Take a Coffee Break

I figure this is as good a time and place as any to start hyping this awesome new venture we're about to embark upon at the store: Coffee with a Bookseller, debuting at Warwick's on the morning of Saturday, November 7th at 10am. Mosey on into the book department at 10 and I will offer you a cup of coffee, some snacks, show you around the place, talk about what's new in books, as well as the best of what I've been reading lately. If you don't drink coffee, it's okay, you can stay and listen anyway - its free! This is to become a regular thing (we'll switch to Tuesday mornings with the second installment), hopefully with different, brave booksellers, but for the moment, you're stuck with me.              

The point of all this is for us to distinguish ourselves from the impersonal chain bookstores, the giant online retailers, and the big box stores who would never even dream of trying to connect with the people in their communities on such a personal level. Maybe we can't sell $35 books for 8 bucks like Target, but we can offer something else - something less tangible, but much more fulfilling in the long run. We offer a personal relationship - whether its just for the ten minutes you spend here looking for a book to read on the plane home to Minneapolis or whether you come in every day, attend author events each week, and have your book club registered with us. We offer uncommon bookselling honesty and intelligence - if I don't think Shantaram is the book for you, but Cloud Atlas is, I will tell you so. We offer opinion. We offer conversation. We offer the chance to shake hands with famous authors (like Ron Carlson, see here with Scott & I. I'm the tall one.) We offer treats for your dogs. We offer ourselves, really - we are all voracious readers, just like you - and can offer you our expert reviews, on the fly, tailored to your reading tastes. Can you get that at Costco? Has Walmart ever even carried Cloud Atlas? Does Amazon host book signings? See, we are as much a part of your community as you are of ours and we want to give you a really good reason to shop locally. Free coffee may not be the thing that gets you in the door, but if you're a passionate reader, having a bookseller chat with you, face-to-face, about literature - that's a uniquely independent bookstore type of thing. So come on in & chat over a cup of coffee - I promise I won't bite.