It’s the Anniversary Sale at Griffin Bay Bookstore this weekend!

GRIFFIN BAY BOOKSTORE ANNUAL SALE
Anniversary Open House on Saturday, November 10, 10:00 am—6:00 pm
20% off on all books in the store

This Saturday! See you there!

If there’s been too much chaos in your life recently, there’s one sure thing you can count on: Griffin Bay Bookstore’s annual Open House and Sale on Saturday, November 10, 10:00 am—6:00 pm.

Bookstore owner Laura Norris and her team are celebrating 33 years of bookselling in Friday Harbor with a storewide sale of 20% off on all books on the shelves. This annual sale is Griffin Bay Bookstore’s way of thanking our island community for loyal support and on-going patronage, for shopping locally, and for dedication to an independent bookstore. The Open House will feature complimentary snacks and the bookstore’s signature coffee, Caffe Umbria. If you’re hankering for good company, good food and coffee, not to mention good books, this is the place to be this Saturday.

You’ll find the bookstore crammed with all manner of books and things literary, as well as a wide range of gift items, perfect for getting you started on your holiday shopping.

You’ll find book lights by Mighty Bright, lighted magnifiers, and the “Thumb Thing,” a nifty plastic thumb ring that holds your book wide open, perfect for one-handed reading if you’re lying in your bed propped up by pillows. As usual there’s an ample supply of stationery, boxed cards, holiday cards, thank you notes, journals, and traditional black as well as new, zany colors of Moleskines. There are plenty of 2013 day planners and calendars to get you off on the right foot in January. Many new gift items have just arrived, especially a host of DVDs that are sure to keep you entertained on wintry nights.

There are children’s activities galore, games, fun and educational, some designed as learning tools for kids getting ready for school. New this fall is a series of non-fiction books for grade-schoolers on a wide range of topics and people: the Middle Ages, Ancient China, Ancient Egypt, the Titanic, Abraham Lincoln, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Pocahontas, among others. Plush toys that depict delightful literary characters are on hand, including Otis the tractor.

Local artists and writers are also well represented in the bookstore.  Big sturdy mugs, perfect for sipping hot chocolate and coffee, are adorned with Jane Buck’s colorful images and Griffin Bay Bookstore in small print along the side. You’ll also find artwork and cards from Spaulding Studios, long-time favorites at the store. Local authors, including Thor Hanson, Susan Vernon, Mike and Julia Vouri, Jim Lawrence occupy a special place in the store.

New fiction and non-fiction, big picture books, homesteading and gardening books, architecture, history, economics—it’s all here, ready and waiting to pique your interest. If you need some prodding to pick up a needle and thread, some yarn, or paints, the arts and crafts section offers an expanded collection of books to inspire you. For those whose minds area free ranging, there’s lots to feed the nomad in you—travel, suspense, mysteries, biographies and memoirs, science, and natural history. Don’t hesitate: what you might need to keep your mind at work when wind and rain keep you inside is in plain sight at Griffin Bay Bookstore.

Griffin Bay Bookstore is known for its excellent customer service. With a friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable staff, all of them book lovers, shoppers can expect help finding what they are looking for. They are committed to going the distance to lead customers to books that suit their preferences and immediate needs. This is person-to-person service with good conversation as a bonus.

If you’re a consummate browser, someone who takes great delight in happening onto something, discovering something new to fire up your imagination, you’d better head right to the yummy cookbooks in the bookstore. This is a particularly good year for stunning visuals and recipes, cookbooks that are beautifully enticing and filled with recipes that encourage cooks to use all manner of fresh, local, artisanal, and ethnic foods and ingredients. Two just-released cookbooks are already bestsellers: The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook by Deb Perelman—what she calls, mouth-watering “recipes and wisdom from an obsessive home cook,” and Roots by Diane Morgan, whose recipes turn those much-maligned, gnarly-looking root vegetables like rutabagas, celery root, parsnips, and turnips into dishes sublime and delicious.  Even the old stand-bys—carrots and potatoes—are given new culinary life in her compendium of root vegetables.  You’ll find many more like these two, reflecting new, imaginative, and healthy ways to cook and eat. For little cooks enamored with cupcakes, look for dessert cookbooks geared for children, and for paraphernalia for their adventures in the kitchen.

Griffin Bay Bookstore is part of IndieBound and the American Bookseller’s Association, committed to promoting independent bookstores across America as well as the benefits of shopping or buying locally. When you shop locally and support your independent bookstore you discover what’s new, what’s great to read. And you nurture your own community and its well-being, just one more reason to attend Griffin Bay Bookstore’s Open House and Anniversary Sale on Saturday, November 10, 10:00—6:00 p.m.! It’s a community tradition.

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