Tag Archives: Neenah Wisconsin

Independent Bookstores- there’s a Meme for That!

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People from many corners of our round world send memes to our bookstore page. We like it; it’s a fun way to communicate ideas quickly, or share humor.

We do have to admit that, once a meme appears, it tends to appear again and again in rapid succession, because, well, great minds think alike. A shared sense of humor is a wonderful thing.

So here are some memes that have popped up more than a dozen times in the past few weeks, plus a few new ones interspersed. Enjoy!

meme library cake The library birthday cake looked to me like the perfect meme. Not something I would ever have the skill to do, but if it appeared on my doorstep, I’d certainly photograph it before diving in. Then another poster pointed out the fatal flaw: there is no cat on this cake. I’m sure that can be corrected, but isn’t it gorgeous?!

Psst – My birthday is in May, if anyone wants to tackle this. :] Just sayin’.

 

 

meme viking cats Tempting, this. A lot of people know I crochet in order to support spays and neuters for feral and foster cats. But each time I think about making one of these, assessing the time it would take the lacerations to heal (lost crochet time) stops me. Our bookstore cats have little truck with cute clothing, sadly.

meme tankOh, but speaking of vehicles! This one has only appeared once, so far. Argentina has a long history of tanks in sad places, so what better statement than making one into a free bookmobile! If you google Argentine Book Tank, you can see photos of the books being passed out – 900 of them! (And thanks, Alma, for posting it!)

 

meme wrong bookstore

 

This is the most-repeated meme for any bookstore owner. Ever. Yep, funny. It was funny. Was……. although please don’t think me a killjoy to admit it made me nervous, too, the joke being based on someone’s name. (Snopes says this doesn’t exist, btw.) Going through American high school with the name Welch, one empathizes. :]

meme mermaid tailAnd yes, our book friends really get us. Because they keep posting crochet patterns! And this one, repeated about a dozen times, led to a great development. I can’t crochet fast enough to make all the things that cat supporters would buy, so a friend of a friend, Kate Smith, is now making mermaid tails on behalf of Foster Kitty City! I’m concentrating on hats and sandals – the other pattern people keep posting. (Keep ’em coming, and thanks!)

Then there are the book memes – which we love to repost on our bookstore page. These sometimes have great graphics, but this week’s favorite is just text: I’m a hybrid. I run on books and tea.

Yep.

So thank you for the funny, sweet, thoughtful memes (and useful patterns) y’all post to our timelines. Keep ’em coming, as and when.

(BTW, we delete memes or stories that have to do with hurt animals. We understand, but it doesn’t help.)

But oh, how we laughed at the one fellow bookstore owner Tina Hoerauf (Paperback Book Exchange in Neenah, WI) sent. After three straight weeks of snow-turned-into-flooding, this little gem appeared on our timeline yesterday. Thanks, Tina!

meme eeyore

The Monday Book: THREE BAGS FULL by Leonie Swann

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sheep I bought Three Bags Full while visiting my friend Tina’s bookstore PAPERBACK EXCHANGE in Neenah, Wisconsin. Tina’s shop is stuffed like ours with mazes of shelves towering to the moon, and I bonked myself on the head with this book while reaching for another. (No harm; it’s a paperback!)

When a book chooses you, you should pay attention.

Because Three Bags Full is a lot of fun. When their shepherd is murdered, the flock must sort out whodunit, but then they have to get the human herd to understand who, and how, and why. The best parts of the book are when the sheep react in very sheeply ways to things around them. They create a memorial field to their shepherd, but then they eat all the really tasty plants out of it, sheepishly. (Heh, sorry couldn’t resist.)

The language in the book has survived translation very well (being originally in German) and there are some lovely literary passages in addition to the sheep psychology:

“The sea looked as if it had been licked clean, blue and clear and smooth, and there were a few woolly little clouds in the sky. Legend said that these clouds were sheep who had simply wandered over the cliff tops one day, special sheep who now went on grazing in the sky and were never shorn. In any case, they were a good sign.”

That kind of thing. I liked the juxtaposition of what the sheep were thinking within their own limitations–their fear of blood smells, their herd instinct, their natural tendencies to forget what they were doing because of food–but I also liked the casual observations of humanity that were so easy to get, seeing ourselves as the sheep might see us:

“Maple thought optimistically that human beings, on their good days, weren’t much dimmer than sheep. Or at least, not much dimmer than dim sheep.”

Three Bags Full is a perfect beach read for someone who wants a fun, light-yet-insightful book that gives you a pleasant pick-me-up, murder notwithstanding. Two hooves up.