All posts by Diane

New Storybook Tree Contest!

December 12, 2012Contest/SurveyDiane

Okay the bucket for entries is in place! All you have to do is write TEN children’s book titles that correspond to the ornaments on our Storybook Tree, along with your name and contact number on an official slip of paper. Your list goes into the bucket, and we will draw for a $25 Gift Certificate on the SEVENTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS, or December 31 for those Chrismas tradition challenged folks….

Some ornaments are very, very easy, so everyone can figure out 10 I know. Some are more obscure. My first contestant just came up with some amazing possible links that I never considered before; Call of the Wild or Twilight? Yes they both have wolves and would work just fine!

101 Holiday Gift Ideas: #77-82 Spark a New Hobby

December 12, 2012UncategorizedDiane

Someone you know interested in a new hobby but needs a nudge of encouragement? With our prices on hobby and art books, you can nudge away! Photography? Making Sushi? Italian Food? Doll Collecting? Sewing? Woodworking? Lots of fun stuff here, you know someone who would like a hobby book!

101 Holiday Gift Ideas: #65-76 Find a Great Flick

December 11, 2012Latest Finds, SalesDiane

Movies on DVD are a great gift – less commitment even than a book, easy to wrap, entertaining, affordable, and attractive. You may not realize that East Side Books sells new, hard to find DVDs. We have an interesting selection of Family and Children titles, as well as even harder to find BBC and PBS specials, movies, series and documentaries. The selection changes every six weeks or so, so keep looking! Plus we have dozens of used DVDs that can be gift quality as well. Please bring your shopping list and see what is here! This is the only month they will be on sale, so take advantage!

101 Holiday Gift Ideas: #59-64 Modern Author First Editions, Some Signed!

December 10, 2012Book Reviews, Latest Finds, Rare Books, SalesDiane

For serious book collectors, the closer a publication is to the author’s hand, the more valuable it is. So a first edition, first printing is more valuable than the 90th edition. Obviously an author’s signature is proof it was actually in his or her hand! Even those of us who are not serious collectors though get a thrill when an author we admire and read enthusiastically took the time to sign the book we are also holding. It is a personal connection, and it is just special.

We have signed copies and first editions through out the store, and one special shelf of the more collectable volumes. Wouldn’t a signed copy by a beloved author make a great gift? Come in and see what we have!

101 Holiday Gift Ideas: #54-58 More Vintage Natural History

December 7, 2012Book Reviews, Latest Finds, Rare Books, SalesDiane

Adding on to yesterday’s theme of beautiful natural history books…there is something about these illustrations that are just timeless. There are several styles to choose from in this stack, and more on the shelves since I can never turn them down! 1934. The color plates are soft and colorful, pastels I think, but I especially love the brown and white drawings that decorate each page. This is a well read and inexpensive volume, but so fun to read through! Another classic featured is the American Natural History book by W.T. Hornaday. This book fell off the shelf and had a cracked hinge repaired with book tape, bringing the price down, but any one will love the detailed information and vintage 1926 drawings and photos. Lastly we have a copy of Handbook of Nature-Study for Teachers and Parents by Anna Botsford Comstock published in 1922. This 900 page volume has pages of “Teacher’s Stories” to be read, lesson plans, photos, you name it. Wish I learned this much about birds in school!

101 Holiday Gift Ideas: #52-53 Amazing Wildflower Book Sets

December 7, 2012Book Reviews, Rare Books, SalesDiane

We have two beautiful and authoritative wildflower book sets, one for the Pacific Northwest States and one for the Southwest states, that would be a wonderfully special gift for the botanist in your life. These sets, edited by Harold William Rickett of The New York Botanical Garden, are oversized volumes with full color photos of each flower adjacent to the descriptions, always a plus in my opinion! The northern Sierra Nevada is covered in the Pacific Northwest set, and the Southwest includes our more deserty southern areas.

If you have an incurable gift box shaker, these heavy volumes out to cure her!

101 Holiday Gift Ideas: #43-51 Love a Local History Book

December 5, 2012Latest Finds, SalesDiane

We now have nine of the ever popular Images of America series on the Owens Valley and Eastern Sierra. From Bodie to Bishop to Manzanar, these cover the range! If you haven’t seen them, they are simply organized collections of historic photos with carefully edited, paragraph captions for each photo. They are perfect to pick up and thumb through, and a perfect way to get a feel for the historic flavor and special people that make up a town or region. And did I mention they make a perfect gift? We can always order other localities for you as well, we’d be happy to check availaibility!

This may be the only time I put these on sale….

Authors Pam and Brendan Vaughan signing their Bishop books.

101 Gift Ideas: #37-42 Purely Adorable Junior Elf Books

December 4, 2012Book Reviews, Latest Finds, SalesDiane

Hurry, because these are selling quickly on-line! We now have a basket of vintage Junior Elf Books, published by Rand McNally from the 1940’s through 1960s. They are a small format 5″x6″ light weight hard cover with brightly colored illustrations on the cover and throughout. They were not expensive children’s books when published, or now for that matter, more along the lines of The Little Golden Books – the kind of book a mom would purchase to keep her child busy on a shopping trip.

It is hard to identify the tipping point for vintage childrens’ books; the point when they are adorably nostalgic versus embarrassingly outdated, but these little books have all of the charm required to qualify. They would be a perfect multi-generational present, or could even be framed!

101 Holiday Gift Ideas: #29-36 Fishing for Compliments

December 3, 2012Latest Finds, SalesDiane

You know you have at least one fishing obsessed person on your gift list, why not consider a beautiful and informative fishing book to peruse when he or she can’t be on the water? We have some really nice ones right now, and there are some great vintage titles too. You can opt for the all inclusive series, the stunning Orvis Flyfishing Guide, a little Philosopher Fish, some excellent women writers discussing fishing, or many, many other choices.

As an added incentive, pick any of the featured books this month, and we’ll give you 10% off! You can throw in some lures!

101 Gift Ideas: #21-28 Vintage Paperbacks

December 1, 2012Latest Finds, SalesDiane

Okay, I picked a random number of gift choices on this one, because there really are a lot to choose from! These vintage paperbacks are inexpensive, but so much fun! Of course many of the stories are enjoyable, from Tennessee Williams to classic detective novels like Sam Spade or Perry Mason, but it is definitely the covers that appeal so strongly. Vintage sci fi art is especially collectible, but we have great examples even many genres. Anyone will love, love, love a paperback in the stocking or a basket full for an instant collection.