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  

Dear Bookish Ones,

Why would our inoffensive little bookstore, loving as we do to please our friends and customers, suddenly decide to show a move that will break your heart?   

H2Oil, the movie that we will be screening on October 27 and 28, at next door Kenwood Cafe, is honestly so upsetting that it is hard not to cry when you watch the trailer.  Why would we ask you to see such a film? Why would we become so compelled by this particular issue, when all we've ever done before is recommend books?

Why so crucial, why this urgency? Simple. There is nothing more important -- right now, right here.

The Tar Sands operation in Canada produces three to four times more carbon that regular oil extraction. Bill McKibben has called it a carbon bomb. Climatologists have termed the operation "game over" for our climate. The boreal forest is basically scraped away in this method of strip-oil-mining -- removing the lungs of the earth. As you watch the movie, you will understand the tragic impact of this project on Native people and communities. Billions of gallons of fresh water are used to steam the tar out of the sand, and the Keystone XL pipeline, a huge plan enlarging drastically on pipelines already built, could spill into our largest fossil water aquifer, which lies beneath South Dakota. Even now, living where we do, we are using 80% Tar Sands oil.

Wildly profitable oil companies don't want you to know this: the future belongs to those countries who conserve their fresh water and develop clean energies.    

At this moment, President Obama could just say no. He could stand up for our future -- stand up to big oil. He could keep his promise to heal the planet and reduce our dependence on oil in favor of clean energy. Obama could stop the Keystone XL pipeline, and send a powerful message to the world. He is expected to make his decision in mere weeks.

That is why it is so important to show H2Oil, to see this film, to tell your friends, and to pull up Bill McKibben's website 350.org and find out what is happening, and why, on November 6 -- it will be a historical day for the climate.

I don't have any books to talk about tonight. Friends, our existence is a narrow miracle. Can it really be that we'll make earth, this green joy, into a place where we cannot survive?

Louise

H2Oil Trailer

Bill McKibben and 350.org
Encircle the White House and Stop the Tar Sands on November 6!

Connect with people working on this issue:

Indigenous Environmental Network
Website: www.ienearth.org
Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Indigenous-Environmental-Network/186264980641
Twitter: twitter.com/IENearth

Tar Sands Action (National)
Website: tarsandsaction.org
Facebook: facebook.com/tarsandsaction
Twitter: twitter.com/tarsandsaction

Tar Sands Action (Minnesota)
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Twin-Cities-Tar-Sands-Action/275481812467416

350.org (National)
Website: 350.org
Facebook: facebook.com/350.org
Twitter: twitter.com/350

MN350 (Minnesota)
Website: MN350.org
Facebook: facebook.com/MN350
Twitter: twitter.com/MN_350