Mystic owl wall

When expanding and renovating the bookshop, I had the idea that on at least one of the walls I wanted to do something special. I had no idea what I wanted at the time, just something special. I have always loved the color blue, so we started by painting the wall dark blue - and then I guess it´s not a surprise we decided for an owl painting on the wall. I had a picture in my head, but I couldn´t find it anywhere by googling "mystic owl", "night owl" or "moon owl", and I certainly can´t draw. But I told the artist I wanted some kind of a mystic owl and an Harry Potter-ish setting. So this is what I got, and he couldn´t have read my mind any better!

Pallet-bookshelf-project

Massimo getting pallets
 for our project

Today I was looking at my bookstore - looking so different than two months ago, so much bigger, nicer, more like I want it to be. The bookstore has kept me quite busy lately, as we have expanded and made it twice the size! In doing so we have had to paint, fix electrical system, fix ceiling and roof - and get new bookshelves. The latter is the reason I felt inspired to finally write on our blog again, as it is my very first pallet project. I will write about all the other expansion-stuff in another blog post, but the pallet bookshelf deserves its on space.

Photos from Blood of Brothers event

The literary event with Stephen Kinzer in La Olla Quemada on March 23rd went over all expectations! I never thought I would see a bar in León FULL of people for a book event, but it actually happened! People came all the way from Granada, Managua and Chinandega to enjoy an evening in León with us and Stephen Kinzer - Thank you all for making these kinds of events possible in León and for supporting your local bookstore. I want to thank Stephen Kinzer for his amazing stories, and for coming back to Nicaragua and León to share them with us. 

Stephen and his students from Brown University stopped
by Búho Books before the event

Only in León - Book event with author of Blood of Brothers

It´s funny how things work in the book-world. Specially here in Nicaragua; you open your tiny little shop, struggle to get books in a country where there are almost none, sell a few books a day, try to make things go around, try new things, work hard, do some small scale promotion...

And then suddenly one day something big happens. I open the facebook page for the bookshop and see a casual message from Stephen Kinzer on the wall. STEPHEN KINZER! If you are not familiar with who Stephen Kinzer is, he is the author of "Blood of Brothers - life and war in Nicaragua", a foreign correspondent who covered Nicaragua in the 70s and 80s. And if you are a bookshop owner in Nicaragua you LOVE Stephen Kinzer because he has written one of the bestselling books in english about Nicaragua, a well written and balanced book about the revolution and war in Nicaragua, the easiest book to recommend to anyone interested in Nicaragua. So then you understand that to get this short casual message on facebook is maybe one of the biggest things that will ever happen to my tiny little bookshop in León.