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Happy National Leon Day!

Thursday, June 25th, 2020

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Joy L. (vintagejoy)

 

There are things we hear and see throughout our lives that just seem to stick in our memories. One thing that I remember is from a Christmas TV spot on the series ‘Home Improvement.’ (Tim the Toolman Taylor? Quite a few years ago) It’s about a Christmas program that the Taylor children were participating in. They were each to hold a letter of the alphabet to spell ‘NOEL.’ Well, they got mixed up about where they were supposed to stand and spelled it backward to reveal ‘LEON.’ This struck me as being very hilarious for some reason. Over the years – especially during the Christmas holidays I remember that show and ‘Leon.’

Now I would like to be the very first to wish you on June 25:

Very Happy National Leon Day!

It has finally been proclaimed!

Which brings up another thought; why on earth does everything have to be a national day of something or other?

I did some searching around and found the following days to be quite intriguing;

Jan 3 National Drinking Straw Day – Wait, what?

Jan 28 National Kazoo Day – O, please No!

Mar 25 National Waffle Day – Cue up IHOP & Waffle House!

Apr 15 National Tax Day – This is not amusing at all.

Apr 17 National ‘Nothing Like a Dame’ Day – Really??

May 9 National Lost Sock Memorial Day – Let’s just take a minute……

June 1 National Go Barefoot Day – it is a good thing this is not the same day as:

June 2 National Rocky Road Day – emergency room visits would be way up if it was
the same day.

Dec 5 National Bathtub Party Day – this will probably need to be canceled this year
as it would be impossible to maintain social distancing in a bathtub.

Let’s just have a National Anything Day and be done with it! 🙂

 

 

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Posted in Holidays and Special Dates | No Comments »

Jerrie and Richard visit Midway Elementary to distribute books

Thursday, May 18th, 2017
In our recent Books for Kids donation campaign, our generous members donated enough credits and PBS Money to provide 12,511 books to needy children in Georgia. Richard Pickering, President and Founder invited long-time PaperBackSwap member, Jerri Adkins, to join him in distributing books to the students at Midway Elementary. Jerrie, herself, donated all 1200 credits for this school! Below are their memories of that special day.

 

Dear Members,
We all work very hard at PaperBackSwap to bring you the best in swapping books all over the USA.  And our club members are the best!

 

midway 4
Recently, due to your generosity, I had the opportunity to hand out new books to kids at Midway Elementary School (preK – 5th grade).  These kids do not get much in the way of gifts and have a very tough life.  I was honored to be able to hand out these books due to the generosity of so many of you who donated credits in order to make this happen.

 

The smiles on their faces were priceless.  When I explained that they could take 2 new books home with them, they could not believe it.  Many of them brought thank you cards.  And here are a few pictures from the actually event where we met the kids.

 

I can not tell you how proud I am of each and every one of you who made a donation (either with credits, money for shipping, or both).  We have a wonderful community of members who truly care – about each other and through the gift of giving.  Thank you so much for all that you do in making PBS a blessed place to share our love of reading!

 

Richard Pickering
President and Founder of PaperBackSwap

 

 Midway one

 

Y’all know about the School Donation Program, yeah?  It’s one of our very favorite holiday things to do.  It’s such a kick, to donate to a dozen schools in ten states.  Last year, I’d been saving up credits all year, looking forward to it.  But it’s popular, and folks are generous, so it fills up fast.  I wound up with lots of extra credits left over, and jumped up and down a bit.
 
Richard contacted me about something more local with a school he had worked with before.  Now, ego-boost aside, the whole point is to get books to the kids.  (When a book in my house becomes both a book in someone else’s house and a book in a kid’s hands, that’s math I can get behind!)  He did the legwork, and I did the driving (all two hours of it, with a stop to change, so the kids would feel important enough to get dressed-up for).
 
When I got there, I found out he’d been, as the saying goes, busy to some purpose.  There were boxes of books, half a hallway wide, over a classroom long, and nearly ceiling-high.  Richard said, because of doing so many schools close together, he’d been able to get a great break on the shipping, & so get lots more books.  (More math wins!)
 
Fortunately, the media specialists had already sorted out the books for Midway onto age-appropriate tables.  We had to keep shooing the smaller kids away from the big-kid table, as one does.  They brought them in, wave on wave, class after class.  Surf’s up!  I was very grateful Richard & the others were there to help.
 midway 5
It was all an excited, rainbow-butterfly blur for several hours.  Several of the classes made adorable thank-you cards.  Richard kept directing them to me (possibly because I’d brought a bag?).  The children were very excited about the books, talking about reading them, selecting some for siblings, possibly swapping them out in their classrooms, etc.
 
It was lots of fun, but draining.  I was very glad to have done it.  Best of all, there’s now a summer program, so everyone can get in on the fun.
 midway two
Jerrie Adkins
PaperBackSwap Member

 

midway 3

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Books for Schools 2016

Thursday, December 8th, 2016

Dear Members,

Books for Schools 2016 is nearly complete! As of right now, the last 2 schools are up collecting donations. That will make the total donation this year 11,750 books for 8 deserving elementary schools.

Some of these children have never had a book to call their own. Through our generous members, the Books for Schools donation program changes that!

We thank you for helping to put hands in the books of these students and for sharing the joy of reading.

We thought you may want to see why we LOVE this program. These are just some of the photos we have received from our recipient schools over the years. Seeing the joy on the children’s faces makes us smile.

In Gratitude,
Richard and The PaperBackSwap Team

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Musings, Memories and Miscellany from our MoM’s

Tuesday, September 20th, 2016

Cyn F. (Cyn-Sama) is our newest Member of the Month, named MoM in September 2016.

How long have you been a PBS member? 

Since 6/26/06

How did you find PBS?   

I honestly don’t remember. I think I had a friend on a message board tell me about it.

I know it was before the big boom in m/m themed publishing, because I started the first game featuring unconventional couples. At that time, finding books with a homoerotic plot was difficult.

I still have some of the books that I gained through those games, and fondly remember the members who played with me.

 

How has PBS impacted your life? What does PBS mean to you?

PBS has helped me share the books I love, and introduce others to them. I love knowing that a review I’ve written, or a suggestion I’ve made has helped a member discover a new author or genre.

PBS is always surprising me with just what I can get on my Wish List!  I’ve gotten two embalming textbooks so far. It just goes to show that PBS has something for everyone. Even people like me!

 

What book impacted you most as a child or young adult?

There were many books that shaped my childhood.

I was a very strange child. I could read at 16 months (which kinda freaked my parents out), and this lead me to tackling books that may have been a bit too old for me.

I’ve written a blog post here on PBS, devoted to my love of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, but there was also A Little Princess, The Secret Garden, as well as all the books by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

        

When I was in Jr. High, my favorite books were the Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice.  I was also devouring Steven King, my favorite book by him being The Eyes of the Dragon.

         

When I was 15 a friend at summer camp introduced me to Mercedes Lackey, and that has become a love that has stretched into adulthood.

What is your favorite or most meaningful book read as an adult?

The American Way of Death by Jessica Mitford was a book that truly opened my eyes to the world of death culture, something that has been the obsession of my life – Death Culture, cemetery history, and the history of mourning. (Hence me getting excited about my embalming books!)

When I’m not reading books on history (my husband and I are reenactors, so we read a LOT of history books), my favorite authors to curl up with are Mercedes Lackey, J.R. Ward, and Lisa Kleypas.

 

What are you reading now?

Smut!  While switching between Clarissa Dickson Wright’s History of English Food, and How to be a Tudor by Ruth Goodman, I’m happily reading some wonderfully trashy ebooks like Heart of the Hunter by Chance Carter.

        

 

 

Do you know of another PaperBackSwap member who just seems to go above and beyond? One who makes you smile, or helps you figure out something about a swap, or who simply makes you glad she or he is part of the club? You may just have found yourself a MoM (Member of the Month)!
MoMs are special members, ones who put a little extra effort in for the benefit of others, even when they think no one may ever notice. Maybe they send their packages well-wrapped bearing cheerful stickers on the outside, or they post interesting topics in the Discussion Forums that get people thinking and talking, or they work behind the scenes to correct book listings or upload images to book listings. Maybe they’re Tour Guides and help other members navigate swapping, or maybe they create extra-fun games in the Games forum, the kind after which everyone feels like they’ve made new friends.
If you believe that you have encountered a MoM, submit your nomination to us here. Tell us why you think the member is a MoM — the more details, the better! The Member of the Month gets a newsletter mention and a nifty MoM icon to wear on profile and forum posts with pride.  So go for it! Tell us who’s helped you in the Forums, who’s been a great swapper, who in your opinion is a credit to the club. Who knows–the next MoM might just be YOU!

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Posted in Memories and Miscellany from our MoM's | No Comments »

Invite Friends to Join PBS! Earn $ and Spread the Word!

Friday, July 29th, 2016

cup of tea and a book on a table in the library

If someone handed you a $5 bill, would you put it in a pocket and never spend it? We hope not! Yet, some of you are doing the equivalent of that right now, and you may not even know it.

Our Invite Friends program allows you to earn actual cash money for referrals. No joke! Moolah. Green. Bank. Dough. Cabbage. Bread. (OK, now we’re getting hungry.)

Some members who have referred friends after the start of the program in November 2015 have become eligible to claim a cash reward, but haven’t done that yet! Are you one of those members?

You can check by going to the Invite Friends page, linked from the bottom of any page on the site, or click here: Check my Referrals

Scroll down on that page to see your list of referred accounts and if there is a Claim Your Reward button there, click it! Then choose a check mailed to your home, or PBS Money. That’s all you have to do. Could NOT be easier.

And if you don’t yet have cash to claim, it’s easy to get that started. You can Learn More About Inviting Friends in the Help Center. For you, it means a Cha-Ching! of always-welcome cash. For your referred friend, it means a discount on Annual Membership and entry into a world of online bookswapping. For the club, it means more members and more books to be shared with all of us. It’s win-win-win!

 

 

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Posted in A Word from the PBS Team | No Comments »

Free Book Giveaway Winner! (Tell us why YOU love books)

Friday, May 27th, 2016

 

The Winner, chosen at random, of the brand-new copy of
Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll is:

Cynthia H. (preciousoils)

“Why do I love “Real Books”? Ask my overflowing bookshelves where I somehow always find room to add a new friend.” ~ Cynthia H.

 

Just as we suspected, there are as many reasons to love books as there are PaperBackSwap members!

Here are just a few that caught our attention:

“I love the page by page turning” ~ Dawn R. (dawnr56)

“They’re like trophies to me. And book cases are my trophy cases where I present my prizes!” ~ Summer D.

“Holding a book in my hand just feels right.” ~ Debbie D.

“The main reason for me is the swapping.” ~ Denise B. (dkb1269)

“I love printed books because it is one of the very few things that is socially acceptable to hoard. And I do… by the thousand.” ~ Roxy W. (ravyn)

“There is nothing like that feeling I get after I’ve read the last sentence of a book and clasp that book shut.” ~ Sharon V. (shawie)

“There’s nothing better than a shelf full of good books that friends can borrow from.” ~ Emily W.

“Books just make me happy!” ~ Cindy M.

 

Thank you to everyone who commented sharing their reasons for Loving Books!

 

 

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Posted in Contests | 2 Comments »

A PBS Member Helps Out The Postal Service

Wednesday, May 18th, 2016

By Pat O. (PatinKS)mailbox

 

The Northeast Kansas Local Chapter of PaperBackSwap (which meets in Topeka, KS) is small but active. We meet twice a month and do not have any set agenda, but mostly get together to talk about books, PBS, exchange books,  and anything else that ‘trips our trigger’. We meet one Sunday afternoon a month at a local donut shop and one Monday a month for lunch.

At our October luncheon one of the members, Evelyn F (bluemoon2421) mentioned that she had taken some books for mailing to one of our Post Office branches, and mentioned that she really liked PBS because she still likes the “feel” of holding a book in her hands to read. She also told them that she has a friend who is blind and who reads lots of books on tape but her preferred method of reading is still holding a Braille book in her hands to read.

Then the clerk piped up and said “You can read Braille? We need help.” Evelyn said that she did not read Braille but had someone in the car who could. They asked her to please bring her in. They needed help! They had several trays of talking books that belonged to the State Talking Books Library, with the labels written only in Braille that someone had dropped in the mailbox. Evelyn’s friend, Nancy immediately knew what to do. She called the Post Office on the following Monday with the address of the State Talking Books Library in Emporia and the books were dispatched. They were very grateful.


Pictured below are some of the PBS members of the Topeka Chapter at their November luncheon. We always welcome anyone who would like to join us.  Pictured are  DeAnnette H. (deanie) (sitting);back row to her right is Linda B., standing in the middle back is Pat O. (PatinKS) and to her left is Evelyn F. (bluemoon2421).

 

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The Northeast Kansas PBS Chapter meets twice a month. We meet on the first Sunday of each month at the Baker’s Dozen on SW 21st Street in Topeka, at 2pm – we call it Donut Sunday.
We meet on the third Monday of each month at Perkins Restaurant on Wanamaker at 11:30am for lunch.
We are always looking for new members so if you enjoy reading come join us for both meetings, if possible, and if not come when you can.

 

 

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Posted in Member Memories: Our Love of Books | 2 Comments »

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