January 2012 eNewsletter

"We tell ourselves stories in order to live." —Joan Didion

I have a daughter who is a senior in high school. This fall I got to watch her participate in the rite of passage called "the College Essay." This is the amusing little task where you get to sum up your life in three paragraphs. I thought of her quite a bit this winter when I encountered the annual holiday "What happened this past year?" recap questions from distant friends and relatives and the "How is the bookstore doing?" over-the-counter question. Well, the truthful and boring answer is that everyone is fine--healthy and reasonably happy--and the bookstore forges on quite well despite the headwinds but that's not the answer I give. I usually tell a story. A story about listening to the Grateful Dead with the kids on a late night drive on our California roadtrip. A story of hiking alone for sixty miles through a burnt out moonscape in the Okanagan. A story about the fun and friction of working with one's patient and understanding spouse during the loony holiday season. I love stories, telling them, listening to them, reading them. It is what I hope for when I get up in the morning and why I work in a bookstore. I truly believe, quoting Joan Didion, that "we tell ourselves stories in order to live." Stories are the best packages, the greatest gifts, the sweetest memory, and our deepest understandings. This New Year I resolve to write some more of these stories down. Just for myself, just in a journal, just to live.

Roger Page
Owner and Bookseller

HOT TOPICS ON OUR STORE JOURNAL

Reading-Related Rambles

If you haven't read our store journal yet, take the time. We post three times a week about all things book-related. Below are some of our most popular columns.

In My Day

Roger shares some important love advice with his fifteen-year-old son. (Hint: it has to do with scanning a date's bookshelf.)

After This We Save the Whales

James explains our participation in the coolest promotion ever: customers buy a great book; our store adopts a penguin. Seriously.

Memorable Friendships

Miriam reminisces and cheers for best friends in literature—and in real life.

Hurray Ann Patchett!

The bestselling author opens her own indie bookstore and we applaud her rousing inaugural speech.

Readers Make Good Writers

Practicing self-expression helps kids gives them a sense of who they are inside. At any age, but especially for the young, knowing yourself is the key to making good decisions, so we say expose kids to whatever helps instill the writing habit.

Start Your Diary for 2012

The most valuable record for historians turns out to be a diary of the mundane. So just write whatever comes into your head, and save 20% when you buy any blank journal.