Brian Lies BATSMobile In The Sandwich 4th of July Parade

Childrens picture book author Brian Lies drove his BATSmobile in the 4th of July parade with us (”Bats At The Beach” and “Bats at the Library”). Our float was a cake to celebrate our 40th Anniversary and family & friends marched in bat capes. The best part? Watch carefully and you’ll see Ralph Titcomb (Dad), normally very dignified, marching in bat cape and bat ears! Talk about a team player!

40 Events To Celebrate 40 Years of Bookselling

Andrew Clements

Jeannette Walls

Richard Russo

Wally Lamb

Titcomb’s Bookshop is celebrating it’s 40th year in business this year! To mark the occasion we have scheduled 40 events taking place from July 1st to November 1st.   Check out some of the terrific authors coming to the Cape! For a complete list of events with dates and times, you can check out our website or use this link to get a printable calendar of events, Click Here

Frindle Rocks!

OK…when you are hosting events with the likes of Richard Russo, Wally Lamb, and Jeannette Walls, you think life can’t possible get any better! It’s too wonderful of a list.

Well…we just added someone to our 40^th Anniversary Event List that I think is special even among this list of literary giants. Andrew Clements (author of Frindle, A Week in The Woods, No Talking and more!). What makes him special, is that his books seem to have a special understanding of the inner workings of elementary school life.

His books have a common theme of showing what clever and innovative thinkers can be found in grade school.  The kids in his books all seem to challenge the status quo (in a respectful way) and in the end prove that their ideas have genuine merit. The kids end up learning something from the adults and the adults, particularly teachers, end up learning something from the kids.

Can’t you remember being in elementary school and feeling like no one ever listened to you or paid attention to your ideas? Did you ever get told that you asked too many questions? I wish that Frindle had been around when I was in 5^th grade to show me that kids can question the way things have always been done…..and sometimes win! My boys (ages 9 and 11) have read all of Andrew Clements books and I am so happy that they got that empowering message (oh yeah…and they enjoyed them too!).

Galway Bay by Mary Pat Kelly…One Of THOSE Books

There are some books that are just fun to have in the bookshop and watch what happens with them. The books I am talking about are the ones that just seem to gather traction and find themselves flying out our door through the power of word of mouth. Examples? I remember when The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards was impossible to keep on our shelves. It wasn’t something that, at first, we heard much about in the press but friends told friends who told friends. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows was similar. It wasn’t a situation where people were seeing some star perennial best-selling writer interviewed on Good Morning America. People were just touched by the book and were talking about it among friends. (Well, actually, in the case of Guernsey I believe that it all started at our bookshop with the glowing recommendation by our own Elizabeth who got the ball rolling, but it doesn’t make my point as well to say so!)

Galway Bay by Mary Pat Kelly is turning into one of THOSE books. The turning point (I refuse to say tipping point!) for me was a comment from an employee this week. Her son is a doctoral student in colonial history at the University of Pennsylvania. He came home to visit this week and said “Mom, I’m reading a book that I think you should have at the bookshop. It’s fantastic”. You could have knocked her over with a bookmark when he pulled out a copy of Galway Bay – a book she was currently in the middle of! This sweeping historical novel seems to appeal to a wide range of people from a variety of ages and backgrounds, men and women. How often can you say that about a 567 page novel???

Yes I Have That Book!…Does It Have A Blue Cover?

Clearly we love books. We’ve been living (quite literally) with books for 40 years now. Clearly you love books.  There is no other reason why you’d be reading this!  Since we have this in common, I thought I would share something that has been making me giggle this Sunday morning.

I love the Boston Globe Magazine and read it faithfully every Sunday. The tagline this week of “100 Ideas for Under $100 for Your Home” definitely caught my eye and my budget.  Wallpaper only one wall in a room for a focal point using only 1 roll of paper…. Oooohhh!  Good idea.  Paint shelves of a bookcase in 4 different colors…. Looks fancy for small money, nice idea.

Here’s the one that made me laugh: Still organizing books by subject and author?  Sure, that’s practical, but color is much prettier. Start by sorting books into color groups, then “use a color wheel” as you re-shelve “to help guide your color transitions”…

Yup, that’s what matters… making sure that your brown books don’t clash with your purple books because they aren’t appropriate “color wheel” choices.  Can you imagine finding your books this way???  I am fascinated with the notion that there might be someone out there who has enough books on their shelves to color sort, but who hasn’t enough interest in the books to want to be able to find them…..EVER!

Stumped!

I don’t often get stumped by questions in the bookshop. This is not bragging, it’s that I  have some standard book recommendations that I rely on for books that I love. I seem to have these recommendations for most of the categories that I get asked about every day.

–“I need a book for my aunt who lives in Michigan and reads a lot. I don’t know what she’s already read”.
Easy….The Widow’s War by Sally Gunning. Great book but local enough that it’s likely she hasn’t read it.

–“I need a book for my father-in-law for Father’s Day. I don’t know what he likes.”
I would try The Finest Hours by Casey Sherman and Michael Tougias. It’s new, it’s about a very exciting sea rescue by the Coast Guard off Cape Cod,  and it’s just the right length (204 pages).

–“I need a gift for my college roommate’s 11 year old son, who is coming with her when she visits me next week.”
Since I happen to have an 11 year old son, I always have an answer for this one!  Some ideas that come to mind immediately are Scholastic Book of Lists 1 or 2 or the Time Almanac For Kids.  Both are chock full of facts and figures that kids (particularly boys) can read for hours. He will have something to do for the whole visit!

–“I am going to a baby shower and the mother-to-be has requested books.”
I usually recommend board books. They are durable and are usually the type of books that can be read to a very young child. Don’t get me wrong, I love Mike Mulligan as much as the next person, but a child is usually 3 or 4 before they appreciate it. So…I head for Sandra Boynton! Barnyard Dance, But Not The Hippopotamus or Moo, Baa, La La La usually work. Or…the beautiful simplicity of Gossie by Olivier Dunrea. (If only real geese were as nice and peaceful as the ones in his board books!)

See? I keep a mental list!  Well…today I was stumped.  The question was “What do I read now?   I just flew through all 4 of the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyers.”  I have gotten this question before and had some ready answers. What threw me this time was that the question came from an adult!  If the question had come from a teenager, I would have suggested the P.C. and Kristin Cast vampire series or The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

The question coming from an adult was more of a stumper. To try to recommend a book to someone you really don’t know, you need to figure out what they like and why they liked it.  Why would an adult like the Twilight series? Was it the romance? Was it melancholy from her own high school experience? Was it a long standing crush on teen-age rebels like James Dean or Matt Dillon? Do we all secretly have a thing for vampires?  I really don’t know.  Even she seemed surprised that she enjoyed the series so much!

My best idea was Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (which I was really kind of proud of!). Unfortunately she had read it in the past couple of years.  Sigh…..

Celebrating Our 40th Year In Business

Titcomb's Bookshop (aka The Paper Barn) circa 1973

When people say you should have a blog, they say you should just write about what is going on at the Bookshop. Let people know what’s going on, what it’s like to work here and what we are working on or excited about or whatever.

OK…you wanna know? Well, we are trying to figure out the best way to celebrate our 40^th anniversary. Our parents, Ralph and Nancy Titcomb, started Titcomb’s Bookshop in 1969 after moving to East Sandwich with their 8 kids, aged 14 to 9 months.  Our Dad was an engineer and was starting a new job.   Isn’t opening a bookstore in your spare time what you would do right after moving into a really, really old house, in a new state with your 8 kids?  When they started the store it was initially called The Paper Barn and carried only used and rare books and ephemera. It has grown to its current 3 story structure selling new and used books as well as toys, games and many, many cards.

This is a great occasion and one very much worth celebrating. But how?  How do you thank people for getting us to this point?  Thank people for sticking with us through:

–the leaky roof of the original building (some customers may remember helping us stretch plastic over the magazine racks on a particularly bad day)

–waking our 90 year old Grammy who was occcasionally manning the cash register in the early years

–the porta-potty years at the new building

–the live snake that our bookshop cat Patches brought into the store (twice)

–the animal menagerie that was Titcomb’s Bookshop circa 1975 (2 horses, 2 grumpy geese, 3 cats, a dog, 10 or so ducks, about 5 chickens and one friendly black crow named “Al”) It was not uncommon to have a “Free Kittens” sign outside the shop in those years!

On the plus side, visitors have gotten to meet some great people here like Edward Gorey, Bob Ballard, Susan Branch, Nathaniel Philbrick, Henry Winkler, Geraldine Brooks, Jodi Picoult, Alice Hoffman, Philip Craig and way too many more to mention.

So we’d really like to celebrate!  Our first thought was to invite some authors and we certainly have done that! There are  some really exciting authors coming this summer and fall, including Richard Russo, Wally Lamb and Jeannette Walls.   We’re going to hold a party (but that seems rather easy!).  We are going to have a make your own sundae buffet with 40 different toppings!  (Food is always a priority for us!) We are also having a special commemorative wood cut engraving print made of the shop that will be available for sale for a nominal fee.

Is that good enough? Can we do more? Any ideas?  Please send them to us!

Elizabeth, Sarah Dunant and Our Customer

You know when someone asks “what is great customer service?” and the other person always answers “I don’t know, but I know it when I see it”?  Well, I have seen great customer service put forth by our very own Elizabeth when she wasn’t even at the bookshop!

We hear a lot of stories from customers every day: books they loved as a kid, authors they saw interviewed, gifts given that were well received, all sorts of really nice things.  Elizabeth remembered both one particular story and the person who told it, assembled all of that information on the fly and absolutely made someone’s day.  Here’s what happened:

A customer met Sarah Dunant, author of The Birth of Venus, by chance at a hotel in Boston.  He actually did not know the author’s books but upon chatting with her, and finding her fascinating, went on to read all of her works and adored them. This episode happened 3 or 4 years ago and the story was told to us a couple of years ago.

Elizabeth recently attended BookExpo America in New York, a huge annual book publishing trade show, where many authors were signing review copies of their books in publisher booths. She noticed that Sarah Dunant was signing review copies of Sacred Hearts, which will be coming out in July.  She went to the booth, told the author the story and had a copy inscribed to the customer. What is even more fun is that the author remembered the customer well and thoroughly enjoyed signing the book!

Elizabeth left a mysterious message for the customer to come pick up something at the bookshop. He came in today, a little baffled, saying he was told to come pick up “something”.  I so wish he had come in when Elizabeth was there!  When he saw the book he was happy….when we told him to look inside to see the inscription he was excited…. when we told him that the author remembered him he was positively thrilled!  I don’t think he will ever forget this gesture, the book or the author.

The beauty of this whole thing was the kindness of it all. It wasn’t like good customer service where you are trying to sell someone a great birthday gift. It really wasn’t customer service at all. It was just plain thoughtfulness (or maybe just that southern charm).

Book Review: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins…bring on Book#2!

Ok, I admit it. I am late to the party. Vicky and Elizabeth were raving about The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins last fall when it came out. They loved it. Since they read it and were so enthusiastic I felt like I should read other things so we could talk about a lot more books, you know? Well…I picked it up the other day and just did not want to put it down! I was into it not in a “this is a young adult book I am trying out to recommend in the bookshop” kind of way but in a sincere “what a cool scenario I want to see what happens” kind of way. The Hunger Games is a futuristic story in the United States after a great war. Each of the 12 districts that make up the new country of Panem must send two teenagers every year to the annual Hunger Games. The Hunger Games is a week-long, televised event where the kids must fight to the death in a large arena the size of a state park. The winner and his or her family get food and shelter and a good life when they come home. This is a major motivator in a country where most are hungry. I was so intrigued by this futuristic “reality show” in the face of the reality show mania of today. People are willing to hurt themselves, humiliate themselves and others on reality shows for money or simply exposure. Is it really so far fetched to imagine a fight to the death? But I digress. A futuristic adventure with a romance mixed in! Perfect! Our heroine, Katniss, volunteers to take the place of her younger sister in the games. She is sent to the games from her district with Peeta, the baker’s son who has, unbeknownst to her, been in love with her since he was 5 years old. The problem? There can be only one winner at The Hunger Games. I can’t wait to read the sequel, which will be released September 1!! For the first time, I can understand the people who go to a midnight party for a sequel. Hmm…since our Bookshop is attached to my parent’s house, maybe I will sleep over the night before….set my alarm for midnight and buy the book the minute it is released! Hello Mom?

Book Expo 2009

Book Expo America is the biggest book event in the country.  It happens every spring and this year it was at the Javits Center in New York City.  We hit the road at 4:00 a.m. on Thursday so we could get to the educational sessions for booksellers.  It’s a good thing we like computers!!  It’s all about tweeting and blogging and YouTube these days.  We had an inspiring session with wine seller Gary Vaynerchuk, (to see the video and learn more about him, use this link  http://news.bookweb.org/news/6808.html) who talked about doing what you love and doing it with passion.   Please don’t expect an outrageous approach to bookselling from us – his message was to be who you are!

One very interesting session was an “Editor’s Picks” session where editors choose their very favorite book of the fall season.  Here are a few to watch out for:  Justice by Harvard philosopher Michael Sandal, Roses by Lila Meacham, a novel about a family in Texas, and Jonathan Tropper’s novel, This is Where I Leave You.   Elizabeth and I simply could not put down review copies we got of David Small’s autobiography in pictures, Stitches.  David is a children’s book illustrator we love, and the story of his childhood is utterly harrowing, honest and moving.  We can’t wait until it’s published this September.

At the Children’s Book Breakfast the next day, Julie Andrews acted as host and brought in a surprise guest, Peter Yarrow from Peter, Paul and Mary.  (Hmmm….Julie looks a LOT better in focus!)

Best of all was Literary Lions panel – an hour-long discussion about writing with Richard Russo and John Irving.  Richard Russo’s new book is set on Cape Cod.  For him, Cape Cod represents the notion of the finer place we all search for – a notion determined in part by the fact that it’s something that is just out of reach because we cannot afford it.  (He was referring to Martha’s Vineyard!)  Richard is coming here on August 15, so the discussion will continue!  By the way, did you know that John Irving starts writing all his books with their last line?  Serendipity occurs when the title of the book fits in the last line, which has only happened twice – in The World According to Garp and his new book, Last Night in Twisted River, which will be published this October.

John Irving and Richard Russo at BEA 2009

There were fascinating and sobering sessions on the future of books and publishing.  We can potentially look forward to huge changes over the next few years, including easier access to downloadable books.  Even the publishers realize that some ways they are doing business are very dysfunctional.  The large publishing houses are losing money by paying huge advances to big name authors, whose books are returned at the outrageous average rate of 40%, mainly by mega-stores of all kinds who stock mountains these books.  The returned books are no longer saleable, so are sent to remainder houses.  How can they afford to do this?  By raising the prices of books across the board, so we all pay for this poor arrangement.  (Independent bookstores have had a consistent return rate of about 10%!)  Who wins in this scenario?  Well, the celebrity authors are doing pretty well!

It wasn’t all serious, however……

Elizabeth and Vicky With Jeff Kinnet At BEA 2009

Elizabeth and I were walking through the exhibit hall when we came upon our friend Jeff Kinney, who visited us last year.  The 4th book in his Wimpy Kid series will be published on October 12.

Elizabeth at the DK booth

Elizabeth met a new best friend, so don’t mess with her!

As always, it was such a treat to meet authors whose work we’ve long admired and whose new books we can’t wait to read!  I sat with children’s author Rosemary Wells at lunch on Saturday and Kathleen chatted with Sherman Alexie.  We had a really wonderful chance encounter with Silas House, whose book,  A Parchment of Leaves was our very first our book club book over 5 years ago. A native of Kentucky, he was soft-spoken and kind and was attending the meeting to promote his new children’s book, Eli the Good.  We also bumped into our good friend Claire Cook, who was at our bookshop last week for a signing of her new book The Wildwater Walking Club.

Kathleen, Vicky and Elizabeth with Clifford at BEA 2009

There was one final stop to say farewell to Clifford the Big Red Dog.  A smaller version of Clifford will be visiting the bookshop this summer!

Leaving Zabar's With Bags of Goodies

As many of you know, we love food!  We couldn’t leave New York City without a stop at our very favorite grocery store, Zabar’s.  Somehow calling it a grocery store makes it sound entirely too common – such great cheeses, breads, olives and coffee!!  Perfect treats for the ride home!