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Hello Folks,

 

Another year is almost over, and I guess the highlight of 2010 for RiverRun is that we are still here, and you still keep coming through our door.  Thank You!!

 

It's a scary, scary time in the bookselling world.  We've seen a kind of "perfect storm" of recession, competition, technological innovation, and industry shakiness.  2010 will probably go down as the year that electronic boks finally broke through into the mainstream in a big, big way.  While Amazon's Kindle has been making steady headway over the last few years, the introduction of the iPad this year really signaled a tipping point. 

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Ready for one of the most obvious statements of the century? Here it is: I love books. LOVE books. And not the candy, flowers, and i's-dotted-with-hearts kind of love. I'm talking the obsessive, unreasonable, warrants-a-restraining-order kind. I have hundreds and hundreds of books in my apartment. Books stacked from floor-to-ceiling. Bookcases with shelves buckling under the weight. Books piled on the kitchen table, on the counters, on my desk, on my nightstand. Books shoved under the bed, in closets, in drawers.  Thank goodness I still have enough wits about me to know I need to go to work so I can afford to buy food and pay the rent. Otherwise, I would never leave the house - I would be in here day and night with all my books (my precioussssses!), wearing the same pajamas for weeks and ignoring the phone and the landlord's knocks at the door.

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Hello!  We are TV stars.  New Hampshire Chronicle featured us on their show last night, and did a great job of catching the spirit of the bookstore.  You will be able to view it online, starting Monday, at www.wmur.com/chronicleread more

In case you haven't heard me say it a million times already, I have the *best* job in the world. And one of the perks of this job is receiving advance reading copies. It's when publishers and authors send us copies of their books before they're released, in the hopes we will read them and get excited, and, in turn, get you excited to read them. And no other non-fiction book has gotten me so wound up in the last five years as John Vaillant's The Tiger. It is a phenomenal book! I read it back in March and then had to wait *five* whole months before I could start selling it. But that didn't stop me from talking about it to everyone in a ten-mile radius. I talked about it so much that it was driving my coworkers crazy. "Please" said Tom, "please tell people about other books, too. Books we can actually sell right now." I conceded - a little. And in August, when The Tiger was released, my enthusiasm was validated!read more

I had never read any book by David Grossman before.  But I HAD to read his latest novel, TO THE END OF THE LAND, when I got an advanced reader's copy in the mail with a glowing blurb from one of my favorite writers, Nicole Krauss. I'm really glad I picked the book up. I found myself in an immense, sprawling novel that beautifully addresses issues of love and war.  Here's an excerpt from my review for The Book Studio: 

"To the End of the Land" is about the darkest moments in life; torture and heartbreak and despair. Yet it’s also about reconciliation and recognition.  It’s a powerful and important novel that expertly shows the all-too-human side of war.

You can read more of my short review here. 

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