Today was a busy day – our crew moved pallet after pallet of books over to our new space, and by just after lunch we started moving the first shelves. By the end of the day, the entire west wall of the new space had picture book shelves in place with boxes on the shelves. It’s an impressive run and will look great once all the books are unpacked. Painting also occured in the offices today, and tomorrow the new carpet is scheduled to be installed. By the end of the day Saturday we plan to have our main room cleared of shelves and atRead More →

At long last, we’ve started the moving process! Our current space, where we’ve been for the last 4 years, has been too small for some time. We found a bigger space (almost double!) next door and have secured a 5 year lease.  We started boxing a few weeks ago, but had to wait until school was out to really get everything boxed up.  This weekend has been hectic with a crew of great guys working hard to box up all our books (400,000 is a big amount of books!) and get the first pallets built. Next week we start moving shelving units and pallets intoRead More →

Revolution is Not a Dinner Party by Ying Chang Compestine is the sleeper hit of my library this semester. It sat on my new releases shelf for a while, unchecked by students. One afternoon, as I prepared for a booktalk, I stared at the book, wondering what had made it stand out to me when I made my purchasing order. Imagine a world where George Bush put his face on posters all over the country, required everyone to have a picture in their home, and stopped work halfway through the day to listen to his teachings. Thankfully we have a president and not a ChairmanRead More →

Phoenix Book Company was excited to be able to premier Chris Gall’s newest book, There’s Nothing to Do on Mars, at the AzLA conference in November 2007.  We received 50 books in advance of the February 1, 2008 release date to support Chris’ program at the conference.  50 lucky AzLA attendees were able to get this book, signed by the author/illustrator, before anyone else in the US! Thanks to Chris and his publisher, Little, Brown for making this possible. Posted by CoriRead More →

A bit overdue, but online nonetheless! Phoenix Book Company had a great time at the annual AzLA conference November 14 & 15 at the Mesa Convention Center.  Our booth was stocked with tons of YA hardback fiction, cute & cuddly Folkmanis puppets, and all of the kids’ author books.  It was fun to see many of our regular customers and to chat with plenty of other folks who just discovered us at the show.  We love taking our great books out to events to meet new people, participate in conversations about books & reading, and deepen our relationships with our customers. We were busy from openingRead More →

In Someday This Pain Will be Useful to You, Peter Cameron superbly captures the disconnected feelings and wry observations of a young man.  James is an 18-year-old New Yorker who doesn’t connect with anyone in his life.  The novel focuses on a few days in the summer of his 18th year as he struggles with his future – college at Brown and the life his parents expect of him or an escape to the Midwest where he would buy a house in a small town and live a quiet, sheltered life. James’ great fear is of an existence that doesn’t “touch or overlap with anyoneRead More →