Features

Sara: Today we’re going to be talking about a variety of things, all pertaining to getting yourself organized for back to school, and for the fall. We’ve got several events coming up, we’ve got some new items in the store, and we are ready!

First up, I want to talk about the new things we have in the store that I’m really excited about. We’ve been doing a lot of reorganization, and one of the most beautiful displays is a new pen bar that’s gone up along the wall you see when you first walk into the store. Ülrika, tell us more!

Today I have the honor of sitting down, laptop to laptop, with debut author Kim Turrisi, whose YA novel JUST A NORMAL TUESDAY (KCP Loft, an imprint of Kids Can Press, 2017) is based on the suicide of her sister when Kim was just fifteen. JUST A NORMAL TUESDAY is sensitively written and also uplifting, despite its very serious subject matter.

Ending one of our summer programs at Brazos always leaves me with a bittersweet feeling. For the past few years, we have dedicated the entirety of summer to one author/artist—Marcel Proust in 2014, William Shakespeare in 2015, Stanley Kubrick in 2016—and we have such fun planning these programs that we can hardly believe summer will end. Happily, I was able to end our 2017 program—Summer of Jane Austen—in one of my favorite Houston spots, surrounded by friends.

It is about that time when we begin to look ahead to the next year! We start looking at the calendars and planners that we want to use (and are hoping that we actually will use). Each year I would look at planners and try to decide which planners I wanted for the new year, and how I was going to plan out that particular year. Each year I had such high hopes... And each year I my poor planner would end up in my night table drawer.

That changed last year when a friend introduced me to the Day Designer.

When I first moved to Texas, I had a lot of assumptions. As a born-and-bred New Englander, it was hard for me to understand that lots of things drive people to Texas. It’s not just the cliché reasons, tied to notions of independence, business, modern-day cowboys. It’s also the state’s thriving arts scene. The New Englander in me sniffed at the notion that Texas could be progressive. As soon as I spent some time here, though, I learned my mistake.

This summer, Brazos Bookstore is hosting a Cormac McCarthy-themed Book Club. We sat down as a staff to discuss the highs and lows (and more lows, and more lows) of Cormac McCarthy's work. 

Mark: Alright, Cormac McCarthy. An American icon. Today we’re talking about our book group this summer: we’ll be reading three different books, a variety of books that trace the career of Cormac McCarthy, one of America’s best living contemporary writers.

Keaton: Consummate prose stylist.

*laughs*

Sara: Hi! This is Sara, and I’m with Ülrika and Kevin chatting about Bullet Journaling today! We’ve got a workshop coming up on the 20th at 6:30pm, so in preparation for that I want to get everyone in the #BuJo mood. Let’s start simple: what is bullet journaling?

Hard to think that half the year has gone by already. But I know it has, because, as Brazos Bookstore buyer, I'm already thinking about Christmas. Let's not get ahead of ourselves just yet, though! There have already been so many amazing books released in 2017. And I'm bound to leave many deserving titles off this list, but these are the ten titles--in chronological order--that have affected me the most this year. There is so much more to look forward to, but, if you've missed any of these, I recommend you remedy that oversight immediately.

The arrival of a new Lauren Strasnick book is always cause for celebration! For me, there is just something uniquely brilliant about her spare prose, about her willingness to go to darker places and to tell relationship stories that don’t always have happy endings. Not that I’m opposed to happy endings or anything, but I do appreciate when an author writes the ending the story needs, even if it might not be the one readers are rooting for.

For anyone who cooks, meal plans or throws dinner parties you begin to realize that there’s not always a lot of options to help you prepare. I started bullet journaling my meal plans because I couldn’t find anything that fit my needs, which resulted in me falling into a bullet journal rabbit hole. I became so excited when both Elūm and Ruth and Ramona launched their Meal Planners and Girl of Work launched their Recipe Editor.