One of Harrisburg's Best Kept Secrets!

If you are a bibliophile living in Central Pennsylvania and have not heard of the Midtown Scholar Bookstore & their Famous Reading Cafe  you are going to want to sit down for this.

The Midtown Scholar Bookstore is part warehouse (stocking over one million academic & general interest books) which you can browse & order from online. (Note: if you are local you can request to pick up your purchases at the retail store thus avoiding shipping fees.)

The retail store (all six floors of it!) houses over 100,000 used & rare books, a great coffee shop & art gallery, plus is host to regular contemporary folk concerts & other interesting programs.Check out the website for info on book groups, readings & signings, writing groups & more!

Be sure to sign up for their mailing list or keep track of Midtown Scholar on Facebook & Twitter.

The store is located at 1302 N. Third Street across from the Broad Street Market in what was once a 1920's theater.

In fact, Miss Bun spent a lovely Saturday afternoon lunching at the market and then browsing at the book store where she found all kinds of delightful surprises on the very well organized shelves!

Midtown Scholar has been voted the region's "Best Independent Bookstore" for seven years. When  you visit you will know why!

Enjoy!

It's National Poetry Month!

A great way to celebrate is to go to POETS.org (from the Academy of American Poets) and sign up for their Poem-A-Day emails. Be sure to check out the rest of their site where you can catch up on new books, listen to daily historic recordings (how cool is that?), get ready for Poem In Your Pocket Day and more!

If you register (it's free) you can create your own poetry notebook, participate in discussions, and subscribe to newsletters.

They also have a thing called Poetcasts which is the official podcast (like an online radio show) of the Academy of American Poets. Once you have subscribed they will download and you can listen at your leisure.

So Peeps, go forth and make some poetry on this 1st of April 2010!

The National Book Festival Lives On! Wahoo!!!

We just got word that the National Book Festival which was initiated by former First Lady Laura Bush will continue with President Barack & First Lady Michelle Obama as Honorary Chairs!

If you love books and authors be sure to mark your calendars for September 26th, 2009 and find a way to get to D.C. (If you are not too far away many organizations run bus trips.)

If getting there just isn't possible you can still catch webcasts of your favorite authors of the day on the website: National Book Festival.

As a matter of fact you can check out all the podcasts & webcasts of speakers all the way back to the first Book Festival in 2001. There is always an impressive array of authors across categories including Children; Home & Family; Poetry; Fiction & Mystery; Teens & Children; History & Biography; & Special Guests.

Scope it out!

In Honor Of.....

Frogwatch USA (see post below), amphibians everywhere & especially the frogs in my pond I give you a favorite poem by David Wagoner:

The Poets Agree to be Quiet by the Swamp

They hold their hands over their mouths
And stare at the stretch of water.
What can be said has been said before:
Strokes of light like herons' legs in the cattails,
Mud underneath, frogs lying even deeper.
Therefore, the poets may keep quiet.
But the corners of their mouths grin past their hands.
They stick their elbows out into the evening,
Stoop, and begin the ancient croaking.

-- David Wagoner

(I have long suspected that poets are born with webbing between their toes! This confirms it!)

Conducting the Road Not Taken

If you have never heard Frostiana: Seven Country Songs by Randall Thompson check out the selection below. If you like choral music (Miss Bun does, of course!) you should like this.
(Sorry for the link instead of the actual video but YouTube was being uncooperative.)

The Road Not Taken (click to see the video which features Jessica Israels' graduate choral conducting recital....Very well done!)

See the Happy Birthday to Robert Frost below.

by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Happy Birthday To ...

Robert Frost who was born on this day in 1874. While he is mainly considered by most to be a rural New England poet, his work often addresses dark and universal themes.


Here are some other sites with good info:

The Friends of Robert Frost
(be sure to scroll to the bottom of the main page)

The Robert Frost Farm