Light of Islam

I will be in the store in the late afternoon till 7 p.m., but for all intents and purposes Light of Islam will be closed this coming Tuesday, June 2.

On Wednesday I’m flying to NY for this year’s book expo.  It will be a doubly enjoyable trip because I will see my family while I’m there.  This year will be a different book expo experience than last, primarily because Light of Islam now has a physical location where I’m regularly selling books.  I’m trying to figure out how everything will work, but some of the publishers I buy from (especially several university presses) are offering good discounts at the show and I want to be able to take advantage of them.  Thursday is ABA’s day of education, which I anticipate to be as useful as last year.  Two sessions I’m particularly interested in are address book clubs and small-size bookstores.  I will be gone till Tuesday – possibly the longest trip I’ve taken to NY/NJ since I moved to Houston!

While I’m away, my trusty volunteer will be covering the store Wednesday through Friday, and my beloved husband will man the store over the weekend.  As a reminder, the shortened hours will be:

Wed., May 27: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Thurs., May 28: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. [NO ARABIC CLASS THIS DAY]
Fri., May 29: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

LOI may also be closed on June 2 – check back or call to confirm (832-205-1457).

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Light of Islam is a nonprofit bookstore whose mission is to provide the Houston-area community with accurate and accessible information about Islam and Muslims. Find out more at http://www.light-of-islam.org/.

As mentioned in an earlier post, the Azizah magazine event was awesome.  I had 40+ people there, which was amazing given my track record with low attendance – but some people had to sit on the floor, and a few spilled out into the hallway.

Sr. Tayyibah gave a wonderful talk and several people offered praise for what she’s done with the magazine.

Sr. Tayyibah and Sr. Azizah worked their table.

There are times when I feel like Light of Islam is really what I envisioned, and this day was one of them.  I never imagined having so many people at an event like this, nor did I imagine having the editor-in-chief of a national magazine here as a speaker.

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Light of Islam is a nonprofit bookstore whose mission is to provide the Houston-area community with accurate and accessible information about Islam and Muslims. Find out more at http://www.light-of-islam.org/.

So I buy my new chair to replace the scrunched-up pink one, and when my husband picks it up and brings it to the store he turns his attention to the pink chair.  He pulls the cushion out by force and it’s good as new.  It turns out the cushion itself wasn’t damaged; it was just seriously shoved into the back of the chair. 

Fortunately the new chair only cost $35 (thanks, Craigslist).  It is now in the front room near the door and next to the newly expanded CD/DVD section.

More changes: a fellow bookseller who kindly stopped by the store to chat with me suggested I face out more books.  I got inspired and ran around the store moving books around.  Some results:

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Light of Islam is a nonprofit bookstore whose mission is to provide the Houston-area community with accurate and accessible information about Islam and Muslims. Find out more at http://www.light-of-islam.org/.

Alhamdulillah, it does seem that my days of worrying about no one showing up to my events are over.  There were about 40-50 people at the Azizah event today, and everyone enjoyed hearing Tayyibah speak.  It was awesome.  I saw a bunch of friends I haven’t seen in a while.  It was exhausting but worth it.  More tomorrow, including pix.

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Light of Islam is a nonprofit bookstore whose mission is to provide the Houston-area community with accurate and accessible information about Islam and Muslims. Find out more at http://www.light-of-islam.org/.

With yesterday’s delivery from Dar-us-Salam I now have three copies of the entire 10-volume tafseer by Ibn Kathir, as well as four copies of the entire 4-volume biography of the prophet by Ibn Kathir.  That’s a lot of books.  I think the tafseer is going to go on top of the four tall bookcases along the back wall of the browsing room.  I also got biographies of at least a dozen scholars of Islam and some more books on fiqh. Although I was trying to rest my back yesterday I just couldn’t help myself and started shelving most of the religious books that go in that section along the wall.

My stepson is putting together the bookcases tomorrow afternoon.  Right now there are three 3-shelf bookcases and three 2-shelf bookcases in the front room.  The plan is to move all of them to the right, add another 3-shelf bookcase and get rid of the ugly folding table and use fold-out bookcases to hold all the multimedia.  There is a 5-shelf bookcase in the front room as well and that will be joined by another 5-shelf, thus eliminating yet another ugly folding table.  Hopefully that will also create a sense of abundance in the front room, which is something I’ve worried I’m missing – that people walk in and say, this is a bookstore?  Looks kind of sparse.

In the browsing room I am adding one 5-shelf bookcase in the spot where the rust-colored (?) chair is.  Then I’m moving all the beverage-related items to the left a bit and putting the chair in between the bookcase and the coffee stuff.  I’ll try to take photos of everything to make it clearer what I’m doing.

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Light of Islam is a nonprofit bookstore whose mission is to provide the Houston-area community with accurate and accessible information about Islam and Muslims. Find out more at http://www.light-of-islam.org/.

  As of tomorrow the good old pink chair will be replaced with this.  Then it will move out of the browsing room and into my office.  An era has passed…

In the last couple of months I have gotten a lot less anxious about having sufficient attendance at bookstore activities. I suspect that’s partly because at this point I can rely on bookstore regulars to pass the word on to others, and because people are more familiar with LOI now – and of course, it’s hard to compare the attraction of an activity done by an open bookstore rather than one that’s going to open but hasn’t yet.

For the Azizah event this Sunday, I need to have at least 25 people there to fill the classroom, and I have been feeling very optimistic about that. Attendance anxiety is starting to creep in, however. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how many people have mentioned they’re coming who I didn’t even know were aware of the program. The flip side of the pleasantness is that they may flake out, as people so often do.

I got one delivery of books yesterday – very scholarly titles from Garnet Publishing. (With this delivery I now have four complete sets of Ibn Kathir’s biography of the Prophet Muhammad.) Today I am getting a big delivery from Dar-us-Salaam. Unfortunately, I pulled my back out at Sam’s Club last week (trying to lift a box whose weight I grossly underestimated), so unpacking, pricing and shelving the books is quite uncomfortable. My stepson is coming tomorrow or Friday to put together the new bookcases, and I have a trusty volunteer coming in Friday and Saturday to help me get everything in order and spiffy looking. The only thing I haven’t finalized is a new chair to replace the pink one. I saw a couple good ones on craigslist, but I would have to coordinate with my husband so we can use his van to transport it, and with my back out now I couldn’t help lift it. It has to be done, though, somehow.

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Light of Islam is a nonprofit bookstore whose mission is to provide the Houston-area community with accurate and accessible information about Islam and Muslims. Find out more at http://www.light-of-islam.org/.

Well, that’s a corny title that doesn’t say a lot about my point…which is that little by little LOI is growing.  Word is getting out and I’m feeling more relaxed.  I’m getting more organized and more in the swing of things.  For quite a while I felt like I was in a state of frozen panic, not knowing if I would raise enough money or have enough publicity or enough visibility or enough of anything.

Speaking of having enough, I’ve been on a merchandise spree the last couple of weeks and yesterday got the last of the new bookcases to accommodate the new books.  My stepson is going to put them together at the end of the week.  I want everything to look spiffy for Sunday’s Azizah event.  I think there is going to be a good size crowd.  I have so much to do before then.

The children’s books I got in have been selling really well.  I should have started selling them a long time ago.

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Light of Islam is a nonprofit bookstore whose mission is to provide the Houston-area community with accurate and accessible information about Islam and Muslims. Find out more at http://www.light-of-islam.org/.

A heads up – because I will be going to this year’s Book Expo, LOI will have shortened hours for a few days at the end of the month as follows:

Wed., May 27: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Thurs., May 28: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. [NO ARABIC CLASS THIS DAY]
Fri., May 29: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.