It is always a sad occasion when a bookstore is required to close it’s doors due to the change in book sales. With all of these new E-Book devices coming out, and online bookstores taking hold, there is little room left for that small bookstore on the corner. This saddens and angers me. What will happen when there is no more book stores? No more randomly perusing the books on the shelf until you find a gem to take home and add to your library. While the Kindle and the Nook are very cool contraptions, I can tell you that I will never own one. You just cannot beat the feel of the pages under your fingers, or that smell of the book as you turn the pages. No E-Book can ever replace a real book, and nothing will change my mind on that subject
Here in Findlay, we have a wonderful bookstore. It is a converted church called The Stately Raven, and it was a famous place. It won several awards for being the best bookstore in Ohio. Sadly, they were forced to close their doors due to this upswing in E-Books and other such nonsense. It is immensely depressing to me that this shining jewel of a bookstore is now closed. Today, a mere 2 hours ago, The Stately Raven closed it’s doors for good. It is truly a sad day for bibliophiles everywhere. I loved the place, and frequented it quite often in my earlier college years. They have a lounge where I would sit for some time reading a book and deciding whether or not I wanted to spend the money on it. Hindsite being 20/20 I would have bought a lot more from The Raven had I known that they would close.
Now, having conveyed how much the closing of such a wonderful place saddens me, I can say that I absolutely love 75% off of book prices. Books are not cheap things. I am a college student and quite the bibliophile, I have surely felt the sting of book prices. So finding books so cheap is like the summerland here in Findlay for this young witch. I went in not once, but twice today. After dropping about 20 bucks collectively, I walked out with 7 new books for my collection. Now, The Stately Raven did not have the best new age section, but I managed to make off with three interesting books. The other 4 were some fantasy and scifi novels for my personal enjoyment.
Healing Wise by Susun Weed.
The Incense Bible by Kerry Hughes
Incense by Gina Hyams
I found all these while sifting through the already picked over piles of books, and was glad for spending nearly 2 hours searching. Susun Weed is someone who I have recently been very interested in. My dear friend Liz got me hooked on her teachings of living in a more natural way, looking to the earth and all of her gifts for healing and nutrition. So finding a book written by her was quite exciting for me. The other two appealed to me because of my love of crafting and my desire to make my own incense one day. I think that they were gems in the otherwise rough that had been combed over and over for the past month since the store decided to shut its doors. I was unaware of the closing until today, so I consider myself very lucky to have found all the books that I found.
Now that The Raven is gone, I can only mourn her passing and enjoy the many books that I have gotten from her. I do hope that the space becomes something that is equally as interesting and fun, but my hopes are not high. Bibliophiles, I ask for a moment of silence in the name of The Stately Raven.
of yesterday Hoofprints in the Wildwood is now available for purchase. I have been looking forward to this and saving money since I heard about the project a few months ago, when Selliean over at The Serpents Wisdom announced that submissions were being accepted for a Horned God Devotional. I placed my order yesterday as soon as I saw that it was available. Now the killer part is waiting for it to arrive in the mail (I wanted more than a PDF copy). 
Red Cedar Grove 