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.

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.

The Be $ensible legislative wrap up is tomorrow, Saturday March 26th from 4 - 6 p.m. Join us as we host Ross Romero, Kraig Powell and perhaps some friends from the media to sensibly discuss the outcomes of the 2011 legislative session. There's so so much to talk about. Please join us.

The staff of Sam Wellers have all weighed in with their picks for holiday giving. Take a look:

The front of our store holds a growing display, our Employee's Holiday Picks table. Instead of throwing them all out at once, we in WellerWorld prefer a more gradual approach. Each day a new employee pick shows up on the table. It's rather like an advent calendar. Here's what has been selected so far:

• Lane Richins - Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America by Donald Stokes
• Debra Evans - Rabbit Problem by Emily Gravett and Harry Potter: A Pop-Up Book by Andrew Williamson
• Zach Sampinos - Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz
• Frank Pester - King James Bible Quartercentenerary Edition with essay by Gordon Campbell
• Bruce Christensen - Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine
• Jason Rabb - Listen to This by Alex Ross
• Tony Weller - Red Book by C. G. Jung, 75 Years of DC Comics by Paul Levitz, World of Ornament by A. Racinet, Frank Lloyd Wright: 1917 - 1942 by Bruce B Pfeiffer, Dressing a Galaxy by Trisha Biggar
• Todd Bailey - Twas the Night Before Christmas illustrated by Matt Tavares
• Joan Nay - King James Bible Quartercentenerary Edition with essay by Gordon Campbell, Historical Atlas of the North American Railroad by Derek Hayes, Bible: The Story of the King James Version by Gordon Campbell
  
• Jan - Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People by Amy Sedaris
• Travis Nelson - Gilded Latten Bones by Glen Cook
  

Stay tuned! There's more to come.

You’ve no doubt seen the edge of the M. Lynn Bennion Elementary School as you’ve driven up 400 S. or perhaps stopped for their students crossing 900 E. in Salt Lake City. Located at 429 S. 800 E., Bennion is a Title 1 School in which 86% of the students are economically disadvantaged. That’s not the whole story: Students at Bennion speak over 19 languages and represent cultures around the globe, and their teachers have an average of 20 years experience accompanied by a deep commitment to the academic and personal progress of each child. But let’s face it, in these tough economic times, schools like Bennion and its students need help more than ever.

That’s why Sam Wellers Books has chosen to mount an Angel Tree for Bennion Elementary. Beginning in early December and running through the holidays, customers of Wellers will be able to support the educational mission of Bennion by choosing a star from the Angel Tree conveniently located on the Main Floor and buying the school a book (or two!). Each title on the Angel Tree will be a title requested by the librarian, teachers, staff, and students of Bennion. So you know the book you chose will not be a duplicate or go to waste. To make the experience as easy as possible for you and for Bennion, Sam Wellers will deliver all of the donated books to the school in the first week of January. And to make the buying as painless as possible, Wellers will discount all Angel Tree donations 20%.

Join us in supporting a worthy school full of students eager to read. Then, when someone asks you, “Is heaven missing an angel?” you’ll know it’s not just a cheesy pick-up line

Lauren Dahl at saltlakedenizen.com has written a great review of our bookstore! Check it out!

I made my semi-annual appearance on KUER's Radio West this morning with Betsy Burton and Ken Sanders. Given the time of year, this is the show in which we each recommend books for reading during the summer. It's always a fun show to do. And it's a good one too. The three of us have different styles and tastes that make for a diverse selection of books. Here is a link to the Summer Book Show page. There should be a link posted Thursday that will allow you to listen to the show or download it for podcast.

But alas, there are always more books on our lists than the three of us can discuss in an hour. Below is my list of recommendations. The books indicated with an asterisk are the books I discussed on air.

ADULT NON-FICTION
*All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew
*Complete Idiots Guide to Raising Chickens by Jerome D. Balanger
*Eiffel's Tower by Jill Jonnes
Everything is Going to Kill Everybody by Robert Brockaway
Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King Jr.... by Hampton Sides
Lost States: True Stories of Texlahoma, Transylvania, and Other States.... by Michael Trinklein
*Last Stand by Nathaniel Philbrick
*Little Book of Language by David Crystal
*Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens by Gail Damerow
Thames: A Biography by Peter Ackroyd
*Value of Nothing by Raj Patel

ADULT FICTION
Anthill by E. O. Wilson
*Lightboxes by Shane Jones
Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall
*Outside Boy by Jeanine Cummins
*Passage by Justin Cronin

CHILDREN'S BOOKS
*Adventure Stories
Boom by Mark Haddon
Clarice Bean: Guess Who's Babysitting by Lauren Child
*Clock Without a Face by Scott Teplin
Geek Dad: Awesomely Geeky Projects.... by Ken Denmead
*Popville by Anouck Boisrobert
Over the Rainbow performed by Judy Collins, illustrated by Eric Puybaret
Prince of Mist by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Red Umbrella by Christine Diaz Gonzalez
You are My Wish by Maryann Cusimano

Just a reminder to all you Sam Wellers customers that we're still here at 254 S. Main Street. We're stocked from basement to mezzanine (and beyond!) with great books, and eager to sell them to you. This has been one of the strongest publishing seasons in memory. There's something here for you or the lucky recipients on your giving list whether you're looking for fiction that's literary or egdy, non-fiction that's serious or humorous, funky sidelines, or exquisite rare books. Oh there are so many wonderful books!

We're also very happy to announce there is once again parking behind Sam Wellers Bookstore. The parking structure for the 222 S. Main building is now open for hourly parking. It can be accessed by via either 200 S. or 300 S., just west of Main Street. Simply enter the structure, choose a ticket for "Metered Parking" and then follow the signage to the "Metered Parking" areas. Then walk out the 300 S. entrance and into the back door of Sam Wellers.

The 100 stalls in the "Metered Parking" part of the structure will charge Salt Lake City parking meter rates for the first hour. After that market rates apply. The system is entirely automated so there is no attendant on duty. Payment is made in at an exit kiosk. Be forewarned, they do not take cash: you must pay with a debit or credit card. Also, we do not have validations at this point. But we are delighted to see an additional parking option for our customers. While the City parking meters are free for the holiday season, that doesn't apply to the metered stalls inside the parking structure.

Remember, books are some of the finest gifts you can give a person. Through them a reader can travel to other times and other worlds, learn from some of the greatest minds humanity has to offer, and dream of larger horizons and better times.

I spent last weekend surrounded by books and memories. It was a lovely feeling, a bit bittersweet at times, but lovely nevertheless.

First up were the activities associated with the Utah Humanities Book Festival For us, the preparation starts months beforehand, when the booksellers who will vend at the event get together for the Author Lottery. It's a gathering akin to a sports league draft except that I actually care about it. Each bookseller arrives with a list of the authors she'd most like to sell at the event. Then we take turns choosing authors until every author who'll be joining the Festival has a store to sell his or her books. It's thirty to forty minutes of what probably seems mundane to many, but to us it's exciting. What happens during that time sets the stage for the Book Festival to come.

The Festival itself was enjoyable as always. What bookseller can rightly complain about being surrounded by books, their authors, and the people who love them? I so enjoy standing at our booth in the Urban Room of the Salt Lake City Public Library and talking with the passersby. I did disappoint one man who responded to my, "Let me know if you have any questions," with an actual question, "Is there a God?" I think my answer disappointed him. But the book related conversations I had were delightful, scintillating, heartening. It makes me happy when people tell me how much books mean to them; how their lives are richer; how much they've learned; how they laughed and cried. And it makes me just as happy to listen to Festival goers talking with the writers they know and love, and the ones they've just discovered. And there was a lot to love: from the immensely talented local favorites Sara Zarr and Shannon Hale to East Coast writers Dylan Landis, Jed Perl, and Edwin Torres. It does a bookseller's heart good.

This year the Book Festival concluded on Sunday with a presentation by Selected Shorts. Yes, they do leave Symphony Space once in awhile. Isaiah Sheffer and two of his talented actors read some pretty bleak Utah related stories to an auditorium of eager listeners. There was also a sing-along quiz during intermission. Envision, if you will an auditorium filled with a variety of voices singing, "Don't fence me in," after Mr. Sheffer sang, "Oh give me a land, lots of land, under starry skies above," and you get the idea. Actually, that was our best song. The responses to his other first lines were much weaker. We didn't know as much of the great american songbook as I thought we would. Oh the shame! While the stories were recorded for broadcast at a later date, I doubt the sing-along was — and you should all be grateful for that.

Sitting in that auditorium for the first time since I attended Sam's memorial service there was the bittersweet experience to which I referred. Tony used to call Sam and Lila on Sundays to tell them to listen to Selected Shorts. Sam would run the tuner up and down the dial and pronounce that he couldn't find it. Their radio didn't "get FM." But Sam loved radio. And he loved the writings of his friend Wallace Stegner. When the actors read two Stegner stories I couldn't help reflecting on how much he would have enjoyed being there. He would have emoted loudly, possibly at awkward moments, and provided a running commentary that would've driven the engineer recording the event wild. He would have embarrassed me. And he would've loved every minute of it.

Each year of the Utah Humanities Book Festival has a different mojo. While this one was a bit quieter than Festivals in the boom years, it was no less enjoyable. I found great books and made great some great memories. And as I walked out the doors on Sunday afternoon, I was already looking forward to next year's authors lottery.

Last March we announced our intention to downsize and move from our Main Street location. Loyal customers and old time Salt Lakers flocked to our store to share their memories, give us their good wishes, and take advantage of our moving sale.

All of those actions helped us. The good wishes and the love were invaluable during a time when we felt beleaguered. The stories were heart warming and fascinating. We were so moved by your stories that we created the Moving Histories Project to document them. Many of the videos we shot are on our YouTube channel now.

And what about that sale? Well the sale was designed to begin to reduce stock and, most importantly, help us downsize in place while we put our building on the market and searched for a new one. And you, dear customers, have helped us achieve that goal. Thank you.

So now we move on to another phase of preparations for our relocation: reducing the Bargain Rooms. Those who frequent us physically (instead of virtually) have watched our Bargain Book area grow from one room to two rooms and now three rooms. The books in there aren't junk, they wouldn't be on any of our shelves if they were, but they're not the right stock for our regular shelves. As they've moved from their former sections, each of the books was marked to $1.00, $3.00 or $5.00. And now they're even cheaper. We need to move those books out so we can move on. So if you buy 10 or more books from the Bargain Room, you'll get 50% off the lot of them.

Of course you want to know about our move. There's only so much we can say at this point. We're in negotiations with a buyer for our property. We've identified 3 properties that we think look good. Tony and the management team are covering details about reading and stocking philosophies, aesthetics, businesses to potentially partner with, you name it. It's a lot of planning, and it's exhilarating.

In the mean time, we're still here for you. We're stocked with wonderful new and used books and we're dying to show them to you. This is one of the best new book publishing seasons we've seen in a long time. We'd love to share our books and their stories with you.

We're just tickled pink that the one and only Sister Dottie S. Dixon will be stopping by the store tonight to celebrate the publication of her new book, Mormon Kama Sutra. Joining her will be collaborator and provocateur Pat Bagley. It's the 40th Anniversary Edition, you know, and it's hot off the presses. The books at our party will be straight from the bindery. They're $14.95 paperbacks and worth every penny. It's never too late, or too early you newlyweds, to add spice to your life.

For those of you who don't know Sister Dottie yet, check out this link http://www.sisterdottie.com/ and prepare to laugh. She can also be heard on KRCL FM 90.9 every Friday at 3:00 p.m. and Saturdays at 10:00 a.m.

Of course you all know Pat Bagley from his editorial cartoons in the Salt Lake Tribune and his Clueless George books. Pat's also the publisher of White Horse Press, a fine local business that we're always happy to support.

So come on down to the store between 5:30 and 7:30 p.m. tonight (Friday Oct 2) and say "Hey!" to Sister Dottie and Pat, especially if you're going to the opening of The Passion of Sister Dottie S. Dixon: Second Helpings at the Rose WagnerTheater. You'll double your fun.

On Monday a young man approached me with one of those bookseller's dream questions. No, he didn't want to buy all of our unsaleable stock, though that would have been nice. He came in on behalf of a friend who wanted to propose to his girlfriend in our store. She's a customer who loves us. He's a creative guy who loves his girlfriend. And, Brendan, his friend, was a willing and capable organizer.

The idea was that Brandon (confusing isn't it? They really are 2 different people), the hopeful boyfriend, would take Abby, the unsuspecting girlfriend, out to dinner. After dining, Brandon would suggest they go somewhere for desert and walk Abby down the street to our store. When they reached our store, Brandon would suggest they go in to browse. Abby would protest, knowing we were closed. Brandon would say, "Let's just see," open the door, and walk her inside our deserted store to find cheesecake and drinks awaiting. Then, they'd retire to the rear of the store to sit in an environment created for the purpose, watch a video, and Brandon would propose. How could I say no to that?

So last night Brendan and two friends began loading equipment into our store at around 6:00 p.m. A table, couch, video equipment, Christmas lights and electric paper lanterns were hauled in through the back doors. Lights were strung, video was set up, desert stashed. It took two and a half hours in all, and when they were done it looked so very romantic. I killed the store lights and we waited.

About 5 minutes before they arrived, we received a call that the couple was on their way. I unlocked the front door and hid under the cashier desk. Brendan and the boys hid on the balcony. And then a couple walked through the door, a different couple. Since I couldn't see them and didn't know what Brandon and Abby looked like, I was clueless. So Brendon shouted out that we were closed. As the confused couple left, Brandon and Abby approached. The other couple told them we were closed but Brandon and Abby persevered. After they got through the door and picked up their desert, I snuck around the counter, locked the door, went to my desk in the back rooms, and pretended I wasn't here. Waiting was agony. I was jittery and my stomach hurt. When they left, we got an all clear signal. None of us ever showed our faces while Brandon and Abby were in the store. It was their private moment.

I am happy to report Abby said, "Yes!" to Brandon's proposal. I watched the video while the boys tore down. It was dreamy: thoughtful, loving, romantic, hopeful. The whole set up was a fitting start to one of the ultimate acts of hope these days, the public declaration of love and an intention to forsake all others for that relationship.

We at WellerWorld were delighted to watch love bloom in our store yet again. It's always an honor to share moments like this with customers, one of the many things that makes bookselling rewarding. People get to know us and they include us in parts of their lives: relationships, proposals, weddings, births, funerals. And we are privileged in that inclusion.

Thank you and good luck to Brandon and Abby.