YOUNG FRIEND OF THE BOOKSTORE PAYS IT FORWARD

Chatham, New York, June, 2014  
When I was leaving for boarding school last year, I started thinking about all the places in my hometown that meant a lot to me. It occurred to me that the Chatham Bookstore is in part where I grew up. I remember sitting on the stairs in the back room, reading for hours. Everyone there has always been very kind to me. I wanted to give something back. Once on vacation with my Dad, a fellow diner treated us to a pizza at a restaurant. We didn't know he had done it until we went to pay. It was a spontaneous gesture that inspired me. I couldn't stop thinking about it and wanted to do that for someone else. 
That's the thing about good will, it's contagious. So I got the idea to start a "Pay It Forward" project at Nicole's bookshop. I started buying books and afterward, Nicole and Wendy would tell me how excited people were to receive their book. It felt great! Some people in turn bought a book for someone else, others didn't. It didn't much matter. Everyone liked the idea just as I had when I was treated to a pizza. 
And that's how this project got started. I hope that you will keep the tradition going. Think about paying it forward and passing on the good will! 
Cheers, 
Jesse Cassuto
 


We'd like to thank Jesse and all of you for helping to make this bricks and mortar store a place of joy and thoughtful interchange in our community. May "whatever is stored in [the] heart" be used now:

The Summer-Camp Bus Pulls Away from the Curb    


Whatever he needs, he has or doesn't
have by now.
Whatever the world is going to do to him
it has started to do. With a pencil and two
Hardy Boys and a peanut butter sandwich and
grapes he is on his way, there is nothing
more we can do for him. Whatever is
stored in his heart, he can use, now.
Whatever he has laid up in his mind
he can call on. What he does not have
he can lack. The bus gets smaller and smaller, as one
folds a flag at the end of a ceremony,
onto itself, and onto itself, until
only a heavy wedge remains.
Whatever his exuberant soul
can do for him, it is doing right now.
Whatever his arrogance can do
it is doing to him. Everything
that's been done to him, he will now do.
Everything that's been placed in him
will come out, now, the contents of a trunk
unpacked and lined up on a bunk in the underpine
     light. 
                   

                    - Sharon Olds, from
Blood, Tin, Straw, Random House (c)1999                

___________________________________


We have one special event in August and more in the works for September and the autumn.

Best wishes!

Nicole, Thomas, Wendy, Patti, Gloria and Dianne 


                       ____________________
 
 
Live at the Chatham Bookstore 
 
Saturday, August 9, 5-7 pm 
Lucy Frank
Two Girls Staring at the Ceiling 

Lucy Frank was the winner of the PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship for this novel-in-verse which goes on sale August 5th. The book is intended for young adult readers; because of the subject matter, it speaks to adults as well. The story follows the unfolding friendship of two very different girls who share a hospital room and an illness - Crohn's disease. According to Kirkus Review, "Frank crafts an unflinching look at illness. Riveting, humanizing and real."
Two teens from Carol Rusoff's Hudson Teen Theatre Project will read selections from the book.  A conversation with Lucy Frank and Thomas Chulak from the bookstore and Q&A will follow the reading.

27 Main Street, Chatham,
New York. Free. Refreshments will be served.
For more information, call 518-392-3005. 
 
 

Let us know if you can't come to the event, but would like a signed copy of a book. You may email or call us at 518.392.3005 and we'll put one aside for you. 

  

  

                           ________________________________

 

 

Exhibit through August

Street Paintings Mostly from Melbourne: 
photographs by WENDY HOLMES NOYES  
 

 CLOSED LABOR DAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2014

OPEN TILL 7 ON FRIDAYS
Monday-Saturday, 9:30-5
     Friday till 7; Sunday, 12-3