New Lang Syne

Dear reader,

Since we’ve only been open for two and a half months, reflecting on the last year seems a bit much. Here are the highlights: WE OPENED A BOOKSTORE!

Later this month, we’ll close it for a couple of weeks.

Devoted newsletter readers will recall that back in November, we mentioned Kate is turning 50, so this little vacation was planned before we even opened. Rather than have Michael sit here alone in the dead of January, we decided to let the shop take a winter’s nap.

The store will be closed January 13-28.

To apologize for the inconvenience—and encourage you to get in here before then—we’re offering a chance to win a $50 gift card to everyone who drops by between January 2 and January 12. The winner will be chosen at random from names collected during that period. (We’ll try to remember to bring in a fishbowl on Thursday.)

Here are just a few suggestions for how you could spend a $50 Jarvis Square Books gift card (uh, before tax):

• Wilfredo Lam: The Imagination at Work ($50 new)

• Chicago House Music: Culture and Community, by Marguerite L. Harrold ($24 new) + Abortion Beyond the Law: Building a Global Feminist Movement for Self-Managed Abortion, by Naomi Braine ($24.95 new) + a book from our clearance section ($1 used)

• My Lesbian Novel, by Renee Gladman ($16.95 new) + Mysticism, by Simon Critchley ($18.95 new) + The Blue Octavo Notebooks, by Franz Kafka ($13.95 new)

• Bergson, Politics, and Religion, by Alexandre Lefebvre ($10 remainder) + Bird Brain: An Exploration of Avian Intelligence, by Nathan Emery ($8 remainder) + Manifestos Manifest, by Vicente Huidobro ($5 remainder) + The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, by Gertrude Stein ($7 remainder) + Irigaray and Kierkegaard: On the Construction of the Self, by Helene Tallon Russell ($7 remainder) + The Collected Poems of Joseph Ceravolo ($10 remainder) + one used paperback ($3)

• Eight $6 used hardcovers + one $2 used paperback

• Ten $5 used books, a mix of older hardcovers and spiffy paperbacks

• Twelve $4 paperbacks (i.e., most of our fiction and poetry) + two $1 clearance books

• Twenty-one $1 clearance books, two $10 remainders, and three $3 retro pulp sci fi novels.

• $50’ worth of new books ordered from our distributor for in-store pickup.

You get the picture.

The comment we get most often, besides “This is so well curated!” (thank you, we try) is: “You should be charging more.” We would argue that there’s a crucial distinction between “could” and “should." We could price our used books and remainders higher—and hell, maybe one sad day, we’ll have to. But for now seeing people walk out of here with huge stacks of books is too much fun. Please come in soon and build one of your own.

Happy new year!

-Kate and Michael