A consistently popular author at Kazoo Books is Deepak Chopra who has just published The Third Jesus: The Christ  We Cannot Ignore.   We are carrying this new hardcover and selling it at a significant discount.   According to Chopra,  one Jesus is a sketchy historical figure.  Another is an abstract theological creation.  And the third Jesus "is as yet so unknown that even the most devout Christians don't suspect that he exists."   This is a controversial book but one that needed to be written because it could inspire conversations about religion and spirituality which  could bring more understanding and peace to our planet.
 

      Nuola O'Faolain in her memoir ARE YOU SOMEBODY? tells the story about attending a workshop where she had to make a list of the ten most significant events in her life.  Number one had to be "I was born" and then you were free to write whatever you wanted. 

     Without even thinking about it her hand wrote for number two "I learnt to read."  She commented:  "Being born was something done to me, but my own life began--I began for myself--when I first made out the meaning of a sentence."

     When I tried this activity I had a similar automatic experience when I wrote for number two  "I moved to Kalamazoo."  That was in 1970 when I arrived here to attend Western Michigan University.  After graduating and leaving I returned in the fall of 1976  and have never lived anywhere else since.

     In the late 1970s I worked at Kazoo School, an indepdent elementary school, where I taught a class on the history of Kalamazoo.  From a seed planted there I wrote a book about the founder of Kalamazoo entitled A FINE PLACE FOR A CITY: Titus Bronson and the Founding of Kalamazoo. 

     About five years ago I began working for Kazoo Books, the only independent full-service bookstore in Kalamazoo.

     Two "Kalamazoo Classics" we recently acquired are books by Larry Massie and Peter Schmitt entitled 
KALAMAZOO: NINETEENTH-CENTURY HOMES IN A MIDWESTERN VILLAGE &  KALAMAZOO: THE PLACE BEHIND THE PRODUCTS.  Both these illustrated histories, out of print and hard to find,  are well-writtten and contain a treasure trove of  information about the history of Kalamazoo. 

     Also available at Kazoo Books is the O'Faolin memoir and my book about Titus Bronson and the founding of 
Kalamazoo.