Once I wrote concerning the closing of a Barnes & Noble bookstore in San Jose, I didn’t understand what number of different folks had been feeling a way of loss. However I heard from a number of readers who had been very unhappy to see the shop shut its doorways Jan. 19.
“I can’t imagine how to exist without my Almaden Barnes & Noble store,” Barbara Carmichael wrote. “True book lovers know you don’t just order a title — you need to pick it up, turn it over, read a page or two and then decide. I’m grieving a huge loss here.”
Mary Stradner wrote a letter to the company, expressing her disappointment in shedding the one massive, absolutely stocked bookstore in South San Jose. “It is sad to see yet another bookstore closure, especially one in such an accessible location,” she stated in an e-mail to me. “I did not get a very hopeful answer regarding a new location.”
Margaret Hengel, who serves with me on the Silicon Valley Reads group advisory board, stated the shop was considered one of her treasures, too. “I went in yesterday and left with tears running down my face.”
Then the opposite shoe dropped when Books Inc. introduced its chapter just a few days later. (It’s the “we’re trying to survive” form of chapter a minimum of, although the Berkeley retailer will probably be closing.) Fortuitously, as Carol Zink jogged my memory, there are nonetheless Books Inc. areas in Campbell, Mountain View and Palo Alto.
And whereas I listed among the brick-and-mortar bookstores valley residents can nonetheless patronize, I didn’t get all of them. Joyce Gross jogged my memory a few native treasure in Saratoga: Guide Go Spherical, which has been round since 1983 and sells books, data, CDs and DVDs. Even higher, the volunteer-run nonprofit retailer on Oak Road helps the Saratoga Library (which is an efficient reminder to patronize these, too).
And bookstores aren’t all created equal, as Bruce Tritch identified. His SpaceCat comedian guide retailer shared a wall with the Barnes & Noble at Westgate Mall till the massive retailer’s company fits made it clear they didn’t like having a “rival” as a neighbor. “Maybe, in the long run, the lack of a huge corporate entity will be good for small business bookstores in San Jose,” Tritch stated.
We will all hope that’s true.
ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL: The race is on to change into the brand new consultant for San Jose’s District 3 on the town council, which covers downtown and areas round it, with seven candidates qualifying for the April 8 election.
With barely greater than two months till then, attending to know the candidates is extra vital than ever, which is why three massive San Jose organizations — the Chamber of Commerce, the San Jose Downtown Affiliation and the Rotary Membership of San Jose — have teamed as much as maintain a candidate discussion board Feb. 12.
Six of the candidates — Gabby Chavez-Lopez, Adam Duran, Phil Dolan, Matthew Quevedo, Irene Smith and Anthony Tordillos — are anticipated to take part within the discussion board, which begins at 4:30 p.m. on the Rotary Summit Middle on the seventh flooring of the Fourth Road Parking Storage downtown. You possibly can register to attend at www.sjdowntown.com/d3.
GOOD DEED DEPT.: Good Samaritan Hospital’s luck became an awesome donation for West Valley Neighborhood Companies, which obtained a $10,000 donation from the medical middle to help its cellular meals pantry, Park-It Market. Good Samaritan Hospital CEO Patrick Rohan stated the San Jose hospital was honored to assist with the Cupertino-based company’s mission of guaranteeing nobody in the neighborhood goes hungry.
So, how did this generosity come about? Good Samaritan completed first in HCA Healthcare’s annual Canned Meals Drive Sculpture Competitors for the second yr within the row, which allow them to direct $10,000 to an area nonprofit. Their profitable entry, the Good Sam Can Van, was impressed by the Park-It Market and was created with greater than 1,500 cans of meals that additionally will probably be donated.
WVCS Government Director Sujatha Venkatraman stated the donation will make an enormous distinction for households dealing with meals insecurity. “It helps us bring fresh, healthy food directly to those who need it most, eliminating barriers and strengthening our community,” she stated.
MUSIC TO OUR EARS: The Mission Chamber Orchestra will carry out Feb. 2 on the Italian American Heritage Basis’s cultural middle on North Fourth Road in San Jose. And you may guess this system, “Sounds of the Motherland,” will lean extra Italian than the Tower of Pisa. The composers featured embody Gioachino Rossini, Alessandro Marchello and Jeremy Cavaterra — together with one identify that may get most of you buzzing immediately, Vince Guaraldi.
Longtime IAHF member Ken Borelli notes that not solely was Guaraldi an Italian American, he was a local of San Francisco’s North Seaside neighborhood and this yr is the sixtieth anniversary of what most likely are his best-known items, made well-known in “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” Sadly, the nice jazz pianist died approach too younger, struggling a deadly coronary heart assault at age 47 in 1976 after taking part in a set at Butterfield’s, a nightclub in Menlo Park.
Tickets to the three:30 p.m. live performance can be found at www.missionchamber.org.
AUTHOR! AUTHOR!: Since we began with books, let’s wrap up that approach, too, with the Women of Charity’s “Meet the Author” occasion on Feb. 3. The featured author is Sam Carlino, the proprietor of Sam’s Bar-B-Que on Bascom Avenue, who wrote about his grandfather’s notorious historical past with organized crime in “Colorado’s Carlino Brothers: A Bootlegging Empire.” I used to be fortunate sufficient to listen to these tales from Sam just a few years in the past when he was engaged on the guide, and it’s a tremendous, well-told story.
The 9:30 a.m. occasion is at St. Thomas of Canterbury Church, 1522 McCoy Ave. in San Jose, and tickets are $40 every (with proceeds going to scholarships for middle-schoolers attending Sacred Coronary heart Nativity and Our Woman of Grace colleges). Go to www.ladiesofcharitysanjose.org for extra info.
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