Dear Friends of A Novel Experience,  
    
      What a way to go into the New Year! We are so appreciative of your support during the holidays--we had a record-breaking month. Thank you, everyone. The best part of the holidays is seeing folks from near and far who stop by and catch us up with what's been happening in their lives--thank you to our annual visitor who taught us how to say "Merry Christmas" in Finnish! We love seeing our "regulars" who stop by to check if they can snag any used Lee Child titles (sorry, they go out as soon as we shelve them!) and everyone who keeps us in the loop with local news--and, gives us suggestions for books to stock.

      For the New Year, we are going to focus on a couple of initiatives. First, we're going to read. We're going to read...books. During the holidays, we rediscovered how setting aside our gadgets and opening a book was remarkably calming. No humming, buzzing, ring tones, or anticipatory distractions...a delicious satisfaction in confounding the Machine's algorithms. We were reminded again about how monumentally noisy our lives have become. Try this for 10 minutes at a stretch and see what you think.

      Our second plan is to offer more opportunities for face-to-face sharing, conversation, and civil discourse. We're going to continue our  "Living Room Conversations"--we have been meeting with interested conversationalists once a month on Sunday afternoons to discuss  topics of national importance--we've done gun control, immigration, sexual harassment and media influences.  Ryan Cumming's classical guitar concert last week was standing room only and just wonderful--we hope we can tempt him back for more... and, we invite you to join one of our monthly book groups--they are fabulous opportunities to share the discovery of new books--perhaps ones you might never had considered picking up--the conversation among book lovers is always enlivening and enriching. Stop by, introduce yourself, and be a part. 


      This year we are looking forward to the start of the renovation of our backyard neighbor, the old Zebulon School. All of the "t's" are just about crossed and the "i's" dotted for work to start in earnest. Our  community raised over $135,000 to begin the renovation of this grand old lady. It was truly inspiring. We'll keep you updated!



      Entries for the 2018 "Dog and Pony Show" photography exhibition are coming in--the deadline is January 10th and we'd love to see your images. (We'd love for the winner to take those three donkeys as well...)  See below for more information.