Tis the time to look back over the year, and apparently that means making lists. Last year, I gave you the top ten bestsellers of the year, and I’ll do the same this year.  I made two separate lists for adults and kids, but then made no distinction between fiction, non-fiction, hardcover or paperback.

Adult Books

1. Morning Glory Farm: and the Family That Feeds an Island by Tom                        Dunlop

2. The Big One by David Kinney

3. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

4. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

5. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows                     and Mary Ann Shafer

6. The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

7. A Survival Guide for Landlocked Mermaids by Margot Datz

8. The Help by Kathryn Stockett

9. Raising the Salad Bar by Catherine Walthers

10.  Seen the Glory by John Hough

Children’s Books

1. Good Night Martha’s Vineyard by Megan Weeks Adams

2. New Moon by Stephenie Meyer

3. Pinky and Bub’s Stinky Night Out by Frankie Spellman

4. Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief by Rick                                Riordan

5. Friend or Fiend with the Pain and the Great One by Judy Blume

6. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

7. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

8. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

9. A Clam Named Sam by Lee DeVitt

10.  Diary of a Wimpy Kid 3: The Last Straw

For my bookseller friends off Island, there are a few of these books you’ve probably never even seen, and I can only say, check them out.

Yes, Morning Glory Farm is about a farm on the Island, but the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards named it the the best local cuisine cookbook in the U.S. It’s a beautiful book with amazing photography, great seasonal recipes and thoughts on the importance of eating local, from a family that has been making it possible for over 30 years.

Yes, The Big One is about the fishing derby on the Vineyard, but it’s a great story of the characters that you meet in an obsessive sporting event.  Perfect for a gift for Dad, no matter where you are from.

Yes, Survival Guide for Landlocked Mermaids is by a local painter, but it’s also the perfect gift among girlfriends, and it’s been on our top ten list 2 years running.

Yes, Seen the Glory features men from the Island as they experience the Civil War, but it also has one of the most harrowing, eye-opening descriptions of the Battle of Gettysburg I’ve ever read.

All these books are dear friends, some are even written by dear friends, and we are happy to play a part in bringing them to you.

I wondered if I’d write a teary-eyed post on how far we’ve come in the space of a year, how great it feels to be back in our Main St home where we belong, how wonderful it’s been to welcome back our friends who missed us.  I thought it would be another one of those posts like the one I wrote when we reopened the big store or opened the temporary location last year, the type of post so full of passion and gratitude and joy that it still makes me cry every time I read it.

But here’s the thing: that’s not where I am anymore.  I’ve marked the milestones and loved every one, but now it’s back to work.  Time to be past “before the fire” “after the fire” and “woe is we”.  We’re selling books, selling a lot of great books and making a difference in our community, both in the economy of our community and the preservation of our local culture. We’re in the midst of a rough patch money-wise.  We’ve been hit just like every other business on-Island. We’re also experiencing the evolution pains of an industry that doesn’t quite know where its future lies.

So here we are, New Englanders to our core. We’ve recovered, we’re here, and we’re going to put our backs into whatever comes next. And we’re lucky enough to do that by reading a bunch of amazing books, and sharing them with people we love.

So we’ll see what this next year brings, and we look forward to giving you your next favorite book soon.

Happy New Year!

This is what happens when you trap a book person inside by dumping a blizzard on her…

Apologies for offending your ears…

Merry Christmas!

In addition to all the great stuff happening all this month and every Twilight Thursday (see this post) today, December 10th from 5-7, we will have author signings from Tom Dunlop, Alison Shaw and the Athearns for MORNING GLORY FARM; Carol McManus for TABLE TALK; Tina Miller for VINEYARD HARVEST and Shirley Craig for DELISH.  Yes, they will all be bringing goodies from their cookbooks!  And we’ve got the eggnog!  And, since all those count as Vineyard books, they are 20% off on Thursday night!

Also here on Thursday 5-7 will be Jynell Kristal from Jynell Designs (remember that with the purchase of any Jynell designs bag and a book, you receive 2 free Islander Christmas glasses), and Ingrid Goff-Maidoff with her lovely handmade books and paper arts.

And last, a bunch of us booksellers, as well as our owner, will be here…. more than necessary, so that we can chat, get to know you (even more than we already do) and give you all our holiday recommendations.

Come see us!  We’ll be sad if you don’t!

Would you like to have some fun?    Join the Bunch of Grapes Writers’ Group with Cynthia Riggs.    The group meets every Tuesday morning from 10 to 12, upstairs in the Bunch of Grapes Bookstore.   Give writing a try!    Brand new and seasoned writers are welcome.   Lots of laughter is part of the deal.

CONTACT

criggs@vineyard.net

We’ve just gotten in a new shipment of our book birdhouses, and if you haven’t seen them, they are fantastic!

All are handmade from books found at library and estate sales.  The roof is the book itself, then images from the pages decorate the walls.  Each house’s perch is chosen to match the book it is made from… The Winnie-the-Pooh house has a honey dipper perch, Green Eggs and Ham gets a fork, etc.

Right now we have in Winnie-the-Pooh, Our New Friends (a Dick and Jane book), Fun and Thought for Little Folk (that’s the one with Santa), History of the US, Book of Wild Birds and Audubon Birds of America.  Green Eggs and Ham, as well as To Kill a Mockingbird from this batch have already been reserved, but if you’d like to get on a waiting list for future shipments, or are interested in any of the other houses, give us a call! (508) 693-2291, then press 1 to speak to a bookseller… free shipping for any birdhouse!  If you’d like close-up photos of any house, or dimensions, just email books@bunchofgrapes.com.

* To answer questions I know are coming… they are not meant to go outside.  These are indoor decorations.  Each handmade birdhouse is $120*

No… not like the vampires…

The Tisbury Business Association is hosting Twilight Thursdays this holiday season and tonight is the first!

Businesses in Vineyard Haven are staying open late to help you get your shopping done… here at the Bunch of Grapes, we will be open until 8:00 tonight!

From 3:00-8:00:

• 20% off all Vineyard books!
• Receive a free Bunch of Grapes cloth shopping bag with any purchase over $50!
• Bring your Bunch of Grapes receipt over to Waterside Market, and receive 10% off your purchase there!
• With any purchase, enter a raffle for a gorgeous gift basket… drawing is Friday morning!
• Enjoy our famous egg nog, courtesy of Bunch of Grapes and Vineyard Grocer!

As always this holiday season:

• Receive a ticket to the Tisbury Business Association raffle with any purchase of $25 or more (first prize is $600!  Drawing on December 20)!
• Enjoy free shipping on any purchase over $100 (one box to one U.S. location)!
• Receive 2 free Islander Christmas glasses with your purchase of a Jynell Designs bag and a book!
• Shop local!

BOOK CLUB

DO YOU WANT TO START A BOOK CLUB OF YOUR OWN?

DO YOU WANT US TO START A BOOK GROUP?

WOULD YOU LIKE A SPECIAL KIND OF BOOK GROUP……CLASSIC FICTION, BIOGRAPHY, MYSTERY?    YOU NAME  IT AND WE CAN TRY IT.

DO YOU NEED HELP WITH BOOK CHOICES?

WOULD YOU LIKE TO MEET IN THE BUNCH OF GRAPES?

(EVEN AN ESTABLISHED GROUP COULD DO THIS.)

LET US HELP YOU!

Ask Karen or e-mail her at karen@bunchofgrapes.com

Today on twitter, I gave an hourly reason why you might want to consider doing your holiday shopping now instead of waiting until after Thanksgiving.

For those who don’t tweet, here’s the finished list:

1.  We have not yet started playing Christmas music.

2. That feeling of self-righteousness over starting so early translates into treating yourself to something as well.

3.  You can make a list of all the things you want, so that you can hint liberally at Thanksgiving.

4. If there’s a hardcover you’ve been eyeing, you have time to read the whole thing before giving it away.

5. We have free gift wrapping.  By Christmas, you’ll forget what it was you bought.  Aren’t surprises great?

6.  It’s much easier to stick to your budget when we aren’t serving you eggnog like we do the week before Christmas.

7.  All versions of The Night Before Christmas are still in stock.  You won’t have to settle for that one weird one left over on Christmas Eve.

8.  You’ll bring smiles and joy and a twinkle to the eye of your favorite local, indie bookseller.

You may have heard some of the kerfuffle this week as Publishers Weekly announced their top 10 books of 2009, and there was not a female writer among the bunch.

There’s been a lot of response to this, most of it said better than I ever could. (Take that last sentence as your proof right there.)  So go read everybody else’s commentary and check out the huge list being compiled by WILLA.

The BoG would like to contribute this:  10 books we loved this year, by women writers.  I’m not saying they are better than the PW list, I’m not even saying they are my favorite (I know I’ll be kicking myself for forgetting something the minute I hit publish), but if you were to mix these with the PW list and divide by two, I think you’d have an awesome list.

*And now that I’ve written the list, I’m adding… this list has the input of 4 people with widely varied tastes, so don’t be shocked that they don’t all match… and, being the children’s book person, I couldn’t help but slip in one kid book, despite the fact that the best children’s books list is nice and diverse, but it’s one that every adult I know who has read it has loved, so I think it deserves a place on this list too*

In no particular order:

1. Lark & Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips

2. The Help by Kathryn Stockett

3. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

4. The Children’s Book by A S Byatt

5. The Legend of Colton H Bryant by Alexandra Fuller

6. Benny and Shrimp by Katarina Mazetti (out before 2009 abroad, but since it was published in US in 2009, I’m allowing.)

7. The Pleasures of Cooking for One by Judith Jones

8. Shanghai Girls by Lisa See

9. The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

10. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

You may have seen this summer that a highly regarded boarding school decided to dismantle its physical library in favor of a digital one. (You can read the article here.)

You may have read a piece on the NYRBlog about the lost art of browsing. (You can read the post here.)

You may have heard we are witnessing the death of print. (Pick a publishing blog, you’ll find a post to that effect)

Like many booksellers, I don’t get it.  I fell in love at the library.  While English classes in school were some of my most apathetic (I’m sure my teachers would all be shocked where I ended up), I spent hours days weeks at the library, the bookstore.  I loved the idea of sitting in a back corner of my labyrinthine library and finding a book no one had touched in years.  (Completely unrelated: go look at Awful Library Books.  You’ll thank me.)  In college, I was not impressed with the weight of the University’s centuries of knowledge in the hallowed halls of my lectures, but in the cramped stacks of my library.

The thought of a world without physical library weight, without the joy of browsing is so sad to me.

I start to wonder… is it my age and upbringing?  While I’m fully plugged in now, I never owned a computer until I was a senior in college (1998… ridiculously late), I never even touched a computer until fifth grade.  Maybe I just missed my window.

Despite the fact that most e-readers are now sold to the middle-aged-plus generation, it’s thought that the reasons for that are price, the ability to jack up the font size and the fact that the younguns read on their phones.  Everyone keeps saying that the next generation is so used to living in this LIFE 2.0 that they will find e-reading natural, so once we’ve got a platform that makes sense, inexpensively, print is done.

Maggie as Thalia

In response I give you Maggie, my niece.  (A very convincing statistical sample of one, right?  Hey, I studied Russian lit, not math.)

Maggie is 9.  She absolutely lives LIFE 2.0.  She owned a laptop (admittedly hand-me-down) when she was 3.  She was a total Webkinz addict by the time she was 6.  She loves her ipod, plays with her dad’s iphone, and when I ask her for a book review, she vlogs for me.  She reads the bell & whistle books with the attached online content.  Her family doesn’t believe in keeping books, so after she reads something, she passes it on to her school or library, so her bedroom is not lined with the shelves I remember from my youth.

This is the perfect candidate for the e-revolution, right?  She belongs in e-libraries, reading e-books, right?

No.

Maggie loves her school library so much, she asked whether she could help the librarians, so she now goes to school 30 minutes early to be a junior librarian.

When writing an essay for school, she said she wants to run a book store when she grows up.

This summer, she participated in a psychology study at her mom’s work.  As a thank you, they gave her a bookstore gift card.  She could choose between Amazon and a physical bookstore.  She chose brick and mortar, because she said she wants to touch and see the books before she buys them.

And last week, when she got excited enough about a book to vlog a review for me, was it a bell and whistle book 2.0? No.  It was Alice in Wonderland.

I firmly believe that e-books are a gigantic part of the bookselling future, and indie booksellers need to stake out their place in that future.  But I also think there is a magic in paper, libraries, bookstores and browsing that will never leave us, no matter how many apps we’re running.

(And on an unrelated note… did you see this NYTBR essay that said kids don’t like Alice in Wonderland because “too druggy, too much knotty wordplay”? Did you notice that those were basically the two things Maggie said she liked about it?  Too funny.)