Adjusting To Our New Reality:
curbside pickup
home delivery
So we're all living in this entirely new world, together as a community but needing to stay separate physically.
We're open regular hours, but all events are cancelled
. We're doing all we can to adapt, to get you the books and toys and puzzles you need as you stay home, while we keep our staff and our customers safe.
Starting today we'll be offering
Curbside Pickup and Free Home Delivery for when you need to protect yourself and your family from contact.
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If you come in the store, you'll find that we're cleaning public surfaces CONSTANTLY, and that for now we've put all the toys away to protect kids. If we need to change our hours, you'll be the first to know!
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In case you need a reminder, our phone is: 215-844-1870
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Supporting the local businesses that support you in return is crucial right now - turns out local businesses aren't the ones hoarding all the nation's wealth in offshore accounts, so we're all going to be hit hard.
Two of our national community partners are reaching out to support local stores, which means you can shop online from your home and still help us in these times:
- Bookshop.org/shop/bigbluemarblebooks allows you to send great gifts all across the country while giving us a fair share (see more below)
- Libro.fm is donating 100% of new memberships and gift memberships to Indie bookstores this month - sign up to get great audiobooks and give us a solid boost (also see more below)
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Whew, this is a LONG newsletter with SO MUCH INFORMATION.
Keep reading and you'll find 2 moments of comic relief and 2 awesome suggestions for texts to recite during thorough handwashing.
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Curbside Pickup/Order by Phone or Email
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When you arrive, call the store and we'll send a staff member out with your order!
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Starting today we'll be offering curbside pick up!
Order by phone - call us and we'll get your order together. You can pay be credit card over the phone, or pay by credit card curbside
Order by email -
email us and request what you want. PLEASE include a phone number so we can be in contact about what's in stock. When your order is ready you can pay over the phone or pay with a card at your car.
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* we're inventing systems as we go, so we know there will be complications - we see you all the time and know y'all are wonderful, but do remember to be extra patient with our staffers
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Know who else is doing curbside pickup? Wild Hand and High Point! Make some calls, pull up, get SO MANY NEEDS MET.
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Not sure what you want? Thinking of "some fun sticker books" or "a great puzzle"? Let us be your personal shoppers! Our expert booksellers are happy to make choices for you - and to offer no-hassle exchanges!
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We'll Bring the Goods to You!
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For the duration of this health crisis we're setting up free home delivery, starting today. Our details may change as we work this out, but here's where we're starting:
We're asking for a $25 minimum, prepaid of course.
We're delivering on Wednesday and Friday mornings. We can't schedule times, but we will ask for where you want the package left. As a small business we can't replace packages that go missing - we'll text or email as soon as the goods are delivered so you know to come get them.
We're delivering with the zone shown on the map -
click it to see a bigger version. If you live a block or so out of the zone we can adapt. If unsure, call and ask.
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To Set Up Home Delivery
- Call or email - ask for specific titles, or ask us to make a choice for you.
- To deliver we'll need: your name, your exact address, info about where to leave the package, your email or phone number to receive notice about when the package is delivered
- Call to pay with a card over the phone
- Get Your Awesome Stuff on Wednesday or Friday!
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A Special Request from Your Friendly Neighborhood Booksellers
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If you or a member of your family is ill or has been in contact with anyone ill, please use our phone and email services.
We are a small staff, so the biggest threat to us is not that our customers might get sick, but that WE will get sick from contact with y'all. If two or more of us go down at the same time, staying open will be very hard.
We're washing our hands and cleaning everything to help protect you - please help protect all of your local retail workers by staying home and letting us deliver the goods to your door.
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Keep this is mind -
The shared social action we are doing is PHYSICAL distancing while inventing new ways to SOCIALLY connect.
We need one another to make the world we want - these times call us to be inventive, adaptable, patient, kind, even more adaptable and then again more inventive. Plus a lot of patience.
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Another Way to Support Us - Big Blue Marble @ Bookshop.org
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While we ALWAYS prefer that you buy from us directly, Bookshop.org is a great alternative if you want to send books as gifts to friends and family far away. We get a fair share of each order, and you get to send smart and wonderful gifts!
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Join Libro.fm, and 100% of your fee comes to us
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Right now, 100% of the proceeds from one-month gifts come directly to us.
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We'll let the recipient know they can go book shopping, they can call or email and arrange pickup or delivery - happy people get great books and everyone stays home and protected!
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The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, illustrated by Maira Kalman
Look, you're going to have some time on your hands, and you're going to need something beautiful to counter trying times. You know what you need? This stunning new book, in which the genius Maira Kalman brings to life the domestic bliss of the Stein/Toklas household.
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Queer Book News
If you're in the store, check out our display of Lambda Award Finalists - they won't all fit on one shelf, so we'll keep switching titles around!
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from 1956: Beloved,
I miss you so dreadfully. Not in a desperate or melancholy way, because I know we shall soon be with each other again, but I feel at such a loss ... This morning, half awake, I put a hand out to feel for you, then remembered you weren’t there, so I got up very quickly to escape the emptiness. And worked all day.
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In the Lateness of the World
- new poems from Carolyn Forché
Souffrance
I think of you in that sea of graves beyond the city,
where many stones have been left, among them,
mine: a little piece of dolomite to weigh down a slip of paper.
I would have put your gloves and umbrella in the coffin,
along with one more morning in Berlin with Tanya, an hour
of pigeons rising around you,
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In 1546, the plague wiped out a sizable portion of Stratford-upon-Avon. Who lived and who died was seemingly a matter of chance. In one house on a road called Henley Street, was a young couple who had already lost two children to previous waves of the plague, and their newborn son was 3 months old when they locked their doors and sealed their windows to keep the plague from invading their home again. That boy was William Shakespeare, whose entire life and work were informed by living during waves of the plague.
read more
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More necessary comic relief
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I’m Representative Katie Porter’s Whiteboard, and My Girl and I Are About to Kick Your Ass
by Caitlin Elizabeth Harper
When you woke up this morning and put on your bland suit in preparation for your hearing, I bet you looked yourself in the mirror and thought:
Today’s the day. Katie Porter’s not going to get me.
Well, I’m Representative Katie Porter’s whiteboard, and I’ve got a message scrawled upon my glistening façade: We’re about to kick your ass.
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“California Rep. Katie Porter exacted a commitment from the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to pay for coronavirus testing for uninsured Americans, grilling the Trump administration official repeatedly in the middle of a congressional hearing until he agreed the government would pay for the tests.”—
BuzzFeed, 3/12/20
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20 Second Hand Washing Text Suggestions
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