After taking a detour with Tuesday's CrimeScene bulletin, we now present this week's delayed newsletter.
Tickets are available for our Luncheon to launch Spring Council's book, Southern Roots. Spring will be in conversation with Marcie Ferris at this luncheon on Friday, February 15th. For more information and tickets, click here.
For the rest of December, to help with the crunch of holiday shopping, McIntyre's and all the Fearrington Village shops will be open on Mondays and Tuesdays(in practical terms this means December 22, 23, 29, and 30). So from today through New Year's Eve, the stores will be open daily except for Christmas Day. We will close at 4pm on Wednesday the 24th and reopen Friday the 26th. Then, McIntyre's and the rest of the Village will close at 4 pm on Wednesday, December 31st to celebrate the New Year and conduct inventory. We will return to regular hours (Wednesday through Friday 10-6 and Saturday and Sunday 10-5) when we reopen in the New Year on Wednesday, January 7th. We have included the dandy scorecard….uh, color coded schedule, above to clarify.
We are celebrating the sestercentennial (250 years) birthdayof iconic, influential and trailblazing author Jane Austen this month. Sarah C. recently picked up Emma for a re-read to celebrate. She found a terrific online lecture that had some fun Austen “trivia” that we thought to ask her to share. Austen's books have always soothed the world weary. During her life, in an age of revolutions and Napoleonic wars, her novels were popular in drawing rooms and men's clubs, as readers found themselves transported to the genteel worlds of Highbury and Meryton. Similarly, Austen found a literary friend in Winston Churchill, who enjoyed an Austen read-aloud by his daughter whilst down with pneumonia in 1943. He commented, “What calm lives they had these people.” Indeed, Austen's novels can also claim to be some of the first books used for bibliotherapy, as they were prescribed for returning WWII soldiers suffering from PTSD. And if you really want to spark some dinner table conversation, discuss P.D. James' claim that Emma is really an intricate detective novel. So, crack open some Austen and find not only some delicious wit and romance, but perhaps a bit of balm for the end of a long year. We have a display in the lit room with Austen books and gifts to celebrate.
This weekend Donald Davis will be here. A few tickets remain for this beloved storytelling event, which is also our fundraiser for CORA, the Chatham food pantry. If you are toying with the idea of attending, we have a few seats left onSaturday at 11amandSunday at 2pm. Tickets are $10.70 and all the proceeds go to CORA. We also encourage you to bring cash and food donations. Right now CORA's most needed food items are oatmeal packets, granola/cereal bars, canned meat (chicken, tuna, salmon, SPAM), cooking oil, and oranges. Our friends from Chatham Reads will have a table as well, so you can learn about the great literacy projects they do across Chatham County and donate new and gently used children's books. We have a wishlist of books they'd love to put in the hands of young readers in our communityon our website and at McIntyre's if you'd like some inspiration!
We hope to see you this weekend! The Usual Suspects,
Pete, Johanna, Sarah G., Tyler, Amy, Juliana Sarah C. and Keebe
