Black Bear Blog

Holly Bellebuono at the Store Today

Holly Bellebuono will be at the store today from 11:30 until 12:30 to sign her book "The Essential Herbal for Natural Health." Holly is an award-winning herbalist of seventeen years. She's taught, mentored, lectured, and published articles for Appalachian Voices, Carolina Mountain Living, United Plant Savers Journal of Medicinal Plant Conservation, and Martha's Vineyard Magazine. She studied Therapeutic Herbalism with Welsh herbalist David Hoffmann and with natives of Appalachia, learning nearly forgotten folk healing methods. Holly's Martha's Vineyard business, Vineyard Herbs, provides women's herbal therapy for a global clientele.

The book is lovely and we are very lucky to have Holly in the area! Please stop by and welcome her, and pick up a signed copy of the book. If you already have one, it would make a very nice gift.

Countdown to Hunger Games Night!

Four more days! We are already hearing from people who are planning their costumes and I'm putting together the grocery list for the District 12 refreshments. No, we will not be serving lamb stew. But we will be serving several recipes from the Unofficial Hunger Games Cookbook. I think the "Blueberry and White Chocolate Chip Muffintops" sound pretty good. Not quite so sure about the "Dandelion Greens with Currants and Pine Nuts," but at least we'll find out whether or not we can eat our front yards, which would come in handy if grocery prices keep going up!

In other news: just like the daffodils, the spring books are starting to come out! We'll be ordering in the next couple of weeks and if there's anything you'd like us to put on the list, just tell someone at the counter.

In yarn news: we are about to place a large order with Cascade Yarn. We saw their representative about a month ago and we were very impressed by their selection. We'll let you know here when it comes in.

Greetings!

Welcome to the Black Bear Blog. My husband and I are the new owners of Black Bear Books in Boone, North Carolina. You can read about us in this article from the Mountain Times.

When I talked my husband into the idea of buying the store, I made him a promise that I would keep my political opinions to myself. However, I made no such promise about all of my other opinions, and so a blog is born! 

Right now our lives are all about Black Friday. (I now have a new take on why it's called black.) In my non-existent spare time, I hope to keep you all informed about the happenings at Black Bear Books. We have always loved the store, but we have ideas that we hope will make even better. I'll be writing about those (and soliciting your opinions) as well as what is happening in the literary world, with occasional rants with titles like "Why Kindle is Creepy."

Please come to see us. We'd love to meet all the people who love Black Bear Books as much as we do.