Did you participate in Independent Bookstore Day (IBD) this year? Held on April 30, 2016 across the United States it was a call to booklovers to unite and visit their local (or not so local!) indie bookstores for a variety of bookish fun.

My particular area didn’t have any stores closer then 40 minutes away, so I took to the road to visit a couple stores I haven’t been to before. I’ve broken this up into two parts because the second store had an event I wanted to discuss as well.

First this is what I was sporting:

BEA attendees might recognize that shirt – it was one of the Sourcebook giveaway shirts from a couple years ago. The bag was a birthday gift from a few years ago from my friend Jia and the pins…well. Who doesn’t love pin collecting?

Address: 44 South Main Street, New Hope, PA 18938
Website: http://www.farleysbookshop.com/
Store Information: Situated on the main street of the historic Delaware Riverfront town of New Hope, Pennsylvania, Farley’s Bookshop and its knowledgeable, experienced staff have endeavored to satisfy the literary tastes of the area inhabitants for over forty years. Whether you are Bucks County born-and-bred or just stopping by to enjoy the crisp river air and delightful scenery, you will be pleasantly surprised to find the largest and most diverse collection of books-in-print in Bucks County. Farley’s may have competition, but it has few peers. We encourage you to browse our website, but please remember that getting acquainted with our online persona is no substitute for exploring the narrow passageways and teeming shelves of our storefront and discovering that perfect book nestled amongst so many others.

The first place that we (Melissa, Aeryn and me) went to was Farley’s in New Hope. New Hope being basically the artsy version of Princeton meant while I was excited to go (new bookstore!) I didn’t hold out hope that I’d find the couple of items I was looking for of the IBD exclusives (namely the Brandon Sanderson companion from TOR and the bookstore purse), but I was hoping to find some interesting books.

To my delight both occurred!

One of my favorite fairy tales is “The Wild Swans” – there’s many different variations on the story (sometimes the brothers become ravens or crows, sometimes there are only three or eleven), but Juliet Marillier’s beautiful historical fantasy novel Daughter of the Forest is based around this fairy tale. This book looks gorgeous and I’ve never seen it before (published by Frances Lincoln Children’s Books), so I picked it up. Morris has also done a book East of the Sun, West of the Moon which is another favorite fairy tale of mine.

I’ve wanted this book ever since I first heard about it at BEA three or four years ago. The Little House books (in particular Little House in Big Woods) had a special place in my heart (you can read a little bit about that in this old blog post), as did the show when I was growing up. I’ve read most biographies of Laura Ingalls Wilder (and her daughter) by this point, but this looks like it will blow them out of the water.

Mel found these while looking for books for Aeryn – considering Northanger Abbey is my favorite Austen novel and Macbeth is my favorite Shakespeare play I couldn’t say no. They’re simplistic–very short, the satire mostly taken out of Northanger Abbey and the more complex motivations out of Macbeth, but I think a child (these are meant for the 7-12 crowd) may find them appealing. Possibly also interest them in the longer works.

Do you hear angels singing from on high? Cause I do XD One of my main purposes for re-arranging my adult responsibilities (we had a contractor coming to the house I had to be home for, but he gave no definitive time) so I could take part in IBD was so I could obtain a copy of this gem. Its short (30ish pages), but gives a good primer for the first two books. It is by no means a replacement for checking out the 17th Shard (the best fan-run official website for all of Sanderson’s works), but if you need a quick reference guide on the run this is your best bet.

Farley’s overall had a very nice selection of books that are well-known and from smaller publishing houses. They especially had a very nice kid’s section (they’re scifi/fantasy was quite a bit smaller not actually sure if they had a romance section), though I found searching through the stacks a bit difficult at times and while they had newer books, they didn’t seem to have the newest books.

Prices were cover price (so it was a little sticker shock for me), but I found some books that I definitely was pleased by.  Melissa meanwhile picked up the Rick & Morty volume 1 graphic novel for her husband (he loves Rick & Morty)!

Tomorrow I’ll talk about the other bookstore I was able to visit (Doylestown Bookshop) wherein a presentation was given by the shop’s Random House Children’s rep Bobbie!