Managers of regional AAA (Southern California Automobile Club) offices, about 20 strong, converged on Solvang last week for some serious work mixed with a smidgen of silliness.

To get the group better acquainted with each other and with the town, conference planners had pre-arranged a scavenger hunt (quite a common activity for groups meeting in Solvang). Sets of envelopes were hidden in four fairly widely separated locations in the heart of Solvang, including the Hans Christian Andersen Museum.

One of the scavengers was quite clueless about the clues. “Hans Christian Andersen? Who’s he?” By the time we finished the mini lecture, his cohorts had found the envelopes hidden “in the Andersen Museum, under the skirts of the great Danish writer.” The museum has a head-and-shoulders statue of Andersen mounted on a fabric-covered pedestal and the scavengers had to lift up the fabric to find the next clue.

While those triple A trippers have travel on their minds continuously, the staff of The Book Loft has noticed that the arrival of warm weather and the month of May has brought a sudden influx of vacation planners.

The store is well stocked for both armchair and actual travelers. The designated travel section is located up front close to the checkout and information counter. Most maps, however, are housed in a fixture at the back of the store. Pictorial books relating to geography are shelved all over the place and travel guides and phrase books for Denmark and other Scandinavian countries are in a special Scandinavian section. Other phrase books may be found in the reference section among foreign language dictionaries.

We are lucky to have a leading wholesale map supplier close by. MapLink’s office and warehouse is in Santa Barbara. We special order maps frequently and are usually able to provide good service. (However, our customer waiting months for a long out-of-stock map of Samoa might not agree.)

Where to go this summer, next year, soon? Consult the fat little volume 1000 Places to See Before You Die (Workman, $18.95).

Local Author Update

After a series of delays and disappointments during the long self-publishing process, Bernice Dotz, former Solvang businesswoman and lifelong volunteer, was the focus of a well-attended booksigning May 9, formally launching her book, House of Miracles ($12.95). Now, Bernice is working on a companion DVD that will enhance her upcoming presentations to various clubs and organizations.

Retired from the Allan Hancock English Department and recovered from a health crisis, Robert Isaacson is devoting more time to personal writing projects. Last year, under his own imprint Muleshoe Press, Bob published The Muleshoe Cattle Company: An Anthology of Memories of Life on an Arizona Cow Ranch, 1906-1928 ($29.95), an illustrated account of his family’s enterprise.

Recently he dug into his files, gathered a collection of his poems and published them under the title Unconsecrated Ground ($12.95). Bob, who lives with his family on El Chorro Ranch on San Julian Road, will read some of his work during an event in his honor at The Book Loft June 13 at 7 p.m. Mark your calendars.

Valley Journal Archive

Chalk it up to the Valley Journal’s expanding readership and also to the importance of cowboy artist Edward Borein (1872-1945) as a Santa Barbara County icon. The Book Loft column in the last issue elicited wide response, including some mild complaints. Some are the result of our breaking an important rule of journalism: Write so that the ending may be chopped off to fit available space. In other words, take care to get the “who, when, what, why, where” into the story early.

Copy submitted for the last issue mentioned the Borein exhibit at Elverhøj Museum. For a possible accompanying illustration, we had loaned the Valley Journal a copy of a book about Borein. The Journal did run the illustration, but the article was too long; the Borein details came at the end and had to be cut.

Almost as soon as the Journal landed in his mailbox, Tom Petersen phoned The Book Loft. Tom is a retired civil engineer, railroad buff, lifelong Valley resident (and also spouse of Carolyn Petersen, recently named 2007 SYV Woman of the Year in honor her volunteer service to the community). The picture of Borein caught Tom’s eye, but he found no reference to it in the article.

Days later, Fran from the Santa Barbara Historical Society called. She had read the Valley Journal and, as resourceful as she is diplomatic, expressed delight in seeing the Borein book pictured, but finding no further details, she sought out The Book Loft’s web page where the entire article was posted. She liked what she read, EXCEPT... The Santa Barbara Historical Society published the two fine little books on the life and art of Ed Borein, but nowhere did our article note that fact. Amid her praise and understanding, Fran very gently lamented that omission.

Santa Barbara Historical Society’s John Edward Borein: The Formative Years and John Edward Borein: The Santa Barbara Years, each $11.95, are currently among The Book Loft’s best selling titles. Elverhøj’s excellent exhibit, “The World of Edward Borein,” continues through May 27.

Mothers Day gift buyers -- the majority being either kids or grown men -- are notoriously last-minute shoppers. Books might be just the solutions to their dilemmas. Here are just a few suggestions.

For moms who love novels consider Whitethorn Woods, just out from popular author Maeve Binchy (Knopf, $25.95). If she reads thrillers, try Simple Genius by David Baldacci (Warner, $26.99) (Note to Dads: Try to let her finish it before “borrowing” it for yourself.) We also so recommend Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants, a nationwide favorite in hard cover now in paperback (Algonquin, $13.95).

There are plenty of choices for moms who savor non-fiction. Not only are the author’s media appearances impressive, book clubs and individual readers are giving us good feedback on Infidel, a memoir by Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Free Press, $26).

Fans of Barbara Kingsolver -- and they are legions -- should be aware that her new book Animal,. Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (Harper, $26.95) is something of a departure Barbara’s passionate, often humorous, account traces her family’s journey away from the industrial-food pipeline to a rural life where they either buy locally grown food, grow it themselves or do without. Good writing and inspiring reading are also the hallmarks of Eat, Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, newly released in paperback (Penguin $15).

Several children’s books pay homage to mothers.

They don’t have mothers on Mars, you know, and that fact inspired prize-winning cartoonist Berkeley Breathed to create a heart-warming kids book, (for kids of all ages, of course), Mars Needs Moms! (Philomel, $16.99).

Two other charmers are the lift-the-flap book I Love You Mom (DK, $8.99) and Before I Was Your Mother (Harcourt, $6), a tribute to the mother-daughter relationship.

Happy Mothers Day!

Valley Journal Archive

Let’s savor the last few days of April. Sip some Valley wines at festivals and tastings. Read and listen to some poetry to celebrate the waning of National Poetry Month.

Also, try to work in a visit to Elverhøj Museum. Take a look at the whole place, including the gallery exhibit, The World of Edward Borein. It includes art of the renowned cowboy artist as well as trappings of the vaquero lifestyle.

Both The Book Loft and Elverhøj are selling boxed note cards and two books on Borein—one on his formative years and the other on his time in Santa Barbara County. The books are heavily illustrated, contain less than 50 pages and are a good value at $11.95. The Borein exhibit at Elverhøj will be up until May 27.

Remember that the upcoming merry month of May will be jam packed with events, festivities and holidays—Elks Queen contest, school doings, Mothers Day and Memorial Day.

At The Book Loft we get excited about the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the arrival of the Rancheros Vistadores. They give us the chance to display some choice books on horses, ranching and western history

Mid April marks The Book Loft’s 37th year in business. I was here at the start and have learned a few things about bookselling. For one, I knew that, even with an unhappy ending, there would be considerable interest in books about Barbaro, thoroughbred racing’s Triple Crown contender whose fight to recover from a shattered leg and risky surgery captured the hearts of the nation.

At least three Barbaro books were published this spring: Barbaro: A Nation’s Love Story by Tom Philbin and Pamela Brodowsky; Barbaro: America’s Horse by Shelley Mickle: Barbaro: The Horse that Captured America’s Heart by Sean Clancy.

The first is a book suitable for horse lovers from 10 to 110. The second is for young readers ages 6 to 12. The third, an Eclipse publication (from the book division of the thoroughbred industry’s prestigious magazine The Blood Horse), quickly sold out and may not be reprinted in time for the run up to the Kentucky Derby May 5. It would be foolhardy to second guess those Blood Horse experts, still, I think I could have told them that the quantity planned for the first printing of their Barbaro book would be way too low.

While publishing industry insiders may covet bestseller status for promising first novelists, the best they are usually willing to hope for (or to predict) is strong sales. Early on, even before a hard cover edition arrives in stores, many of us book business veterans can foresee that certain novels will be best sellers when they come in paperback.

For example, I am predicting that the soft cover edition of The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle will be one of The Book Loft’s big books in 2008 and will sell very well throughout the west and perhaps the nation. God of the Animals is a coming of age novel set on a horse ranch in small-town Colorado, probably mostly a women’s book, written for adults but with strong appeal to horse-loving teens. We hope we will sell several copies in hard cover, but are making no predictions.

Booksellers are often asked, “When is it (a book they are anxious to read) coming in paper?” The stock answer: “About a year from when it was published.” Not always, but we’d have been willing to bet that Cormac McCarthy’s fervent fans would have to wait a year or more for a paperback edition of The Road, published last September. Sure enough it showed up, scheduled for September, in publisher Random House’s fall ’07 catalog.

For all she has done to stimulate reading and the book business, we are still confounded by Oprah. Until they are officially announced on her program, the titles for Oprah’s book club selections are a tightly guarded secret. Bookstores only know them by a 10-digit number (or the new13-digit ISBN). We must order blind. No one we know knows what the book is and only a very few on the publisher’s end are in on the secret.

Oprah usually chooses books that have been out a while, sometimes a long while. How could we guess that her current pick would be a title that wouldn’t be out until September, one that we could expect to sell well, no matter who recommended it. We ordered lightly. And what does the new Oprah happen to be? Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, a widely acclaimed apocalyptic novel with a glimmer of hope at the end.

McCarthy would get thousands of votes as this country’s best contemporary novelist; his fans are devoted but his readership is limited. Oprah may change that. The Book Loft now has a good supply of the new paperback edition of The Road. No waiting until September!

Last issue I nominated Dan Gerber to be Santa Ynez Valley Poet Laureate. Since then, Dan’s new book Primer on Parallel Lives has been published. He had a signing this week at The Book Loft, will do a reading at Borders in Santa Barbara April 25, and the following morning, Thursday, April 26, Garrison Keillor will read a Gerber poem on National Public Radio’s The Writer’s Almanac. The program is broadcast locally on KCBX (91.1) at approximately 8:45 a.m. Mark your calendars, set your alarms, tune in!

Valley Journal Archive

Authors—local and global—make news this month.

Sandy Nathan and her husband Barry raise those gorgeously gated Peruvian Paso horses on their Santa Ynez Rancho Vilasa, and Sandy also keeps busy attending retreats and writing furiously. A couple of novels will come out soon and Stepping off the Edge ($18.95), her recently published self-help book about learning and living spiritual practice, is receiving wide acclaim. Another local writer, Barbra Minar, closes her comment about Sandy’s work, “…full of resources and exercises and wisdom to be read and reread.”

As a benefit for the Santa Ynez Valley Therapeutic Riding Program, Sandy Nathan will speak about the healing power of horses and read from her book at The Book Loft at 3 p.m. Sunday, March 18. Both the author and the bookstore will contribute part of the proceeds from that day’s sales to the riding program.

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Avid mystery readers maintain a continual lookout for a new detective. Here’s one for them—Mas Arai, a curmudgeonly Los Angeles gardener, Hiroshima survivor and inveterate gambler.

Mas Aria is the creation of Naomi Hirahara who wrote extensively on Japanese American society before beginning her mystery series. Snakeskin Shamisen ($12) is her newest; others are Summer of the Big Bachi and Gasa-Gasa Girl.

Ms. Hirahara will be among four authors appearing at the seventh annual Authors Forum Luncheon March 24, sponsored by the Santa Maria chapter of the American Association of University Women.

Joining Hirahara will be Thomas Steinbeck (Down to a Soundless Sea $13.95), Jennifer Vandever (Bronte Project: Novel of Passion, Desire and Good PR $12.95) and Lee Wardlaw (author of children’s books including 101 Ways to Bug Your Teacher $6.99).

The Book Loft will handle book sales at the event, open to the public, although space is limited. (Phone Judy at 937-0290.)

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Planning for the 2008 Bethania Lutheran Church’s Farstrup-Mortensen lecture series started before the actual 2007 event, always held the last weekend in February. Imagine the consternation this year when organizers learned that Solvang would be tied up by the Amgen bike race on the very afternoon their conference was to get underway. Thanks to much work, love, understanding and the community spirit of cooperation, the Farstrup-Mortensen went on as scheduled, bigger and better than ever before.

Renowned theologian Martin Marty was the headliner. Congresswoman Lois Capps and County Supervisor Brooks Firestone rounded out the program. Next year one of the main speakers will be Mark Juergensmeyer, director of international studies at UCSB and author of Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence $18.95)

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Hans Christian Andersen Museum, located upstairs above The Book Loft, throws a little party every year on April 2 to commemorate the great Danish storyteller’s birthday. Always worth a visit, don’t miss one of the museum’s new and most spectacular acquisitions—a limited edition of The Ugly Duckling, Andersen’s classic tale that reassures children that they can outgrow feelings of unworthiness and loneliness. This is a gigantic boxed volume, lavishly illustrated by Henri Galeron and edited by Maria Tatar, dean for the humanities at Harvard University ($85).

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With a dust jacket looking as much like an old 78 as a book cover could, The Label: The Story of Columbia Records arrived in bookstores recently. When the company built a facility in Santa Maria some 40 ago. Columbia executive Irving Townsend settled in the Valley and soon became a legend.

Animal lover and habitué of Mattei’s Tavern, Irv wrote a couple of entertaining books about his experiences here. We lament that his memoir The Less Expensive Spread is no longer in print. The new book, written by Gary Marmorstein contains abundant references to Mr. Townsend.

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Retired petroleum engineer Patrick Foxen joins the ranks of local authors with the recent publication of Your Amazing Body Machine: How it Works Compared to Manufactured Machines (IUniverse $12.95). Using many illustrations, Foxen combines his engineering knowledge and strong Christian faith to explain how the human body works like a superbly designed machine.

Welcome 2007. Happy New Year!

Anticipating a spate of resolutions in the wake of holiday eating and spending, publishers convince bookstores to order a full array of new books that promise to improve your lifestyle -- relationships, finances, fitness. Not wanting to be left in the dust when a diet guru’s television appearances catch the public’s attention, we booksellers buy too many titles. Perhaps one will turn into the latest craze.

What better time, though, to take stock of ourselves and try to make 2007 a better year? That might call for some reading. Some older titles are among the best.

For money management, we suggest Robert Kiyosaki’s time-tested Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the rich teach their kids about money that the poor and middle class do not.

Since there are so many, perhaps it is folly to single out just two health and beauty titles. For one, the Abs Diet by David Zinczenko has been a steady seller. An appealing 2007 issue is Muriel Hemingway’s Healthy Living from the Inside Out. Subtitled “Every woman’s guide to real beauty, renewed energy and a radiant life.” it also offers a 30-day quick start program.

On improving relationships, once again Dr. Laura Schlessinger bursts out of the starting gate, making the media rounds to promote her new book, The Proper Care & Feeding of Marriage, a follow-up to her super seller on the care and feeding of husbands.

After experiencing a debilitating depression, John Sedgwick, whose novels depict Brahmin Boston, sought self-understanding by rigorously investigating his old New England family’s history. His very personal account of the talented and troubled Sedgwick clan comes out this month.

There will be some local interest in the book because of the legendary Valley Sedgwicks-Francis M. (Duke) and Alice and their family, including the tragic Edie. They are mentioned, of course, and are a crucial piece of the Sedgwick puzzle. But they are a small part of a huge and prominent family.

In My Blood: Six Generations of Madness and Desire in an American Family will give readers some understanding and appreciation of our local Sedgwicks, but most of the book deals with the New England Sedgwicks.

Here’s an item I probably should have passed along to the dean of local columnists, Pat Murphy. Pat sometimes ends her column with a quiz.

She might have used this: What Valley resident was the inspiration for a children’s book, just released in paperback?

We’ll answer the question now rather than offering a choice of possibilities, Pat’s clever method for stimulating conversation and guaranteeing we will read next week’s column.

The book, aimed at readers ages 7-10 and with a title that takes up the entire cover, is My Big Sister is so Bossy She Says You Can’t Read This Book, by Santa Barbara author Mary Hershey. The big sister, now grown up and living in Santa Ynez, is the assertive, but not bossy, Alice Gillaroo.

A review in the School Library Journal provides a reassuring assessment of Ms. Hershey’s book, “The conclusion expresses well the love of sisterhood and the true meaning of friendship.”

Solvang and Hearst Castle are among most visited attractions on the Central Coast. The Book Loft gets some fallout from visitors stopping here after touring San Simeon. Often they are looking for a biography of Hearst.

There is interest, too, in Hearst’s principal architect, Julia Morgan, who also did buildings in Northern California and Santa Barbara.

A welcome picture book for ages seven and up has recently been published and is selling well in our store. Julia Morgan Built a Castle by Celeste Davidson Mannis and illustrated by Miles Hyman seems to be catching the eyes of local parents and youngsters.