Gorgeous Local Journals -- Limited Supply

This week we received a small shipment of very, very beautiful journals.  They're hand-bound, using vibrantly colored paper from France, Japan, Italy and Thailand on the covers and buttery, 25% cotton premium bond for the inside pages.

These are "special occasion" journals.  They're not for writing random thoughts or grocery lists or to-do lists.  But we can think of several occasions that call out for just such a beautifully bound volume.  One of them is even designed to be a wedding (or other event) guest book. We have only ten of them, and each one is unique. They are made by Stuart R. Evensen at the Provenance Bindery in Portland.

The bottom line: 

Small size (5 1/2 x 8) price: $35 each (we have seven)

Large size (9 x 11 1/2) price: $55 each (we have two)

Guest Book (11 x 9 1/2) price: $55 (we have one)

Our goal:

To find the perfect home for each one.

Day 20: Another Terrific Photo Book from National Geographic

It's Day 20 in our 24 Days of Books (tick tock....), and we're moving on! The annual journeys of wild species who travel in large groups during certain times of the year to find food, to avoid inclement weather, to procreate, or simply to return to their beginnings has been studied by scientists for hundreds of years, and photographed for decades. In a world of changing global conditions on land and in the sea, these annual journeys become astonishing tales of strength and the sheer will to survive.


The National Geographic Society is the entity we always look to for the best explanations and photographs of naturally occurring phenomena. The society's newest book, Great Migrations, is a wonder to behold. The photographic story of migrations around the globe, from butterflies to zooplankton to salmon to nomadic army ants to elephants to whales to fruit bats to walruses and more, this book also contains a penetrating text by K.M. Kostyal . Casting light on a toping of increasing relevance for our times, this book delivers the latest findings convering the impact of habitat loss, overexploitation, and climate change on animal migration – as well as new discoveries in wildlife science that help us understand a world in constant motion.

This gloriously photographed and insightfully written look at animal migration is a companion volume to the National Geographic Channel’s show. What a beautiful - and surprisingly affordable at $35 – gift!

Day 18: Roberta's Favorite Cookbooks

It's Day 18 in our 24 Days of Books, and we're hungry! This is the season for big, beautiful new cookbooks, and we have an excellent selection on our cookbook wall. Picking just one to call “my favorite” is not an easy task this year, but I’m going to have to go with Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table. Ms. Greenspan, long a foodie’s favorite for her baking books, lives part of each year in Paris and this gorgeous book is her love letter to everything French. It does for a new generation what Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking did for its time.

This book includes superb renditions of the classics (onion soup, chocolate mousse, roast chicken). It also has a host of completely unexpected, often radically simple, new recipes. A lamb tangine with dried apricots and inspired by the Moroccan cuisine that is a part of French tradition. A cheesy crème brûlée. Cauliflower-bacon gratin. Gorgonzola-apple quiche. And don’t get me started on the desserts! They are just what you’d expect from a master baker. And here’s the really wonderful thing about this book: The recipes are easy. They don’t contain twenty steps. They’re not simplistic, but they’re simple. This book is full of French comfort food: earthy yet elegant, great for entertaining or for quiet family dinners, inventive but also somehow charmingly familiar.

If it hasn’t occurred to you yet that you NEED this book, consider: it’s loaded with lively stories, beautiful photographs, memories, and insider tips on French culinary customs. If you love food, you will love this book even if you never try a single recipe. You can just read it for fun.

These new books made my short list this year:

The Sunset Cookbook contains more than 1,000 fresh, flavorful recipes culled from the magazine. It’s the first time they’ve done a book like this, and it’s spectacular.

The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a new Century is edited by the Times food columnist Amanda Hesser. Hard to believe that a 900-page cookbook doesn’t have room for illustrations, but there are so many recipes in here that there just wasn’t room. It’s a good book for the novice as well as the more accomplished cook. Every recipe was once published in the NY Times, some as long as 150 years ago.

Heart of the Artichoke is by David Tanis, whose day job is head chef at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California. This follow-up volume to his hugely popular A Platter of Figs contains more scrumptious food that is always fresh and in season. Tanis spends half the year in Paris, so his style is truly international as well as being intensely local.

One Big Table: A Portrait of American Cooking is editor Molly O’Neill’s love letter to regional American cuisine. 600 recipes from the nation’s best home cooks, farmers, fishermen, pit-masters and chefs are included here, along with wonderful contemporary and historical photos, memories, etc. I would buy this book for the endpapers alone. And again, this one is a good read as well as a good cookbook.

Ina (the Barefoot Contessa) Garten is in the habit of publishing one fabulous cookbook a year, and I am in the habit of buying them. We won’t break with tradition this year, because Barefoot Contessa: How Easy Is That? Is a worthy successor to all the books that have come before. Ms. Garten ‘s books prove that you don’t need special equipment or exotic ingredients to make great food. From roasted figs with caramel sauce to mustard chicken salad to tomatoes with pesto, she brings it all home.

Day 17: The Emperor of All Maladies

It's Day 17 in our 24 Days of Books. Only one week til Christmas Eve -- egad! The book for Day 17 is The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, by Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee. Sadly, cancer has been with us for a long time -- the oldest surviving description of cancer is written on a papyrus from about 1600 BC -- and it continues to bring pain, sadness, and a lot of questions. It will kill about 600,000 Americans by the end of this year, and more than seven million people around the planet. Mukherjee, a physician, researcher, and award-winning science writer, examines cancer with a cellular biologist's precision, a historian's perspective, and a biographer's passion.

Mukherjee calls his book a biography because he is attempting to enter "the mind" of this illness, to understand its personality and demystify its behavior. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance, but also of hubris, paternalism, and misperception. Mukherjee recounts centuries of discoveries, setbacks, victories, and deaths, told through the eyes of his predecessors and peers,

One of the constants in oncology, says the author, is the "queasy pivoting between defeatism and hope." One of the hopeful aspects he talks about concerns the work of Dr. Brian J. Druker, an oncologist at Oregon Health and Sciences University and a Howard Hughes Medical Investigator. Last year Druker was one of three winners of the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award, often called the “American Nobel Prize,” for the development of "molecularly targeted treatments for chronic myeloid leukemia, converting a fatal cancer into a manageable chronic condition.” Another aspect of the disease Mukherjee covers is the infrequency of communication between the doctors treating people with cancer and the researchers studying it in the lab. “The two conversations seemed to be occurring in sealed and separate universes.”

Here's an astonishing fact: Back in 1953, the average adult American smoked 3,500 cigarettes a year, or about 10 a day. Almost half of all Americans smoked. Yet, as one epidemiologist wrote, “asking about a connection between tobacco and cancer was like asking about an association between sitting and cancer.”

The New York Times review of Mukherjee's book called it "an epic story that he seems compelled to tell, the way a passionate young priest might attempt a biography of Satan." Last Sunday the NYT named The Emperor of All Maladies one of the Top Five Nonfiction Books of 2010 (along with Apollo's Angels, Cleopatra, Finishing the Hat, and the Warmth of Other Suns).

Mukherjee is an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University and a staff cancer physician at Columbia University Medical Center. A Rhodes scholar, he graduated from Stanford University, University of Oxford, Harvard Medical School. He has published articles in Nature, The New England Journal of Medicine, The New York Times, and The New Republic. He lives in New York with his wife and daughters.

Here is a short video clip of the author discussing the book and a couple of the major players in his story about cancer research. 

Day 16: Soaring High Above Portland

Welcome to Day 16 in our 24 Days of Books. Today we're soaring high over our beautiful city with the gorgeous new book Above Portland. The book offers the stunning aerial photography of  Bruce Forster and is edited by Chet Orloff, who was the executive director of the Oregon Historical Society from 1991 to 2001 and currently teaches urban studies and history at Portland State University and the UO School of Architecture. Bruce Forster is one of the leading photographers inthe Pacific Northwest, with more than 40 years of experience.

As the editor of the book, Orloff invited five local experts to pen essays on topics that reflect our city's personality: Brian Libby on The Portland Way, Rob Bennett on Sustainability, Mike Houck on Green Portland, Paddy Tillett on Transportation, and Donald Stastny on Urban Planning.

"... We were immediately intent upon looking at our city with more than just photographs," Orloff says. "We envisioned a book that would not only show readers what Portland is, but describe why it is what it is."

This is a gorgeous book, organized by sections of the city (with some bonus shots, like Cascade Head on the coast), with a perspective we don't often get to see: Portland from the air. Some of my favorite shots, off the top of my head: Ladd's Addition, Union Station, the University of Portland, the Chinese Garden, and the Portland Memorial Mausoleum Mural overlooking Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge -- and that's just a taste! The book also includes some historical aerial photographs. What a wonderful gift this would make! Best of all, Bruce and Chet signed all of the copies in our store. There was a short article about the book in last week's Oregonian (and rumor has it there might be a longer article to come).

Last Year's Cool Pick Now a Card Deck!

Last year my holiday Pick o' the Year was the book The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe,  by Theodore Gray. I described it essentially as fascinating science meets gorgous coffee table art book -- beautiful photographs of every entry in the periodic table, along with photographs of things that are made up of those elements, all on black background that makes the photographs really pop.

This year the publisher has produced The Photographic Card Deck of the Elements, which provides an over-sized card for each of the 118 elements in the periodic table. Each card includes a photograph on one side and scientific data (atomic weight, boiling point, percentage found in humans, etc) and other interesting information on the other side.

For example, did you know that research of the element tellurium is hindered by the fact that if you absorb even tiny amounts, you smell of garlic for months? Iridium is extremely hard to melt, which makes it useful in high-temperature situations, such as spark plug electrodes. Tiny amounts of the element Tantalum are used in the capacitors in all high-tech devices, such as cell phones and laptop computers.

Call me crazy, but I just have this notion that in the right sort of creative hands (clearly not mine), these could be turned into very cool art projects, for instance, cocktail coasters providing endless cocktail party conversation. And certainly they'd be perfect for anyone studying the periodic table. And, of course, we still have the original book I was so excited about last year -- and it's still very cool. [For a reminder of my hot holiday pick for this year, click here.]

Lights on Broadway All Month Long

Don't forget that Lights on Broadway, the annual holiday celebration in the northeast Broadway neighborhood, is a month-long affair this year. Check out the website for events, sales, tastings, and other special happenings. This is a great chance to knock out your shopping, support locally owned businesses, and have some fun! On Saturday the Grant High School Royal Blues Carolers will be strolling the streets, spreading holiday cheer. Our Holiday Catalog with its "Choose Your Own Discount" is full of great gift ideas, and the one-time-use coupon is good all month long! So join us for the Lights on Broadway celebration!

Zoobies!

This year our holiday catalog, which appeared in the Oregonian (come on in if you didn’t get one – we have extras and there’s a “choose your own discount” option in it) featured our favorite new snuggly/cozy/fuzzy things: ZOOBIES! These storybook gifts for little ones are the perfect thing for a child’s naptime or quiet moment. Zoobies are three things in one: a plush animal, a soft pillow, and a warm blanket. The plush animals are all characters from children’s storybooks. We have three different ones: Ian Falconer’s Olivia (every little girl’s favorite bossy pig), Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit, and Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Zipped inside each of the animals is an attached blanket that is super for spreading out on the floor (you can use the animal as a pillow) or taking to bed, or just carrying around. The Olivia and Peter Rabbit Zoobies are $34 each, and The Very Hungry Caterpillar Zoobie is $45 because it includes a copy of the board book. Storytime will be much more fun with Zoobies! We have just a few of these cuddly critters left, so call us quickly if you want one.

Top Reads from O Magazine

Well, would you look at this? I'm blogging about Oprah Winfrey twice in one week! What's up with that?? Thought you might be interested in learning about the favorite reads of the year from O: The Oprah Magazine -- some pretty darned good books on this list, five fiction and five nonfiction:

FICTION

• Freedom, Jonathan Franzen (no big surprise there)
• Super Sad True Love Story, Gary Shteyngart
• Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, Helen Simonson (just out in paperback this week!)
• Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, Danielle Evans (short stories)
• A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan

NONFICTION

• The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, Siddhartha Mukherjee
• Hellhound on His Trail, Hampton Sides
• The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, Isabel Wilkerson
• Let's Take the Long Way Home, Gail Caldwell
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot

We've written about several of these books in previous blog posts. (By the way, did you know you can search for titles/authors we've blogged about in the past using the search box on the right-hand side of the page?) The magazine lists several other books the staff thinks would make great gifts, including Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand; Life, by Keith Richards; Frank: The Voice, by James Kaplan; 40: A Doonesbury Retrospective; and Dogs, by Tim Flach. I'd have to say I would agree with these as well!

While I'm on the topic of Oprah, she just announced her latest book club reading selection, and it's a two-fer: A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations, two novels by Charles Dickens. The two novels are available together in a delightful newly published paperback version.

Having said all that, I think I'm Oprah'd out for the time being. [But did anyone catch yesterday's show with Jonathan Franzen? Sadly, I was at work and missed it.]



Day 7: A Look Back at the Good Old Days

If you are of a certain age (that is, if you grew up in the '40s and '50s), we have a book that will make you smile in remembrance of a lost time.  Portland author and illustrator Dennis Adler has produced a nostalgic look back at an innocent era, called Wax Lips & White Bucks: Looking Back at What We Did.  The book is general enough to appeal to you wherever you grew up, but it’s especially fun if you grew up in Oregon.  It just takes a few words to evoke memories:  Curb feelers.  Burma-Shave Signs.  Watching the radio.  Pneumatic Tubes in department stores.  Grocery delivery boy.  Orange crate hot rods.  The crying room in movie theaters.  Party lines.  Pedal Pushers.  I Like Ike.  I could go on, but you get the idea.  Hundreds of memories are within these pages, illustrated in color by one of Portland’s most well-known artists.  Don’t you know someone who would love to have this book?

Check Out this Great New Word Game!

Looking for the perfect stocking stuffer? We just got a COOL new letter dice game in from the people who brought us Bananagrams!  This new game is called ZIP-IT.  To play this two-person game, players divide twenty-four cubes between them.  Each cube has a letter on each side. Each player makes a grid of words (using any of the letters on the six sides of their cubes). The first one to use all her cubes wins the round.  My favorite part: you keep score by moving a zipper on the pouch that holds the game.  No pencil/paper needed.  Just like Bananagrams, ZIP-IT is amazingly simple and appropriate for use by anyone who can spell just a little bit, so it's a great game for an adult to play with a younger person, or for two children to play together (or two adults).  And it's just the right size to tuck in a backpack or purse.  Or to stuff a stocking! And only $15.00!

Day 6: The Gift of Poetry

We love giving and receiving poetry, and three of our favorite poets have new books this year. So Day 6 in our 24 Days of Books is a three-fer.  Penelope Scambly Schott, winner of the 2008 Oregon Book Award for poetry, has a marvelous new collection called Crow Mercies. These fierce, honest poems will sear themselves into your brain and stay there for a very long time (in a GOOD way).  Paulann Petersen, our current Poet Laureate, has a beautiful, hypnotic, blazingly sensual new book called Voluptuary.  I’m always amazed at Paulann’s work, and let me just say that the woman has a special thing going on with bees (again, in a GOOD way).  Our third pick is Mary Oliver’s most recent collection of poems and prose poems, Swan.  Ms. Oliver’s affinity for the natural world shines through all her work, and this book is no exception.  And we must say it here: R.I.P Percy, Ms. Oliver’s beloved feline companion.  What poetry do you love?  And who can you share it with?

Day 5: The Most Talked-About Novel of the Year

For Day 5 of our 24 Days of Books we're going to talk about the year's most-talked-about novel, Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen. Love him or hate him -- or any emotion in between -- discussion of Franzen and his book have been all over the media since the book was published in August -- including a shot of Franzen on the cover of Time Magazine, the first novelist to be featured on the cover since Stephen King ten years ago. We picked today to talk about Franzen's book because tomorrow he will appear on the Oprah Show, which is significant for reasons that I'll cover in a bit. Freedom is Franzen's first novel since The Corrections, which won the National Book Award in 2001 (it was also nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, a PEN/Faulkner Award, and the National Critics Circle Award, among others).

The awards have been less forthcoming for his newest novel, but it has still received great acclaim. The New York Times Book Review, which just picked Freedom as one of the Top Ten Books of 2010, called the novel "a masterly portrait of a nuclear family in turmoil, with an intricately ordered narrative and a majestic sweep that seems to gather up every fresh datum of our shared millennial life."

The novel, about Walter and Patty Berglund of St Paul, Minnesota, their kids, their marriage, their successes and failures, is one "long, juicy, scathing, funny and poignant indictment of contemporary American life."

I did not read The Corrections when it came out, despite the rave reviews. Who knows why. But I decided to read Freedom early, before all the shouting started. And I loved it. So much so that I bought and now intend to read (after the holiday craziness subsides) The Corrections. Freedom is a big beefy juicy novel that I found completely engrossing, even if the characters weren't always completely likable or the plot lines always convincing. I still found myself missing the characters when I was done reading the book.

So, to get back to the Oprah story I alluded to at the beginning of this post: In 2001, when The Corrections was all the rage, Oprah Winfrey picked it for her book club and invited Franzen to appear on her show. The author expressed -- in print and in interviews -- that he wasn't completely taken with the idea, and his invitation was rescinded. Fast forward to 2010, and, as Oprah's talk show winds down its run, she gave him another shot, choosing Freedom for her book club and once again inviting Franzen to appear on the show. This time he unhesitatingly accepted the offer, and tomorrow we'll see how their get-together came off. I'm guessing it won't be another ambush shellacking, as when author James Frey and editor Nan Talese appeared on Oprah's show -- at least let's hope not!

For the lover of contemporary fiction in your life, Freedom would be a good bet.

Day 4: An All-Bryson Day

It's no secret that I'm a big fan of Bill Bryson's books. Today I'm going to cheat a little bit and mention three different books for Day 4 of Broadway Books' 24 Days of Books. But it's all Bryson, so I don't think it's cheating too much. And any one -- or all of them! -- would make great holiday gifts.

The first book I'll talk about is At Home: A Short History of Private Life. This book is Bryson along the lines of A Short History of Nearly Everything and Mother Tongue, rather than the Bryson of the often-hysterical-always-amusing memoirs like A Walk in the Woods, The Lost Continent, and The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid.

In his newest book, Bryson walks from room to room in his family Victorian parsonage in England and uses each as a launching pad to talk about, well, just about anything that interests him: hygiene, fashion, cuisine, architecture, drinking, nutrition, the Eiffel Tower, the telephone, insect bites, furniture, plumbing -- you get my drift. Bryson is known for his inquisitiveness and his fondness for research. In fact, he was recently spotted in our very own Central Library doing just that! This book is a perfect showcase for his work, written in his customarily engaging and entertaining prose style.

When you're finished reading this book you'll know that Thomas Jefferson was responsible for introducing the french fry to the American palate (damn him, I say!), and that Benjamin Franklin was partial to taking "air baths," in which he would bask naked in front of an open upstairs window. "This can't have got him any cleaner, but it seems to have done him no harm and it must have at least given the neighbors something to talk about." And you will have a greater understanding of the complex geometry and engineering involved in building a functional staircase.

Bryson is also responsible for another recently published book, Seeing Further: The Story of Science, Discovery, and the Genius of the Royal Society, which he edited. In honor of the Royal Society's 350th anniversary -- having been established on "a damp weeknight" in London in 1660 as a "Colledge for Promoting of Physico-Mathematicall Experimentall Learning" -- Bryson solicited essays from a collective of science writers on what we know today and what we're still looking for.

The book opens with an introduction by Bryson, followed by an essay by novelist Margaret Atwood on the mad scientists of literature and film. And then the book gets a bit more serious, including James Gleick tracing the birth of modern science, Richard Dawkins writing on the world-changing legacy of Darwin and evolutionary science, Neal Stephenson writing on the strange feud between Newton and Leibniz, Richard Holmes writing on man's first success at flight, Henry Petroski writing on engineering, and Martin Rees (president of the Royal Society from December 2005 to December 2010) looking forward to the future of science in the twenty-first century and beyond. In all, the book offers twenty-two essays. It's lusciously produced, with creamy pages and lots of photographs and illustrations.

Finally, the third in my Bryson picks for the holidays is the special illustrated edition of A Short History of Nearly Everything. Originally published (sans illustrations) in 2003, and in a hardcover illustrated edition in 2005, the illustrated version has just been published in paperback. The book covers physics, astronomy,biology, chemistry, geology -- pretty much everything, like the title says. Only now it comes with full-color artwork and photos -- both contemporary and historical. The Seattle Times said this about Bryson's book: "A highly readable mix of historical anecdotes, gee-whiz facts, adept summarization, and gleeful recounts of the eccentricities of great scientists. It moves so fast that it's science on a toboggan."

Anyone with an inquisitive nature and a fondness for facts presented with wit and eloquence would likely be thrilled to get one of these books.

Lights on Broadway - Celebrate All Month!

Traditionally, merchants in the Northeast Broadway neighborhood have come together on the first weekend in December to invite shoppers to check out the Lights on Broadway and enjoy holiday events, special tasting, entertainment, and sales. This year, we've decided that the holiday celebrations should run for the whole month of December!

More than 40 businesses are participating in this neighborhood celebration, where something is happening every day. For personalized service and unique shopping selections, all in an easy walking neighborhood, with plenty of opportunities to quench your thirst and feed your appetitite, join the fun on NE Broadway this holiday season. Check out the NE Broadway website to see what's happening in the neighborhood. Everything you need is on Broadway: shop, eat, drink, play -- all while supporting your local community!

Broadway Books' Holiday Gift Guide

We'd be happy to serve as your personal shoppers this holiday season. We've got all kinds of great gift ideas. Check out our new Holiday Book Guide! If you didn't get one in The Oregonian, stop by the store for your very own copy. On the back cover of the guide is a one-time-use "Choose Your Own Discount" coupon: Get 25% off any one item from the holiday guide, or buy $100 or more of anything in the store and get $20 off your total purchase. You must have the coupon to get the discount, which is good through the holiday season but can only be used once. Check out the catalog on line here, and then come get your very own copy. As always, we're happy to wrap all of the gifts you buy from us at no charge. Dare I say one-stop shopping???

You can call (503-284-1726) or email (bookbroads@qwestoffice.net) to confirm whether something is in stock, place a special order (which will usually arrive within a day or two), or ask us to hold an item for you. We're here to help make your holidays as enjoyable and stress-free as possible!

Of course we also have boxed and individual holiday cards of all types, as well as wrapping paper and ribbon, and we're fully stocked with Hanukkah supplies. In addition to all the wonderful books presented in the Holiday Book Guide, there are two items I'd like to point out in particular: the adorable Zoobies, a blanket/pillow combination with favorite children's book characters, and Haikubes, solid word cubes you can use to create expressive haiku. Is it a game? Art? Who can say for sure, although it was created by the team behind the game Cranium. Come see for yourself.

We're open extended hours through the holiday season: Monday through Saturday we're open from 10 am to 9 pm, and Sundays we're open from 10 am to 7 pm. Let us know how we can help you! [PS: Our annual "24 Days of Books" launches on our blog starting on Wednesday -- check it out!]

Open publication - Free publishing - More northwest

It's Small Business Saturday!

Today is the first-ever Small Business Saturday. For every $100 spent in a local independent store, $68 remains in the community. Small businesses employ the people in your community and give back to your community in a variety of ways. Think small and have a big impact when doing your holiday shopping. Here's some information from the official site:

"November 27, 2010 is the first-ever Small Business Saturday.

A day to come together in support of the small businesses we love.
The shops and restaurants that employ our neighbors and reinvest our money close to home.
The businesses that are the heartbeat of our communities and local economies.
Take the pledge to support small business. Join the movement."

You can read some more about the importance of supporting your locally owned neighborhood businesses at our website: http://www.broadwaybooks.net/

Join the celebration!! We're here with a store full of great holiday gift ideas!

Don't Miss Next Week's Book Fun!

Don't you hate it when stores start playing Christmas carols before Thanksgiving even rolls around -- or worse yet, Veterans Day??!! I know I do. There are plenty of days in December for the yuletide musical onslaught. In terms of holiday merchandise, however, it's often our customers urging us to put stuff out early; we've already had people bugging us for boxed holiday cards, so we put them out! (This would never occur to me, since I usually send out my holiday cards -- in the years I actually get it together to do so -- in January or February!) And we've got a table bulging with Hannukah supplies.

Speaking of holiday shopping, don't forget that next week is our ever-popular annual Holiday Book Talk, where we share a little nosh and beverages of an unmentionable sort and talk about books that will make great gifts your friends and family -- or even for you on these wet, dark, gloomy winter days.

The Holiday Book Talk is next Thursday night, November 18th, at 7 pm. Attendance is limited and seats are filling up fast, so reserve your spot soon by stopping by the store to pay your $5 (or call with credit card). The payment is refunded with any purchase you make that night, so essentially the night is free. And usually entertaining -- if only to see how fast we can talk because we're so excited about so many books! Bill Bryson, Oliver Sacks, BOTH Sedaris siblings, Sara Gruen, Nicole Krauss, and more! Plus great books for kids of all ages, gorgeous coffee table gift books and boxed sets, and cookbooks that are as beautiful as the recipes inside are mouthwatering.

We hope you can join us for this once-a-year fun fest! Tell your friends and neighbors -- let's make it a party!

Puzzle Me This!

Come see the great new jigsaw puzzles we just got in at Broadway Books! We have both 1000-piece and 500-piece puzzles, for $15 each. The puzzles are magazine covers from past issues of The New Yorker, House Beautiful, Popular Mechanics, and Good Housekeeping. They range from as early as 1925 to as recent as 2000.

We also have a few smaller puzzles left, with 250 pieces, for $8. And we have some great puzzle decks from Will Shortz -- perfect for road trips or when you're gathered around the beach fire. I'm hoping the weather prediction for July in the northwest of "wetter and colder" than usual is WAY off the mark, but either way, jigsaw puzzles are great vacation fun. Come soon for the best selection!

Creepy Vampires for Dad...or Others

Holy cats! I forgot a very important book in my last posting about possible titles for Dad for Father's Day. Not counting the Stieg Larsson books, it's probably destined to be the hottest book of the summer: The Passage, by Justin Cronin.This book, the first of a planned trilogy, is a door-stopping apocolyptic literary thriller with government secrets, vampires, and humanity's future hanging in the balance.

Stephen King says "Read this book and the ordinary world disappears."


The Library Journal says "Although the novel runs 700 pages, Cronin is a master at building tension, and he never wastes words."

Ron Charles of The Washington Post said ""by the third chapter, trash was piling up in our house because I was too scared to take out the garbage at night."

Cronin, a professor of English at Rice University, definitely has writing chops.  He is the winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award and Stephen Crane Prize for his 2001 short-story collection, Mary and O’Neil, and he also wrote the novel The Summer Guest.