Lots of news from the Community Bookstore. Sales are up 50%, which is amazing. They’ve got a new website. They’re going to be open late during the Snowflake Celerbation on December 11th and their website has a HUGE list of gift books. Oh, they’re having a holiday party on December 21st at 7 p.m.

Here’s the word from owner Catherine Bohne.

Ho, ho, ho (or hee hee hee and a bumper of ‘nog) . . . The season is upon us once again, and here is the bookstore’s quasi-annual round up of ideas for books we’d like to get, anyhow.  We hope it may help you in list-making endeavors, but in any case, we had a lot of fun putting it together, and now it’s yours to do with as you will.  It’s posted on our website  (www.communitybookst ore.net, under “Messing About”) where you can download extra copies to print.  ALSO, under the “Get Books” section (our new on-line store) there’s a ‘Holiday Newsletter’ link in the left-hand navigation, which takes you to the same list of books linked to books in print, with full ordering capability – so you can look at the covers, read more about ‘em and have things shipped directly to your friends, family, and followers all over the country.  Any books ordered this way are 10% off, and orders costing more than $50 get free shipping

We will be having a Holiday Party, starting at 7pm on Sunday, December 21st.  It’s the first day of Hanukkah, and the end of the last weekend before Christmas, so it’s going to be a bit of a funny catch-bag celebration, but what more appropriate for our extended bookstore family?  I’ve been rereading Anne of Green Gables, and am accordingly a bit entranced with the idea of “Concerts” – evenings in which the community comes together and parades their various personal talents, whether for singing, reciting uplifting pieces, or setting “tableaux” (Faith, Hope & Charity, anyone?).  Oh – speaking of which, there’s usually the premise that something’s being done for charity, so perhaps we could make the evening a drive for Toys for Tots? 

Come one, come all, and bring a small gift to donate to the many in our city who can’t afford ‘em.  So far, we know that there will be the obligatory (as far as I’m concerned) reading of A Child’s Christmas in Wales, and we have some rumors of music, too.  I don’t see why we shouldn’t set aside a time for singing all together (what are holidays, without Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel stuck in your head?).  Don’t forget we have a piano, too, so the possibilities are, if not endless, at least manifold!  As you perhaps know, the bookstore staff are usually pretty much well on the way to comatose with exhaustion by then, so any help with setting up or pot-lucking would be appreciated – just email me at catherine@community bookstore. net if you’d like to be involved!

Of course, any production of the Slant is also an opportunity to update you on the State of the Store, about which so many of you are kind enough to enquire.  I suppose that some of you reading this will have stumbled on it (and us) by chance, while some of you haven’t heard any news since the last Slant, whereas some of you may well be kindred spirits and bookstore habitués, and some of you are possibly already aficionados of our fourth, new, and finally functional website, so It’s a Little Confusing to know where to start . . . but the thumbnail is this:

This Bookstore, now in its 37th year of continual operation (well, I mean, we close at night, most of the time, but you know what I mean), is one of the oldest surviving Independent Bookstores in NYC.  It’s a long and tangled (not to say sometimes garbled) history, with concomitant ups and downs, but the latest dramatic chapter began with the Great Crisis of 2007, in which we (I) admitted, somewhat inadvertently, to the world at large, that the store was in the last throes of complete failure . . . and what happens?  The neighborhood rallied round emphatically and firmly.  We found ourselves with 20 fabulous and self-appointed advisors, who put together a rescue package, which in turn led to 12 equally fabulous investors, and the short of it is that the store was put gently back on its (little cat) feet, and away we’ve sailed.  After 7 quite horrible years of tightening every belt that exists in the complicated machinery of the store, mostly to no avail, the last year and a half has been a giddily unfolding dream of calmly proceeding modest success.  Our inventory has been tripled, things are getting fixed, we’ve built a fantastic website, and sales are up almost 50% . . .

And it’s been a very great pleasure to use this success as a platform from which to think of creative new ways to give back to the neighborhood (which is our home, which is to say is we-all !) It’s been a ball to organize the Snowflake Celebrations, the First Annual RestaurantTour, to start the Community Forum, and to generally meddle with helping everyone undertake whatever good we can.  Then what happens?  The economy has to go and crash.   It’s enough to make you quote Mehitabel (“Archie – why does life have to be one damn litter after another?”).  Well, we’ll see.  Sales do seem to be down a little, but in a business of our scale, that’s not hard to make up – research last year revealed that if our most loyal customers shifted an additional 5% of their book-buying to Community, that would be enough to put us solidly in the black.  So without haranguing you to shop more than you want to or can, I would just urge you, as ever, to be quietly conscious that little decisions about where to spend what you do spend can add up to make a significant and effective difference on a local level.  So without further ado . . .