Apologies to any visitors planning to stop in at The Blue Bird this coming weekend (2nd and 3rd May). The shop will be closed as we are taking our books on a road trip to The Clunes Booktown Festival in Victoria (near Ballarat). We are building more and more on the Blue Bird Bookshop and felt that Clunes was a great opportunity to get our name out there in the wider world.
A fella spotted me reading during a quiet moment in the cafe the other day. "You have time to read?" he asked in a scolding tone. "I make time because reading is very important'" was my reply. And I meant it. For a year while we slogged away trying to start a new business and find our niche, I was so tired that I lost the desire to read. I would pick up one of our books every once in a while and read a few pages but I didn't get into any of them and I was worried that I had lost that immeasurably important habit of reading. And it is extremely important. Reading not only broadens your world view and fills the soul with experience but just the simple act of digesting words on a page keeps your brain active and challenged. If you let the skill slip, you risk losing it to some degree. Mental activity is as important to our health and well being as physical activity so I was being very slack about looking after myself. I work very hard, harder than most people probably see and I am very tired indeed. We all need a little escape to keep us on the straight and narrow.
At a time when exhaustion and depression was getting me down I picked up Tony Birch's book "Blood". It is not an upliftingly light story but a tale of hardship, personal battles and family bonds. His writing easily allowed me to put myself into the place of the characters even though I have fortunately never been through the desperation they experienced. Nevertheless, I could see how easy it would be to sink to such depths and I knew people who had come close so I I was completely engrossed in the characters and the story. It was a real page turner and I thank Tony for his amazing ability to create such wonderful writing. I have loved every one of his books so far and now eagerly await his next. And most of all I am grateful that he propelled me back into reading is such a dramatic way. Since then I have easily slipped into every book I have picked up and have remembered how truly important it is to MAKE TIME in our ridiculously busy lives to read. And so it is without shame or need for excuse that I was able to reply to my critical customer that I, just as much as any other person, am entitled to incorporate reading into my day. It is for the benefit of the well being of the world.
At a time when exhaustion and depression was getting me down I picked up Tony Birch's book "Blood". It is not an upliftingly light story but a tale of hardship, personal battles and family bonds. His writing easily allowed me to put myself into the place of the characters even though I have fortunately never been through the desperation they experienced. Nevertheless, I could see how easy it would be to sink to such depths and I knew people who had come close so I I was completely engrossed in the characters and the story. It was a real page turner and I thank Tony for his amazing ability to create such wonderful writing. I have loved every one of his books so far and now eagerly await his next. And most of all I am grateful that he propelled me back into reading is such a dramatic way. Since then I have easily slipped into every book I have picked up and have remembered how truly important it is to MAKE TIME in our ridiculously busy lives to read. And so it is without shame or need for excuse that I was able to reply to my critical customer that I, just as much as any other person, am entitled to incorporate reading into my day. It is for the benefit of the well being of the world.
But that is beside the point. It also made me realise that the cafe side of our business had been allowed to take too much time priority over the bookshop. We are working on that balance as our original dream of running a quality second-hand bookshop with coffee and some light meals seemed to be fading from our business plan. Plans change and evolve as time moves and shapes them but it is important to revisit those original dreams to see if they are still valid and still achievable. And we believe that they are. There is always room for a bookshop with a quality collection and now, more than ever, it is important for the world to read and broaden horizons.
So we are spending the weekend in Clunes among other book traders and readers and it will be a fantastic opportunity for us to connect with like-minded people who love books and reading. Nourish the mind and soul with a good book today and make the world a better place.
