Fountain Bookstore, Inc. - Events Feed

Fountain Bookstore Bestselling Author Deanna Raybourn!

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 12:54:46 -0500

Start: Thu, 03/11/2010 - 6:30pm

End: Thu, 03/11/2010 - 7:30pm

Ahhh...the power of passionate booksellers....

Deanna moved to Virginia from Texas a few years ago and was looking for bookstore homes in her new digs.

Tess read Deanna's books first.

She told Kelly to buy one.

Since then we have sold hundreds (yes hundreds) out of our tiny little 1000 square foot bookstore.

How did this happen?

Short of armwrestling every customer even mildly interested, we used every power of bookselling persuasion we have to share our love of her books. The attendance at her first event with us was small, but it sure won't be this time. Deanna's got loads and loads of Virginia fans now.

Come join the party as we celebrate one of our favorite author adoption success stories. Deanna: you rock!!!

Architect Andrea Ponsi Gives His Personal Views on Florence, Italy and Signs Florence: A Map of Perceptions

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:29:52 -0500

Start: Tue, 03/16/2010 - 6:30pm

End: Tue, 03/16/2010 - 7:30pm

This is the way we dream an architect could speak to us, fully
communicating his passion. The book's elegant, concise prose--as well
as its balance of the civic with the intensely personal--recalls the
Calvino of Marcovaldo and Invisible Cities. The text is accompanied by
Ponsi's own spare but evocative watercolors and sketches, which, like
his words, seek to behold rather than pin down. This lyrical tribute is
as much an ode to the lost art of contemplation as it is to Florence--a
city where every moment is different from every other moment.

Award-Winning Author Howard Frank Mosher Discusses Walking to Gatlinburg (with scenes set in Richmond!)

Sat, 09 Jan 2010 16:47:26 -0500

Start: Thu, 03/18/2010 - 6:30pm

End: Thu, 03/18/2010 - 7:30pm

We Love Howard!!!

Howard Frank Mosher is the author of nine novels and a travel memoir.
Born in the Catskill Mountains in 1942, Mosher has lived in Vermont’s
fabled Northeast Kingdom since 1964. He has won many awards for his
fiction, including Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts
fellowships, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Literature Award,
the American Civil Liberties Award for Excellence in the Arts, the
Vermont Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, and the New
England Book Award. Three of his novels, Disappearances, A Stranger in the Kingdom and Where the Rivers Flow North,
have been made into acclaimed feature movies by the Vermont independent
filmmaker Jay Craven. Mosher and his wife of forty-four years, Phillis,
have a grown son and daughter. He is currently completing a Civil
War-era novel, Walking to Gatlinburg,
due out in 2009, which chronicles the nightmarish odyssey of
17-year-old Morgan Kinneson from northern Vermont to Tennessee during
1864.

Julie Campbell Presents The Horse in Virginia

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:45:20 -0500

Start: Sat, 03/20/2010 - 2:00pm

End: Sat, 03/20/2010 - 3:00pm

Julie is a great friend of the Fountain and we've been waiting for this book anxiously!

This is the first book to cover the complete history of the horse in
the Old Dominion. The book is beautifully illustrated throughout,
including numerous historical depictions of the horse by painters,
photographers, and even commercial artists. The equine tradition in
Virginia is unique and enduring; this book is the celebration it
deserves.

Sherman Alexie Immersion Group - Meeting 3 - Ten Little Indians

Sat, 09 Jan 2010 17:17:07 -0500

Start: Mon, 03/22/2010 - 6:00pm

End: Mon, 03/22/2010 - 7:30pm

....devoted to the works of Sherman Alexie.

Call Kelly or Tess to sign up for book club. 804-788-1594.

Purchase of the book from Fountain Bookstore is required to participate.

Come on our and meet us the 4th Monday of each month in the non-smoking back room of Rosie Connelly's.

Join at any time. This book group will continue through April.

Extra credit...rent Smoke Signals on dvd.

Alan Deniro Discusses the Odd World of "Total Oblivion More or Less"

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 14:56:27 -0500

Start: Tue, 03/23/2010 - 6:30pm

End: Tue, 03/23/2010 - 7:30pm

Weirdly, Kelly was reading this book when we were offerred this gig. Must be meant to be!

It's been reviewed favorably in the LA Times, Denver Post, Minneapolis
Star-Tribune, and other papers, and received a starred review from
Booklist.

“Macy’s adventure is engaging and absorbing, but it doesn’t make much
sense. For those conditioned to the logic of classic science fiction,
“Total Oblivion’s” rule-breaking can be frustrating. But readers who
are willing to let go will be swept away.” –Los Angeles Times

“DeNiro’s novel moves the reader along at a lively and crazy pace,
engaging interest in Macy and her fate while making subtle references
to the sad past and giving frightening glimpses of a scarier future.” –Minneapolis Star Tribune

“There aren’t many writers who take weirdness as seriously as DeNiro
does, and fewer still who can extract so much grounded emotion,
gut-dropping humor, and rousing adventure from it. A dizzying display
of often brilliant, always strange, and definitely unique
storytelling.”—Booklist, starred review

Kelly likes it too. Fun stuff! A little gross.

Adventure Author and Historian Dean King Book Release Party for Unbound at the Page Bond Gallery

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 14:01:53 -0500

Start: Thu, 03/25/2010 - 6:00pm

End: Thu, 03/25/2010 - 8:00pm

Dean is one of our all-time favorite authors...if only we could get him to write faster!

Well, the new one is finally here and we're tickled to be the official bookseller for his release party. If it's even half as good as Skeletons on the Zahara (subject of a History Channel special and national bestseller), we're in for a major book treat of the year.

More information to come. Time of event is not yet finalized. Watch this one closely as there's going to be a BIG crowd. We're not the only ones who have been waiting for awhile!

Laura Bynum Talks and Signs "Veracity", A Distopian Novel Being Compared to The Handmaid's Tale

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:12:57 -0500

Start: Tue, 03/30/2010 - 6:30pm

End: Tue, 03/30/2010 - 7:30pm

I found Laura's words about her own book writing experience so perfect, I'm including them here. In short, she's remarkable and funny and I love the book (not quite done yet), and hope you'll join me in welcoming her to Richmond. - Kelly Justice, Owner of Fountain Bookstore

I used to build departments for corporations for a living, but I
wasn’t a corporation kind of girl. Or any kind of anybody who was
supposed to answer to people for a living. I was all about the asking.
Corporate life paid the bills but I knew it wasn’t for me. Still, I had
a good education and a good resume and a good dose of breadwinner’s
guilt so it stuck for too many years. It wasn’t until I’d added a
high-risk, multiple-babies pregnancy to my high-stress environment that
I finally gave up the security of a good job for fulfillment of a
different kind. While the girls were swimming in my ever-expanding
belly, I began to write in a
this-iswhat-I’m-going-to-get-paid-for-or-I’ll-starve kind of way.

Even after the first draft of Veracity,
and knowing I had something worth getting out into the world, I didn’t
go willingly into that good night. The bills were piling up. I had a
Master’s Degree... The girls went through boatloads of formula a day. I
had been making decent money before... I prayed for an answer as to
whether or not to pursue getting Veracity published, but
didn’t get one. So I went everywhere looking for that divine and
elusive Yeah or Nay including every state park within driving distance,
my Grandma’s farm, and, eventually, via some very strange and karmic
nudges, on a sabbatical to Captiva Island where Anne Morrow Lindbergh
had written A Gift from the Sea. It was here I had one of the
most intense experiences of my life. I will sum it up in this way - I
left Captiva Island in no question that I was not only to write, but to
pursue a trip to that year’s Maui Writer’s Conference (a suggestion
from another writer). Feel good footnote: it was at this conference
just five months later that I won the Rupert Hughes Literary Award (and
enough money to more than pay my way there and back again).

Having
won the award, I attained representation by one of my favorite people
in the world, Dan Conaway, from the Writer’s House, and my
books-to-film agent, Sylvie Rabineau. I spent the next few months
editing Veracity and out it went to the publishers.

To call this next period of Veracity’s
evolution hard isn’t quite the right descriptor. It was necessary,
terrifying, beautiful, clarifying. The day I left my corporate job, I
wrote a note to myself and stuck it up on the visor of my car: Make
your truth mine, God.
I realize now, that the period of time referenced below was God’s way
of clearing away all the cobwebs I’d accrued through life. I still have
that note in my visor today (see right).

Shortly after Veracity
had been put out into the world for purchase, my husband got a job in
Washington D.C. and moved on ahead of me and the girls to a small town
in Northern Virginia. I stayed behind to take care of our three
daughters and sell the house. The day we sold our home, I found out I
needed a biopsy that I would have to wait for due to some scheduling
issues. I drove the girls to Virginia where we purchased a new home,
then drove back again to prepare for a back surgery I’d been scheduled
for that July. The biopsy, for which I’d waited four weeks, came back
positive for cancer. I skipped the back surgery and, instead, had my
front bits and pieces tended to. The day of my biopsy, I received the
bid from Pocket. God’s timing might seem strange to others, but for me,
the editing and excitement was a source of comfort. It kept my head in
the what-is-now instead of the what-may-be.

After my
surgery, I flew back to Virginia and began radiation. Unfortunately, I
got quite ill during my treatments and, consequently, there are some
edits I truly don’t remember making. Reading the manuscript later, I
was surprised and happy to find they made sense. I should also note
that I am now cancer free.

The last bit of editing has
also come at a time of great change and pain. My Grandmother - the same
one whose farm serves as the setting for Veracity - died of a
brain tumor three days ago. My family and I spent a good week at her
bedside, holding her hand with one of ours while making the last
copyediting notes Veracity would require with the other. Not
three hours after the last editing query was answered, my Grandmother’s
soul was called home again.

This novel represents many
things. It has been a birth in more ways than I can count. I hope it
inspires in others a rekindled interest in finding out who we are,
individually and collectively, and a desire to reacquaint ourselves
with what we believe and, maybe more importantly, why we believe it.

#fountainreads Book Club on Twitter - Cutting for Stone

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:28:52 -0500

Start: Wed, 03/31/2010 - 7:00pm

End: Wed, 03/31/2010 - 8:30pm

Too dang lazy to go to book group?

Going to be out of town?

Live elsewhere?

Shy?

Join us for the second #fountainreads Twitter Book Club.

Kelly (@RVABookChik), owner of Fountain (@FountainBkstore), will be our faciliator. The hashtag is #fountainreads.

Log into your Twitter account on March 31 at 7:00p.m. to participate.

If you don't know what
all this is and still want to participate, call Kelly or Tess at
804-788-1594 and we'll walk you through basic Twitter.

If you want to set it up on your own, here are the steps:

Create a Twitter account if you don't already have one.
Go to www.tweetchat.com, sign in with your Twitter username and password
Enter fountainreads into the hashtag search box

That's it! Now you can follow the chat without the interference of
whatever's going on with the rest of the Twitterverse today. For more
info, check out The Book Ladys Blog, our wonderful partner in this venture. You can also enter there to win a free copy of the book!

The selection is Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese. (See below). Then see the author at the annual Junior League Book and Author Dinner. Ticket information to come!

Twitter Book Club only exists with your support. Show us some love by buying a book from Fountain Bookstore or fountainbookstore.com. Every book counts. Thanks!!!

An Evening with Lee Smith

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 11:16:35 -0500

Start: Tue, 04/06/2010 - 6:30pm

End: Tue, 04/06/2010 - 6:30pm

Join us as we welcome back one of our favorite guests. We love Lee!

Preorder the book here. When you order the book in advance online or in the store, you are guaranteed a ticket for 2 seats.

(Seats are not guaranteed if books
are not purchased from us in advance except for ticket holders and the
disabled. However, there will be standing room and probably some
seats left available.

There will be a Will Call area. You may pick up your tickets and books the night of the event if you wish.)

Lee Smith is the author of nine previous novels as well as three collections of stories. Her ninth novel, The Last Girls, was a New York Times
bestseller as well as co-winner of the Southern Book Critics Circle
Award. The recipient of an Academy Award in Fiction from the American
Academy of Arts and Letters in 1999, Smith lives in Hillsborough, North
Carolina.

Weekend With A Writer Guest Celia Rivenbark, Author of You Can't Drink All Day If You Don't Start in the Morning

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 21:42:45 -0500

Start: Fri, 04/09/2010 - 6:00pm

End: Fri, 04/09/2010 - 9:00pm

Celia is pee your pants funny.

Come out for a great night and support a super library and one of our favorite authors!

The Fountain are the booksellers for
Weekend with a Writer which brings together books, bed and breakfasts,
writers and weekenders.

A portion of the dinner sales goes to benefit the friends of the Essex County Public Library.

To participate in the whole weekend or to get tickets just for the dinner, please go to the Weekend With A Writer website or call 804-443-4945.