December Bestsellers
1. Passionate Mothers, Powerful Sons by Charlotte Gray
2. Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
3. Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein
4. 5 Ingredients Mediterranean by Jamie Oliver
5. The Wager by David Grann
6. Prophet Song by Paul Lynch
7. The Fraud by Zadie Smith
8. The Duel by John Ibbitson
9. The Road Years by Rick Mercer
10. Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
Greetings Book Lovers!
Happy New Year!! Welcome to the first month of 2024! It’s certainly been a snowy one so far! While we love everything about the holiday season – the joy, the lights, the snacks, the books – there is something nice about getting back into the swing of things come January. Despite the snow and nippy air outside, it’s hard not to feel at least a little bit optimistic about what the weeks and months ahead can bring. So, here’s to a year filled with light, love, laughter, and piles and piles of great books!
As a slightly underappreciated month, we’re so happy to that we can show January a bit of extra love and attention by having it play host to two of our biggest sales of the year – our long-standing Annual Inventory Sale and our second annual Puzzle Month Sale! Both of these great sales are now in effect, doing their bit in our never ending quest to scan as few items as possible during our yearly inventory count. This year’s Inventory Sale features a store-wide discount of 25% off on all books, gifts, games, and stationery. Exceptions include magazines, CDs, DVDs, the Globe and Mail, and special order items. You can take advantage of our sale both in person here in the store, or through our online store. When shopping online, be sure to enter the promo code INVENTORY as you’re checking out to ensure that the discount is applied to all items in your cart that qualify. Our Inventory Sale will run from now until the end of the day on Saturday, January 20. Following our sale, we will be doing our inventory count on Sunday, January 21. We know we’re usually closed on Sundays, so if you happen to be walking by our windows that day and catch sight of some wayward booksellers wandering around the shop, don’t panic! It will just be us, making sure that every single item in the store gets scanned and counted so we can start the year with a nice clean slate!
Although January can traditionally be a very snowy, gray, and cold few weeks, it’s also National Puzzle Month! To celebrate this fact, we thought it would be fitting to have a special Puzzle Month Sale! So, from now until Wednesday, January 31, all our in-stock jigsaw puzzles will be 25% off! As an added bonus, if you shop on Monday, January 29 – National Puzzle Day – you can enjoy an extra 5% discount! Whether you enjoy a comforting 300 piece puzzle, a challenging 1000 piece puzzle, or something even a little more difficult, we’ve got you covered! With all kinds of different designs from a wide variety of companies including Ravensburger (On the Water 1000pc puzzle), Pomegranate (Seventeen Cats 300pc puzzle), Cavallini & Co. (Bees & Honey 1000pc puzzle), Cobble Hill (Busy as a Bee 500pc puzzle) New York Puzzle Company (Summer Painting 1000pc puzzle), The Unemployed Philosopher’s Guild (Shakespearean Insults 1000pc puzzle), Piatnik, Heye (Lighthouse 1000pc panorama puzzle), Workman (Gopher Baroque 500pc puzzle), Janet Hill Studios (Ladybird 100pc mini puzzle), Laurence King Publishing (The World of Agatha Christie 1000pc puzzle), and Eeboo (Still Life with Flowers 500pc round puzzle), there’s a little something for everyone!
While our January has quickly been taken over by inventory concerns and the planning of two big sales, there are still lots of other fun things to pay attention to – like all the great new books that are arriving, despite the year being very young. Although January is often a slow retail month, that doesn’t mean that the publishing industry slows down any. We’re still receiving boxes of exciting new books on a daily basis and we can’t wait for you to come by to see them. There are lots of great new publications to look forward to in the coming weeks too! Here are just some of the recent and forthcoming titles we’re most excited about: Deadly Game by Michael Caine, How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix, Midnight by Amy McCulloch, Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Weird Sisters by Olga Wojtas, How to Be a Renaissance Woman by Jill Burke, Oh Miriam! by Miriam Margolyes, Maud Horton’s Glorious Revenge by Lizzie Pook, The Fury by Alex Michaelides, An Irish Country Courtship by Patrick Taylor, Murder at an Irish Bakery by Carlene O’Connor (January 23), Unraveling by Peggy Orenstein (January 23), Everyone On This Train is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson (January 30), Interesting Facts About Space by Emily Austin (January 30), The Women by Kristin Hannah (February 6), The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder by C.L Miller (February 6), A Meditation on Murder by Susan Juby (February 6), One Hour of Fervor by Muriel Barbery (February 9), The Phoenix Crown by Kate Quinn and Janie Chang (February 13), Walk the Blue Fields by Claire Keegan (February 13), The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo (February 13).
We know the last few years have been a bit on the challenging side, and it’s unlikely that this new year will be without its own set of ups and downs, but January always seems to bring with it a strange sense of hope – hope that the coming year will be filled with health, happiness, light, and love. That it will be rejuvenating, relaxing, and enriching, and, of course, that it will be filled with wonderful reads to make us laugh, touch our hearts, lift our spirits, and feed our souls. As your local booksellers, we promise to try to make the store and our stacks of books tick as many of those new year’s boxes as possible!
Wishing you all the best in 2024!
Happy Reading!
– The Staff at Books on Beechwood
Hilary’s Bookshelf
What I’m Reading: The Wake-Up Call by Beth O’Leary
“Since I first read The Flatshare, I have been a dedicated fan of Beth O’Leary’s sweet, funny novels about love, friendship, and the awkward spaces between the two. Her characters are quirky and endearing, and you can’t help but root or them!
Set in a run-down hotel in the lead up to the holidays, this story of Izzy and Lucas’ relationship is at once maddening and captivating. We guarantee that you’ll fall in love with them as quickly and easily as we did.”