Wow. Land, Sarah and I just returned from the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance show in Greenville, SC. We had a blast. The support from the bookselling and the publishing communities has been just so positive; what a wonderful world of people we're involved in. Everyone's been offering advice "create a budget, then burn it" and support "let me know when you're ready to put books on the shelf and I'll fly in and help". Now we just have to choose WHICH books to bring in for opening day... that's A LOT of homework.

The construction has been flying, I wish I had a stop-action camera in the store because walls seem to materialize and disappear within minutes... soon we'll be painting and putting carpet down!

First Night of Flyleaf Books

I had meant to start this blog post an hour ago, the inaugural blog post of Flyleaf Books, but I had only 50 pages left in the book I was reading. I wasn’t putting off the blogging, I just couldn’t put off the reading. The last 50 pages of John Irving’s latest, Last Night in Twisted River, delayed the pronouncement of one the most exciting things I’ve ever written: Sometime in November, Flyleaf Books will open as Chapel Hill’s newest independent bookstore.

But I’m still thinking of Last Night in Twisted River, of how good it was, how unshakeable the characters. And I want to pick up another book, ‘cause there is so much new good stuff out there, but I’m not ready yet. Irving threw a gut punch and I may need another day to recuperate until I’m ready to pick another book off my pile.

And maybe that’s what this blog is about, to keep you up to date, of course, on this exciting adventure, the people making it happen, the timeline of our opening, but mostly it is about books, no matter they gut punch or just tickle your feet.

--Land