October Midmonth Newsletter


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A Note about the Holidays


This is a friendly reminder to shop early for holiday gifts at Titcomb's to ensure that you get the perfect gift for everyone on your list!


Here are some things to watch out for:

  • Holiday gift guides - Themed gift guides will release every Friday from November 4th through December 18th, and upcoming newsletters will include Titcomb's favorite books of the year and a children's book guide (if you receive this newsletter, you will get all of these!)
  • Toy catalog - a curated selection of some of our favorite toys! Going out to our email list on November 10th
  • Booth at the Shop Sandwich First Holiday Market at the Sagamore Inn on November 10th from 3-8pm. Catch all of your favorite Sandwich businesses all in one place!
  • After-Hours Holiday Shopping Nights on November 29th and December 7th from 6-8pm.

Upcoming Events

Registration may be required for some events. Click on the images for more info.

Cape Cod's Wampanoag Heritage

New England Book Award winner!

Two Mashpee Wampanoag children learn the story of Weeâchumun (corn) and the first Thanksgiving in this beautifully written and illustrated picture book by Danielle Greendeer, a citizen of the Mashpee Wampanoag Nation.

Ages 3-7


Register for our event with Danielle Greendeer on November 15th at Sandwich Library!

In this well illustrated book, Lee Roscoe profiles several Wampanoag artists and discusses their work. Each section features a Wampanoag artist and includes historical information about the craft itself and the required materials. This unique book provides a look into contemporary Wampanoag art, as well as the cultural history that inspires it.

A look at the Plymouth colony's founding events, told with Wampanoag people at the heart of the story. This unsettling history reveals why some modern Native people hold a Day of Mourning on Thanksgiving, a holiday which celebrates a myth of colonialism and white proprietorship of the United States.

Exciting Books to Preorder!

In an inspiring follow-up to her critically acclaimed, #1 bestselling memoir Becoming, former First Lady Michelle Obama shares practical wisdom and powerful strategies for staying hopeful and balanced in today’s highly uncertain world.

(11/15)

*Signed copies available!*

This lovable companion to Jan Brett's instant New York Times bestselling winter classic, Cozy, shows that kindness and cleverness can capture a heart.

(11/8)

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache returns in the eighteenth book in #1 New York Times bestseller Louise Penny's beloved series.

(11/29)

NYT bestselling author and acclaimed presidential historian Douglas Brinkley chronicles the rise of environmental activism during the Long Sixties (1960-1973), telling the story of an indomitable generation that saved the natural world under the leadership of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon.

(11/15)

**A small hardcover edition featuring a new afterword by Madeline Miller**

An enchanting short story from Madeline Miller that boldly reimagines the myth of Galatea and Pygmalion, now in hardcover for the first time.

(11/8)

In this innovative graphic novel series, award-winning author and illustrator Dav Pilkey employs a variety of techniques -- including origami, acrylic paints, colored pencils, photography, collage, gouache, watercolors, and more -- to capture the creative and joyful spirit of collaboration.

(11/29)

Jólabókaflóð

How do you pronounce Jólabókaflóð? Yo-la-bok-a-flot. In Icelandic, it roughly translates to “flood of books”!

Happy Jólabókaflóð! Icelanders have a lovely tradition of gifting books to each other on December 24 and spending the rest of the evening reading. In American culture, December 24 is often a night for dinners and celebrations, so we'd like to extend the Jólabókaflóð holiday to all season long! Find time this season to read together with a loved one.



Here are reasons why we want to celebrate:

1. Reading is a restful activity, but we hardly carve out time to do so. 

2. Reading allows you to pause during the holiday chaos, leave your phone on silent, and crack

open a book!

3. Gifting books to others (or even yourself!) can be a new tradition to look forward to.

Available now!

The Christmas Book Flood

Written by Emily Kilgore

Illustrated by Kitty Moss


This lovely and lyrical picture book, based on a real Icelandic tradition, brings all the sparkle and anticipation of Christmas—and of the joys of reading—to the page.


The northern lights dance,

snow blankets the ground,

it’s the Christmas season—so the Book Flood begins!


With gorgeous artwork and a diverse cast of characters, Emily Kilgore and Kitty Moss's The Christmas Book Flood is a surefire holiday classic.

New Fiction

(Adult hardcover fiction 20% off!)

Vicky's review: "Barbara Kingsolver is one of my absolute favorite authors and I am loving this poignant, heartbreaking saga of a boy in foster care in southern Appalachia. Kingsolver was greatly inspired by Dicken's David Copperfield as she wrote this story, hoping it will transport the reader into the heart of one of today's many lost boys."


The best-selling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Road returns with the first of a two-volume masterpiece: The Passenger is the story of a salvage diver, haunted by loss, afraid of the watery deep, pursued for a conspiracy beyond his understanding, and longing for a death he cannot reconcile with God.

Vicky recommends!

An international bestseller and one of The Times' "Top 50 Novels Published in the 21st Century," Claire Keegan's piercing contemporary classic, Foster, is a heartbreaking story of childhood, loss, and love; now released as a standalone book for the first time ever in the US.

*Signed copies available!*

In Gerrardsville, Colorado, a woman dies under the wheels of a moving bus. The death is ruled a suicide. But Jack Reacher saw what really happened: A man in a gray hoodie and jeans, moving stealthily, pushed the victim to her demise—before swiftly grabbing the dead woman’s purse and strolling away.

John Irving, one of the world’s greatest novelists, returns with his first novel in seven years—a ghost story, a love story, and a lifetime of sexual politics.

The “best short-story writer in English” (Time) is back with a masterful collection that explores ideas of power, ethics, and justice and cuts to the very heart of what it means to live in community with our fellow humans. With his trademark prose—wickedly funny, unsentimental, and exquisitely tuned—Saunders continues to challenge and surprise.

From Catriona Ward, author of The Last House on Needless Street, comes the Shirley Jackson Award-winning novel Little Eve, a heart-pounding tale of faith and family set on an island off the wildest coast of Scotland, with a devastating twist.

John Grisham returns to Mississippi with the riveting story of two sons of immigrant families who grow up as friends, but ultimately find themselves on opposite sides of the law. Grisham’s trademark twists and turns will keep you tearing through the pages until the stunning conclusion.

N.K. Jemisin’s Great Cities Duology, which began with The City We Became and concludes with The World We Make, is a masterpiece of speculative fiction from one of the most important writers of her generation.

Nonfiction

The definitive history of World War II from the African American perspective, written by civil rights expert and Dartmouth history professor Matthew Delmont. In a time when the questions World War II raised regarding race and democracy in America remain troublingly relevant and still unanswered, this meticulously researched retelling makes for urgently necessary reading.

A president who governed a divided country has much to teach us in a twenty-first-century moment of polarization and political crisis. Hated and hailed, excoriated and revered, Abraham Lincoln was at the pinnacle of American power when implacable secessionists gave no quarter in a clash of visions bound up with money, race, identity, and faith. In him we can see the possibilities of the presidency as well as its limitations.

In The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams, Schiff brings her masterful skills to Adams’ improbable life, illuminating his transformation from aimless son of a well-off family to tireless, beguiling radical who mobilized the colonies. Arresting, original, and deliriously dramatic, this is a long-overdue chapter in the history of our nation.

Elizabeth’s review: "If Walls Could Speak is an exquisitely written memoir by Moshe Safdie. He tells of his move to Canada with his family. He studied architecture at McGill University, and in 1967 he created Habitat'67 for Montreal's Expo -- the first of his projects which he has now created around the world. The reader learns how his love of music and nature are part of every building he designs."

In 2020, with the release of his outstanding album Rough and Rowdy Ways, Dylan became the first artist to have an album hit the Billboard Top 40 in each decade since the 1960s. The Philosophy of Modern Song contains much of what he has learned about his craft in all those years, and like everything that Dylan does, it is a momentous artistic achievement.

Taking a clear-eyed look at injustice, political polarization, and the destruction of the natural world, Gay shows us how we might resist, how the study of joy might lead us to a wild, unpredictable, transgressive, and unboundaried solidarity. In fact, it just might help us survive.

From the author of Pulitzer Prize-winning The Emperor of All Maladies and The Gene, comes his most spectacular book yet, an exploration of medicine and our radical new ability to manipulate cells. Rich with Mukherjee’s revelatory and exhilarating stories of scientists, doctors, and patients, The Song of the Cell is the third book in this extraordinary writer’s exploration of what it means to be human.

Behind the Lens: The World Hockey Association 50 Years Later has the Golden Jet and the Howes, the teams that seemed to change names and cities as often as some players changed wooden sticks, and even the true origin story of that Wayne Gretzky photo that's become the million-dollar holy grail for sports card collectors.

​American Roots is a beautiful invitation to reconsider how we define the American garden, filled with guidance and encouragement for anyone looking to dig more deeply into their own home garden.

New in Paperback

In Kentucky, back in 1933, Carol's daddy lost his 13-year-old daughter in a game of cards. Award-winning author Simon Van Booy's spellbinding novel spans decades as he tells the story of Carol and the people in her life. Incidents intersect and lives unexpectedly change course in this masterfully interwoven story of chance and choice that leads home again to a night blessed with light.

Ten years after his prize-winning novel Chinaman established him as one of Sri Lanka’s foremost authors, Shehan Karunatilaka is back with a “thrilling satire” (Economist) and rip-roaring state-of-the-nation epic that offers equal parts mordant wit and disturbing, profound truths.

In this “gloriously tangled game of cat and mouse that kept the twists coming until the very last moment” (Ruth Ware, #1 New York Times bestselling author), Helen’s idyllic life—handsome architect husband, gorgeous Victorian house, and cherished baby on the way—begins to change the day she attends her first prenatal class...

Cookbooks

Even Ina Garten, America's most trusted and beloved home cook, sometimes finds cooking stressful. To make life easy she relies on a repertoire of recipes that she knows will turn out perfectly every time. Cooking night after night during the pandemic inspired her to re-think the way she approached dinner, and the result is this collection of comforting and delicious recipes that you’ll love preparing and serving.

The family behind the acclaimed blog The Woks of Life shares 100 of their favorite home-cooked and restaurant-style Chinese recipes in ”a very special book” (J. Kenji López-Alt, author of The Food Lab and The Wok). Whether you’re new to Chinese cooking or if your pantry is always stocked with bean paste and chili oil, you’ll find lots of inspiration and trustworthy recipes that will become a part of your family story, too.

Yotam Ottolenghi, Noor Murad, and the test kitchen super team behind the New York Times bestseller Shelf Love deliver maximum-flavor recipes with make-ahead condiments, sauces, and more toppings that transform any dish into an Ottolenghi favorite.

Local Authors

Adventure with Sky as she learns valuable lessons about courage, perseverance and the amazing things that can happen by working together. The teamwork shown by Sky and her friends inspires readers to believe in themselves and embrace the idea that differences aren't dividers but ways to contribute to a common goal.

Each morning, the lighthouse keeper awakes to watch seals play, fish swim, and seagulls fly. In his small, seaside town, the marine life lives in perfect harmony. One night while the lighthouse keeper sleeps, trouble lurks in the bay. The lighthouse keeper must work quickly to save the sea animals and find some help along the way.

The story of a twentieth century family whose lives are buffeted by personal losses, two world wars, the Great Depression, family tragedies and triumphs. The distant drumbeat of world events punctuates the fast-moving narrative.

Picture Books

Elephant is enjoying a peaceful walk with his green umbrella, when suddenly a Hedgehog says: I believe you have my boat. Cat, Bear, and Rabbit soon interrupt Elephant—each claiming that his umbrella is really their tent, flying machine, and cane. Elephant is flabbergasted—after all, it’s an umbrella, and it certainly hasn’t been on any adventures more exciting than a walk in the rain. Or has it?

Ages 4-8

When You Open a Book is a stunning ode to the world's grandest adventure of all: reading a book. Gorgeous artwork by Italian illustrator Sara Ugolotti depicts dragons, forests, pirates, merfolk, lollipop trees, lemonade tides, and more as a child journeys through page upon page of the written word.

Ages 3-6

Vicky's review: "This classic tale is brought back to life with the clever text and fabulous drawings of Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen. This will be lots of fun to read aloud over and over again!"

Ages 4-8

Children's Fiction

Meghan's review: "Freestyle is a thoroughly enjoyable graphic novel that is full of color, movement, and expression. I love the illustrations depictions of the kids dancing and yo-yoing while experiencing so much emotion! This is a perfect pick for kids in middle school going through friend struggles or school transitions."

Ages 8-12

Caleb recommends!

This important work of nonfiction features powerful images of the Japanese American incarceration captured by three photographers—Dorothea Lange, Toyo Miyatake, and Ansel Adams—along with firsthand accounts of this grave moment in history.

Ages 10-14

In this gripping, funny addition to the bestselling Lemonade War series, both Jessie and her brother Evan find themselves unexpectedly cast as outsiders. How they find their way forward makes for a timeless story about the power of courage and kindness.

Ages 8-12

Teen & YA

A dazzling and evocative novel about love and loss—with a dash of thrilling mystery—for fans of Mindy McGinnis and Courtney Summers. Owl has always been her freest self in the mountains, tracking, hiking, and exploring the steep forested acres of her aunt and uncle’s maple sugar farm. They never speak of the childhood tragedy that left her partially deaf and sent her father to jail...

Ages 14-18

The Heartstopper Yearbook is packed full of exclusive content from the Heartstopper universe: never-before-seen illustrations, an exclusive minicomic, character profiles, trivia, and insight into Alice Oseman's creative process, narrated by a cartoon version of Alice herself. In full-color for the first time, this companion book is perfect for fans of Heartstopper!

Ages 12+

From Alexandra Christo, the author of To Kill a Kingdom, comes Princess of Souls, a Rapunzel-inspired YA fantasy romance about a teen witch groomed to steal souls for an immortal king and the reckless, rebellious boy to whom her fate is tied.

Ages 13-18

Old Books

Life Magazines


From our old books specialist Caleb: “Life magazine was a staple in the United States since its inception in 1936 and still has cultural relevance today. Walk into any home of folks born within the past 50 years and there's almost guarantee that there is a copy or two of Life floating around. Here at Titcomb's, we have a wide range of the magazine catalog from the 40's to the 70's with most of our selection in the later decades of the publication. The magazine became a new way to engage with the world, allowing people to see places and things they didn't have access to previously. It was a teaching tool and helped broaden the cultural context of the rest of the world. With online archives and an exhibit at the MFA, Life finds a way to persist into the modern world.”

Gifts

Call 508-888-2331 or email [email protected] to reserve

A perfect addition to your Thanksgiving dinner, this ceramic, turkey-shaped pick holder features maple leaf picks. The bamboo picks are perfect for serving appetizers or cocktail garnishes. 

$14.99

These laser-cut wood earrings are made from sustainably sourced wood and 90% recycled display cards. The ear wires are silver-finished 304L stainless steel, hypoallergenic

Pro tip: Doubles as an essential oil diffuser - just add desired oil to natural wood back!

We have many styles including ears of corn and drumsticks!

$12.99

Is there anything better than Thanksgiving dinner? We ask that with our most serious face, which hopefully will be stuffed with so much food this year, we won't even be able to ask these kinds of questions. 

Women’s shoe size 5-10.5

$10

World hop in style with this set of 4 travel bags. Comes with a laundry bag, shoe bag, personal items bag and a compact built-in pouch to hold them all when not in use.

$24.99

Make your own beautiful custom stamps with this block printing kit!

$24.99

Bring the art gallery into your home or office with our mobile photo clip. Elegantly designed in chrome plated steel, your pictures will never look better. You no longer have to choose which photos to put out because there's not enough shelf space. Put them all out in an artistic way.

$11.99

Toys

Call 508-888-2331 or email [email protected] to reserve

Kids can immerse themselves in the enchanting world of Pandora with this LEGO® Avatar set and expand their love of adventures. Features 4 minifigures, 2 animal figures, a buildable Tree of Souls and 3 environment builds with glow-in-the-dark elements.

$149.99

Ages 12+

All aboard! The Green Toys Train is pulling out of the station! This sturdy locomotive is ready to chug along from one eco-friendly adventure to the next. Made in the USA from 100% recycled plastic, the brightly colored steam engine pulls two additional cars that link together to form a long train, or easily unhook for stand-alone play. This train is versatile for both indoor and outdoor play and is dishwasher safe for easy cleaning.

$37.99

Ages 2+

The Fantasy Fair is in town and everyone wants to attend. Guests show up at the Fairy Tale Inn, where two innkeepers compete to see who can get the most gold by putting guests into different enchanted rooms. At the end of the game, only one innkeeper will win.

Average playtime 15 to 20 minutes.

$39.99

Ages 8+


Bargain Books!

We have lots of brand-new bargain books in the shop right now and they are great for holiday gift giving! Check out our selection upstairs and outside on our tables the next time you visit. (Bargain books are not available for shipping.)

$29.99

$18.99

$29.99

$18.99

$24.99

$14.99

Titcomb's Bookshop | (508) 888-2331

 [email protected] |  titcombsbookshop.com