Upcoming Events @ Aaron's Books

FREE IN FEBRUARY
Feb 2-16
All books in the Clearance Section are FREE!
Bring your own Box or Bag!

Lincoln Historian Ronald WhiteSponsored by the Lancaster Literary Guild
Monday, Feb. 9, 7:30pm
First Presbyterian Church
140 E Orange Street, Lancaster
Ronald White, a highly-praised Lincoln scholar, will be visiting Lancaster in time to celebrate Abraham Lincoln's Bicentennial in February of 2009. White has examined Lincoln's speeches and writings in his biographies entitled Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural and The Eloquent President. Lincoln's Greatest Speech hit the best-seller list of the Washington Post and was named a New York Times Notable Book of 2002. The Eloquent President was on the best-seller list of the Los Angeles Times and was listed in the History Book Club and the Book-of-the-Month Club.

Lovin' Lititz Every 2nd
Friday, Feb. 13
Stores on Broad & Main Streets open until 9pm.
Aaron's Books will host the Society for Creative Anachronism, who will delight shoppers with tales and traditions of romance from the Middle Ages and Rennaisance Europe.

Lancaster Local Stock Exchange Discussion
Thursday, Feb. 19, 7pm
The Susquehanna Sustainable Business Network (ssbn) is sponsoring a discussions entitled Financial Infrastructure of Sustainable Economies: Restoring America's Regional Stock Exchanges with Franklin & Marshall Professor W. Trexler Proffitt, Jr., regarding the Lancaster Local Exchange (LanX) at Aaron's Books on Thursday February 19, at 7pm. The stock exchange was proposed by Mr. Proffitt in October and was recently honored in The New York Times Magazine's "Year in Ideas" issue. The Lancaster Sustainable Stock Exchange would cover Lancaster, York, Berks, Dauphin, Lebanon, Cumberland and Perry counties.

YA Author A.S. King
Discussing and signing
"The Dust of 100 Dogs"
Saturday, Feb 28
2-4pm
This is a great YA book that will appeal to adventure-loving adults as well.
We are so excited to have Amy at our store.
Amy Sarig King was born in Reading, PA. Her short fiction has appeared in Washington Square, Contrary, Quality Women's Fiction, Eclectica, FRiGG, Word Riot, Ghoti Magazine, Amarillo Bay, Literary Mama and Underground Voices. Excerpts from her novel, Why People Take Pictures, have been featured on The Huffington Post and iVillage, and her story "Monica Never Shuts Up" has been nominated for Best New American Voices 2010.

A Theologian Looks At...
The Shack
Tuesday, March 3
6:30pm
Dr. Bruce Epperly of Lancaster Theological Seminary and Co-Pastor of Disciples United Community Church will lead a conversation on the best-selling book, "The Shack" by William Paul Young. Dr. Epperly is the author of 15 books, including "Holy Adventure: Forty One Days of Audacious Living," his response to the "Purpose Driven Life."

Distinctive INDIE Lititz

Today was a pretty big day in our little hamlet. The National Trust for Historic Preservation announced Lititz as one of its Distinctive Destinations of 2009. Those of us that live and work here of course said "duh" :) So here is a little blog of town gloating.

Todd and I are still viewed by some locals as "outsiders" since we've only been here for 4 years... but we CHOOSE Lititz. We picked up our family and moved TO Lititz, BECAUSE of Lititz. We love this town. As an Army Brat growing up on military bases and small German towns, I fell in love with this town. Why? For the very reason that was mentioned by every speaker at the press conference today: community. Around this nation developers are killing trees, moving wild animals, and buying up farms to create new "false" communities, while towns like Lititz have it naturally. When people watch re-runs of Leave It to Beaver & Andy Griffith, some long for that town life where kids can walk to the corner store owned by "Mr. Jones" and get candy on their way home from school. Where they can freely ride their bikes to the park to play and feed the ducks, without having to check in with mom on the cell phone every 10 minutes, or having a parental escort. Where you can sit on your front porch and say "howdy" to all that walk past (and know at least half of them). Well, folks I have that... here in Lititz; and I wouldn't change it for the world. (yes, this is the same city gal Sam from a few years back, commuting and working in DC!).

What makes Lititz distinctive though is not it's history as observed by the Historic Trust (and yes, we do have our history, from it's Moravian roots 250+ years ago), but it is what makes up the town now- INDIES. This town only has one non-locally owned business.. and that one "chain" kept their building to match the historic nature of the town, and has no glaring neon signage... so unless you know it's there, you would miss it. This is a true INDIE town, even on the outskirts of town, you'll find vibrant indie groceries and hardware stores. Not to mention farms, service businesses, and restaurants. If we truly want to build better communities across America, we really need to look no further than Lititz, and not at some developers planning board.

So while the Historic Trust gives us this great title for our historic preservation, we need to toot our INDIE horn as well. What makes Lititz distinctive is the history... what makes the history is the community.... and what makes the community is our support of local independent businesses!

Below are pictures from the press conference, including the actual award and a citation from the PA House of Representatives acknowledging Lititz in all it's distinction :)

The 2009 Re-Do is Done...

Why buck a New Year's tradition? We spent this past week doing our annual "let's rearrange the entire store" folly. Here are the results!

(what's changed you ask? Romance is now "floating" in the middle of the main room. We've added a book case each to Espionage & Romantic Suspense, Non-Fiction is now all together along one wall and exanded the history section, the reading lounge has moved up front, and we've got several more displays of new books and special topics {like presidential bios in honor of 1/20/09}).

and a picture of Aaron celebrating his new Lego kingdom from Santa :