simply because they love reading good books and want to share that joy with others. World Book Night began last year in the UK. "Givers" fanned across England and Ireland to distribute 1 million free books to lucky recipients. The event was such a hit that booksellers, librarians, and publishers in the U.S. are participating this year. Organizers are hoping to have tens of thousands of people throughout the United States spread the love of books and reading in their communities by giving away books on a single night.

 

Sounds great right? You should know a few things. First of all, you must apply on the World Book Night web site to be a book giver, and you must do it by midnight EST February 6. You will be asked to pick three of the available thirty titles and give the organizers an idea of where or to whom you'll be distributing the books. If you are chosen as a giver, the books you'll distribute will be shipped to a pick up point you select, such as Weller Book Works, free of charge.

 

April 23rd is a big day in the book world. It's UNESCO's World Book Day as well as the anniversary of Cervantes' death. Shakespeare was born on the 23rd of April. So was my father-in-law, Sam Weller. I can't think of a better way to honor his literary legacy than to give away books on his birthday. Join me.

 

Catherine Weller

It's Friday the 13th so it must be time to celebrate our new store.

 

GRAND OPENING TODAY!!!

 

All day new and used books are discounted 20%. Rare books will be 30% off.

 

Buy two Penguin Classics and get a free Penguin Classics book bag while supplies last.

 

This evening we'll have drinks and snacks.

 

At 6:30 Tony will speak while wearing a purple suit! Don't worry he'll keep it on all night.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of the move was our secret preparation for Operation Book Drop. The Book Drop was conceived as a publicity campaign by the extra creative guys at Super Top Secret, our marketing firm. The idea was to gather a lot of books, create eye catching and informative jackets for them, and covertly leave them at selected spots in the City. This would not only draw attention to our relocation and our new web site, it would proclaim our love and books in a way that would draw in members of our community -- not preach to them.

 

The amazing STS artists designed seven dust jackets for the project. Each jacket is a manifestation of STS's guerrilla idea and Tony's concept of marrying messages about reading, books, and our bookstore with provacative, thoughtful oneliners and art. They embody ideas about books that we hold dear and firmly believe: reading books is good for the mind, books are important to people and the cultures  in which they live, books are entertaining and pleasing in very tangible ways, booksellers still have a meaningful role in this modern world, locally owned businesses make our communities better places to live.

 

The second part of the project's preparation was procuring the books themselves. We approached several publishers we identified as producers of quality books that are nicely packaged. Six of them partnered with us for the Book Drop: Algonquin Books, Chronicle Books, FSG, Gibbs Smith, Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers, and W.W. Norton. All of them deserve kudos for believing in bricks and mortar stores and the people they serve -- and for backing up that belief with action.

 

At last we got to the real fun. Tony mapped twelve square miles around our new location in Trolley Square. Then he identified hot spots within the radius. Finally, he broke the area into zones and assigned teams of two to five people to each zone. After we closed on January 8th, eight booksellers and volunteers spent about 3 hours admiring the jackets and applying them to the nearly 900 donated books. The night after that we sorted the books by zone, split into our teams, and slipped into the night to distribute the gift of reading to the community. It was a blast.

 

You can see the page on our web site devoted to the Book Drop here. It shows the jackets and lists the titles donated by each publisher. If you got a book, let us know. We'd love to hear what you think.

Happy New Year everyone!

We are just about finished moving things out of 254 South Main Street, but there's plenty of work left in setting up Trolley Square. Here are a few photos of our progress.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There's a song from the early 80's by Adrian Belew called Lone Rhinoceros. The first few lines of it have been running through my head today. I've sent the last of my crew here at the Main Street store to Trolley Square. So I'm rumbling through this old store entirely alone. I'm collecting bookends, old signage, display stands and -bizarrely - shelving books. All the while I'm singing, "I'm a lone rhinoceros. There ain't one hell of a lots of us..."

Of course Belew's melancholy song about an endangered species isn't true to our story. Ours is a story of evolution and survival. It's always been thus. Sam took over the store upon his return from World War II, when it was nearly bankrupt. When he moved the store from 200 S. to Main Street, it was because the landlord had other plans for the space. The catastrophic fire of 1972 caused another (temporary) move and a remodel of the Main Street store. The 80's and 90's brought changes to the book industry that had us computerizing the inventory system and selling our used/rare books on the Internet. Recent years have left us and many of our independent bookseller peers feeling a bit bruised. But of late, the news for us all is better and we're looking up. Now we evolve again.

It's exciting. I've always found change to be stimulating. The energy at the new store is envigorating. Our amazing staff and generous volunteers are working hard to put our plans into place. Each evening I lock up the Main Street store and drive to Trolley for a managers' recapitulation of the day and plans for the next one. What I see when I get there is always different and always exciting. As tired as I am when I arrive -- and I am tired! -- it's difficult to leave the store once I'm there.

But for now I'm a lone rhinoceros closing this world.

Moving began yesterday with crews of employees, volunteers, and movers packing up books on Main Street, and a crew of employees and volunteers setting up bookcases at Trolley Square. Here's a peek at the progress so far.





We still need volunteers! Join us in our move by calling 801-328-2588 and talking to Jason.

While cleaning the office here at Sam Weller's Books in preparation for our move to Trolley Square we found a Polaroid camera and some film (best used by March 2004).


I love Polaroids. Birthday money supplemented with chore money bought my first camera, a Polaroid. It looked almost exactly like this one, except that it was a sporty red color. So I was immediately excited to start snapping photos.

Of course with film that expired seven years and nine months ago, there was no telling how they would turn out. They turned out interesting.

We recently received a shipment of awesome at the bookstore. Limited edition Star Wars moleskine journals. As you can see, they come in both Republic and Empire designs, or Light Side and Dark Side of the Force, if you will.



We also received some limited edition Pac-man moleskine planners.


Come in for your dose of awesome today!

Catherine and I are the third generation of Wellers to serve the community's interests by selling books. My grandfather, Gustav, opened the original store at the onset of the Great Depression. It was then called Zion Bookstore. My father, Sam, took over in 1946. Sam and my mother, Lila, moved the bookstore to 254 S. Main Street in 1961. In the 1970s the name became Sam Weller's Zion Bookstore. By the 1980s we simply went by Sam Wellers.

I have worked in the family bookstore since childhood. Main Street was a vibrant place throughout my youth but beginning in the 1980's it began to decline as a shopping district due to the proliferation of new suburban malls, increasing parking costs and some poor development decisions. Sales weakened for independent booksellers in the late 1980s and the 1990s as stock funded corporate booksellers fought for dominance. A bit later the internet and ebooks gave users new ways to get information once found only in books. Today all the foregoing is exacerbated by our troubled economy.

We value the long heritage of our bookstore. Sam Weller was a gregarious, energetic bookman whose reputation was known across the country. He was a powerful man and a dedicated father who had a giant influence in my life. But his energy hasn't been strongly felt in the bookstore since he lost his eyesight in 1997. Sam passed away in 2009. For all our love and respect for the bookstore we have been on Main Street, we felt that our new store -- designed and built by Catherine, our team and me -- wouldn't be, and simply couldn't be called Sam's anymore.

When we open our store in Trolley Square on January 6th, it will be known as Weller Book Works. For months we pondered how to preserve the family name while embracing a new identity that reflects our new location, our new style of bookselling, and our changed culture. We settled on "Works" because it is an active term and we're active booksellers. I've often said we're the proletariats of the book world. Works has good connotations. This works. Books work (without batteries and for hundreds of years). It works for me. We work for you. We like the industrial association and think it fits nicely into the old trolley garages into which Trolley Square has been built.

We're excited about our new name and logo. We're also excited about the new web site that will follow shortly. We hope you'll enjoy the bookstore that makes them meaningful.

Here are a few photos of the space in progress. I'm sorry they're so dark. But the lights aren't installed yet so it's dark in there! Don't worry, they're shipping.


This is the current outside of our store. The entrances, upstairs and down, will be immediately west of the atrium off the 600 South entrance.














This was how the space looked raw. It hasn't looked like this since early October.















This is the area Tony refers to as "The Grotto." Those spaces are transforming into offices and a meeting room.















Interior framing. The Grotto is off the the left. The mezzanine is above The Grotto. Big pipes are everywhere.














Still to come: electrical/phones/data/lights, a staircase from the balcony, flooring and railings for the balcony, main floor staining & sealing, painting, installation of sales racks and counters (to seismic code specs), signage and the facade, plus myriad little things I'm forgetting right now.

Oh, and a clothes line. Yes a clothes line. You'll see.

You already know we've begun our Moving Sale. Oh, you don't? Well, used and rare books are 20% off. If you purchase 10 or more used books, or 10 or more rare books, the discount increases to 30%. The Bargain Rooms sale is still in effect, 10 or more items from there will get you 50% off.
Even better we've moved National Geographics published from the 1950's on to the Bargain Rooms. They're 25 cents a piece.

In addition to all that book goodness, we've got construction supplies for sale. We've got lumber, cinder blocks, oak doors, and enormous wood beams. Contact a manager for more details. More book cases have become available too. Come down and snag one or two today.

And Tango Makes Three by Peter Parnell & Justin Richardson
Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Crank by Ellen Hopkins
Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Lush by Natasha Friend
What My Mother Doesn't Know by Sonya Sones
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
Revolutionary Voices edited by Amy Sonnie
Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

What do these books have in common? According to the American Library Association, they are the books that were most frequently challenged in the United States in 2010. Do some of the titles on this list surprise you? A quick survey of the books challenged most frequently in the last decade would yield similar results. Literature, classics, children's books, histories, religious books including the bible... they've all been challenged at one time or another.

The reasons people challenge books are many: sexually explicit or offensive content, violence, homosexuality, inappropriateness for age groups, anti-family and anti-religious sentiments to name a few. If successful, the results of these challenges are often the same: narrowed access to ideas and information, censorship, limitations on your freedoms as a reader. Lest any of us feel too sanctimonious, challenges come from the right and the left, the religious and irreligious, any side of any political or social spectrum you'd care to identify. Often the motivation is based in an attempt to do the right thing; sometimes it is based in fear. Again, the results are the same.

As booksellers, we at Wellers are categorically against censorship. We, like nearly all booksellers and librarians, have faced objections to materials we chose to sell. I view each time I talk with customers concerned about a book stocked or on display as an opportunity. I get to hear what is disturbing to my customer. That is important, I need to hear my customers and to understand their complaints. But at the same time, it is equally important that I let them know I consider freedom of access to information to be a cornerstone in the foundation of our democracy. I also believe that controversial -- even ugly -- ideas are better kept in the light where they can be seen, discussed, and dealt with rather than kept in the dark where they can flourish unconfronted and untouched. During our conversation I also let my customer know that I practice what I preach. Every season I buy books for the store to sell that I consider offensive. Yes, every single season.

So what does one do about "banned books?" Get the word out, of course. Engage in civic dialogue and education. This year's Banned Books week is September 24th to October 1st. On Saturday, September 24, we will be participating in the Banned Books Week Virtual Read-Out. In bookstores and libraries across the country people will be reading two minute selections from challenged books of their choosing. This is an opportunity to dust off your old copy of Howl or recite your favorite passage from the Bible. Wellers staff will video your reading and post it to the Virtual Read-Out YouTube channel as well as Wellers own YouTube channel. And you'll go on record as a defender of the freedom to read.

Just call us at 801-328-2586 or email catherine@samwellers.com to sign up for a time on September 24th.

If you'd like more information about Banned Books week or would like to see what books have been challenged, visit the Banned Books Week web site. If you'd like to preview the Virtual Read Out channel on YouTube, go here.

The Banned Books Week awareness campaign is sponsored by Banned Books Week is sponsored by American Booksellers Association, American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, American Library Association, American Society of Journalists and Authors,Association of American Publishers, National Association of College Stores, Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, National Coalition Against Censorship, National Council of Teachers of English, PEN American Center, Social Icons by Lenka.

Tonight Tony and I will be attending the Central City Neighborhood Council meeting to talk about our move to Trolley Square. We'll be addressing how& why we're changing and how the move is progressing. We'd love to see you there.

Central City Neighborhood Council Meeting
Wednesday, September 7th 6:00 - 7:30 p.m.

This Friday, August 26th, we will have the pleasure of hosting Alexandra Fuller for a reading from her brand new memoir, Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness. I remember reading her first memoir, Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, which looks on her childhood in Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe. It was an absolute delight, and it is still one of my favorite go-to reading recommendations. Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness is both a prequel and a sequel, continuing Alexandra's own story, but its main focus is on her mother, Nicola Fuller. I haven't finished it yet, but Catherine has—read her review in the current issue of BookTalk, Sam Weller's newsletter.

We hope you join us at the Salt Lake City Public Library at 7:00 PM for this wonderful reading and signing.

This event is free and open to the public.

The Ask is a real treasure: with Larry David-esque timing, the pathos of a recovering sports fan, and a fire-breather's flair for language, Lipsyte writes like most of his contemporaries only dream of. His prose is alive and well. He is as funny as Gary Shteyngart, as sad as Woody Allen at his most comfortless, and his ribald wit rivals comic Louis C.K.'s. In The Ask, Lipsyte writes about Milo Burke, a down-and-out full time dad who may just have a second whack at his old job. Burke has to contend with his old college roommate, Stuart Purdy, a real schmuck who snuck up on the dot com craze with a few crazy plans of his own, and is still collecting from that. Purdy wants Milo to do an Ask for him: "An Ask could be a person , or what we wanted from that person. If they gave it to us, that was a give." Purdy enlists Milo to do one last job, think 007 without all the sword play. Burke is entering a world of hell, and it'd only be wise to join him.