Local author Georgie Binks will be in the store on Sunday, November 10. She will be here from 1:00 to 3:00pm signing copies of her new book A Crack in the Pavement.
Be sure to stop by and meet this wonderful author! We hope to see you all here on Sunday!
November Newsletter
We’re all set for the pre-Christmas rush with over 6000 books in stock and more on the way. Come in and take a look and maybe you’ll find that perfect gift, possibly even for yourself! You can also browse on our e-store website and order other books from our suppliers. There is now a search station in the store too. We have new electronic gift cards which can be purchased at the store or on-line. To cope with the rush, we’ve added another staff member, Stephanie, who has a lot of bookstore experience.
In November and December we have many special events –book signings and book readings. It’s always interesting to meet the authors. We’ve added a calendar page to the website so that you can see all the events well in advance. Our Books and Brew series has been an outstanding success so far with sold-out sessions in many cases. The series is held at the Clocktower Pub next door. You can buy the books at a discount and there is a discount (15%) on dinner if you also buy one of the Clocktower brews. Early reservations are recommended. In December, the series switches to Sunday nights with dinner suggested for 5.30p.m. The December schedule is
Dec. 1 Denise Chong “Lives of the Family”
Dec 8 Mark Abley “Conversations with a Dead Man”
Dec 15 Robert Sibley “The way of the 88 Temples”
A new series will begin in January.
We have just posted our 20 best sellers for the month of October (see the posting below)– headed by Charlotte Gray’s “The Massey Murder” for the second month in a row. Once again history and biography dominate the list but there are a few surprises too. This month we might expect Lynn Coady’s Giller Prize winner “Hellgoing” to head the list.
Drop in for a visit and enjoy the friendly neighbourhood atmosphere of Books on Beechwood. Please note that we are open on November 11th but only after 1.00p.m.
Local mystery author Linda Wiken (writing as Erika Chase) will be in the store on Saturday, November 9 from 11:00am to 2:00pm signing copies of her new book Cover Story. This is the third novel in the Ashton Corners Mystery series.
From the jacket:
“It’s time to celebrate when club member Molly Mathews’s childhood friend, Teensy Coldicutt, moves back to town—complete with a published book. But as the club plans Teensy’s book launch, Molly is attacked and Teensy’s books are stolen. Who would be so desperate for 150 copies of a sexy novel written by an elderly widow? Then Ashton Corners is hit with another shock when Teensy’s publisher turns up dead—and fellow club member and former police chief Bob Miller is taken into custody.
Convinced that Teensy’s missing books hold the key to the murder, Lizzie Turner and her band of readers are determined to hunt them down. But the plot thickens when their search leads them straight into a counterfeiting ring. Now they must unravel this surprise twist before the killer gets the chance to write someone else off…”
Come by the store on Friday, November 8 to meet author Ken McGoogan. He will be here from 7:00 to 9:00pm signing copies of his new book 50 Canadians Who Changed the World.
From the jacket:
“Using the successful format of How the Scots Invented Canada, Ken McGoogan takes the reader on a compelling journey through the lives of fifty accomplished Canadians born in the 20th century who have changed—and often continue to change—the great wide world.
He discovers an astonishing array of activists, humanitarians, visionaries, scientists and inventors, all of whom have made an impact internationally. From Tommy Douglas, Pierre Trudeau, John Kenneth Galbraith, Naomi Klein, Marshall McLuhan, Stephen Lewis and Roméo Dallaire to Glenn Gould, David Suzuki, Mike Lazaridis, Margaret Atwood, Oscar Peterson, Leonard Cohen and thirty-seven others, Ken McGoogan shows us why and how Canadians move in the wider world as influencers and agents of progressive change.
Say hello to fifty Canadians who are shaping the future.”
We look forward to seeing you all here on Friday!
Our Bestsellers for October
Real estate expert Julie Broad will be in the store on Tuesday, October 29 from 4:00 to 6:00pm signing copies of her new book More Than Cashflow: The Real Risks & Rewards of Profitable Real Estate Investing.
From Julie Broad’s website:
“I thought the day I said “My book is here!!” would be filled with excitement and joy. And I do feel a lot of excitement, but it’s followed very closely by a TON of fear. I can’t believe how scary it is to put myself out there in this way. But, I opened myself up and shared my own personal stories, thoughts and feelings in this book; covering details that almost nobody knew about. I also revealed many things you should know about the real estate industry; Things that nobody else is talking about.” – Julie Broad
We hope to see you all on Tuesday!
Robert C. Sibley is well-known to Ottawa readers as an award-winning Senior Writer for The Ottawa Citizen – often writing on religious topics – as well as the author of The Way of the Stars: Journeys on the Camino de Santiago.
In this new book, he undertakes a famous pilgrimage in Japan. Called the Henro Michi, it covers a circuit of 88 temples around the perimeter of Shikoku, the smaller of Japan’s four main islands. Sibley was seeking some form of belief beyond modern secularism. For two months he was the only non-Buddhist to cover the 870-mile route. The experience gave him a new attachment to the spiritual life which he discovered day by day in the beauty and tranquility of the temples and their surroundings.
The Shikoku is probably the best-known of Japan’s hundreds of pilgrimage routes. These days an estimated 150 000 people take the pilgrimage by foot, car, or bus every year. Sibley walked the whole distance, enduring considerable hardships, with a too-heavy pack, blisters, sore leg muscles and sometimes a rock-strewn slope that almost defeated him.
But he also enjoyed the beautiful green valleys, panoramas of sea and sky, as well as traditional Japanese inns with sculptured trees and babbling ponds. He met friendly people, surprised by a foreign pilgrim but helpful with his limited Japanese language. He made lasting friends and shared their lives to the end.
He felt the pilgrimage became more than an adventure, but instead sank many of the spiritual dimensions into his heart forever. He had followed in the footsteps of Kobo Daisha, the 9th century ascetic who followed the Shingon sect of Buddhism. Over the two months, he learned that enlightenment is possible in this life and shares this in his book.
Review by Anne McDougall
Reading this new book by Michael Ignatieff is almost like going through another election with him, and watching him lose: nerve-wracking – and particularly because once again his charm and honesty come through but not much political know-how.
Ignatieff had an international reputation as journalist, historian, and intellectual in both the UK and the U.S. when he was approached in 2009 to run in Canada as leader of the Liberal Party. He said then and now that he always felt Canadian, even though he had lived the best part of 30 years outside the country. He had strong roots here for generations back, when people on both his mother and father’s side had served as distinguished Canadians.
In his first election in Canada, the Conservatives got into power.
As Andrew Cohen points out in a review in The Ottawa Citizen, Ignatieff did not wait long enough, learning the ropes of politics, before calling an election. The attack ads against him were ferocious. Ignatieff lost badly, and went back to lecturing, and putting together this book. Another Canadian journalist, Paul Wells, notes that Ignatieff never really learned the lesson of politics preferring “a set of mystic hunches…Fire and Ashes is a charming book, frank and funny. But politics remains a perfect mystery to Ignatieff” he writes in Maclean’s.
Ignatieff does say interesting things about politics in other countries as well as Canada: the UK, U.S., and Peru. From beginning to end, he is a first-rate writer, and this book is well worth reading.
Review by Anne McDougall
Books on Beechwood is excited to welcome Newfoundland comedy legend Andy Jones to the store on Sunday, October 27. He will be signing copies of his children’s books Jack and the Manger, The Queen of Paradise’s Garden, and Jack & Mary from 1:00pm to 3:00pm.
From www.andyjonesproductions.com:
“Andy Jones has been a professional writer and actor for over forty years. He has written five critically acclaimed one-man comedy shows: Out of the Bin, Still Alive, King O’ Fun, To The Wall and An Evening with Uncle Val. He has extensively toured, to critical acclaim, across Canada as well as to Glasgow (Scotland) and Waterford (Ireland). He is well known in Canada as one of the groundbreaking members of the Newfoundland comedy troupe CODCO, in both its theatrical and television incarnations. His projects have been released on CD (Letters from Uncle Val), DVD (The Adventure of Faustus Bidgood) and as television films (King O’ Fun).”
Andy is currently in Ottawa performing at the NAC in his own adaptation of Moliere’s Tartuffe set in 1939 Newfoundland. The play runs now through November 2, 2013. http://nac-cna.ca/en/englishtheatre/event/5065
We welcome a new staff member -Stephanie Caldicott- to help us with the fall surge in business. Stephanie has lots of bookstore experience. She began her career with Books Canada and then worked for Ivy’s Bookstore in Victoria for 10 years before returning to Ottawa and spending 13 years at Nicholas Hoare Books. We all look forward to working with her.