Readers' Books

Readers' Books A gathering place for booklovers of all ages. A good general bookstore with a leaning towards fiction, cooking, and children's books. Come get to know us.

We have both new, used, and bargain books as well as magazines, cards, and a friendly, knowledgeable staff.

08/16/2026

Game on.

For a long time some of you–many of you, actually–have been asking us at the bookstore when the next Amos Parisman adventure will be available for sale. Believe me, I really appreciate having such a devoted base of fans. And in fact, the next installment of Amos Parisman mysteries should have appeared last November. It didn’t, but that had to do with a snafu at the publishers. I will spare you the gory details, but in short, the publisher opted to discontinue the series (or at least their participation in the series).

This presented us with a major headache, of course, because I had (still have) three more Amos Parisman novels tucked away and waiting in my computer. Not only that, they are particularly significant in that they help bring the whole saga to its logical conclusion; they complete the arc, as it were.

I pointed this out to the publisher’s editorial staff, but they were somehow unmoved by my argument. They are–I guess you’d call them–bean counters. Risk-averse, at any rate: it’s all about dollars and cents. In their mind what I have is a product they own (among hundreds of other such products) and they decided to trim their sails. In short, what I did was no longer worth their expenditure. Oh well.

For months I was despondent. I moped. Then I started hunting for another publisher who’d be interested in the remaining Amos Parisman stories. Turns out some folks might be excited to bring out the whole series, but not a few pieces. So finally, I came around to the bright idea of just publishing them myself. This is not only simpler, it probably also makes economic sense as well, since the vast preponderance of my sales came directly from Readers’ Books anyway.

So Jude and Rosie and I have now gotten together with a little ragtag publishing consortium of our own. Since we lack the vast resources of the corporate world we’ve had to charge slightly more than before, but still, we did it! And with the help of talented lay-out artists and printers, etc. we are very pleased to announce the arrival of Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep: An Amos Parisman Mystery.

It came out beautiful in my humble opinion, and yes, as always, there will be a celebration and a reception. The launch party for the book is slated for Wednesday, September 23rd. It could be earlier, but a lot of our local folks are gone in August. September, the beginning of fall, feels more like the right time. On the other hand, since the books have already arrived, there’s no earthly reason not to start the ball rolling now, right? We’ve put a batch out on the counter and so, for those of you who’ve been waiting around so patiently, it’s game on.

Of course, if you really want to delay your gratification and hold off until the big party and my spiel on September 23rd, well, that’s fine, too. I hope you come to that, too!

–Andy Weinberger

Two days done, four more to go!We love being the booksellers for Napa Valley Writers Conference (and the view too)! ...
07/28/2026

Two days done, four more to go!

We love being the booksellers for Napa Valley Writers Conference (and the view too)!

05/31/2026

Reality check.

You may have noticed that I haven’t been writing many essays of late. There’s a reason for this: whenever I sit down to write, the first thing that invariably comes to mind is Donald Trump.

This president has a penchant (unfortunate, in my view) for sucking every molecule of air out of the universe. He says so many unhinged and often contradictory things every day, and he takes so many wild, unilateral actions without regard to Congress or the Court or the voters or–God forbid–the Constitution, that it numbs the brain. My brain, anyway. I just shut down. I think to myself: why even bother?

Other folks have written about this phenomenon before, naturally. How he’s all over the map and, you know, how you can’t fix stupid. That sort of thing. I don’t want to be repetitive.

Then, this morning, I read an interesting new item that lifted me off the couch. It suggested that all the lies and drivel we’ve been bombarded with day after day have had a substantial effect–at least on one portion of the populace.

To wit: If you believe polls (and I do) some 51% of the Republican Party actually thinks that tariffs are a fee foreigners pay for selling products to the United States. Other people are picking up the tab, in other words. That’s according to the Morning Consult. So clearly, Trump has those folks in his pocket. Never mind what that new pair of Italian shoes just cost you. Or that pound of beef. Or that cup of coffee. It’s a damn lie.

Also, in Pew Research it was announced that a full 43% of the GOP contends that solar power is more expensive than other available energy. Fact check: it’s the cheapest. Right now, for example, in Australia they’re now producing so much solar that every household there is scheduled to soon receive three full days of free energy courtesy of that big orange ball up there. So mull on that next time you open your bill from PG & E.

Finally, Ipsos reports 82% of Republicans believe that large numbers of noncitizens cast fraudulent ballots in recent U.S. elections. Not true. Never happened. In fact, you can count those thugs who somehow slipped through the cracks at polling stations on one or two hands.

What’s interesting is that it’s virtually only Republicans who’ve drunk this Kool-Aid. Democrats, Independents, everyone else disagrees. A majority of Americans trust the science. Which tells me that the insanity we’re all experiencing is contagious, yes, but probably not a fatal disease.

Which gives me hope in the long term. Because while a cranky, vulgar, delusional old guy is still running the show in the Oval Office, the numbers are looking up. You can only argue with gravity for so long, after all.

–Andy Weinberger

03/01/2026

Seven come eleven.

Anyone who follows the news has perhaps realized the inevitability of this moment. Donald Trump used to run gambling casinos in Atlantic City, so maybe it is no great surprise that he has now rolled the dice and singlehandedly plunged us into a weekend war with Iran. What rankles is that he did so without even consulting Congress or musing about the serious reservations of the Joint Chiefs.

We may take comfort in the fact that he did chat in advance with Israel’s Bibi Netanyahu so that both men could coordinate their plans.

There are a number of ironies connected to this whole debacle, however. Never mind that Congress is supposed to declare war. That’s such a quaint idea, after all, letting our elected representatives take responsibility. So…Constitutional. And never mind the fact that it was just a year ago that we ostensibly bombed their nuclear facilities back to the stone age–”obliterated” them, according to our President–and once again, without the benefit of congressional wisdom.

Unlike the last adventure when our special forces helicoptered into Venezuela and abducted that nation’s head of state, the attack on Iran is destined to be much more difficult. You don’t need to be a four-star general to know that this was never going to be a walk in the park. Iran has some ninety million inhabitants; it also has a well-trained and well-equipped military. And even if many Iranians are against the brutal rule of the ayatollahs, they are very patriotic. They’ve endured a gruesome six-year war with Iraq and they know in no uncertain terms what it means to sacrifice blood and treasure.

I wonder if this was ever mentioned in the Oval Office. Probably not. Since Trump is not even contemplating making a major announcement about the war, I’m guessing he thinks (hopes? prays?) that somehow this will amount to yet another short blood-letting, that the regime will simply throw up their hands and fold their tents and vanish in the night. And does he also believe in fairy tales? That everyone will live happily ever after?

There are, of course, real, legitimate reasons to want to topple the folks in Tehran. They have supported terrorist organizations throughout the Middle East, they suppress, imprison and torture their own people, and their narrow theocratic myopia flies in the face of our natural pluralist instincts. But by that metric, many misbehaving countries deserve our wrath. Are we on a war footing with Russia? China? North Korea? I see little evidence. The question then becomes, can we afford to be the world’s policeman? Are our ethical standards so pure?

Chances are, this hot mess we are waltzing into stems not from actual cause, but rather, from our President’s perceived need. Truth be told, he’s wagging the dog; Iran is just a distraction, a bright, shiny object Donald Trump wants us to focus on instead of the economy, the roaming bands of ICE thugs, the coming elections, and, most importantly, the Epstein affair. He knows he is tainted, a lame duck. He knows his own base is increasingly abandoning him. And maybe somewhere in the back of his mind he fears the coming rule of law and that his days of freedom are numbered.

Let me say that I hope this goes well and ends quickly. I pray that it does. But I don’t pretend to be a prophet. I honestly have no idea what success looks like, and I doubt that Trump does, either.

–Andy Weinberger

02/27/2026

To each his own.

Lilla told me a story once from her college days. She had enrolled in a sociology class and there was going to be an essay test the next day on a certain chapter. Maybe it wasn’t sociology, I can’t remember that part, but it doesn’t matter. Anyway, she walked in and sat down and suddenly realized that she had read the wrong chapter. But rather than lie and put down a bunch of obvious baloney, she elected to say, Guess what? I screwed up. I somehow didn’t read the section you assigned and so instead I’m going to write about the section I did study. Hope that’s okay.

The teacher was impressed by her candor and her ability to speak on the other topic, and she ended up with an A on the test.

I bring this up as a segue into what took place last night at the State of the Union speech in Washington, D.C. To wit, the president spent nearly two hours of our valuable time talking about things only he was interested in. These were not, in my view, topics that touched directly on the pain we are feeling at the moment. Quite the contrary, in fact. He talked about our terrific men’s hockey team, he talked about the surging stock market and how everyone’s 401K plans were growing fatter by the minute, he talked about how our southern border was now safe and secure and how fentanyl usage was way down. And since he hasn’t an ounce of humility, he naturally took credit for every bit of it.

Leaving aside whether the numbers and “facts” he was quoting were true, there is a much larger concern: namely that he ignored the front page issues the rest of us are fixated on. He did not, for example, mention the tragic killings in Minneapolis and the traumatic impact that ICE’s marauding gangs are having on everyone. I don’t think the word ICE even came up in the speech. As a political matter, he also was vague about what he might do differently in advance of the midterm elections to ease the rising anxiety among his fellow Republicans. They sat there and applauded him like trained seals; he thought that was his due, apparently. He doesn’t realize that their fate and his are deeply intertwined. And of course, there was the (you should pardon the expression) elephant in the room: Jeffrey Epstein was a no-show.

Ideally, the State of the Union message is supposed to be a moment of reset. The president usually takes a victory lap for whatever good he has achieved thus far. But he also leaves ample space for charting a fresh direction. Here, Trump failed spectacularly. By his myopic reckoning, he had done nothing wrong, nothing his predecessors had come close to, certainly nothing to apologize for. Instead, we were treated to a bizarre variety show, a queen for a day parade whereby heroes–from the recent Texas flood to our invasion of Venezuela, even back to World War II days–were trotted out and publicly awarded medals. Trump also went on several rampages about murderous incidents in this country, all of which, curiously enough, seemed to involve illegal immigrants. He devoted an extraordinary amount of time on this subject, asking the victims in the gallery to rise and be recognized for their suffering while he went on and on in graphic detail. It was a display of violent p**n that he seemed to relish, even as most of us were revulsed by it.

If the president really cared about us and wanted to address our concerns, he would have taken a different tack. If he were honest, the State of the Union could have been a cathartic experience. He is underwater in virtually every public poll in the country, on every issue from immigration to the economy to trusting government officials. But honesty and Trump are words that probably will never be used in the same sentence. In the end, he is a carnival barker; if it’s not larger than life, he has no interest.

Lilla was honest back then. She admitted she was wrong before she launched into her essay, and not only did she get an A on the test, I’m sure she slept soundly that night.

–Andy Weinberger

TO THE BARRICADES, with song.In the spirit of resilience and resistance, Readers’ Books has decided to embark on a new (...
02/04/2026

TO THE BARRICADES, with song.

In the spirit of resilience and resistance, Readers’ Books has decided to embark on a new (and hopefully, temporary) side-venture: we’re now offering the public anti-ICE whistles.

BYOL (Bring Your Own Lanyard). The sound these little metal guys emit will not just alert all patriotic Americans within earshot, but also panic the masked, pistol-packing goons roaming the street. This is as it should be, in my humble opinion (Nota bene: the last time I checked our Constitution I still had the right to an opinion, although with the current gang at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, you can never be certain).

We aren’t putting an exact price tag on these whistles; instead we ask for a CASH donation of whatever amount you choose. ALL proceeds will be given to Sonoma Immigrant Services, a 501. 3c organization right here on Highway 12. They do important education and advocacy work for our local immigrant populations and deserve our help.

-Andy Weinberger

02/01/2026

Better days ahead.

If you were not one of the maybe three people in this country who wasn’t completely disgusted by what has gone on in Minnesota these past few weeks–in other words, if you are a thoughtful, compassionate human being–I have encouraging news. The tide is definitely turning in our direction.

Some data points to back this up: Both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post have come out against Trump’s immigration tactics. The National Review has called for Kristi Noem, our most inept head of Homeland Security, to be fired, “preferably in a rocket.” The NRA (yes, okay, in defense of the 2nd Amendment) has gone after the Administration for using the fact that Alex Pretti was armed at the time of his murder as a cheap excuse to open fire. Numerous elected Republicans–from Ted Cruz to Rand Paul–have chastised the White House for their over-the-top tactics. Some of their outrage is moral, but of course, they are also noting the steep political price they will have to pay in November. And now it looks as though we will be heading into another government shutdown because Democrats and some Republicans can’t bring themselves to vote for the continued violence they see on their TV screens every night.

Speaking of screens, I have to give a special shout-out here to the advent of the iPhone as well: the fact that any move ICE makes is now caught forever on video from multiple angles is nothing short of revolutionary. What a difference that would have made back in the day when we were demonstrating about civil rights and Vietnam. Oh well.

Still, it’s only January, and many months remain until the elections in November. A lot can go wrong; hell, a lot probably will go wrong before this nightmare is over. And whatever nonsense looms on the horizon–whether we invade Greenland or Canada, whether we “liberate” Iran or knock down another wing of the White House or dismantle the Federal Reserve (the possibilities are endless, after all, and who among us can read Trump’s mind?)--we have to soldier on.

There is no alternative, really. You just have to stay sane and do whatever you can to move the ball forward. That’s the world we live in.

–Andy Weinberger

We’re open until 5pm. Come see all of our merry faces!
12/24/2025

We’re open until 5pm.

Come see all of our merry faces!

Happy birthday to us 🥳📚Andy and Rosie are the two happiest bookstore owners in the world today!
11/29/2025

Happy birthday to us 🥳📚

Andy and Rosie are the two happiest bookstore owners in the world today!

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