Dear Folks,

      We've already had several requests for our unique service, Bookstacks, and I thought I might remind the rest of you about it. We regularly root around in our 80,000 books as we price books, enter them on line, shelf them, reshelf them etc., so we know our stock very well. Thus we can put together a stack of books that match the interests of the person to whom you want to give a gift and come up with books or connections that you might not have thought of. Then we erase the prices, record the sale so we have records of the books and the prices, wrap them up in a ribbon, and you have a Bookstack. If we goofed and one of the booksdoesn't fit the bill or if we pick a book that your giftee already has, they can bring it into the shop and exchange it for a book of equal value, of their choosing. Another alternative is gift certificates - we can write them up for any amount, personalize them with your name and the name of the person receiving the gift, and even list some of the types of books in which they might be interested. Either way would be a great way to introduce your friends to our store !

      We also have come across a variety of blank journals for aspiring writers on your gift list. These start at $5 and may have wooden covers, covers with hand made paper with delicate leaves imprinted in the paper, or high tech journals from "Oracle" for the seers on your gift list.

     This fall, Cynthia and I had the good fortune to come across a marvelous collection of Pop-Ups and we have been like kids in a candy store ever since. The collection ranges from $5 copies of classics with hilarious gaping mouthed monsters by Jan Pienkowski to rare and collectible, unopened Pop-ups at $60, and though many of them are designed for kids (and the kids in us adults) there are also some for adults who can also delight in the wizardry of these magical creations that ascend from two to three dimensional with the turn of a page. I don't think that ebooks will be able to imitate that experience.

    I had fun thinking of Bookstacks that build on pop-ups and came up with a few for your perusal. We have a couple of shelves of Christmas books and one of my favorite pop-up artists, Robert Sabuda, did a prancing version of The Night Before Christmas where his designs not only pop but the reindeer jump out at you, the sash flies up, and Santa slides down and then climbs back up the chimney. We have one slightly used version at $13 and an unopened first edition at $25. In our Christmas Bookstack, we'd also suggest, A Topsy Turvy Christmas, A Cantata for Children, undated, $10, in which the children in the "musical" go looking for the presents their Grandma hid before Christmas and suffer the consequences. On the not so saccharine side, we have a paperback entitled, The Junky's Christmas and Other Stories, $6 which concludes with the title story, by William S. Burroughs.

     For the adults we have the POP-UP BOOK of NIGHTMARES, with one torn pop-up, thus $10,with truly scary pop-ups by Matthew Reinhart, like one where the clock flies through three hours as the page opens and the proctor takes your blue book away before you've been able to answer even the first question. Then there's the pop-up where, as you start to open it, you're skating atop the frozen pond, and by the time you've opened it all the way, you're looking up through murky water, surrounded by creatures of the deep, and you're sinking. We've add to it, The Mind at Night, by Andrea Rock, a hardback in dust jacket, $6, that explores the latest scientific evidence about why and how we dream, and Zolar's Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Dreams, a paperback best seller,$13, which presents the not-so-scientific aspect of dream interpretation "With Lucky Numbers for Fun and Prophet!" I thought I was the punster in this blog ?

       You'll have to come into the shop to see, The POP-UP Ancient Egypt Calendar 2006, and it's accompanying bookstack which includes a rare U.S. 1st edition of a great 19th century juvenille adventure story by the legendary English author, G. A. Henty, The Cat of Eubastes, a tale of Ancient Egypt. We have added extra hours, Friday until 9 p.m. and Sundays from noon to 4 p.m,  during the holidays just so you can come see these and other wonderful books in our shop.This weekend the weather looks clear with highs in the 40's - perfect for our plan to have a fire out in front of the shop where you can make s'mores and enjoy music by Sharon Abbott on Friday and by Phillip Bennett and Sharon on Sunday.

Hope to see you,

Greg and Cynthia

P.S. I can't resist naming a few other pop-ups that delight me: The Wizard of Oz, also by Sabuda where the tornado turns so fast it makes your head spin, and unopened copy of Edward Gorey's DRACULA, A TOY THEATRE, and L'Isola dei mostri, by Ron Van Der Meer, on of our growing selection of children's books in foreign languages.