With the advent of Summer come numerous lists of suggested titles for boat, beach, camp, school, cabin, cottage, travel of all sorts. Late June and early July are very busy here in the store with all of that. Every newspaper (yes, they still exist), magazine (yes, they also still exist), NPR station, literary social medium and school department offers up such lists. They run the gamut from light, frothy fare to brain exercising rigor. We dutifully print up all the lists we can get our hands on, order and stock books from them, and throw in some gifty items to spice up the mix. Get your ice cream cone-shaped battery-operated fan here. Beach bags and sunhats, oh yeah. Notepads in the shape of flip flops we have. Sponge sets shaped like ravioli make great weekend host/ess gifts.
Back to the lists, my thought is that the summer reading lists concept is a cool one. It's great fun to see what's on them and match the listmakers' tastes and sensibilities to ours. Many, if not most, titles are already on our radar and placed in alluring spots to catch the browser's eye. My take is that our store is one big recommended reading list all year long. So, I guess I'm making yet another shameless plug for this closing-in-on-50 year old bookstore. It's just such a great place.
One more thing - I think our bloggers are really terrific. Both Paul's and Kate's latest posts are food for much thought. Is there anything you'd love to know about the underpinnings of the book biz? Let me know and we'll address it!
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