Two Birds Books

🥳 Let Freedom Read Day 🥳

IF YOU HAVE 5 MINUTES…

📕 Call a decision maker
Call school and library administrators, school board and library board members, city councilpersons, and your elected representatives to ask them to support the right to read!

📕 Join Unite Against Book Bans
This is a national campaign to protect the rights of everyone to access information. It provides a comprehensive toolkit, supports those fighting censorship in their communities with advice and resources, and sends targeted messages to mobilize advocates in areas that need it. https://uniteagainstbookbans.org/take-action/

IF YOU HAVE 30 MINUTES…

📕 Check out a banned book
Circulation matters! Checking out banned books or books about topics that are frequently targeted for censorship proves that the community is interested in reading them. Library staff can use circulation data to support keeping the books on shelves when they are challenged and to justify ordering more books by the same authors or on the same topic.

📕 Buy a banned book
Censorship doesn’t just harm libraries and schools; it also impacts writers, publishers, and booksellers. Writers have had school visits cancelled. Publishers and booksellers are encountering more obstacles to working with schools and libraries. One way you can support the people who make and sell books is to buy them!
Do you want to help others access banned books? You can donate the books you purchase to:
Public and school libraries: Contact your local library or school to find out what they need and how to donate.
Little Free Library: Use the free LFL mobile app to find a Little Free Library book-sharing box near you!
Fundraisers: Many public libraries have friends of the library groups that use donated books to raise money for the library.

📕 IF YOU HAVE AN HOUR OR MORE...

Start organizing!
Here is a toolkit for grassroots organizing against book banning:
https://uniteagainstbookbans.org/toolkit/ -organizing

A few favorites recently restocked at Two Birds Books...

🎃🚫 True, we have a possibly obnoxious number of fall/Halloween stickers at Two Birds Books this year. But we also stocked this anti-PSL sticker to balance things out 😉

It's Banned Books Week, and we are coming off of a year of steeply increased book challenges.

🔹The American Library Association reports the highest number of challenged book titles ever documented in 2023, with 4,240 unique titles challenged (as opposed to 2,571 different titles in 2022).

🔹 Groups and individuals demanding the censorship of multiple titles, often dozens or hundreds at a time, drove the 2023 surge.

🔹 The ALA also reports that 47% of titles targeted for censorship in 2023 represent the voices and lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC individuals.

🔹 For more information, visit UniteAgainstBookBans.org

🎨 Artwork courtesy of the American Library Association, www.ala.org, where you can also access the report

When spooky season meets election season...

New in the store: Scary Things Halloween garden flag
Back in stock: the All Are Welcome garden flag, which sold out super fast this summer

🐦🐦 Available at Two Birds Books
📍881 41st Ave | Eastside Santa Cruz

Shop our list of Hispanic & Latine Heritage Month book recs online:

➡️ ➡️ Bookshop.org/shop/TwoBirdsBooks

🐦🐦 Two Birds Books
📍881 41st Ave | Eastside Santa Cruz

Another week of tempting new books, including...
🔹 New memoirs from Connie Chung, Hillary Clinton, and Kelly Bishop
🔹 A new detective series from Richard Osman
🔹 A sweet cozy fantasy about a photo shop where the recently deceased can relive a favorite life moment
🔹 An intriguing collection of women's anonymous sexual fantasies/reflections edited by the one and only Gillian Anderson
🔹 A collection of horror stories from the author of Our Share of Night with maybe the best title of all time? (A Sunny Place for Shady People)
🔹 A new detective novel with a great setting (Sierra Nevada foothills) and heroine (spunky small town crime reporter) by local author Robin Somers
🔹 Some beautiful new editions of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy..and tons more!

Stop by to see what's new--we're here until 6 tonight!
You can also check today's Stories for the scoop on some of today's new books.

🐦🐦 Two Birds Books
📍881 41st Ave | Eastside Santa Cruz

The only thing more exciting than this week's release of the sequel to The House in the Cerulean Sea is these adorable stickers!

🐦🐦 Available at Two Birds Books
📍 881 41st Ave | Eastside Santa Cruz

Two Birds Books is back open 10-6 Friday & all weekend with some very tempting new releases, including...

🔸 Somewhere Beyond the Sea, TJ Klune's sequel to customer favorite The House in the Cerulean Sea
🔸 Tell Me Everything, a new novel from Elizabeth Strout that features some of her most popular characters (Lucy Barton, Olive Kitteridge, Bob Burgess)
🔸 Nexus, a fascinating exploration of information networks from Yuval Noah Harari, the author of Sapiens
🔸 Impossible Creatures, a middle reader novel that Gary loved (think Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them meets The Neverending Story)
🔸Guillotine, a Glass Onion-meets-Saw horror novel about an uber rich family getting its due
🔸 Cebo Campbell's debut sci-fi novel Sky Full of Elephants, about how characters experience blackness in a world in which all white people have disappeared
🔸 Here one Moment, a new Liane Moriarty mystery/thriller about a plane full of people who learn exactly when each of them will die, and how they deal with this information
🔸 The Booklovers' Library, set in wartime England
🔸 Chloe Gong's sequel to Immortal Longings
🔸A couple of nonfiction books we're especially excited about: Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right and By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land

Stop by to see what’s new!

Ricky, Queso, Wilson, and Brenda are all looking to join a loving family! Each of these sweet dogs has their own unique charm. Ricky’s carefree, tongue-out expression, Wilson’s infectious smile, Queso’s irresistible cuteness, and Brenda’s soulful eyes all make them stand out in their own special way.

To adopt or foster one of these wonderful dogs and learn more about Peace of Mind Dog Rescue and our mission to support senior dogs and people along California’s Central Coast, visit www.pomdr.org and follow Peace of Mind Dog Rescue .

We're taking a few days off for family time...
Back to our normal schedule on Friday 9/13.

Fun school supplies for adults...

🐦🐦 Available at Two Birds Books
📍 881 41st Ave | Eastside Santa Cruz

Now through Sunday 9/8--preorder one of fall's hottest books on our online shop, get 20% off!
➡️ Bookshop.org/shop/TwoBirdsBooks
➡️ Code: Cantwait

A few of our favorites from today's *massive* stack of new releases, which includes new books from the authors of The Midnight Library, The Mars Room, Cleopatra & Frankenstein, & Godshot; the paperback releases of favorites like Let Us Descend, The Frauds, The Bee Sting, & Mother-Daughter Murder Night; compelling literary fiction; fun mysteries; and tons more. We've been running around trying to find space for the new books all morning!

It's the beginning of a month full of excellent new books, and we're here for it! Stop by Two Birds Books to see what's new. We're here 10-6 today.

We've also shared a peek at many--but not all--of today's new releases in our Stories. (Note that a few of these are showing up in this afternoon's shipment.)

Happy Labor Day! Two Birds Books is open 10-6 on Monday. Hope everyone's been enjoying the long weekend!

⛱️ Happy National Beach Day! ☀️📚🐚

We look forward to seeing our book friends from near & far this weekend! We're here 10-6 daily, including Monday.

A HUGE thank you to our sweet neighbor Gabriella over at Mon Ami Art Studios for commemorating Marsh in papier-mâché. We absolutely love it! ❤️🐾

We'll be at Event Santa Cruz's Midtown Summer Block Party this Friday evening selling books & other goodies! Stop by for food, 28 artists & vendors, and music by James Durbin & The Lost Boys. So much fun--hope to see you there!

1111 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz
(next to Santa Cruz Fire Station No. 2.)
Friday, August 23rd
Starts at 5, ends 8:30ish

Think Local First Santa Cruz

Two Birds Books will be closed this Thursday, and will be open 10-3:30 on Friday. (We're closing early Friday because we'll be selling books at the Event Santa Cruz Midtown Summer Block Party--hope you can stop by to say hi.) Back to normal hours on Saturday & Sunday!

👀 Looking for your next great read? You can't go wrong with a recent award winner/nominee, and two of our favorite literary awards were recently announced:

🔸 The Hugo Awards celebrate excellence in science fiction and fantasy publishing. This year's finalists include Gary's favorite sci-fi novel of last year (The Starter Villian, about an everyman who inherits his dead uncle's evil villain empire and is aided by a well-meaning cat) AND his favorite fantasy novel of last year (The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi, an exciting female pirate adventure story).

🔸 The high-profile Booker Prize recognizes excellence in English-language novels. This year's long list ranges from blackly comic page-turners to multigenerational epics to meditations on the pain of exile.
Denise is currently reading--and loving--Charlotte Wood's Stone Yard Devotional, a profound Australian novel about a troubled woman who ends up escaping to a monastery and reflecting on grief, forgiveness, and goodness. Gary's currently enjoying Rita Bullsinkel's Headshot, a buzzy debut novel about teen female boxers.
{Not pictured here are two highly-anticipated books that will publish in September: Rachel Kushner's Creation Lake and Richard Powers's (yes, Bewilderment and The Overstory Richard Powers) Playground.}

🐦🐦 Stop by Two Birds Books to see what tempts you.
🛒 You can also shop our roundup of award winners online at
Bookshop.org/shop/TwoBirdsBooks