Bookmarks: Ludlum I'm Not

I approach the drop.

I steal a glimpse over my shoulder to make sure I'm not being followed by anyone except my camera crew.

"Little...free...liberry...dot..............org! This is the place."

I write an encoded note so my contact will know this is the right book. Or maybe I sign it.

You know, this Little Free Library's got a pretty good collection.

(all photos by John Sandel)

No need to be sneaky. Leave a book, take a book. It's free. This LFL is at 1614 Las Lunas Street, Pasadena.

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As the end of my daily posting looms I'm excited to have free time, but I don't want too much. I'd love to visit your book club and talk about Camelot & Vine, for example. Or if you're involved with anime cons, invite me! I'd love to come.

I keep a calendar on the main page of my website, so if I'm not here you can always check there.
Next up: tomorrow, Sunday April 28th, 2pm at Barnes and Noble in Old Town Pasadena, a group signing of Literary Pasadena: The Fiction Edition.
The following Sunday, May 5th, I'll be signing and selling books to benefit the Bloom Again Foundation at Lunafest, at Descanso Gardens. It starts at 12:30pm. Click the link to buy your tickets in advance.
Then Litfest! May 11, all day, at Central Park in Pasadena. Look for the Boz Books booth.

More on my website. I hope to see you at one or all of these events.

Bookmarks: Seeing Sierra Madre With Adele

Yesterday, Adele and I met for a cup of coffee at Bean Town in Sierra Madre. Then we took our cameras for a stroll. It's always a pleasure to see Sierra Madre with Adele, because she sees it not only with her camera but with loving eyes and a knowledge of her town's history and architecture.

Plus, Sierra Madre has a Little Free Library. This one's at 288 E. Laurel Avenue, a beautiful street for a stroll.

So I stuck in a copy of Camelot & Vine, and Adele and I took pictures as though it were Halloween, Disneyland, and Christmas morning all in one.

I've mentioned before that the idea of the Little Free Library is to take a book and leave a book. But Adele says the people who own this LFL say it's okay if you don't have a book to leave. Go ahead and take one. The important thing is that you read.

Speakinawhich:

This weekend, the Neighborhood Church (that's the one next to the Gamble House) is having what's billed as its last Book Faire. It's 10am to 3pm, and admission is free. I don't know why it's the last one, but I'll bet you could find some bargains.

Bookmarks: Guerilla Marketing

This Little Free Library at 3405 Florecita Drive in Altadena invites you to sit down and browse. Sweet, isn't it? I exclaimed out loud when I saw this one, and I didn't even have Boz with me to mask the fact that I was talking to myself. The concept of the Little Free Library is "take a book, leave a book." The "Florecita Farm Little Free Library," erected in honor of Elmer E. Nielson, had a bunch of good ones.

This is the only one in Altadena listed with littlefreelibrary.org, though there might be an unofficial Altadena branch. I promise to investigate. I'll also be checking out the Pasadena branches, as I continue my marketing plan.

In other news, you may remember Anita Davison, the British novelist who kicked off the Saturday Bookmarks series with her book, Royalist Rebel. She invited me to post on her blog, so I wrote about the concept of networking as giving, and the strange circumstances that introduced the two of us. And here's Anita's review of Camelot & Vine, on Historical Novel Review.

Little Free Library

 

You're walking along tree-lined North Catalina Avenue in Altadena** on a warm, autumn day. Just north of Atchison Street you pass a sort of pumpkin-on-a-stick with a window in it, and you think, "I need to take a closer look at this thing."

This is not a pumpkin-on-a-stick, it's a tiny library in a Halloween costume. You've discovered one of the three Little Free Libraries in Altadena**. There may be more around here, the list/map is not up-to-date, and there are hundreds more around the United States. The mission of the Little Free Library is to promote literacy, build a sense of community, and build more than 2,510 libraries around the world ("more than Andrew Carnegie," they say, though his are somewhat larger, and I've never seen one dressed up for the holiday).

The little window is deceiving--there are two full rows of books: paperbacks and hardbacks, nonfiction, cookbooks, novels, books on business, books for kids, and more. The idea is simple: just come and take a book. Leave a book, too, if you can. I left four yesterday so if you can't this time, it's on me.

**I had this wrong. This is inside the Pasadena border.