Blogs

Celebrate Screen Free Week


Turn off your laptops and Ipads and cozy up next to a reading lamp with a good book. Across the USA people are participating in Screen Free Week (April 29-May 5) by Unplugging and Reading a book, out loud or to yourself. Just read already.



Wednesday Storytime will feature a reading from Doug Unplugged by Dan Yaccarino. Don't miss it at 10 a.m. Soem other great titles for Screen Free Week are Duck & Goose, Goose Needs A Hug by Tad Hills, Everyone Can Learn to Ride a Bicycle by Chris Rashka, and Bluebird by Bob Staake.

Hot Type & Love Stories -- Cool Reads Soon at Off Square Books

Paperback originals have a way of sneaking up on us, so here is fair warning we soon will be hosting two authors of paperback originals -- a great way to meet exciting authors of new books at affordable prices.

On Monday, April 29, debut novelist Rhonda Riley will be here with The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope (Ecco, $15.99). Booksellers here say they are reminded of The Time Traveler's Wife and The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, and Lauren Groff makes comparisons to Alice Munro and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, saying the novel is "the most resonant and touching love story I've read in a very long time."

Then on Thursday, May 2, Ben Greenman will read from The Slippage (Harper Perennial, $14.99), a romantic novel about mid-life marriage that Karen Russell calls "relentlessly funny." Greenman is an editor at The New Yorker and has written three story collections and two previous novels, Superworse and Please Step Back.   
Enter these two dates in your calendar for promising events.

2nd Annual World Book Night

In partnership with the Lafayette County Literacy Council, Square Books celebrated the second annual U.S. World Book Night on Tuesday. World Book Night provides an opportunity to give books to those who have limited access or exposure to literature.  Over 25 local volunteers went out into the community to share the experience of reading with others by giving away approximately 600 books. Some of the recipients were the Boys and Girls Club of Batesville, Oxford’s More Than a Meal program, members of the Oxford-Lafayette and Pontotoc libraries, residents of Hermitage and Azalea Gardens, women at the Lafayette County Detention Center, and high school students in Oxford, Como, and Marks, MS.


A reception was held at Off Square Books on Friday for the volunteers to meet one another and share their plans for giving away their books. A big thank you to everyone who participated and to all the authors who waived royalties as well as the many companies who paid for printing costs to make World Book Night a success. We look forward to an even bigger WBN next year!  
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Vote Now for the Children's and Teen Choice Book Awards


Through Thursday, May 9, 2013, kids & teens can vote for their favorite author, illustrator, and book of the year at Square Books, Jr. or online at bookweekonline.com.

Last year, almost 1,000,000 votes were cast by young readers! Visit bookweekonline.com to see the finalists, and encourage kids & teens to vote for their favorites now through May 9!

Square Books -- Publishers Weekly's 2013 Bookstore of the Year



Because Square Books has excellent booksellers and a community -- Oxford, Ole Miss, and friends from afar alike -- that has loyally supported us since 1979, we are very proud to have been announced (please click here for article) as Publishers Weekly's 2013 Bookseller of the Year. We will continue to work hard to present the most interesting and entertaining books, and the authors who write them, to you, and strive to give you the great service that we believe you deserve.

We also exist in the ecosystem of bookselling -- independent bookstores throughout the United States that endeavor to serve their respective communities just as we do in Oxford.   Although we are all competitors, the fact is that our collective breadth and diversity and our network with publishers, writers, and, most of all, our customers, serve to support the larger culture of publishing and writing that is most beneficial to readers. This is not done with one click.

Thank you, loyal customers; thank you, Square Books staff; thank you to our partners in publishing; thank you to the many splendid writers who work tirelessly to produce great reading; and thank you to our brothers and sisters in bookselling -- this award is for all of you. RH

Ron Chernow signs WASHINGTON: A LIFE

Pulitzer and National Book Award winner to speak at Nutt Auditorium
Thursday April 4 with Square Books Reception Wednesday April 3


Distinguished biographer and historian Ron Chernow will give a lecture on Thursday, April 4, at Nutt Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. Chernow is the author of Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller; National Book Award winner The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance; Alexander Hamilton; and Pulitzer Prize winner Washington: A Life; and The Death of the Banker: The Decline and Fall of the Great Financial Dynasties and the Triumph of the Small Investor. The New York Times has called Chernow  "as elegant an architect of monumental histories as we've seen in decades."

Prior to the Thursday lecture, there will be a reception and book-signing at Square Books on Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. Copies of Mr. Chernow's books will be available, and people who already have books by him are welcome to bring those to be signed as well. Please join us in welcoming to Oxford one of the great historians and writers of our time.

Please click here for University details

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