Minnesota Library Association Of Friends

YOU Choose The Next Book I Read and Then You Win That Book!

Published on October 11, 2015 by Sheila (Book Journey)41 Comments

choose

Hey everyone! Happy Sunday! If you have been around here lately you know that:

There has not been a lot of action (I don’t like that)
Our friends of the library just had their Fall booksale! (I LOVE that!)

What I have done in past years is I post my book sale haul…. (do not judge me… I am a book-a-holic who justifies book purchases by believing there are worse things I can do with my time and money…. like being a crack dealer or a hit man) See? That said, book buying…. not so bad AND….

our book sales books are 50 cents each.

I know right????

Ok, so I am about to post my haul and you tell me in the comments which book you would love to read. I will choose a winner by submitting comments into random.org. If you win and it is a book I already read, I will send it to you right away. If it is a book I have not read, I will read it next opportunity I have and then send it to you. This is a fun way to have a giveaway and at the same time give me a gentle push to read the books I have purchased.

Please note the following pictures are my entire book sale haul. Below each pic I will list titles (if any) that are not included in the giveaway, ones I wish to keep for my own collection. I will choose a winner this coming Thursday morning and post in the Morning Meandering. Please check back to see if you are a winner (I will also email the winner).

Ready?

Fun Fact – both of the Elizabeth Gilbert books are signed by Elizabeth to her grandmother

Keeping: Scarlett and the Angels and Demons copy (which is a cool large book with illustrations)

Keeping: Wizard of Oz and 100 Banned Books

There they are! Have fun choosing 🙂 To enter please leave in the comments the title of the book you would love to win and why.

Saturday Snapshot: Wine and Words 2015

Published on August 22, 2015 by Sheila (Book Journey)36 Comments

Wine and Words, Minnesota, Brainerd, Grand View Lodge, Sheila DeChantal, Peter Geye, Lorna Landvik, William Kent Krueger, rica Spindler, Nadia Hashimi, Kathleen McCleary, Book Journey — Left: Gail (Co-Chair), Me (Co-Chair), Jill (Team Member), Lorna Landvik (Author/MC), Peter Geye (Author), Kathleen McCleary (Author), William Kent Krueger (Author), Nadia Hashimi (Author), Erica Spindler (Author), Sue (Team Member), Doreen (Team Member), Brenda (Team Member)

This weeks Saturday Snapshot is going to be about Wine and Words, the literacy event that our Friends of the Brainerd Public Library sponsor each year. This is year three and we had 320 guests at our sold out event.

As you can imagine, this was not the easiest of years for me to push through this event. I thankfully had secured our authors in February of this year and Nadia Hashimi joined us in late March (only a week before my life fell apart). The website and the ticket sales were already in place by then so the team was able to move on with the planning without me until I was able to assist again in June.

We were at a larger venue (Grand View Lodge) that allowed us to accommodate 120 more guests than last year. It has been so exciting to watch this event grow from a “do you think this will work in Brainerd?” to a “holy smokes we need a larger venue!”

We had a great team of people willing to work on the silent auction, ticket sales, handing out brochures, and this year we even worked on sponsorship’s! As you can see in the above picture, we had an excellent author line up – a good mix of genres and the authors were so well spoken – talking about their writing, their books, and their relationship to libraries. Seriously.. I was a bit giddy.

Here are a few of the many many pictures taken of our event this year:

One of our Team Members, Sherri talking with William Kent Krueger about his book

Part of the book sale team... Friends Members: Rhonda and Amy — Part of the book sale team… Friends Members: Rhonda and Amy

The guy who puts the "wine" in Wine and Words - our local Liquor man, Mark from Cash Wise Liquor — The guy who puts the “wine” in Wine and Words – our local Liquor man, Mark from Cash Wise Liquor

Its always fun to see people get excited about books!

Ahhh… what the heck, here is what the event really looked like:

We gave away gift cards and a Kindle Fire. Justin’s friends also purchased a table in his name and attended, just as he would have – and just as he had, the last two years. ♥ There are no words for what that means to me…

As far as how we did… I am finishing up the last bit of calculating today so I can give our team an accurate look at the total win for Friends of the Brainerd Public Library… and trust me on this…

it was a win. 🙂

Check out other Saturday Snapshots here and see what awesome people are taking pictures of around the world.

Morning Meanderings… A Day Of Library Friends

Published on February 3, 2015 by Sheila (Book Journey)15 Comments

Good morning! Wow. *yawn* *stretch*

What a day.

Yesterday I went to my first Minnesota Library Association of Friends meeting in St Paul Minnesota. That involved me being ready and out of the house by 7 am and at the meeting shiny and ready to go by 10 am.

The Association supports the friends groups of Minnesota. By being a part of this board I am ale to have a voice in how we support our friends groups. I really am excited to be a part of it.

Then….

2:10 pm and I am out the door and heading for home. In the house by 4:30 pm, time to organize my notes, heat my sandwiches and out the door again for our Annual Friends Meeting. I was very excited with the turn out. We had a wonderful year. Our Spring book sale was a record-breaking sale. This year we plan on it being another awesome sale. We are actually for the first time ever moving the sale off site into a building a friend of mine owns for more space. I am super excited about the sale!

We will have our first children’s sale this year, our third Wine and Words… so much going on! 🙂

I feel energized and have much to do today to update our website, continue my author search for Wine and Words, and work on a few things for Camp Benedict too.

Yesterday I finished up two audio books (with the drive time), Girl On The Train and Afterworlds.

and as long as I am rambling here, three books that I am planning to read have release dates today. Keep an eye out for: