With some help from this darling who appropriately matched our entry slips today, we’ve picked two winners of the $25 Gift Certificates, which will buy an armful of romance novels.  Congratulations Dee and Danielle!  Your gift certificates are here waiting for you.

And the results you have all been waiting for, the most popular romance cover from our selection of Bad Boy titles is….. The Seduction of Scandal!

In second place by a narrow margin, Savage Thunder, starring our hero Colt Thunder with the dramatic hair…

There you have it, and thanks for playing!

We’ve blown the cobwebs off some of our vintage treasures to fill the shelves at Cobwebs Antiques Shop!  We are grateful to Cathy and crew for the space to show off, and sell, these wonderful books that sometimes get lost in our stacks.  So by all  means, visit their lovely shop at 307 S. Main, Bishop, the old Inyo County Jail, for antiques of all sorts, including great books!  I’ll put pictures up soon!

It really seems I had too many choices for potential covers this year, and what theme should I choose?  Pirates?  Cowboys?  Highlanders?  Another theme became apparent when  the possibilities were laid  out in front of me, clearly the Bad Boys were winners this year!

If you are new to the contest,  the loyal and patient customers of East Side Books vote on their favorite Romance Cover from the choices we’ve saved from our shelves during the year. Voters earn a  chance to win a $25 gift certificate if their name is drawn from the pot at the end of the month.  In honor of February the Love Month, of course.  And in honor of our $2 Romance Paperback sale, too.  And to laugh with all of you over the choices and tally up the  favorite cover winner.

You really only have to pick your favorite COVER, with consideration for the title if you want, but you DO NOT have to READ the book or KNOW anything about the book or author!  Or you can PRETEND NOT TO KNOW if that makes you more comfortable.  These covers make us smile, and sometimes laugh out loud, so we just want to share the amusement with all of you!

For a new twist, we will offer the winner his or her favorite in case they do want to read it!

Here are the contenders for 2014.  You may vote once per day, and you may vote with a comment here or on the Facebook page if you would like.  Good Luck!

#1   Seduced by a Rogue by Amanda Scott.  I’m starting off with this one for all of you who either a) Can’t vote for too much skin, or b) Think these eyes are sexy, which of course they are, or c) Just like plaid.

#2  After Dark with a Scoundrel by Alexandra Hawkins is choice number two.  Clearly a Regency era romance judging by that high waisted dress that is almost at her waist,  it is just appealling  in color and layout.  Also the choice for those who appreciate confident heroines.

#3  The Seduction of Scandal  by Cathy Maxwell is our third offering.  Do I have to say anything about this heroine in virginal white with the worshipful  bad boy?  I probably can’t in any case!

#4  Savage Thunder by Johanna Lindsey is a vintage classic!  Fabio syle hair  on this potentially Native American hero, (exotic AND a bad boy), whose name is, wait for it, Colt Thunder!!   Stallion in the back ground, swooning red head, okay, enough said.

#5   Pleasures of a Notorious Gentleman by Lorraine Heath is our final choice of the year.  Don’t you love this sweep of dress and hair?  In case you are wondering, the notorious gentleman is the black sheep second son of an Earl, who is ALSO a returning wounded warrior.  Again, we have multiple themes going on here, complicated by the heroine’s own deceptions….(sometimes you have to read the back cover to better appreciate the front cover, right?)

Have fun, and Happy Love Month!

P.S.  If you think this is a lot of skin, I’ve been getting advertising and promotion ideas from another book store, Old Renton Book Exchange.  Mild in comparison to her Reading is Sexy promotions, but hers look like more fun!

I am not very enthusiastic about wind. While it makes a great subject for poetry, I always face windy days and nights with a sense of dread and foreboding.  Something bad is going to blow in with the wind, trees are going to fall on the house, barns are going to blow over , tanks are going to roll away (oh yes, those have already happened, maybe I’m safe), and at a minimum, my house will fill with dirt.  I don’t really do that much better with life changes,  but I have learned to cope like we all do.  So with some trepidation, and truthfully, an equal amount of excitement, I have to face the fact that significant changes must be made at East Side Books this year to remain a viable business.  Those blustery days do blow in the storms we need, and conveniently store the tumbleweeds at fencelines.  so I’m looking for the positive potential in necessary changes here.  And I am looking for your help and opinions.

So with the premise that I want to continue selling books, primarily the used treasures that turn up daily, and to sell them primarily in Bishop, I am looking for input on the aspects of the store that you  all value most and would not like to see changed.  Asking the question sets up the scenario that I can’t please everyone when I do institute changes, but you are thoughtful (and well read!) people, and I’m sure you will be understanding.   If you have ideas on the changes or improvements you think would help, I would love to hear those as well.  Please send me an email, call the store, or drop a note in the soon to be constructed suggestion box.   I believe I have an amazingly kind and thoughtful group of loyal customers, and will value all suggestions, even if I can’t ultimately act on all of them!  I sincerely thank you all, and look forward to your creativity.

Our basket was stuffed with entries, all naming at least 10 children’s books that related to the ornaments on our Storybook Tree!  The lucky winners of $25 Gift Certicates were Ashley and Arissa, must have been the “A” name luck or maybe that they both used blue ink….not really, our eyes were closed.  Arissa is the only person so far to have used the 1000 Paper Cranes for our little origami crane. and one of the few who used Julie of the Wolves.  Ashley came up with Goodnight Moon, a definite favorite.  Obviously both are well read women.

Yes folks we have a very decisive winner, no hanging chads here.  The dramatic masked bandit of Louis L’Amour’s 1969 edition of Catlow was the overwhelming victor.

The Comanche Chaser by Dane Coolidge and Brand of a Texan by Steven C. Lawrence were virtually tied for second place.  I was surprised that my “movie poster with flaming covered wagon and cleavage” cover choice – The Land Beyond by Bill Gulick, only gained a paltry 5 votes. 

And the Gift Certificate winners are Kai and Alonna, who both approved of the winner Catlow as well.

Thanks for playing!  I just got a batch of wild ’60s Conan the Barbarian books in….hmmm.

Thirteen year old Ben has been collecting Garfield books and other memorabilia for at least seven years that I know of, since that is how long he’s been scouting the East Side shelves for treasures and placing special orders for out-of-print rarities.  This year at the Tri-County Fair, Ben stuffed “most” of his collection into a large glass display case, overpowering the typical Junior Collections category of Beanie Babies or Legos by the hundred-fold. It is a display worth a trip to the Douglas Robinson Building, and of course we hope you go there anyway to support the many 4H and Junior exhibitors from Inyo, Mono and Alpine Counties.  Ben’s grandma testified that he spent four hours assembling this creative and colorful tribute to the lasagne loving cat.  Not that Garfield needs an ego boost, but this would do it if he did Ben!

You will also want to check out the Junior art categories further back in the Douglas Robinson.  Ben is an incredibly talented, and published, cartoonist and illustrator, and you can see some of his work entered here.  His brother Xan is also artistically gifted, so watch for his creative pieces as well.

Such fun to see talented kids like these growing up at the store!

Apologies for the poor quality photos from my phone camera, just plan on going to see the real thing for yourself!

We’ve celebrated the amazing bodice rippers of romance, and the bizarre cat manifestations of Sci Fi, now it is a chance to “admire” some classic Western cover art!  Vote for your favorite in the store, with a comment here, or on the Facebook page and you could win a $25 gift certificate for ANY type of books or music in the store!  So take a peek, no they are NOT too politically correct, so keep your sense of humor and have some fun with the latest East Side Books cover contest.

And the contestants are:  (there are just so many to choose from!)

1.     Brand of a Texan by Steven C. Lawrence and published in 1958.  No cover artist noted.  Check the hero holding the bad guy’s face!

 2.     Catlow by Louis L’Amour and published 1969.  Again no cover art credit, but you would not want to be looking down the barrel of this gun!

 3.     Comanche Chaser by Dane Coolidge, published in 1947.  The preface says Dane Coolidge has never written a more blood-stirring story of the heroism of the old Southwest…clearly the cover is blood stirring!

 4.     The Land Beyond by Bill Gulick published in 1960.  Movie star material on this cover, and look closely at the burning Conestoga!  Safety is clearly a thousand mountains away!

 5.  Molly and the Indian Agent by Stephen Overholser published in, get ready, 1982!  ( I thought it was older than that).  Molly is clearly a competant woman, who can handle her guns and her garters.  From the back, you can tell the Indian Agent is the bad guy, which may better indicate the era than this cover art, but our heroine is still worried about her blonde scalp dangling from a Shoshone war belt!  My oh my!

So there are your choices.  You may vote once a day all month if you like.  Just get us the information and a phone number or email so we can contact you if you win!  We tally the votes for to delcare the most loved cover , but the prize drawing is just random from all the entries, and to answer the question in advance, you don’t win the book or have to read it if you are not a Western fan.

We will be re-shuffling our new movies shelf in one week….the good news is that you will be excited to see the new titles in Family and PBS/BBC movies!  The bad news?  We will be sending back some REALLY good movies.   To entice you in, we’ll offer 15% off these titles for their last week in the store!

If you don’t pick one up quickly, you’ll be missing the Western version of Cinderella, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Man From Snowy River and more on the Family Shelf.  The Masterpiece Classic Great Expectations starring Gillian Anderson as Miss Havisham, another PBS adaptation of Wind in the Willows and four more great movies fill in the PBS/BBC shelf.  We just gave Rachel, a Dickens fan,  a copy of Great Expectations for her birthday, we’ll get to hear what she thinks soon I hope!

Call if you want one held back, or stop by this week!!