SPEAKER_04 1:48

Welcome to the Hilltop Glove Podcast. In this episode, we are thrilled to introduce Miss Valinda Miller, the visionary owner of Turning Page Bookstore, a black-owned brick and mortar bookstore in South Carolina. Located at 604 James Avenue, Suite I, in Goose Creek, this literary gem has been a beacon for book lovers and community advocates since its inception in June 2014. Originally rooted in Seneca, South Carolina, the bookstore has flourished from its current Goose Creek relocation, fostering a space where curiosity thrives and connections are forged. Stepping into Turning Page Bookshop, and you'll be greeted by the comforting sense of coffee and tea, setting the stage for a memorable literary experience. The carefully curated selection of books caters to diverse tastes and ages, ensuring that there's something for everyone, from classic literature aficionados to fans of the latest releases. Beyond being a book lover's paradise, the bookstore serves as a hub for community engagement, hosting book clubs, author events, and engaging storytime sessions for children, all designed to enrich the minds and hearts of visitors. In essence, Turning Page Bookshop is more than a bookstore. It's a vibrant community hub that celebrates local voices and fosters a love for literature. With its inclusive environment, diverse offerings, and engaging programs, this bookstore invites you to immerse yourself in the joy of reading while connecting with fellow book enthusiasts. Join us in exploring the world of Turning Page Bookshop, where every page turned is an opportunity for discovery and connection. How are you doing today, Miss Miller?

SPEAKER_05 3:31

Kind.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

I love the honesty. I love it.

SPEAKER_06 3:38

Well, see, I I've been up since 4 30.

SPEAKER_03 3:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 3:41

That's in everyday. So I have to get up and walk the dog.

SPEAKER_03 3:43

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_06 3:44

Um, make sure, because I don't want no stains around my house, even though there's already stains around my house, so we can't avoid that.

SPEAKER_05 3:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 3:51

Then I have to get online to make sure I update the website, make sure the social media of the store is, you know, up and running. Unless I have to work overtime for my full-time job. Oh, okay. What's your full-time job? I work for the federal government in the payroll office. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 4:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 4:08

Excellent, excellent, excellent. Well, um, we're happy to have you here today. We appreciate you dealing with our little delay that we had this morning. I'm gonna do you a favor. I'm gonna bring this closer to you because I want to get everything he's saying. And then um, we always like to start off with each episode, and I always like to hit this with the baseline um of what our podcast is about. Um, I know we were discussing this earlier, but as millennials, one thing we understood is that we never have a strict guideline book and or resource to tell us how to be successful when it comes to different um, I guess you say, professions, businesses, or et cetera. And so one of the main reasons for the podcast is to speak with folks that we think are doing a good job or at least making it look like they're doing a good job. Because sometimes people make it seem easier than what it is at being successful, either being an entrepreneur or working in a specific profession, so that folks that listen to it can say, hey, you know what? This is something I can do. And so for millennials, this is almost like a big Rolodex. And so we try to then also humanize the individuals, and so we like to ask these simple questions to begin. Sure. So who or what influenced you growing up?

SPEAKER_06 5:17

My grandmother. Growing up in Washington, DC, I was about six or seven, and she walked me the four blocks to the neighborhood library. Oh, wow. And I walked in that library, and you know, my whole my whole body just shook. My whole, I mean, my eyes just went up in the air, and I'm like, oh my God. And my grandmother was so happy to see that expression on my face. So after a couple of years, she allowed me to walk there by myself. And growing up kind of poor, uh, some of the librarians in there, they saw me come in there and go to the water fountain, and they started bringing me cookies and milk. And I thought that was so sweet of them. And I found out eight years later that my grandmother, who was born and raised in Athens, Georgia, was not allowed to go into a library because she was black. So when I found that out, other than getting pissed and cussing out everybody, um, I said, nah, no, I'm gonna stay into the world of books. So I followed what the parents said, and you know, the grandparents said, get a full-time job and do your side stuff. So I volunteered at libraries, worked part-time at bookstores, attended all kinds of book festivals, and just kept going with the love of books and try to get books in not just in adults' hands. Sometimes it's a little late to get into their hands, but sometimes me and my manager can drag them in. But I gotta get them in the kids' hands. That's so smart, yes.

SPEAKER_04 6:45

Very true, very true. Um so of course you're breaking down that story. Do you remember um, like as your yourself as a reader and talking about children? What age did you fall in love with? You were reading a book, like first book that you read that made you really go, ah, this is I like reading. Because for some people, reading is a chore. And they feel like it's something that they only do when they're asked to do it because of school purpose. Well, I mean, I love stories.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

See, but I'm dyslexic as hell.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

So, yeah, it's a job. Yeah, so it's a job.

SPEAKER_06 7:17

Well, here's the thing, and I learned this so many years ago. You cannot put the book in a kid's or an adult's hand and get them to read it. You got to ask them what they want and what they're doing and what's going on with their life. Okay. You find out what's going on. So when I see kids and they go, I don't want to read, I say, well, what kind of TV show do you like? What cartoons do you like? So the kids that's coming into my store now, they're teenagers, you know, they're getting between 12 and 15, and you know, they in there because the parents says, Oh God, I got to come in here. And so what I do is I'll walk around and show them graphic novels. Yeah. Oh, that's so good. Because it's visual comic books. That's visual, but it still has words. And then if I can get them to read that, they'll come back and go, okay, I like the words now. I want to read something else.

SPEAKER_05 8:10

Right.

SPEAKER_06 8:11

And so I find books not only visually appealing to them, but it's something that they can understand. Like, I'm not gonna give a 16-year-old kid uh maybe a Ryan Kennedy romance book. I know that. That is what they want, man. I know, I know that's what they want. They want romance. They want to be in living. They do. And I keep telling them Cinderella's dead. We have a book out called Cinderella's Dead. You know, come on, that that bitch is dark. Listen, I love it. And so the 16-year-old, I'm gonna give them Sarah Mass. I'm gonna give them paranoia, I'm gonna give them fantasy. I'm gonna give them, you know, uh, there's a book out delicious. There's two black characters on the front, and she looked like she's a vampire, and there's uh the the pages look like it's torn, but they're going through something. And so when they sit down and and go, what are they going through? I said, That's your job to tell me what they're going through. You know, you tell me what's going on. And did that kid down the street bother you? Yeah, he did. I don't like that kid in my class. Why? So I try to find books that they can relate to them.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

I like that. You get them where you are, where they are.

SPEAKER_06 9:30

Where they are. You got to give people what they want where they are. Yeah. Because this COVID knocked us out. It did.

SPEAKER_04 9:40

Yeah, it did.

SPEAKER_06 9:41

It just knocked us out, and the kids and the literacy just went way down. Way down, and they're still struggling now in school. Unfortunately, South Carolina's number three behind Mississippi. And Alabama.

SPEAKER_04 9:57

God damn it. Just got the accent with it, too. Yeah, books was up.

SPEAKER_06 10:02

Yeah, man. You know, because uh Mississippi guy came to my store one day. You got books in here? Uh-huh. I got books. I got books.

SPEAKER_02 10:10

Just magazines, bro.

SPEAKER_06 10:11

I got books. This is what he said. I came in here because my wife, she's that, you know, the sweet fog, and I just came in here that got some books. And I said, who you getting the books for?

SPEAKER_04 10:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 10:25

I don't know what you want to give. I said, well, I got a whole section of used books. I said, well, I guess you a John Wayne fan, aren't you? How you knows about John Wayne? You said you're a John Wayne fan, don't you? Yeah. I said, I know you like that Republican, don't you? He's a good he was a good man. I said, I know he was. Let me get you to buy some Zane Gray. Oh, my Lord Jesus. So we have some Zane Gray used books.

SPEAKER_05 10:56

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 10:57

And he looks at me, where you get Zane Gray from? I said, don't worry about where I got it from. You you a Zane Gray guy? He left, you know? I liked you. You wouldn't like them other folks.

unknown 11:10

No.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

So are you good at reading people?

SPEAKER_06 11:12

Yeah. Oh, I can tell. I can tell. Like that. Yeah. Yeah. He just, let me tell you, his wife came in there. His wife is a big reader.

SPEAKER_03 11:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 11:21

She's always coming in there looking for the Jack Reacher books, the John Grisham book. Because we have a huge um used book section. Okay. And she hadn't watched Jack Reacher on Netflix yet. Oh. And I asked her, did she watch it? And she said, Well, I know Tom Cruise played Jack Reacher. I said, no.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

Tom Cruise is terrible at that.

SPEAKER_06 11:42

I don't care how much they lifts they put in his shoes. No, that's not. I've met Tom Cruise.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 11:51

Tom Cruise, Sylvester Stallone, and Wesley Snipes. They're not taller than me.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

Good gracious.

SPEAKER_06 11:56

Okay, so don't go there.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

Jack Reacher, huge. I know.

SPEAKER_06 11:59

Jack Reacher is a big guy. And you know, he and he's a rough guy, and he's very, you know, eternal, and he's kind of low-key and quiet. So he I told the lady.

SPEAKER_05 12:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 12:11

I said, don't look at Jack Reacher yet, the one on Netflix. Yeah. You know, and the husband goes, Well, I like that kind of movie. And I said, I know you do. You like, you know, Fast Five, right? The the Chicago.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

I love that movie. You got Fast Five the Booker.

SPEAKER_06 12:29

You like that? He said, You know, I really like you. You're a good one. You're a good one.

unknown 12:35

I said, thank you.

SPEAKER_06 12:36

Now, I'm not in there every day. My manager works there every day. And I try to get there on weekends on Saturday. So the story she tells me when she gets home. Wow. It's just amazing the amount of people in there. But the bottom line is find out what they like in here. Okay. And then you can find out what book they can read. And once you get a book in their hand, they'll never go back.

SPEAKER_04 13:01

Man, I have to ask, where did you where did you learn this skill of being such a good judge of character?

SPEAKER_06 13:06

Well, my grandmother and great aunt told me I was a witch.

SPEAKER_04 13:09

Oh, go ahead.

SPEAKER_06 13:11

Don't ask me. And I grew up in an environment where my mother, she didn't raise me, my grandmother raised me, but I grew up around people who were in Vietnam, World War II, Black Panthers. They knew the temptations, Marvin Gaye, Tina Turner. But that environment was all-inclusive black. And so I listened and watched them do their stuff, and they would always tell me there's a game. I heard that for so many years. It's a game, Linda. It's a game. It's a game. And of course, as years go on, I'm going, it's a game.

SPEAKER_03 13:54

It's a game.

SPEAKER_06 13:55

It is a game. So I just had to navigate that game. And they taught me how to read people because when you watch a group of people who have suffered, who have gone through so much hatred, you know, slavery and the discrimination. Like I watched my mother get discriminated against by a white boss because he was sleeping with the white secretary, and my mother wasn't going to allow him to sleep with her.

SPEAKER_03 14:28

Oh, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_06 14:30

And I started working for the federal government, and I got approached a few times. And I remember one man, older white man, ugly. He I'm sitting down there in the auditorium getting ready to distribute newspapers and the and their, you know, their PowerPoint presentation and everything. He said, Here's my um room key. And he threw it at me and I picked it up and I said, Is something wrong, sir? Would you like for me to get somebody to come and pick it up? He said, Well, I thought you may want to come up there. I said, Really?

SPEAKER_04 15:00

Really?

SPEAKER_06 15:02

You cannot afford me. You got the wrong key.

SPEAKER_04 15:04

Oh, I like that response. You cannot afford me.

SPEAKER_06 15:07

And I threw the keys back. Well, I'm gonna go tell your boss. You can go tell whoever you want to tell.

SPEAKER_03 15:11

Yep.

SPEAKER_06 15:12

I am not afraid of you. Just because you as a man think you can sexually harass women and they have done it and they still do it. You think there's gonna be some, they're gonna run into that one woman, and I am it, where it's gonna say, oh please. That no, that doesn't work.

SPEAKER_04 15:31

Exactly.

SPEAKER_06 15:32

Because I saw it. I grew up and saw that environment. I saw the abuse. I saw how black men would come back and they were in Vietnam and want to read Army Hospital with all kinds of issues.

SPEAKER_05 15:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 15:45

And they would come home to their wives or girlfriends and beat up on them. And you know it's not hatred, it's what was ingrained in them and how they grew up. Yeah. And the environment they were in. Because you know, come on now, they're coming from the south.

SPEAKER_05 15:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 16:00

You gotta read the book Cast. The Migration of Cast by Isabel Wilkinson. And it explains the blacks coming from the south up to the north. My mother, my grandmother, and her husband came from the south up to the north. And so when they get up to the north and they think and they, you know, they reach the level that they can work and be treated fairly. No. No. And here it is 2024, and it's look like they're trying to go back to it.

SPEAKER_05 16:29

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 16:31

You know, that poor man down in Florida, Santos. He just can't help it. Bless his heart. Bless his heart. He just can't help. He just don't know. He's mad.

SPEAKER_03 16:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 16:42

He's mad because he's losing.

SPEAKER_03 16:43

Yep. Yep.

SPEAKER_06 16:44

Don't ain't nobody paying attention to him. And Tim Scott, Jesus, let's pray for him too. Oh, gosh, Jesus.

SPEAKER_04 16:51

His office right down the street, too. He really thought he would want to.

SPEAKER_06 16:56

No, he was playing the game.

SPEAKER_04 16:57

Oh Lord, the game ain't won't give him a game.

SPEAKER_06 16:58

He knew he was not going to make that ballot.

SPEAKER_04 17:01

Oh, we knew. He knew it.

SPEAKER_06 17:02

He knew it. He wanted to get stay in that group.

SPEAKER_03 17:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 17:07

And now he is one of the four people that they're going to select, maybe as the running mate for Trump to be the vice president. But Trump is just throwing the carrot out.

SPEAKER_04 17:16

Yeah, like I don't know why you would even want that position to tell you to be the truth. Is this, I guess you would want it for the idea of power. It's not real power. Yeah. It is. It makes people act out of character too.

SPEAKER_02 17:31

I don't I don't understand her. Mm-mm. Mm-mm.

SPEAKER_06 17:35

And I don't understand it either because I tell them you don't have power because you will face him, the good Lord.

SPEAKER_05 17:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 17:42

And he's going to look at you going, you know what? I remember those couple of years ago that you were doing that. Did you really think you're going to come in here or should I send you down to your friend? Mm-hmm. Nah, I think you should go down to your friend. We don't need that up here. Because you're not going to cause no confusion here. I I've been taking care of your friend. I know your friend better than you know your friend.

SPEAKER_03 18:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 18:04

That's the good Lord talking to him. So I don't know where it's coming from. You don't have that kind of power. If you did, you wouldn't be here on earth, would you?

SPEAKER_04 18:13

That's true. That's so darn true.

SPEAKER_06 18:14

You know, Jeff Bezos thinks he's got power. Poor man.

SPEAKER_04 18:17

He ain't got no real power. He ain't got no real power. He got money. Yeah. But that isn't it.

SPEAKER_06 18:20

He cannot stop death. I don't care how much money you get, you are not gonna. Good grace. Say it again. They try. You're gonna have to face him.

SPEAKER_04 18:28

Yeah, this is this guy named Ray Kurzweil, and that's his whole mission. He created the Kurzweil keyboard and stuff, real big technologist. His thing was trying to figure out how he could curb his death until he can get to the year 2050, where he thinks that by that time we'll have technology that can keep the self killing itself. This is a real real. This is how these people think. That's why when she I know what she means. Just because they have that, they think that they can try to defeat God at that game of death, they think they can beat it.

SPEAKER_06 18:56

But they've been trying.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

It's hard, it's it's hard.

SPEAKER_06 19:03

You know, they will succeed to a certain point, and it's gonna get out of control. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:08

Do you have these conversations like this in your bookstore often?

SPEAKER_06 19:10

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:11

I can tell this is why you read books.

SPEAKER_02 19:14

It's like you can't have a deep conversation on Instagram, you can't have a deep conversation on TikTok. I mean a meme doesn't do that. You might get a meme that triggers something if if you got enough of a shared like cultural media background to know the right connections there. Yeah. But when you do a book, when you do a big book, yeah. Yeah. Like you are, you are taking like a slice of somebody's worldview. And and then and so the more books you read, the more slices of worldview you get. So then you can cross those lines and interact with people. Oh, I I know the proper way to greet you over here where people think this way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

So how do you I have a quick question? How do you feel about the books in the education system? Like the in the schools right now. I'm seeing a lot of controversy about that.

SPEAKER_06 19:57

Well, I think the issue is they're mad because the truth is coming out and they don't want to face the truth, even though the truth has been out there for over a hundred years. Look here, you know slavery. I don't want you to make me feel guilty. I'm gonna make your ass feel guilty because you're still doing it today. If you weren't doing it today, you wouldn't feel guilty. You wouldn't feel guilty. So why don't you read about it, learn about it, and figure out you know what? Something is wrong with the system. Yeah. Systematic racism. So start with the banning of the books. Yeah. Now remember, they've been banning books for over 50 years.

SPEAKER_03 20:32

That's a good point. That's this is nothing.

SPEAKER_06 20:34

This is not nothing. They've been banning books since they came out, books. So it's they think it's control. They said, Well, I don't want my child to learn this. But I don't think they understand that your child has already learned it because they got the phone. Right. They got TikTok, they got social media. You are not gonna prevent your child from learning those things. I'll give you an example. My daughter, she was turning eight or nine, and I said to her dad, okay, it's time to give her the birds and the bees conversation. And you know, he's he's a dad, he doesn't want to have that conversation with her. Hello! And he's looking at her, going, I I can't do this. And so he was gonna ask somebody else to do it. And my uh grandmother told him, You should get Linda to do it. And so he says, I know, I'll get for Linda to do it. I I just can't do it. So I said, All right, Keny, let's come on in the room. I put up the bulletin board. Let's go here, let's go from this point. This is a dick, this is a vagina. This is what this means when they sitting there and they say, Well, you know, I love you. No, they don't love you. I need you to understand what sex is. It's not the act of it. I need you to understand how the person makes you feel. And so I kept that conversation going. And of course, her father was in the room. He says, I don't want to hear this. I don't want to hear it. But I understand it. Because he's gonna always see her. Now, she's 30 years old now, and because I was raised as a book, you know she was surrounded by books. And this child speaks four languages.

SPEAKER_05 22:06

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_06 22:07

And she's overseas, and she has traveled in seven countries. Wow. Yeah, she works for the same agency as I do. Because I told her this is what you're gonna do in your path. Now, once you get to that point and that college thing is paid off, and you got your own damn health insurance, you can do what the hell you want. But while we're still paying for that, you're gonna do what I say. And that's the thing parents are not doing. Yeah. You're gonna, well, I I I I can't do that. I'm your friend. No, no, you're not my friend. You're my child. I'm raising you, and I gotta take care of you. When you get over that threshold, yeah, you can do what the hell you want. Yeah, don't bring that shit to my house though. If you got some stuff going on, don't bring it to my house.

SPEAKER_04 22:49

I like your style. Yeah. I ain't gonna lie, I like your style because that's how I was raised. That's how I I thought that was normal. And apparently, and this is not. It's not, it's all kind of normal. But I thought that that's how you were supposed to be. Like, you're supposed to actually parent your child. And from books that I grew up um reading, and these are I and I know I was my brother and I were discussing this on the way down. Like, all right, so we're millennials, and I was born in '87, and so I still get some of the effects of Generation X and um and the baby boomers. And so my grandmother and stuff, we used to read certain books that were old, like from the 50s and stuff. We read these books, right? And people are like, gosh, darn it, what y'all reading? Um, we're talking about like box car children and stuff like this, right? Oh, yeah, I grew up with that. And so, yeah, you read these books. Now, kids don't read these books no more, right? Well, they've changed them now. They've changed them. It's different. They're making them graphics.

SPEAKER_02 23:41

Oh, they're making them graphics? Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 23:42

So that the kids can talk. Shut up. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 23:50

I got some friends and they there are some graphic novels that go really, really deep on some big topics. Yes, they do. And even like your classic DCs and Marvels and stuff, like the people that were writing them were really trying to muck with some things. They were. They were trying to give. You know, I I I respect graphic novels now. I think, but I do think there is something to drawing a world in your head.

SPEAKER_05 24:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:14

And I I was talking to my son about this last night because he's he's he's five, just turned five. Captain under pants is his first like chapter book with pictures in it. And then he's also got a Pokemon book. Pokemon book has only got a picture like every two or three pages. Oh. So we're starting to do that. We're talking about drawing the pictures in your mind and stuff. How is that conversation going? It's fun seeing it happen. Yeah, because it's important to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_06 24:39

He will gradually go over there.

SPEAKER_04 24:41

Oh yeah, oh yeah. I did eventually, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 24:43

He will eventually go over there.

SPEAKER_04 24:45

Yeah. Because it's a muscle that you have to train. And that's one thing I learned from reading books like that is that there's a muscle in your mind that you can use and train that allows you to deal with but also create your reality. Right.

SPEAKER_06 24:56

Well, now, maybe now you understand why they want to turn this country into the handmaiden's tale.

SPEAKER_04 25:02

Right. Oh, I like you.

SPEAKER_06 25:04

Like Fahrenheit 451.

SPEAKER_04 25:06

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_06 25:06

I know they made the movie with what's his name? Michael Jordan. Okay, I love Michael Jordan, especially from Black Panther.

SPEAKER_05 25:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 25:13

He didn't need to make that movie, okay? Let's get out of that movie. I like your movie. I know. I'm kind of judgmental. I like her, though. That's good. Yeah, yeah. The original movie came out in 19, the book came out in 1960. That's my point. Yeah, these are. Ray Bradbury, who also wrote Star Trek.

SPEAKER_04 25:28

Yep, and that's a love Star Trek.

SPEAKER_06 25:30

Okay. My whole family.

SPEAKER_04 25:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 25:33

My daughter and her dad are Marvel fans and Star Trek fans and Doctor Who.

SPEAKER_04 25:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 25:39

I just became the Doctor Who. They got you on it.

SPEAKER_04 25:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 25:41

Yeah, they got me on it. But I only I only like David Tennant. Let's move on. David Tennant's the best. He's the best.

SPEAKER_05 25:47

I don't like David.

SPEAKER_02 25:48

But they have to change them. It doesn't die, but spoiler alert, there is a little David Tennant pop back in and this this new one that's out right now. That's the new one that's out. He pops back for just a little bit.

SPEAKER_06 26:00

Now they brought a woman in.

SPEAKER_02 26:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:02

And the new doctor. Yeah, I saw that. I saw it, I know. I know. I watched, I watched it, but I understood the story, like what it's supposed to be. I thought, okay, go ahead.

SPEAKER_06 26:12

And I know they want to be diverse. Yes. Right. But the diversity sometimes has gone a little bit too goddamn far. Yeah. Just a little too far.

SPEAKER_04 26:21

Freeze. We got a little story to keep it recording. I was talking about something else, and I'm sorry. Pen Mainstailes. Fahrenheit 451. Yep.

SPEAKER_06 26:28

Fahrenheit was made in 1960, produced in 1960. And it's about what happens when you burn the books of everybody in that city, and you put TV screens up there, and they're only allowed to look at the TV screen, and they control what's on the TV screen. And that's what they're trying to do here. I promote that book all the time and talk about and explain to people. And they sometimes it would click and they go, that seems like what they're doing now. Yeah. Make everything visual. This has happened before.

SPEAKER_01 27:00

Like this happens in every empire. They do it at some point. They lock everything down and then everything.

SPEAKER_06 27:05

And the handmaids tell us what's going on now with the abortion and the embryo being a child. You know, the the Republicans, they're just a different, I don't know what world they're in.

SPEAKER_03 27:14

Different breed.

SPEAKER_06 27:15

And so the handmaid's tale is a way to control the births, right?

SPEAKER_03 27:19

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_06 27:20

How many children you can have. But the bottom line is they're mad because the last 50 years, the children are not white. You know, there was a time where if you have a drop of blood of black in you, you're black.

SPEAKER_03 27:33

Black, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 27:34

There's no such thing. Now they got all kinds of bloods in them.

SPEAKER_03 27:37

Yep. They all mixed up.

SPEAKER_06 27:38

They all mixed up. And you are not going to go back and create a European society. It's over. You should have thought about that 50 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 27:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 27:49

You should have thought about that 400 years ago. You should have kept your ass in your country and leave it alone. You wouldn't have had this problem. You wouldn't have. Because once you started, you can't stop it. You can't stop it. I'm blaming you.

SPEAKER_04 28:02

So when they say everybody's gonna look like you.

SPEAKER_06 28:06

You say I'm guilty. Yeah, you're guilty. Your ass shouldn't have gone over there 400 years ago. Nobody asked you to go over there. Yours was just pure greed. You didn't want to do the work itself.

SPEAKER_04 28:17

Economics.

SPEAKER_06 28:18

Like right now, you don't even want to clean the toilets, but you want the Hispanics and other people to clean the toilet. Then you don't even want them to come over. And now you don't want them to come over, but you don't want to clean your own toilet.

SPEAKER_04 28:29

I clean the toilet.

SPEAKER_06 28:29

It don't make sense. Say it. Make it make sense. Make it make sense. Make it make sense. America, you know, I don't get that. Sam on VibeCheck always says, make it make sense. Make sense.

SPEAKER_04 28:41

That's the truth. You gotta make it make sense. But that goes back to your point of if when you control, when you're attempting to control the reality through media.

SPEAKER_02 28:50

Mm-hmm. Or any means. Or any means. But media is little more messing with right now. That's where we're at with media.

SPEAKER_04 28:55

Um book, print, v film, whatever it may be, it's easy to think that you're able to actually have control when you can't. No. And I think, like you said earlier, and this is going back when you said I like this concept, I like how this is going along. Um the cat is out of the bag.

SPEAKER_03 29:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:12

These children already have phones, right? And this is one of the things that gets me kind of worried about because how crazy is crazy? And what I mean by that is how far will they go? Because in your in the handmaiden's tale in Foreign Height, uh Fahrenheit 451, watching how far people will go in order to have control. Like, do they do they have a limit of of mendacity that'll be like, all right, you know what, this is too far, we aren't gonna go there. Or are they willing to go to the nth degree and say, you know what, we'll destroy everything if we can't have it our way. Some people, sure. And that's what I'm worried about.

SPEAKER_06 29:43

Well, remember now, you're talking about what's going on now and what came in the 1960s. This has been going on for millennia. I mean, look at the Roman Empire. True. Caesar was so pissed, you know, and his buddies turned on him.

SPEAKER_03 29:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 29:58

And they turned on everybody else, yeah, they would go to different countries, right? And not only, you know, kill everybody, but make sure the soil would never grow anything else again.

SPEAKER_04 30:08

Yeah, they're poison the soil.

SPEAKER_06 30:09

They would poison the soil, right? So what happened to them?

SPEAKER_03 30:13

Never know.

SPEAKER_06 30:14

They just fade out.

SPEAKER_03 30:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 30:16

It's like every country or every millennial or every couple of hundred years, they don't like what's going on, so they don't erase everything. They want to erase it. The problem is the more you try to erase it, the more the truth comes out. But the truth you can never hide. I don't care what you do, oh, I'm not gonna do that no more. But eventually it's gonna come out and you're gonna get caught.

SPEAKER_04 30:39

Yep, yep, I agree. I agree. And I think that's that goes back to the importance of what we're talking about just with reading and the ability to read and be able to investigate because reading to me is almost like investigation. You go and you find information, you absorb that information, you match it against what you have, and one of the things I had to learn, and I really learned this during 2020 because I had time to sit, is and even before then I was starting to do it, but I really got it. I have to listen to information and read, though, read things that I disagree with. Sure. Oh, yeah. That was hard to do. Uh it was hard because of course I was there at the beginning of the social media. YouTube just started in 2005, Facebook was a new thing. We were one of the first colleges that could join in. I was at College of Charleston. We got on a little Facebook, I was trying to get into MySpace, all this other new stuff was popping up. And what I realized is that I could just listen to the stuff that I only agreed with. I could read the stuff that I only agreed with. When I when I got um recommendations for books, it was just the books that I agreed with. So I think that's a good thing. That's what the algorithm does really good. It's a pigeon.

SPEAKER_06 31:46

Say it.

SPEAKER_04 31:46

You're not gonna there's no middle ground.

SPEAKER_06 31:49

There's no middle ground. So you gotta read what you don't want to read.

SPEAKER_04 31:52

How do you do? How do you look that's hard? I so because like like for our audience, because they're gonna listen to this and be like, all right, so they're asking us, well, how do you do it? Like you, because I know you own a book store and it was interesting the story you're telling us at the beginning, how you're telling the gentleman what he wanted to read.

SPEAKER_06 32:05

How do you know he wanted to read that? How did you know? Because he just wanted to he he w he walked in there because his wife was in another store. So he thought he would kill time. But he didn't know he was gonna run into a conversation with me. Yes, you're different. And then he goes, you know, and then we started talking, and that's because I'm trying to pull him in to get him to understand. That man spent the hundred dollars. Oh, wow. Wow. You know, and he said, you know, I like you. You know, I like you. And how did you know about the books though, the culture?

SPEAKER_04 32:37

Like, have you read those books before?

SPEAKER_06 32:38

Yeah. See, that's my boy. Yeah. I grew up in an environment in Washington, D.C., where we didn't have no choice but to read books. We didn't get a TV until I was two or eleven years old. And even then, uh huh, I was restricted.

SPEAKER_04 32:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 32:56

My dog, I have a dog, his name is Perry Mason.

SPEAKER_04 32:59

I love Perry Mason.

SPEAKER_06 33:02

And the reason I named him Perry Mason is because when I was growing up, I was only allowed to look at Perry Mason because my grandmother, my mother, my great aunt loved Perry Mason. Aww. So when they would do my hair, or I would be sitting there reading a book, and Perry Mason would come on like three o'clock in the afternoon, and they have to fix dinner. I have to sit there and watch Perry Mason. To this day, I am still hooked on Perry Mason. Dang. That's what they did them like. It is. And it's because when they were watching that, you know, it was it's like a cozy mystery. You knew the person was killed, you knew who was gonna kill them, and it was it was it was a common law and order. It was. It was just a common law and order. Then two years ago, they remade Perry Mason.

SPEAKER_03 33:49

Yeah, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_04 33:50

I didn't show it.

SPEAKER_03 33:50

On HBO.

SPEAKER_06 33:51

Yeah. My friend said, Oh, Valinda, I know you love Perry Mason, but you're gonna watch it on HBO. I said, Well, let me look it up. And I said, Why do they have a black guy playing Paul Drake? She said, Well, you know, we're trying to get into the no. That is weird, though. It's weird, it's weird. You know, you're always trying to remake stuff without looking at the backstory of what you're trying to remake. Oh, I like how you talk about it. That's it really is.

SPEAKER_02 34:17

I like how you talk about it. Yeah. And and this came up for me when they were talking about Idris Alba doing James Bond. Yeah. And I always thought Idris Alba would be a great action hero, but James Bond's backstory is this orphan that grew up in the Ivy Leagues of Britain and could blend into that atmosphere, even though he wasn't. Yep. How does that make sense? And how do you do that with Idris Alba now without just like being like, oh, racism doesn't exist anymore, and he can just fit in anywhere. Because that's not real.

SPEAKER_06 34:47

They're trying to push it. They're trying to push it too. And you cannot. They wanted to put Idris Alba right in a new bond. No.

SPEAKER_04 34:53

No, it ain't gonna work.

SPEAKER_06 34:54

Make him his own bond. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 34:58

Make it a movie.

SPEAKER_06 34:59

No, as a matter of fact, I like Luther the the guy who in Fleming, he must have five or six characters, and Aegis Alba could be one of them.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

Really? Yes. No, he does.

SPEAKER_06 35:10

Yeah, he's got James Bond, he's got uh Luther, another Luther. He's got he this man has been writing books, well, I know he's dead now, for over 30 years. They could have found another book for Eegis Alba.

SPEAKER_03 35:24

They just didn't.

SPEAKER_06 35:24

You know, they could have found another book for Tom Cruise instead of Jack Reacher.

SPEAKER_02 35:28

Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_06 35:30

Tom Cruise's little self.

SPEAKER_02 35:32

So I mean, like, this is part of like how the media Hollywood culture is just like chasing down a thing to grab and you know them in. Oh, well, let's use Hydra's album.

SPEAKER_06 35:43

We can put him on the boost, it'll be good. Everybody was freaking out of Bridgetting, right? Oh my god, did you see that? Yeah, they were. And I would come to work. Oh, but Linda, did you know Bridgeton? And everything, and then my daughter called me up. Mommy, oh my god, me and Janelle and all of us, we watching Bridgetton. I'm going, okay. And I got, she got quiet, and then I didn't say nothing. All right, mommy, tell me what's going on. Kennedy, the book came out in 2012 by Julia Quinn. It's a book, it's an eight-book, ten book series. And that's because uh Rhine read those books. She has always been a big reader.

SPEAKER_04 36:27

Thank you.

SPEAKER_06 36:28

So she put her spin on it. Granted, some of the characters are black, and they could have been, because Julis Quinn didn't necessarily have colors. Yeah. Hers was just about the Vince Count and the drama and the soap opera. So she put that in. That's why everybody loves Bridget. They didn't realize that the book came out 15 years ago. My daughter calls me up again. Oh, mommy Zendaya, I think that's her name, right? Yeah. She's in the movie Dune.

SPEAKER_04 36:55

Oh, don't play with that.

SPEAKER_06 36:56

Oh, that's just so great, mommy, and I'm 65.

SPEAKER_04 37:02

I said, okay. Dune is one of my favorite series of all time. It's one of the first things I got to read on science fiction. I was talking to my brother about this because that was bothering me. People just thought this was something new. I was like, no, this is very old, but it's so deep and complex. And it talks about AI and technology, the role of it in the world.

SPEAKER_01 37:18

Dude is about look at imperialism. Dune is about like unmade law.

SPEAKER_06 37:22

And that book came out in 1960. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 37:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 37:26

You know, like come on.

SPEAKER_04 37:28

Yeah. All right, so this is a good question. And we're um, we have a question about good books. Like, what are some of the characteristics of a good book? Can you name an underrated book that you come across? But before I ask you this, um, before you answer that rather, I want to know why was, in your opinion, because you can probably give me better insight, I was very in love with books from the 60s. Those books seem to have so much depth in them and the way that they attempt to break down and look at society that I catch myself going back to revisit those books as opposed to picking up new books. Absolutely. And it's weird because I'm like, well, we got all this axe access to everything, and I can read these new books and et cetera, and get them quickly. Why am I still reading this old book? Um, and I'm trying to I'm trying to understand is it because the writing was better back then, which I don't think is a real thing. It can be good anywhere, or is it just because of the subject matter that they were dealing with at the time? What is your opinion on that?

SPEAKER_06 38:27

No, it's what you feeling at that time. Um, I read Valley of the Dolls when I was about 13 or 14. Of course that was, oh my god, my my grandma goes, what are you doing reading Valley of the Dogs? That's what's scary. I came out of fixing. You know, rape, incest, oh my god, and all this kind of stuff. Now, Jacqueline Suzanne, who wrote that book, was writing it based on what was going on in her life at the time.

SPEAKER_03 38:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 38:54

Jackie Collins, who wrote all the, you know, the lucky Santiago books, she was writing based on what was going on in Hollywood. James Bowen's book is was written on what was going on during his lifetime. The kids that are writing the books now, I call them kids, anybody under 40. That are writing the books now, they're writing books as to what's going on now with them, which may not relate to you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:21

Good point.

SPEAKER_06 39:22

Okay. I see I read a lot of the um teen books, me and Erin Lee, only because we want to know what's going on.

SPEAKER_03 39:29

Gotta save the day.

SPEAKER_06 39:30

You know, so that when a kid comes in, we understand it. Now, Errol Lee listens to them more often. She listens to the kids' book. I like to read the more the books that are out that Netflix is trying to remake, like Jack Reacher, Grisham, and all of those books.

SPEAKER_05 39:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 39:44

I try to read the romance books because I got a lot of women coming in between the ages of 40 and 60. They want romance, but they want the romance that they had 20 years ago. Oh, so you got to cut the book. Oh, okay. You break stuff down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They want that romance. You know, they want the Harlequin romance books.

SPEAKER_04 40:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 40:02

Now it was this small, and you know, they were in love, and he had a ranch, or she had something, and they had to they had to separate, and I've read a couple of the period stuff. They got back to the mystery. And by the time they kiss, it's the last page.

SPEAKER_04 40:18

Yep. I love the timing. Timing is always good.

SPEAKER_06 40:21

And that's Hallmark today. Okay. Okay. That's Hallmark today. Now HBO.

SPEAKER_04 40:26

I like how you put that. Boom.

SPEAKER_06 40:28

My father blew my mind. It blew my mind. HBO and star uh entirely different. So you got women, they want both. Mm-hmm. Okay. So a lot of the romance books that's coming out in the last two or three years, and it's because that they feel it now.

SPEAKER_00 40:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 40:45

Okay. It it renonces resonate with them.

SPEAKER_05 40:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 40:51

They understand it, they feel it, they love it. Like Brenda Jackson. She's got about 40 books out, but the book that even got me was The Westmoreland Men. And it's a series of books, and it's about romance. But the way she wrote the book, you're going, wait a minute, did this happen? Wait a minute now. Did this happen? Wait a minute now. She's got you.

SPEAKER_05 41:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 41:16

This woman has a cruise twice a year. And it is always booked solid. And there's always a line to get on. The cruise, the cruise, the cruise. I tell my wife all the time.

SPEAKER_04 41:33

I know what she's talking about with the books. I was like, I didn't know there was a cruise attached to this.

SPEAKER_06 41:36

Oh, yeah, there's a cruise.

SPEAKER_04 41:38

Blew my mind again. You know, Brenda. If you like this cross. I know Brandon Jackson.

SPEAKER_06 41:43

I know what she's talking about. So you need to find a book that you can understand now. The writings, I think some of the writings are good, but some of the writings are the worst I've ever seen. Oh my God.

SPEAKER_04 41:59

Do you think the bars low of ant entry into being a novelist now?

SPEAKER_06 42:03

I think what it is, everybody says, well, I wrote a book from my heart. And I wrote a book because God told me to write that.

SPEAKER_02 42:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 42:14

And you know, I feel it can help somebody. And I look at them going, how?

SPEAKER_02 42:18

And that's a that's a big difference because like I I know some professional writers. It's like it's a craft. And they hone in on it, and it might be this story, but I've got to figure out how to do my craft right to tell this story. And that's different.

SPEAKER_04 42:33

That is different because, like, and and I know you were talking about Jeff Bezos earlier. I mean, Amazon did create a situation where almost like with hip-hop music, you can end up. Right? Yeah, we can put a book out. Yeah, we're gonna have a book. Yeah. We're gonna put out our book. About a podcast. But yeah, but you can. Yeah, but you can. You can take and publish.

SPEAKER_06 42:54

You can get a book published on Amazon 24-7. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 42:57

So what's the process of uh showcasing the book? You know, books, you know, going to different cities, signing.

SPEAKER_06 43:05

You as the author have to do that. Because before 20, before the COVID, the publishers would, you know, send you out there and advertise your book. But after COVID, money started to go down and they couldn't afford to send you. So you got a book out on Amazon, and you come to me and you say, Well, my book is on Amazon. I said, Well, you need to go to England Spox, which is the second largest book publisher next to Amazon.

SPEAKER_05 43:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 43:34

And so they can um publish your book and you get a better discount because Amazon will change their discount. Okay. Oh, yeah. One day your book would be $20, and the next day Amazon would cut it down to $10. What? Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:47

You don't get a say on it.

SPEAKER_06 43:49

No. Oh. What? You don't get a say on it. So, and then on top of that, you don't advertise that your book is even there.

SPEAKER_05 43:57

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 43:58

If you don't tell people where your book is, what your book is about, they'll never get there. That's why I'm on social media. On TikTok. Now I know there was a few TikToks where I was pissed about that butter. That butter was pissing me off. I know. I'm still four goddamn sticks with butter, $7.85. That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_04 44:22

I got bad. Butter and eggs.

SPEAKER_06 44:23

Yeah, it's a lot.

SPEAKER_00 44:25

Here? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:26

Went up.

SPEAKER_06 44:26

Four.

SPEAKER_04 44:27

My wife uses butter. It uses a lot of butter. I didn't spend a couple weeks. $8 for some butter. I'm like, these shooks. No. You ain't using the butter this week. And I love the butter. I'm a butter being. Over four, I thought it was ridiculous. Nah, yeah, it kept going up.

SPEAKER_06 44:41

Oh, it kept, it keeps going up.

SPEAKER_04 44:43

Especially if you want to actually get real like butt actual butter.

SPEAKER_02 44:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 44:46

Yeah, actual butter.

SPEAKER_02 44:47

Yeah, because after COVID, I keep I keep about four boxes in the. So it's been about a month since.

SPEAKER_04 44:52

That's why you ain't looking at it.

SPEAKER_02 44:53

My dad used to tell me to buy it and freeze it.

SPEAKER_04 44:56

And all right, so and speaking about books, we're talking about specifically getting books out. We're talking about Amazon and publishing, etc. Something that's very important about books, people don't get, and this is this question that I really want to get on to before we have to wrap up, is community gathering. Um, because creating a space where book enthusiasts can gather and explore new literary treasures is not easy. Every reader has their own favorite book that speaks to them on a personal level, and that's actually the beauty of literature. It has the power to touch our hearts in unique ways. Can you tell us more about how your community events, like your book signings, launches, ambient and greets operate, and how has the community responded to your presence since opening your store in 2014?

SPEAKER_06 45:42

Okay, well, the store in 2014 was in Seneca, South Carolina. I bought the store from somebody, and after a couple of years, I looked around and said, These people don't want no bookstore.

SPEAKER_04 45:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 45:53

Seneca. When you said Seneca, I was like, oh.

SPEAKER_04 45:55

I know, right? Yeah, that's uh, because we know some people.

SPEAKER_06 45:58

Yeah, KKK County. Yeah, you're right. I was waiting to hear. Oh no. You're right. One of them came into the store. Oh, yeah, he came in there. Well, you know, I said, Oh, you know what? I'm from DC. We don't do it.

SPEAKER_04 46:11

We ain't gonna do that today. Wrap that up, go the other way.

SPEAKER_06 46:15

DC, I'm not afraid of you. Yep, exactly. Okay, we we can you want to fight? We'll fight. And he left. But they just didn't want a book. So I said, I'm closing the store and moving it. And I was just gonna close it and not get back into the business because running a bookstore is freaking hard.

SPEAKER_04 46:33

Explain that. Elaborate. Elaborate so there are.

SPEAKER_06 46:35

Okay, first of all, the rents have gone up.

SPEAKER_04 46:38

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 46:39

The place I had before, the rent was like $2,000. And the one I had down the street, by the time the third year came, that rent was up $4,500.

SPEAKER_05 46:50

Shut up, my Lord Jesus.

SPEAKER_06 46:52

As a bookstore, that means I have to make not only the amount for rent, I have to make the payroll. Payroll. I have to pay the sales taxes, the unemployment taxes, the social security taxes, I got to pay for the inventory.

SPEAKER_00 47:05

You gotta sell drugs.

SPEAKER_06 47:06

I got to damn near sell drugs.

SPEAKER_00 47:08

That's ridiculous. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 47:15

I got to sell a certain amount of books. So when these local authors come in and say, Can you sell my book? And I tell them, No, because I can't order it from Ingram. And if it doesn't sell in a certain amount of time, return it to Ingram so I can get my money back. Right.

SPEAKER_04 47:30

Do you have to pay anything for that?

SPEAKER_06 47:31

No, I don't. But I'd rather order, sorry, James Patterson's book, because I know his book is going to sell and sell.

SPEAKER_03 47:38

It's going.

SPEAKER_06 47:39

You know, some of the books that it's coming out, I know it's going to sell, because I'm going to go online and talk about it. And then they'll ask me, Can you talk about my book? And I said, I've never read your book. But you should go online on social media and talk about your book because you're the best person to talk about. It's expensive. Now, the landlord I have now, the rent is about $2,500. And and I I have been behind rent. That's why I have a GoFundMe.

SPEAKER_03 48:04

I donated.

SPEAKER_06 48:05

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 48:06

Yes, Cecily. Thank you.

SPEAKER_06 48:08

And it's hard because last year for a lot of small businesses, it was rough.

SPEAKER_04 48:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 48:16

It was, I mean, even Walmart.

SPEAKER_04 48:18

Last year was the first year we were back open.

SPEAKER_06 48:20

Even Walmart and Target had a struggle. You know, when Walmart and Target has a struggle, you know the small business is going to have a struggle. And it's not that the people don't want to buy, they couldn't afford it. Exactly. So I had to figure out a way to lower the price on my books. Luckily for me and my manager, she's a retiree.

SPEAKER_04 48:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 48:39

And I work full-time. So if we get paid a little bit of money per month, because I says I got to be paid somewhere in that store, that's fine. We can survive on that because we're not there to make money. But I got to lower the price of the books so they can come in there. I gotta offer game night. We're gonna have game night, puzzle night. We're gonna have we have wine and cheese.

SPEAKER_04 49:00

Smart, yeah, I saw that. That's so cool.

SPEAKER_06 49:02

You know, and we're gonna have other things in there. I've asked the guy to come in there to have a finance class session. Oh, you got the space. Yeah, we got the space. Uh the Camino Coffee is coming in there in about two weeks. Oh you know, so I gotta bring more stuff in there.

SPEAKER_00 49:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 49:19

But I'm on the Buddhista Dave Ramsey plan. I got to pay cash. Because I'm still paying for that debt.

SPEAKER_05 49:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 49:27

And and I'm still working a full-time job. And you asked me about balance. I don't have a choice. So when people say we gotta have work balance, okay, I'm getting tired of that. Okay. Well, you know, no, no, no, no. You knew you have the you know you gotta have a job. Yeah, you know you're gonna have to work, you do work 40 hours a week, or unless you, you know, you're rich.

SPEAKER_04 49:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 49:53

Or 32 hours a week. And if you don't like your job, apply for another job someplace else. But you you don't have a choice. You got to get up in the morning time, go to work, and take care of your family. If you don't want to take care of your family, don't be having no kids. Right. Good. Right.

SPEAKER_04 50:10

What did Michael Jackson say? You know, you can't feed your baby, then don't have a baby.

SPEAKER_06 50:15

Like when my daughter was born, my grandmother and my great aunt looked at Line and said, Your life is now over. He said, What do you mean? Point to my daughter, our daughter. That's that's your life. Uh don't mess that up because see, we're old enough. We can go hell, we can go to hell and go, oh die, and we're gonna take you with us.

SPEAKER_00 50:35

But that you that's a good fact, because a lot of people who are having kids now don't realize that your life is over. Like it's not about you no more. It will never be about you.

SPEAKER_06 50:45

It cannot be about you. You gotta take care of this human being, and you gotta take care of yourself so you can take care of this human being. But getting an hour that's about you is harder than enough. Yes, yes. Let it line. You just you will find the book that fits you. You know, just come into the store, talk to me or Aaron Lee. We'll find the book that fits you. And do you have any upcoming events that we can as a matter of fact, we have in Chef Daniel Darren Campbell on the 23rd. Okay. He's the one that got the gulla um palmetto. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, cool. Uh, Bakari Sellers is coming in April. Oh, yeah. Um uh The Cozy Mysteries coming in back in September. Okay. And we just had uh Rashauna Tate, which wrote the book on Hannah McDaniel, the Queen of Sugar Hill.

SPEAKER_04 51:36

She wrote, oh, you had her in the library.

SPEAKER_06 51:38

Yeah, we had her at the library.

SPEAKER_04 51:39

Oh, gosh.

SPEAKER_06 51:41

I try to work with the library. I do try to work with the library and tried and because if we have, if we know we're gonna have a large amount of people, Khadijah Brown, the girl in the foot. She she came to the store last year, she's coming back this year, but I may need a bigger space. Now she's got a TV show and cousins and all that. She's gonna tell all the cousins about the show, the books coming.

SPEAKER_04 52:04

She's like, yo, we need uh uh an auditorium.

SPEAKER_06 52:06

We had her, we ordered a hundred books, uh-huh. And we said, okay, she was gonna be here, and I advertise it. People kept coming into the store buying the book. And when she came for the signing, I had 35 books left.

SPEAKER_00 52:19

Wow.

SPEAKER_06 52:20

Oh, wow. And I said, I'm sorry. People came in, I need a book. I am so sorry. We're sold out. We are sold out. That's a blessing. And on top of that, you couldn't even get the book from Amazon because it was sold out. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 52:33

That's good.

SPEAKER_06 52:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 52:36

That's what you need, though. That's what you need. That's what you need.

SPEAKER_00 52:38

Well, if we can help you promote, you know, just send us the information and we'll do that. Oh, thank you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 52:42

Oh, because we have to do it weekly.

SPEAKER_00 52:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 52:44

We gotta do it weekly. Today's my day to post my stuff because I was late last week, so I had to put mine out and let it roll into the week. And then I was like, I can't hit them with it too back to back because they gotta be crazy. Yeah, you gotta give them a little bit. But yeah, we will.

SPEAKER_02 52:57

But you know what? That might be a good thing for us that we can start promoting before the episodes come out because you can have a lot of things going on before this episode even comes out. And we can make sure we get your information about you go find me.

SPEAKER_04 53:06

Because like that's one of the things I was, I was like, oh, this is so easy and it's set up so well. I read that and I looked at the story and the information in there. I was like, ease, uh, this is this is a no-brainer. I have a guy who tells me this podcast list that he always tells, he says, Man, take this money, man, put it to somebody that needs it. He's like, Because what you're gonna do with that money more than likely is go off and trick it off during the week doing something stupid you don't need to be doing. I'm like, You ready? That money I was about to trick off, I gave it to you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 53:28

See, so and what I've been doing is, first of all, anybody who gave me anything, yeah. One lady says, Honey, I'm broke, but I'm giving you $70. $7. I just cried. Because she said, This is all I got. I've been going back to thank everybody. I've been giving them a song because I don't want them to think I didn't know. I go back and thank them all. And I've also told everybody what's going on with the money. So far, the $5,000. You have has only gone to the rent. Yep, ain't lying. On to the rent. The orders I put aside to order the bookcases and getting the coffee stand and getting a little enclosed trailer for the bookmobile, and that's it.

SPEAKER_03 54:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 54:06

But I'm keeping everybody very transparent. Yeah, because the IRS is looking. Oh, yeah, yeah. I work with the federal government too. You can't even pull up my name.

unknown 54:16

Right.

SPEAKER_06 54:18

You know what they think about. And she owns taxes already. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:25

You know, I was thinking Mr. Um Sanford Green, you should reach out to him. He's a Marvel comic graphic artist. Okay. And he was um one of my teachers at Benedict. Oh. And he's from Charleston. So that'll be perfect. And he just did a book, uh, a graphic book with the kids from um Benedict College. So if they could have a signing at at all. Yeah. I'll give you his information after this.

SPEAKER_04 54:50

But um, gosh, uh wonderful discussion. Wonderful discussion. But yeah, we gotta wrap. What you reading right now, man? All right, so right now. Put you on the spot. All right, so let me see, because I had there's a there's a book on tape that I'm listening to that Kevin wanted me to listen to on Rayquan.

SPEAKER_02 55:09

And that's how you know you a geriatric millennial when you call it a book on tape, still.

SPEAKER_04 55:13

Oh, stop.

SPEAKER_06 55:15

No, books on tape is great. Okay. You can support us by going to Libro.fm to buy books. Okay. There you go. You need to read cast because the movie Origins is.

SPEAKER_04 55:28

Kevin was going crazy when you were saying that back there telling us to read it. And then I'm reading something called Third Wave. It's about third wave of uh, and this is why I keep talking about generational stuff. I'm trying to understand different generations. It's a book from the 80s, but it's about the generational change, the shift from the 60s, the 70s into the 80s, going into what our generation was trying to figure out what's wrong with us. So I'm reading that right now. Um, and then always try to keep a spiritual book on hand. So um I got this spiritual book on magic, and so I'm reading.

SPEAKER_06 55:57

You could just read the Bible.

SPEAKER_04 55:59

I got the Bible, and I read my little Bible. I get my I get my um, they got a lot of spiritual books out there. They do.

SPEAKER_06 56:04

Everybody, I found the good Lord. They do, they do. I know you did find him, but why are you still acting like a jackass?

SPEAKER_04 56:10

No, you're good, you're right, you're right.

SPEAKER_06 56:12

If you found him, follow him. You're right. Stop trying to change things.

SPEAKER_04 56:16

Nah, seriously, we go too hard sometimes.

SPEAKER_06 56:18

We do.

SPEAKER_02 56:19

Oh, okay. Um what am I reading? I'm reading a lot of stuff. Um I've been very slowly going through Castanata. I'm on like four or five. Um books from the 60s and 70s. Um I'm really excited about the uh like the Expanse series right now. Uh James S. A. Corley. Um that's also a sci-fi movie, right? Or series right now, but I would I I got her into the books right before the series came out. There you go. Get there quick. Get there quick. Yeah, hipster. But they're they're very like it's it's sci-fi, but it's like a very uh nuanced and in-depth world. There's a lot of like description about like how spin gravity feels different.

SPEAKER_05 57:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:02

And what ends up happening is like as people leave Earth and Mars and live in space, they actually change and they become belters. They become tall people that can't live on the and so it becomes like this imperialism separation thing where like now you got these people that are mining the asteroids to fuel the empires back on the inner planets, and then they start re man, it's crazy. It's a crazy universe. But yeah, um, and then spiritual books. Um, I'm doing um the Mahabharata. The Mahabha, yeah, the I know what you mean. Yeah, the bigger book that's around the Gita. Yep, yeah. And uh the Gita. Uh that changed me.

SPEAKER_00 57:42

Yeah, the Gita. I was like, wow, just like open. I cried.

SPEAKER_05 57:45

Right.

SPEAKER_00 57:46

Yeah, I cried.

SPEAKER_05 57:47

Yeah. That's good. Something.

SPEAKER_00 57:49

Mm-hmm. Those books, like right now, I'm reading Titnahan. Um, it's about not being afraid to die.

SPEAKER_05 57:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:55

Um, I love that book. And then I'm also reading a book about agriculture, like the food that we're eating.

SPEAKER_05 58:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:00

And then another book about the art of touch. So like understanding like how you need physical interaction. Dope.

SPEAKER_06 58:09

Dope. See. Come suit you. Oh. That came out in the 19th century. 18. No, that came out. Go ahead. Yeah. Well, it's a translation came out in the 18th. Go back to the whole game further. And that's about, you know, touching, not not, yeah. Say it. That's what people don't get. It's touching. It's not, oh, it's about sex. No, it's about touching and feeling and understanding your body and everything. And see, they just want to twist everything around.

SPEAKER_02 58:34

No, why? Because they're trying to make things sexy.

SPEAKER_06 58:37

It ain't working.

SPEAKER_02 58:38

Things are sexy though. That's the thing with the Karma Sutra is that like it's a it's an understanding that like there's feminine energy and then like masculine desire to change and manipulate things and the way that that interacts within us. So it's always it's always sex with the universe. But it's not dirty. It's just but that's how they try to sell it.

SPEAKER_04 58:58

Right, right, right. That's the problem. It's threw in the wrong cover. But before we finish, we gotta do this. I need you to drop your socials.

SPEAKER_00 59:03

Social media, how can people find you?

SPEAKER_04 59:04

Oh and website.

SPEAKER_06 59:05

Website. Oh, okay. Wturningpagebookshop.com. Um turning books on TikTok. Uh turning page on Instagram and turning page bookshop on Facebook.

SPEAKER_04 59:19

Excellent. Excellent, excellent. Well, we're gonna wrap up here. Uh excellent episode of the Hilltop Globe Podcast. Well, thank you. Excellent episode. I am DJ Ann What. I'm Mike.

SPEAKER_00 59:29

Tamaya.

SPEAKER_04 59:30

And our esteemed guest, Valinda Miller. Go ahead, Bassell. That's what I'm talking about. We had a great time today. Until the next time on everybody, that tell somebody that is next to you if you're listening to somebody next to you. If not, go run and find somebody that you love and care about. Tell them that you love them and cherish them, and we will see you on the next episode. Peace.