The cookbook!!

The King’s English is gearing up for our Pioneer Woman Cooks event—we’re less than 24 hours away from “Pioneer Woman” Ree Drummond’s only appearance in Utah! It’s also one of her few appearances out West, so don’t miss it! Ree has charmed her way into hearts across the country with her insanely popular blog and website, recently named one of Time Magazine’s top 25 of 2009! In her brand new book, The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl, Ree not only shares recipes for her incredibly homey, hearty, and delicious food, she also shares her unique experience as a rancher’s wife, mother of four children, photographer, and homemaker. Trust us, this is one event you don’t want to miss!

And if cookbook and food events are your thing, save the dates now for our friend and author Ann Byrn, the wildly popular “Cake Mix Doctor” as she brings her new book The Cake Mix Doctor Returns to The King’s English on November 18th, and also Everyday Food Magazine editor and author of Mad Hungry Lucinda Scala Quinn who’s coming to visit on December 4th!

For a long time now, Mina has been devouring any sort of book that is related to doctors or medicine. Her first love is Doctor Meow, she will sit forever and “read” it to all of her friends. In Doctor Meow’s Big Emergency, Doctor Meow, the cat in the new series that takes place in Whoops-a-Daisy World, gets a call from Tom Cat who has fallen from the apple tree. Dr. Meow and Woof, the ambulance driver, rush to help and bring Tom Cat back to Kiss-It-Better Hospital.

Doctor Meow enters our  life practically every day. When we were in Turkey this summer, it was a favorite game to play while out to dinner. My uncle would take his cell phone and call my aunt on her cell phone and say “Emergency! Emergency! I have fallen and hurt my leg! Is Dr. Meow in? I need an Ambulance!” My aunt would hand the phone to Mina and Mina would respond, “This is Dr. Mina, how can I help you? Stay right there and don’t move!” And when we got back to Utah, the game continued with my husband, Tolga. He would fall down and Mina would become Dr. Meow and fix him with her doctor kit.

Then we discovered The Berenstain Bears Visit the Dentist and she learned about how easy it was to go to the dentist and how she should always brush her teeth so she wouldn’t get cavities. And keeping with the dentist theme, we moved onto Doctor De Soto, the little mouse dentist. Doctor De Soto and his wife help treat many of the animals in town except those who would be dangerous for mice, like cats! One day, a Fox rings the bell. He has an awful toothache and the dentist takes pity on him and lets him in. As the book continues, the Fox thinks about eating the mice, but the Doctor De Soto and his wife come up with a really interesting plan to outfox him!

One day, as Mina was looking for the The Berenstain Bears Visit the Dentist, she found Little Critter: My Trip to the Hospital. Little Critter has broken his leg on the soccer field and has to go to the hospital to get a cast. He says, as the doctor starts wrapping him up, “I feel like a mummy!” and Mina asks, why? What is a mummy? And this is where our path diverges into the plains of the Sahara and into Egypt.

Mina asked Sally, a bookseller, if the bookshop had any books about Egypt. Sally picked out a few nice ones, but the Dorling Kindersley Ancient Egypt book was the winner. We sat down on the floor with Little Critter, and the DK Egypt book open to the mummy page, and Skippyjon Jones in Mummy Trouble and Mina was able to see the correlation between all the books.

Now, we can’t stop reading books about Egypt and we are learning all the different gods and goddess’ names. One day, on our way to the bookshop, Mina said “In ancient Egypt, Anubis takes care of the mummy and wraps him really tight to keep him safe and warm and then puts him to bed in his sarcophagus. Mama, what does Horus do again? I’ll ask Sally the next time!”

These days, with Halloween around the corner, there are tons of mummy books out on display. After looking at a few, Where’s My Mummy? and The Runaway Mummy, Mina makes a most observant statement: “Mama, those mummy’s need to clean their pyramids more often—look at all those cobwebs!”

The reading last Tuesday evening by Pulitzer Prize winning author, Richard Russo, was well attended and warmly received. A humorous speaker and truly genuine person, Russo had nothing but praise for independent bookstores. He urged everyone present to continue to support The King’s English and other independent bookstores like us, saying that for if not for indies, he would not be the recognized author he is today. He starts off talking about how this was his first visit to Utah and he was a little surprised at a few of the amenities at his hotel.

Have a listen…

At the signing after the reading

Donald Revell waiting "off-stage" while Claudia Keelan reads.

Friday night’s poetry reading by Claudia Keelan and Donald Revell was magical: a good time had by all (authors and 65-plus-member audience), thoughts exchanged, poems read, wine consumed, etc. Claudia Keelan read first, followed by her husband, Donald Revell. The Gods of Poetry do exist, we are now certain, as stars aligned and festivity and conviviality reigned.

Introducing the poets

Long-awaited, highly-anticipated, critically-acclaimed! And really, really good! Her Fearful Symmetry is being released this Tuesday, September 29!  Come in and get a first edition and receive two free tickets to her reading at TKE on January 20, 2010. Yes. The day has finally arrived…

The author, Zoe Murdock

On Saturday, September 26, 2009, from 2:00-3:30 pm, The King’s English Bookshop will present Zoe Murdock in a reading and discussion of her new novel, Torn by God: A Family’s Struggle with Polygamy. This riveting family drama chronicles the devastation brought upon the Sterling family when the father has a vision that leads him to become involved with polygamy. It is based on real events that happened when Zoe was a child, but it is more than one family’s tragic story; it explores the controversial association between mainstream Mormons and fundamentalist off-shoot groups such as the one led by Warren Jeffs. At once chilling and informative, Torn by God exposes the destructive power of religious indoctrination and control.

Torn By God

I love the annual Arty’s awards that City Weekly presents each year. It’s all about LOCAL. It’s local people like you and me voting for local people who we have seen, heard, read, etc. during the past year. Salt Lake is awash in talent; even the voting is difficult because you could choose any nominee and be content if they won. One of my very favorite nominees was the play about Leonardo Da Vinci, Di Esperienza, that Plan-B Theatre produced this year. Four actors…for an hour and a half–It was glorious! I wouldn’t be a self-respecting bookseller without a special shout-out to this year’s literary arts winners:

Best Fiction, Shannon Hale, The Actor and the Housewife
Best Poetry Collection, Kathryn Cowles, Eleanor, Eleanor, not your real name
Best Nonfiction, Terry Tempest Williams, Finding Beauty in a Broken World
Best Sister History, Terrell Harris Dougan, That Went Well
Best Multi-Challenged Personal History, Lance Allred, Longshot

Congrats to one and all and thanks to City Weekly for the annual reminder that we live in a pretty great place. To see all the winners visit City Weekly.

From left: Shannon Hale, Eleanor, Eleanor, not your real name, Terry Tempest Williams, Terrell Harris Dougan, Lance Allred

That’s right, The King’s English is 32! Come in today and receive 32% off any single item in the store. And here’s to many more….

Thanks so much to Paul for sharing this with us, and letting us share it on the blog!

The aroma of fresh paper floods my nostrils as I saunter into a million books. I continue walking to the back of the establishment as the amiable woman at the counter greets my group. I stoop down to a shelf and choose a novel. I read it over and return it to its former position as I lazily continue deeper into the quaint little store. I continue admiring the wide range of books until I find a suitable selection for myself, which has been recommended to me by friends, The Kingdom Keepers. I maintain my quest for more books on another shelf, recognizing a few. Finally, I make another find: The Looking Glass Wars. I’ve only heard of this story a few times, but I decide to give it a try. I carry it with me to the next stack of books.

As I prolong my search for reading material, I strike several interesting looking books, but I decide not to take them with me. I could spend hours here, just sitting and getting accustomed to the fine printed text which has engulfed my mind. It would also certainly be easy to spend a fortune here, but it would be worth it. As I have been thinking this, my clammy hands have picked another book, The Thief Lord. I look it over and approve. I’m satisfied with my assortment of books and I turn to leave. But then, from my peripheral vision, I spot one more book. It is called The Book Thief.

I read the back flap, and it sounds good enough for me. I continue back to the front of the store, oblivious to the fact that my last selection will become my favorite book of all time. I reach the front of the store, show my books to my grandmother and thank her as she pays for them, along with books for my sister and for my cousin. I see a bowl of chocolates on the counter, tempting me to reach for one as this store, The King’s English Bookstore, tempted me to enter.

What better way to celebrate National Honey Month and Utah as the Beehive State than to get the low-down on honey! Author and beekeeper Marina Marchese was kind enough to talk with us about her new book, Honeybee: From Hive to Home, Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper. Honeybee is a fascinating look at both the history and the current state of beekeeping, as well as an in-depth look at honey and other bee products in all their forms and uses.

JN: Honeybee is incredibly comprehensive–you document everything from your own experiences becoming a beekeeper, to the history of bees in culture, to recipes for food and remedies, and beyond. It’s also clearly a labor of love. How long did it take you to put it all together?

MM: Honeybee was written in a one-year period but the actual experiences and knowledge was compiled in my ten years of keeping and living with honeybees. During those years I attended beekeeping meetings around the country in between my work in China and travels to Italy. I had the opportunity to meet beekeepers, taste their amazing honeys while being exposed to the countless wisdom the honeybee had to offer. The wealth of material that I uncovered and diversity of the honeybee was overwhelming, much of it ancient. In my book, I wanted to expose as many of these facets to illustrate how the honeybee touches everyone in a unique way and I hope my writings inspire people to dig deeper and embrace the honeybee and her value to our planet.

JN: You note in the book that there is a honey revival going on in the US. What do you think started it?

MM: Across the country we’ve seen an increase in the number of farmers markets and interest in eating local foods. More and more people are raising honeybees, chickens in an effort to control the quality of their food, to know where it is coming from and to give back to the earth. It all began with the Slow Food movement in Italy and France where the quality of the food is respected and geographical regions are protected. In Europe when they harvest their wine and olive oil they also harvest their honey. Honey is highly respected as a food and medicine in other countries often found in pharmacies and even wine stores. Unfortunately, this is an unknown concept for most Americans and as the blight of Colony Collapse Disorder continues to affect our honeybees and our source of fresh foods we are forced to pay attention.

With that insight comes nature’s oldest and most ecologically friendly sweetener, esteemed honey.

JN: As a honey neophyte, I was particularly surprised to see the links between bee products and medicine. What’s the most surprising use of honey/bee products as a remedy that you’ve found?

MM: It was at a beekeeping conference that I first learned about Apitherapy: healing with the honeybee and the products of the bee hive (honey, bee pollen, propolis, royal jelly and bee venom). Hippocrates, known as the father of medicine was one of the first humans to use honey as a remedy for health and healing as the ancient Egyptians and Romans. I found all of this absolutely intriguing and as I spoke with other beekeepers around the world it became clear that using honey and other bee products were accepted as customary. When I decided to make honeybee products available through my company Red Bee, they were literally unknown to the general public and launching them required tremendous amounts of education for our customers. Generally, I am most surprised how little the honeybee and the wonderful gifts she gives us from her beehive have been celebrated here in the US when it is second nature around the world.

JN: You talk a bit in the book about making the (often difficult) transition from working for a company to being a small business owner. Has being a local, sustainable business helped make that transition easier and attracted customers? What’s been the biggest challenge?

MM: I knew early on as a young person I would be independent and follow my dreams I had no idea it would be the honeybee that would take me there. My vision for Red Bee was based upon concepts that I feel strongly about and ideas I unraveled abroad. My mission was to take honey and the other products of the hive and create one complete line that encompassed them all, something that had never really been done here in the US. Using my creative talents and design sensibilities, I was able to take bee products and package them to be user friendly and extremely appealing in a boutique style. There is a tremendous amount of education that goes into selling and marketing products and my job is more difficult because bee products are not mainstream. The first few years of selling were challenging at the markets as customers would ask what do you do with honeycomb or what is so special about the bees wax in your skin care. It was important for me to answer each and every question thoroughly until the customers were excited enough to try our products. Once they tried them, they were hooked and returned with their friends.