After I wrote concerning the closing of a Barnes & Noble bookstore in San Jose, I didn’t understand what number of different individuals have been feeling a way of loss. However I heard from a number of readers who have been very unhappy to see the shop shut its doorways Jan. 19.
“I can’t imagine how to exist without my Almaden Barnes & Noble store,” Barbara Carmichael wrote. “True book lovers know you don’t just order a title — you need to pick it up, turn it over, read a page or two and then decide. I’m grieving a huge loss here.”
Margaret Hengel, who serves with me on the Silicon Valley Reads group advisory board, mentioned the shop was one in all her treasures, too. “I went in yesterday and left with tears running down my face.”
Then the opposite shoe dropped when Books Inc. introduced its chapter a number of days later. (It’s the “we’re trying to survive” type of chapter a minimum of, although the Berkeley retailer will probably be closing). Thankfully, as Carol Zink jogged my memory, there are nonetheless Books Inc. areas in Campbell, Mountain View and Palo Alto.
And whereas I listed a number of the brick-and-mortar bookstores valley residents can nonetheless patronize, I didn’t get all of them. Joyce Gross jogged my memory a couple of native treasure in Saratoga: Ebook Go Spherical, which has been round since 1983 and sells books, data, CDs and DVDs. Even higher, the volunteer-run nonprofit retailer on Oak Avenue helps the Saratoga Library (which is an effective reminder to patronize these, too.)
And bookstores aren’t all created equal, as Bruce Tritch identified. His SpaceCat comedian ebook retailer shared a wall with the Barnes & Noble at Westgate Mall till the massive retailer’s company fits made it clear they didn’t like having a “rival” as a neighbor. “Maybe, in the long run, the lack of a huge corporate entity will be good for small business bookstores in San Jose,” Tritch mentioned.
We will all hope that’s true.
ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL: The race is on to change into the brand new consultant for San Jose’s District 3 on the town council, which covers downtown and areas round it, with seven candidates certified for the April 8 election.
With barely greater than two months till then, attending to know the candidates is extra vital than ever, which is why three huge San Jose organizations — the Chamber of Commerce, the San Jose Downtown Affiliation and the Rotary Membership of San Jose — have teamed as much as maintain a candidate discussion board Feb. 12.
Six of the candidates — Gabby Chavez-Lopez, Adam Duran, Phil Dolan, Matthew Quevedo, Irene Smith and Anthony Tordillos — are anticipated to take part within the discussion board, which begins at 4:30 p.m. on the Rotary Summit Heart on the seventh ground of the Fourth Avenue Parking Storage downtown. You may register to attend at www.sjdowntown.com/d3.
GOOD DEED DEPT.: Good Samaritan Hospital’s success become an incredible donation for West Valley Neighborhood Companies, which obtained a $10,000 donation from the medical middle to assist its cellular meals pantry, Park-It Market. Good Samaritan Hospital CEO Patrick Rohan mentioned the San Jose hospital was honored to assist with the Cupertino-based company’s mission of making certain nobody locally goes hungry.
The Good Sam Can Van, modeled after West Valley Neighborhood Companies’ Park-It Market cellular pantry, gained first place in an HCA Healthcare canned meals sculpture contest. Good Samaritan Hospital donated the $10,000 prize to West Valley Neighborhood Companies to assist the cellular pantry. (Photograph courtesy Good Samaritan Hospital)
So, how did this generosity come about? Good Samaritan completed first in HCA Healthcare’s annual Canned Meals Drive Sculpture Competitors for the second yr within the row, which allow them to direct $10,000 to a neighborhood nonprofit. Their profitable entry, the Good Sam Can Van, was impressed by the Park-It Market and was created with greater than 1,500 cans of meals that additionally will probably be donated.
WVCS Government Director Sujatha Venkatraman mentioned the donation will make a giant distinction for households going through meals insecurity. “It helps us bring fresh, healthy food directly to those who need it most, eliminating barriers and strengthening our community,” she mentioned.
MUSIC TO OUR EARS: The Mission Chamber Orchestra will carry out Feb. 2 on the Italian American Heritage Basis’s cultural middle on North Fourth Avenue in San Jose. And you’ll wager this system, “Sounds of the Motherland,” will lean extra Italian than the Tower of Pisa. The composers featured embody Gioachino Rossini, Alessandro Marchello and Jeremy Cavaterra — together with one identify that may get most of you buzzing straight away, Vince Guaraldi.
Longtime IAHF member Ken Borelli notes that not solely was Guaraldi an Italian American, he was a local of San Francisco’s North Seashore neighborhood and this yr is the sixtieth anniversary of what in all probability are his best-known items, made well-known in “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” Sadly, the nice jazz pianist died method too younger, struggling a deadly coronary heart assault at age 47 in 1976 after taking part in a set at Butterfield’s, a nightclub in Menlo Park.
Tickets to the three:30 p.m. live performance can be found at www.missionchamber.org.
AUTHOR! AUTHOR!: Since we began with books, let’s wrap up that method, too, with Women of Charity’s “Meet the Author” occasion on Feb. 3. The featured author is Sam Carlino, the house owners of Sam’s Bar-B-Que on Bascom Avenue, who wrote about his grandfather’s notorious historical past with organized crime in “Colorado’s Carlino Brothers: A Bootlegging Empire.” I used to be fortunate sufficient to listen to these tales from Sam a number of years in the past when he was engaged on the ebook, and it’s a tremendous properly informed story.
The 9:30 a.m. occasion is at St. Thomas of Cantebury Church, 1522 McCoy Ave. in San Jose, and tickets are $40 every (with proceeds going to scholarships for center schoolers attending Sacred Coronary heart Nativity and Our Woman of Grace colleges). Go to www.ladiesofcharitysanjose.org for extra data.
