Dear Store Supporters,

A huge thank you to all of you.  When we sent out invitations to come to a benefit for the bookstore, replies flooded in. Some of you donated even though you could not attend the festive event--just smacking a check on the counter and leaving Susan with a tear in her pretty brown eye.  Many, many of you made a point of buying stacks of books.  The response was so sudden that I got a call from our ever-courageous bookkeeper Diane.  She had been about to do the usual grueling little dance -- decide which bills to pay, which bills to beg off -- when she looked at our account. Double take!  What happiness! 

I'd like to publish an online list of Friends of Birchbark Books, names only, if there is no objection.  If anybody doesn't want their name on the list, please raise hand.   I have sent out mail and email thank yous, a few have come back -- so those of you who weren't personally thanked by me please receive my warmest thanks.  Your generosity startled me, and moved me.  After over ten years of running the bookstore it feels good, no, it feels terrific, to know we aren't alone!

A personal word regarding our new next door neighbor, Don Saunders of In Season.  First the food.  Don thinks like an artist about his menus, but is one of those rare unpretentious chefs.  Please try his restaurant In Season -- it is lively, has wild wall art, and is friendly place. The food is based on utterly fresh local ingredients and prepared by a Minnesotan with a touch of genius.   

Okay, but plenty of people were hoping for something like the Kenwood Cafe, and are worried about an upscale joint upscaling a beloved location where people could hang out. But the special forces that aligned to make the Kenwood Cafe cannot be duplicated.  And I think we have a winner moving in next door.  The Kenwood (or whatever it will be called) will be an all day place, with breakfasts, brunch-lunch, snack time, and then grown up dinner time.  And Don is sensitive about not pricing the food out of reach.  The other day I met him as he came around to gather mail.  What he said should reassure and excite everybody.  

A local resident had visited In Season and said if Don served breakfast he would be there every day.  Don's face lighted up and then went a little dreamy.  He said, "I'd like to make that man the best pancake he's ever tasted." 

That pancake dangles at the end of the next few dark months of construction like a fluffy golden little sun . . . 

Please come visit us and enjoy Susan's Amazing Morning Coffee.  I am now hooked and have a cup at my elbow at this very moment.

So long, book lovers, and Thank You again

Louise 

Yes, the intimate and eclectric, intellectually challenging, emotionally limitless small independent bookstore is the new and favorite romantic getaway!  We also provide a sort of single's club service -- compatible strangers easily meet when contemplating the same book.  Conversation starts so naturally.  And what is more pleasurable than browsing through books with a beloved friend or partner, opening the book, pointing out a passage, comparing favorites?  Each to his or her own, I say, regarding electronic reading devices, but two people reading real books together is romantic.  Two people gazing at their devices together, unable to lick the pages, is just sad.

I just read Blue Flower, by Penelope Fitzgerald -- romantic.  Dune and Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert -- romantic for the old school geek.  1Q84 by Haruki Murakami -- romantic for any sort of geek.  A Farewell to Arms, Wuthering Heights, Portrait of a Lady -- romantically filled with deception and loss.  My friend Keith's top ten romantic novels are: Clarissa, by Samuel Richardson.  Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.  Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.  Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov.  The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje.  The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles.  The Lover by Marguerite Duras.

Calling for more romantic (literary) nominations -- especially in the contemporary and Native books category -- I am hoping that some of you will respond --

Free chocolates at Birchbark Books during Valentine's Day week, and a table of romantic books to share.

Hearts,

Louise

Dear Friends,

I remember the ravishing day that we opened the new door between our little bookstore and Kenwood Cafe.  Since that day, we have had a true partnership.  I'd like to thank Catherine and Jeff for cooking special theme meals for our book club, for lending their hearts to causes and showing movies like H2Oil, for caring about writers, supporting art, and for bringing us the puppy dog tail (a gloriously rich cinnamony dough topped with devilish cream-sweet frosting).

A place like the Kenwood Cafe becomes so quickly a given, a community treasure, that everyone loses sight of the fact that its existence is based on dollars.  Kenwood Cafe is closing, probably for good.  We will miss everyone who worked there as friends; we will miss you in a larger sense as a real place in this great big boxy franchised world.

In that light, thank you customers, visitors, patrons.  This year we noticed how many of you chose to buy books from us, or gifts, and to support our always tenuous existence.  Everyone who worked through the holiday season was touched in some way by the decisions you made to support us.   Truly, we felt the love!

We are hoping that your generosity will help us make it through those lean days when there's no latte and not a puppy dog tail to be had next door.

Thanks again, chi miigwech 

We wouldn't be here without you.

Louise