Rich Rennicks, bookseller at Malaprop's Bookstore/Café, Asheville, N.C., writes:
Traffic was pretty steady this past weekend. It was noticeable that fewer grandparents were shopping with their grandkids, for one thing, so a different set of titles were moving. Thirteen Moons continues to be our top seller (doubtless helped by the fact that Mr. Frazier stopped by to sign all our stock after his book tour wound down). Thirteen Moons is certainly the must-read book in western North Carolina right now--and unlike some of the national press, local readers are giving it great reviews.
Following Thirteen Moons are Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian, Elizabeth Haydon's wonderful YA fantasy The Floating Island, Wendell Berry's latest collection The Way of Ignorance (a Malaprop's bestseller for the last two months or so), all of Orhan Pamuk's books and local author Neal Thompson's colorful history of the Southern moonshiners who gave birth to Nascar, Driving with the Devil. This last will be parked under a lot of local Christmas trees this year.
Sales of Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion jumped this past week, and we continue to have a lot of handselling success with Neil Gaiman's American Gods--one of our booksellers, Gina Glenn, has made it her mission in life to ensure everyone reads his books. (American Gods is probably one of our top five bestsellers for the whole of 2006.)
Unfortunately one title that would be a store bestseller if we could get more copies is Martin Millar's The Good Fairies of New York (Soft Skull Press), a hilarious contemporary fantasy about Scottish fairies creating chaos among the fairy tribes of modern-day New York City. A great intro from Neil Gaiman (a favorite author among our customers--see above), support from our in-store SF/Fantasy book club and enthusiastic handselling has caused it to take off. But The Good Fairies of New York is out of stock at the publisher and at all distributors because several other independents are doing well with it. Richard Nash, the publisher of Soft Skull, tells me that he's gone back to press on the book. Some customers who loved it have returned looking for other Millar books. (There aren't any available yet, but hopefully Soft Skull will bring more of his backlist over from the U.K.) We anticipate Millar becoming a steady seller for us.
---
People have definitely begun their holiday shopping (gift certificate sales are up, lots of requests for gift-wrapping) but there doesn't seem to be any sense of urgency yet. There are three weeks to go, after all, and Christmas is on a Monday this year.
One thing we're doing this year that's new for us is that our staff voted for our own best books of 2006. We're promoting them on a front-of-store table display, have stocked up on everything and are creating special bookmarks and flyers. The list (drum roll, please) is as follows:
Fiction
Traffic was pretty steady this past weekend. It was noticeable that fewer grandparents were shopping with their grandkids, for one thing, so a different set of titles were moving. Thirteen Moons continues to be our top seller (doubtless helped by the fact that Mr. Frazier stopped by to sign all our stock after his book tour wound down). Thirteen Moons is certainly the must-read book in western North Carolina right now--and unlike some of the national press, local readers are giving it great reviews.
Following Thirteen Moons are Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian, Elizabeth Haydon's wonderful YA fantasy The Floating Island, Wendell Berry's latest collection The Way of Ignorance (a Malaprop's bestseller for the last two months or so), all of Orhan Pamuk's books and local author Neal Thompson's colorful history of the Southern moonshiners who gave birth to Nascar, Driving with the Devil. This last will be parked under a lot of local Christmas trees this year.
Sales of Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion jumped this past week, and we continue to have a lot of handselling success with Neil Gaiman's American Gods--one of our booksellers, Gina Glenn, has made it her mission in life to ensure everyone reads his books. (American Gods is probably one of our top five bestsellers for the whole of 2006.)
Unfortunately one title that would be a store bestseller if we could get more copies is Martin Millar's The Good Fairies of New York (Soft Skull Press), a hilarious contemporary fantasy about Scottish fairies creating chaos among the fairy tribes of modern-day New York City. A great intro from Neil Gaiman (a favorite author among our customers--see above), support from our in-store SF/Fantasy book club and enthusiastic handselling has caused it to take off. But The Good Fairies of New York is out of stock at the publisher and at all distributors because several other independents are doing well with it. Richard Nash, the publisher of Soft Skull, tells me that he's gone back to press on the book. Some customers who loved it have returned looking for other Millar books. (There aren't any available yet, but hopefully Soft Skull will bring more of his backlist over from the U.K.) We anticipate Millar becoming a steady seller for us.
---
People have definitely begun their holiday shopping (gift certificate sales are up, lots of requests for gift-wrapping) but there doesn't seem to be any sense of urgency yet. There are three weeks to go, after all, and Christmas is on a Monday this year.
One thing we're doing this year that's new for us is that our staff voted for our own best books of 2006. We're promoting them on a front-of-store table display, have stocked up on everything and are creating special bookmarks and flyers. The list (drum roll, please) is as follows:
Fiction
- Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier (Random House)
- The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (Little, Brown)
- Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link (Harcourt)
- Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami (Vintage)
- On Beauty by Zadie Smith (Penguin)
- A Temple of Texts by William Gass (Knopf)
- The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer (Penguin)
- The Places in Between by Rory Stewart (Harcourt)
- Natures: Poems 1975-2005 by Jeff Davis (New Native Press)
- Knit One, Haiku Too by Maria Fire (Adams Media)
- Man and Camel by Mark Strand (Knopf)
- The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing by M.T. Anderson (Candlewick)
- Scrambled Eggs at Midnight by Brad Barkley and Heather Helper (Dutton)
- New Moon by Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown)
- Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown)
- Chowder by Peter Brown (Little, Brown)
- Wolves by Emily Gravett (S&S)
- Walter the Farting Dog Goes on a Cruise by William Kotzwinkle et al. (Dutton)
- Bats at the Beach by Brian Lies (Houghton Mifflin)