A Bookish Place: Bookstory | Cluj, Romania

Not sure if y'all have noticed or not (I hope you have!), but Lesley Anne and I have been seriously MIA this past month. Okay, more like past 6 weeks, but who's counting? We have not forgotten about the blog but it has not been a priority due to other, overwhelming projects, a.k.a my thesis. Y'all. It is so hard to write a thesis. I finally had to knuckle down and write or it was never going to get done. Research is much more fun than actually writing. Anyways, my rough draft is with my committee at the moment so I am (kind of) free to catch up on life.

I have been in Oradea, Romania these past 2 weeks visiting my best friend and her sweet family. Actually, the only sweet people in her family are her children. The rest are very sarcastic and like to make fun of people, but they kind of grow on you. Anyways, it was the best trip. I happened to be over there on Women's Day, which pretty much everywhere else in the world celebrates except America. I have never been given so many flowers in my life. It was great. True story - we were pulled over in downtown Cluj by police officers so that they could give us flowers and our picture was taken for the paper. They also gave us a voucher for a defensive driving course which we pretended was not sexist at all. You win some, you lose some.

(Geez, sorry I'm so chatty. Apparently I missed blogging.)

Ashley and I left the kids with Kalep (thanks, Kalep!) and drove to Cluj, a city that is about 2.5 hours east of Oradea and it is seriously beautiful. It is exactly what you picture when you think of a European city.

Ash and I were walking along one of the streets and came across a book store. Of course I made her go in. She is not really a reader but she is a great friend, so she humored me. Turns out the bookstore was a hidden gem. The English section was small, but I was not even expecting them to have an English section so it was a nice surprise. In addition to Romanian and English, they also had books in Hungarian and German. As you can see, it was really cute on the inside.

Ash and I spent the most time in the children's section because her family runs an after-school program for the kids in the village they live in. The education system in Romania is not the best, and the farther you are from the city the worse it gets. In addition, they work with Roma (gypsy) children, too, who are severely marginalized. Education is the key to changing not only these kids' lives, but their communities, society, and country.

Ash was telling me how they have not been able to find a lot of good books for the kids when we went downstairs (yes, it was a two-story bookstore!) and found two walls, covered floor to ceiling in kids and teen books. We literally spent 45 minutes down there just going through books. I have never had as much fun picking out books as I did in that store. Ashley wants to build a library for the kids but has had trouble finding good books that the kids could actually read. This bookstore was, literally, filled with books for these kids and I got help pick some out. Going through the books and helping to decide which stories these kids should hear, should read was the best.

Of course, I had to go with the fantasy classics. Ashley was telling me that these kids do not have much imagination because it has never been taught to them. I was floored. Most of their parents can't read, and if they can, they do not have the money for books and it is not cheap to travel to the city where they library is (and some of them probably would not even be allowed in). The majority of them never leave the area surrounding their village so they do not know how big the world is. This is unacceptable. To help start the library I chose The Little Prince, Prince Caspian, and The Hobbit. I was especially excited about The Hobbit because it is the same edition I got for my niece and nephews.

I can honestly say it was the best time I have ever spent in a bookstore. There were tons of books I wanted to get for the kids but did not have the money on me to do so. I will be talking with our book club about how we can help build their library and if you, too, want to help let me know in the comment section and I will tell you how. I could write post after post about my trip, but this was definitely one of the highlights. If you would like more information about the after-school program and other programs my friend and her family run, please check out their website here.

I hope this post made you want to travel, buy books, and help out kids. I mean, how much more perfect could life get?

A Bookish Place: Parnassus Books in Nashville, TN

This past weekend I (Jenny) had the privilege of going to Nashville to attend IJM's Northstar Conference. For those of you who do not know about IJM, click here to be introduced to one of the most brilliant non-profits on the planet. (I will be blogging more about them later, as I am reading a book written by the founder and president. They really deserve their own blog post!). This post, however, is about a really wonderful bookstore I had the opportunity to visit while I was there.

I first ran across this bookstore on some list of the independent-bookstores-you-have-to-visit-before-you-die variety. I do not remember exactly where I saw it, but the name was stuck in my subconscious, apparently, because when we happened to eat lunch at the Chipotle in the same shopping center as Parnassus, something in my brain went, "You must go there".

Thank goodness for such a wonderful, unique name -  Parnassus Books. It is very unassuming on the outside; I mean, it is in a shopping center for cryin' out loud. How much more uncool and corporate can you get? That name, however, was a beacon shining from a mundane exterior, hinting at the brilliance within (I am writing a thesis on allegory, can you tell?). Does the name ring any bells? Unless you are a Classics major/minor/professor/devotee, it probably wouldn't. I had to look it up to make sure I remembered correctly from that one Classics class I took as an undergrad. Parnassus was where the Oracle of Delphi was located. The area was sacred to Apollo, Dionysus, and the Muses- everyone who was responsible for the creative arts in ancient Greece. Pretty cool, huh?

So, while the exterior left something to be desired, the inside most definitely did not. The walls are lined floor to ceiling with books. The minute I walked in the smell of books enveloped me, making me hesitate inside the entrance just to take in the visual and olfactory magnificence of the space. It is a relatively small space but is used in such a way as to cram the max amount of books possible into it. 

My two favorite parts of the bookstore were definitely the ladders and the kids' section. Yes, you read that right- ladders. They had Beauty and the Beast ladders along the shelves to reach the top shelves. 

I took a picture of this specific one because, as you can see, they have a whole section dedicated to book club books. What a wonderful idea! And the best part was that they were not just books that had/were being made into movies. A lot of thought had gone into the selections. They have their own book club (which I would kill to be a part of) so you know a good bit of experience has gone into picking these books. 

Next favorite part- the kids' section. Look at this most adorable entrance:

It looks like the entrance to a Greek temple! I did not do a good job of scaling the picture for y'all but think of the door at the Chick-fil-A Dwarf House. And yes, of course I walked through this way. Most of the other, cooler customers were laughing at me but I did not care. It was just so wonderful, you know? 

So. If you are ever in Nashville, you must visit. I bought two books I cannot read until I am done with my thesis because I couldn't not buy something from there. 

There is also a blog you can visit which has cool posts on everything from book club picks to stars in Nashville who stop by the store. The amount of events the store puts on is really amazing. It truly is a community-oriented bookstore, working to spread the love of reading in Nashville. I listened in on the staff suggestions when someone would ask them questions and they were so helpful and so friendly. I was very impressed. It was obvious they love their job and love to introduce people to new books. If I were you, I would plan a trip to Nashville just so I could stop by here. You won't regret it.

A Bookish Place: The Book Booth at the Murphy Flea Market

Something you will quickly learn about me (Lesley Anne) is that photography and travel are two of my first loves. One of my favorite things to do while traveling is check out local bookstores - they are so full of character and I love seeing how they reflect the personality of their home city. Even though local bookstores tend to be more expensive, I would like to make more of an effort to support them in the future. Hence the idea for A Bookish Place was born! In this new feature, Jenny and I will share photos and write about the local bookstores/bookish places we visit throughout the year. If you have an idea for a bookstore or a bookish place you think we should feature, feel free to email us and we'll add it to our Bucket List! :)

A few of the local bookstores I visited in 2013: Alexander Books in San Francisco, CA; Sundog Books in Seaside, FL; and The Book Loft in Amelia Island.

The first place we're going to feature can only be properly introduced by Jenny, since she has much more of a history with it. So take it away, Jenny!

Before I tell you about the hidden gem of Decker's Flea Market in Murphy, NC, I have to tell you one important fact about my husband. He is a picker, like from the TV show American Pickers. This, fortunately, is a hobby rather than his full-time job. Whenever we go out of town, especially on a weekend, he is searching for yard sales and flea markets to visit. I have very little patience for this. I realize with the rise of Pinterest and Etsy I should be more into turning junk into super cute home decor, but that is just not my forte (Lesley Anne, on the other hand, is very good at that sort of thing!).

So, back to Murphy. Matt managed to talk me into going to this particular flea market because it is a) very large and b) has very eclectic things. I figured I could give it a go. I was wandering along the aisles, skimming over millions of VHS tapes and cell phone covers, when I saw it. A book booth. Correction. It was four booths, made into one and it was ALL books. Heaven. There were books crammed every which way, sorted (kind of) by genre. It provides the best kind of book hunt. I literally spent an hour there the first time I went. My favorite books I have gotten there are The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman and Devil's Cub by Georgette Heyer. I am now just as excited to go to the flea market as Matt, which is really saying something.

[Quick note from Lesley Anne: When buying books from a flea market or any outdoor location - beware of book bugs! When Jenny, my sister, and I were browsing through these books, we noticed a couple had tiny red bugs crawling on them. Just to be on the safe side, I would follow these instructions from the Library of Congress on how to get rid of them before you put books that have been outdoors on your shelves.]

So what are some of your favorite local bookstores? Do tell!