Mr. Bingle 2011 Arrives!

 

Jingle, Jangle, Jingle....it's time for this year's Mr. Bingle! 

Try as I might, I could not resist. In South Carolina, Mr. Bingle is not to be found. Most here probably don't know who he is, but I do. 

October rolled around and I knew stores would be putting out this year's Christmas items soon. I waited patiently, checking the New Orleans Dillard's website every few days for Mr. Bingle 2011 to make an appearance. Finally, on this past Sunday, there he was! I slept on it, trying to resist, but he was so cute in his little purple sweater with the gold Fleur-de-lis! On Monday morning I placed my order online and set in for the 4-7 day shipping wait. 

Wait, what's this? It seems that not only was Dillard's prompt in filling my order, but the good old USPS was on their best behavior too! On Wednesday (that's only 2 days) a nice package arrived containing my newest Mr. Bingle!

 

 

So, Mr. Bingle 2011 will take up residence this Christmas with my other Mr. Bingle's from 1987, 1996, 2007 and 2010. You can see the rest of my Mr. Bingle collection at this link. 

It's gonna be a jingle, jangle Christmas in S.C. for me!

New Orleans Books and Movies

There couldn't be a collection of New Orleans themed books without a copy of  John Kennedy Toole's Confederacy of Dunces, and our collection is not the exception....well unless having 5 copies of Confederacy makes it THE exception! Yes, FIVE copies. You just never know when you will need to give a copy of Confederacy to someone who has not read it.

New Orleans is a place that is dearly loved by both myself and my husband. Given a choice of where we could live, along with the funds to do just that, we would definitely live in New Orleans. Since that is not a choice, at least at the present, we have had to satisfy ourselves with visits and when unable to visit, with books and movies about that fair city. These books and movies could be fiction or non-fiction and over the years we have amassed a pretty fair collection.

Since I am the "nut" in this household, I have the books filed by author name for the most part. (More on that in a bit.) Our library is in our hallway, beginning with this tall bookcase above. Authors in this bookcase begin with Ralph Adamo and run through Steven Womack. 

A little more than half of the top shelf of this bookcase contains a variety of New Orleans themed books, some containing short stories, biographies, and a variety of other books. The remainder of the top shelf, the second shelf and about a quarter of the bottom shelf contain movies, either on VHS or DVD.  About half of the bottom shelf contains several New Orleans travel books we particularly liked and several New Orleans cookbooks. The stack on the right side of that bottom shelf consists of a variety of magazines and books that were just too tall to fit any other way. The only non-New Orleans book on these two bookcases is the bottom one in this stack, my R. Crumb Coffee Table Art Book.

The last bookcase is where I, as the aforementioned "nut" in the household, decided to group books where I had many by the same author. On the top shelf is Charlaine Harris books....yep, the Sookie books...as well as others written by Ms. Harris. I know that her books are not "New Orleans" books (even though Sookie does go to NOLA), but I love reading her books and, well...it's my filing system! To the right on both the top shelf and the second shelf are books by Poppy Z. Brite, who is a New Orleans author, and who I also met one year while at the Napoleon House in the French Quarter. To the left on the second shelf are books by New Orleans author Julie Smith, who I also had the privilege of meeting while in New Orleans. You can get a closer view of Julie's books in a previous post HERE. The bottom shelf is filled with books by Anne Rice (her older works, all the good vampire stuff, etc.)...and she is also a New Orleans author. 

New Orleans author, Marika Christian, has written Phone Kitten, which is an e-book. Her book was the first (and so far the only) e-book I have read. Since I cannot put an e-book on a bookcase, that book will have to remain on my computer. You can read about it or purchase it at booksBnimble or at Amazon.

So, we definitely have a collection here....way more than 3! If you are wondering...we have read the biggest majority of the books (with the exceptions of cookbooks & travel guide which are just for reference) and we have watched the movies and documentaries, too. Also, if you are wondering....this is not all of our books.

BLUE DOGS an Instant Collection!

We went to a few yard sales today and most were not very good. There was one where we came out with armfuls of good "stuff", the Annual Attic Sale at  St. James Episcopal Church. This is a well organized sale that we like to attend every year and we usually find something. This year the selection was great, even 2 hours after they opened!

The very first thing I found was 3 framed Rodrigue BLUE DOGs. Granted, they are huge calendar pages, but they are a piece of New Orleans, a place we love. There was a balled up piece of masking tape attached to one of the 3 pictures. It appeared to have a $1.00 price on it, so I asked a sale helper if that was the price for one picture. To my surprise she said it was the price for all 3 pictures and made a new price sticker. Three BLUE DOGs  for the grand total of $1.00??? I couldn't pass that up and it was an instant collection to boot!

There were other great things we got...some books, colorforms, videos, vintage terrycloth hi-ball glass coasters, vintage terrycloth Santa Claus glass & bottle coasters, a MASH trivia game, a vintage 45rpm op art record case, and a hack saw to replace the one I cannot find....which, I'm sure, will now turn up! But an instant BLUE DOG collection was THE find for me.

Books by Julie Smith

Recently there was a contest at E-guerrilla (author Julie Smith's blog) to name the best-selling mystery author who did the artwork for Phone Kitten, an e-book written by Marika Christian (available at booksBnimble and also at Amazon.com). Phone Kitten was a fun book to read. I had paid attention to the credits in Phone Kitten and knew this answer....Nevada Barr did that artwork. I entered the contest and I won.

 

 

My prize for winning this contest was my choice of one of Julie Smith's books, inscribed to me by Julie. I chose to ask "Aunt Julie" (not related, just how I think of her because of reading author Greg Herren's blog) if she had a copy of Louisiana Hotshot. She did, and she inscribed it to me and sent it on its way. I received it yesterday and now it is neatly filed with the other Julie Smith books in my collection.

 

I already had an uncorrected proof copy of Louisiana Hotshot (trade paperback) which Julie kindly inscribed to me at the Garden District bookstore one year during our visit to New Orleans. I will be keeping that copy, but am pleased to have the hardcover version to go into my collection of her books. The uncorrected proof copy was one I found on eBay. Julie asked where I got the copy and inscribed it appropriately, as seen in the photo below.

Most of my collection of Julie Smith books are in hardcover. There are 5 paperback books in this collection. They are: Death Turns A Trick, True-Life Adventure, Tourist Trap, Dead In The Water, and Other People's Skeletons. I keep looking at book sales and hoping that one day I will be able to find these books in hardcover, at a price I can afford.

My collection of Julie Smith books is just a small portion of a much larger collection of books written by New Orleans authors and/or about New Orleans. In a future post, I will show you the "bigger picture" of the New Orleans book collection.