Gamewright Game Day!

If you think that it’s hard to judge a book by its cover…it’s double hard to judge a game by its box! We are solving that problem this weekend. We are having a Gamewright Game Day. The wonderful people at Gamewright have sent sample games for us to try out. We will have tables set up downstairs with several games to play. Bring the kids and try SlamWich,  Rat-A-Tat Cat, Zeus on the Loose, Horse Show or Scrambled States of America.

This is a no rush, no pressure kind of event. We will just have the games out and you can play for as long or short as you wish. I love board and card games all year round but they are particularly fun on cold winter days.

Vicky Is On The Road…

Greetings from San Jose, California! The American Bookseller’s Association is sponsoring a wonderful conference called the Winter Institute. It’s 3 fantastic days of education and opportunities to talk with other booksellers and publishers about books, bookselling and the state of book publishing. Today is all about technology – which will be especially interesting. We’ll be talking with Daniel Clancy about Google Editions and I’m really looking forward to a session on the state of book publishing with the heads of W. W. Norton, Hachette Book Group and Random House.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson

I read the BEST book on the flight and time absolutely flew by!!! It was a review copy of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson. I laughed my way across the country and the book is filled with dog-eared pages and underlinings I have to share with others when I get back. The book is funny and sweet and the writing is fantastic. (More about this book when it comes out March 2, 2010).

I only got to look out the plane window on the quick shuttle from LA to San Jose. The mountains were beautiful!! But I was struck by the architecture and housing developments of San Jose – so many squares of houses all alike!! So different from Cape Cod!

February Vacation Fun With LEGO Professional Sean Kenney!

We are so excited! Sean Kenney, the first Certified LEGO professional in the world, will be coming to Sandwich. On Saturday February 20^th Sean will come to the Riverview School gym to talk about his LEGO book “Cool Cars and Trucks”. He will also be bringing along 12,000 LEGO pieces for kids to play with! Kids can make their coolest creation and show it to Sean! This event will make your February vacation memorable!

Watch this video of Sean talking about what he does and how his book came about.

Advanced tickets for this event are required. Tickets are $5 per child (accompanying adults do not need a ticket). Tickets are available at Titcomb’s Bookshop. Each $5 ticket is redeemable as a $5 coupon towards the purchase of one copy of “Cool Cars and Trucks”. There are three sessions available 10am, 11:30am or 1:30pm.

Book Recommendation: “Rainwater” by Sandra Brown

I just read, and truly enjoyed, a charming novel: Rainwater by Sandra Brown.

When I am trying to pick out a book to read, my eyes are always caught by historical fiction. Novels set in the Great Depression, for some reason, always seem to jump out at me. When I read the back cover of Rainwater to find that it was the story of a single mother making ends meet by running a boarding house in her home in 1934, I was hooked!  The book is set in Texas where Ella Barron lives with her young mentally disabled son and runs a very well organized boarding house in her home. The town’s doctor brings her a new boarder, David Rainwater. Although she senses that this boarder may upset her preciously balanced life, she needs to rent out her rooms and there is hardly a waiting list of tenants with the ability to pay. The book brought to life the challenges of rural life in the Depression, particularly relating to the cattle farmers in Texas.

I watched the attached video from Sandra Brown and thought it was interesting to learn how the book came to be written.  (Hint: She was contracted to finish two mystery/thrillers, but the story of Rainwater just kept coming back into her head.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hE3XxdnyZtU

Look Who’s Looking In Our Window!

This is so cute! For those of you that get our monthly email newsletter (go to our website to sign up if you don’t!), you know that a covey of quails (about 20) has decided to live here at our  house and bookshop. They have been here for a couple of weeks. Today one of the females decided she wanted to find out what was happening inside the house! She perched on the kitchen window for about 15 minutes, peeking in completely unfazed by the humans moving around and cooing at her.

The Hidden Man Keeps The Commuting Man Awake

My husband leaves the house at 5:30am every morning to catch the 5:45am train to Boston. The rhythmic clacking of the commuter rail train that early in the morning easily puts many of its riders to sleep on the hour long journey towards Boston. When I heard that he was enjoying a book so much that he was not sleeping on the morning commute, I knew this was information that I had to share! My husband enjoys a variety of genres (including a long standing affection for westerns!) but has lately been reading a lot of mysteries and thrillers (think Lee Child, T. Jefferson Parker, Harlan Coban).

The Hidden Man is the first book he has read by Edgar award winning author David Ellis and he highly recommends it.

Since The Commuting Man is now at work and can’t write his own description, I will cheat and use the back of the book description: Jason Kolarich is a midwestern Everyman with a lineman’s build and an easy smart-ass remark. He’s a young, intelligent maverick, but he’s also struggling with an overwhelming emotional burden—one that threatens to unravel his own life, and possibly the lives of those around him. Twenty-seven years ago, two-year-old Audrey Cutler disappeared from her home in the middle of the night. She was never found. All the detectives had to go on were vague eyewitness accounts of a man running down the Cutlers’ street, apparently carrying someone. Without enough evidence to suggest otherwise, Griffin Perlini—a neighbor with prior offenses against minors—was arrested, but never convicted. The case is long closed when Perlini is murdered nearly thirty years later. Now a man named Mr. Smith appears in Jason Kolarich’s office, saying only that he represents a third party who wants the man charged with murder off the hook and that Kolarich is perfect for the job. The new client: Audrey Cutler’s older brother, Sammy—Kolarich’s estranged childhood best friend—a man he hasn’t seen in nearly twenty years. But when Kolarich starts receiving violent threats from Mr. Smith’s enigmatic employer, he figures out that the secrecy behind this nameless third party—and the key to winning Sammy’s case—is entangled with the mystery of Audrey’s disappearance. With his own life and Sammy’s in the balance, Kolarich has to put aside not only the mounting anxiety of the job but also a heart-wrenching personal tragedy in order to find out what really happened to Audrey all those years ago.

End of the Year Lists

I love lists, all kinds of lists. So..it is technically a day early to be thinking of bestsellers of 2009 lists, but I couldn’t wait! (Plus, I don’t think that 2 days of sales is going to change this dramatically!)  So here are some lists:

Bestselling Books of 2009 at Titcomb’s Bookshop
(How many have you read?)

1. That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo
2. Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls
3. People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
4. True Compass by Edward Kennedy
5. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw by Jeff Kinney
6. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days by Jeff Kinney
7. Cape Cod and the Islands Where Beauty and History Meet by Kathryn Kleekamp
8. Still Alice by Lisa Genova
9. Galway Bay by Mary Pat Kelly
10. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
11. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows
12. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
13. Lego Star Wars The Visual Dictionary
14. Evidence by Mary Oliver
15. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

Now just for fun…the bestselling Lego items of 2009 at Titcomb’s Bookshop

1. Space Speeder (Space Police)
2. K-9 Bot (Space Police)
3. Squidman’s Escape (Space Police)
4. Advent Calendar
5. Granite Grinder (Power Miners)
6. Street Speeder (Creator)
7. BBQ Stand
8. Police Car
9. Cannon (Pirates)
10. Stone Chopper (Power Miners)

How about the best selling Non-Fiction of 2009? (hardcover and paperback)

1. True Compass by Edward Kennedy
2. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
3. Red Leather Diary by Lily Koppel
4. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
5. Little House at Sandy Neck by Ned Handy
6. Finest Hours by Michael Tougias and Casey Sherman
7. Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken by Laura Schenone
8. My Gop by Jeff Perry
9. Listening Below The Noise by Anne Le Claire
10. Wicked Good Year by Steve Buckley

Best Selling Children’s Fiction of 2009 (hardcover and paperback)

1. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw by Jeff Kinney
2. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days by Jeff Kinney
3. Extra Credit by Andrew Clements
4. Diary of a Wimpy Kid Do It Yourself Book by Jeff Kinney
5. Erika-San by Allen Say
6. Grey Ghost by Julie Hahnke
7. The Last Olympian (Percy Jackson #5) by Rick Riordan
8. Frindle by Andrew Clements
9. Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney
10. A Crooked Kind of Perfect by Linda Urban

Are there any lists you are interested in knowing? Let me know..I love doing them!

Tasha Tudor Weekend!

We are so looking forward to our second annual Tasha Tudor Weekend (Saturday Dec. 5th and Sunday Dec. 6th, 2009 from 12-5pm each day). Our bookstore is attached to a 17th century three-quarter Cape house. We decorate the house for Christmas in Tasha Tudor’s simple, natural style and open the house to visitors. We have treats to sample made from recipes in her cookbooks, cookies to decorate and a craft to make. We also have a wide selection of her books, prints and cards available for purchase. We are excited that this year we have Tasha Tudor cookie cutters for sale! (one in the shape of a Corgi!).

Here are some pictures from last years event, so you get the idea. Join us! This event is free and open to all.

A Fresh Coat of Paint

Did you happen to drive by the shop in October?

If you did, you might have seen our mom, Nancy Titcomb, painting the statue of the colonial man in front of the shop a few weeks ago. It’s painstaking work – but it’s a labor of love!

The statue is metal and was created by our brother, Ted, when he had graduated from high school in 1973 and was getting ready to head off for college to study metal arts. Fortunately, the statue (being metal) is quite strong and sits in several tons of cement, so he’s stayed in pretty good shape over time. Every year or so, our mom hauls out her paints and gives the old man a fresh coat! It’s not an easy process – lots of little spaces to get into – and it’s in a rather public place just about 6 feet from the highway. Lots of friends call out hello or give her quick beep of their horns as they pass. He’s all done now, and we think he looks pretty darn good! All set for a Cape Cod winter. Thanks, Mom!!

p.s. A couple of years ago, after a paint update, our “man” showed up with a wedding ring! I think that Mom thought he was getting a little lonely after 30+ years alone and she (apparently) decided it was time he got married.  Wonder who the lucky lady is?

Harry Potter: The Exhibition at The Museum of Science, Boston

I wouldn’t ordinarily bore people with what-I-did-with-my-kids-today stories…but…this one is a little bit book related! We went to the Museum of Science in Boston yesterday to see the Harry Potter exhibit. This is not a boring “let’s look at things hanging on the wall” museum exhibit. This is a 10,000 square foot installation of over 200 props and costumes from the Harry Potter movies. You can see Harry and Ron’s 4 poster beds, the golden egg, Hagrid’s table and chair and my personal favorite….the fat lady portrait! She  actually moves and talks and tries to sing to break a wine glass!  You will walk into a Great Hall-type setting and see some gorgeous actual costumes worn at the Yule Ball by Hermione, Dumbledore, and a particularly beautiful gown worn by Prof. McGonagall.

The exhibit was definitely worth the trip. The installation was amazing. You can walk into Hagrid’s Hut and the Great Hall and really have the feeling that you are in the movie. I loved seeing all of the nauseating kitty cat plates decorating Dolores Umbridge’s office (complete with her Pepto Bismal pink suit). You will smile at every turn through the exhibit as you see things, both large and small, you will remember. (There is a stack of books by Gilderoy Lockhart!). Oh! Buckbeak is there and he is beautiful! I saw many kids in Harry Potter costumes so feel free to join the fun.

Before you go, make sure you do the math on the price of your visit. It turned out to be cheaper for us to buy a family membership to the Museum than it was for us to use the library discount and then buy non-member tickets to Harry Potter.

Photography is not allowed in the exhibit but you can take a picture in front of the chess piece that Ron rode in the first movie. The chess piece is in the museum lobby.