Ian Hamilton Prize Pack of Awesome!!!

Continuing our celebration of 30 years as your independent bookstore, we're giving away the complete Ava Lee library!  You could win:The Water Rat of Wanchai

The Disciple of Las Vegas

The Wild Beasts of Wuhan

The Red Pole of Macau

The Scottish Banker of Surabaya

The Two Sisters of Borneo

In addition to these books is a hardcover & slipcased, limited edition, autographed copy of the prequel: "The Dragon Head of Hong Kong".  There were only 100 copies of this book made; this is number 56. Some of you may know that Ian Hamilton is among our favourite authors, but did you know that House of Anansi Press is among our favourite publishers?  They started in 1967 as a small press founded by Dennis Lee (Alligator Pie) and Dave Godfrey (The New Ancestors).  They have a proven knack for finding and developing new Canadian talent and we'd like to thank them for their incredible generosity and unflagging support of independent booksellers everywhere!

http://www.houseofanansi.com/

To win this mindblowingly awesome prize, respond in the comments field with the title or author of another of your favourite Anansi or Groundwood books.  The winner will be chosen at random on Monday, May 26.

Dog Days of Summer Giveaway

In these last lazy days of August, we needed a distraction. And what better way to distract ourselves than to find out what all of you have been doing with your summers? We want to know what you've been reading and where you've been reading and the books you've been falling in love with... or not falling in love with.

Here are the ways you can tell us:

1) Instagram

Snap a photo of the pile of books you’ve read this summer (or the pile of books you have yet to read) Snap a photo of the place you spent the summer reading. A hammock or a nook or wherever else you like to cozy up and crack open a book. Snap a selfie of you and your favourite summer read. Surprise us.

When you post your photo, tag us (@WordsWorthBooks) and use the hashtag #DogDaysOfSummer.

2) Twitter

Summarize a book you read this summer and express your love or loathing in 140 characters or less. Tell us about a book you read in haiku form. Tweet us a line from a book that moved you or made you laugh, or one you thought was particularly clever. Be creative.

Similarly, tag us @BooksWordsWorth (note: our instagram name and our twitter name are slightly different) and use the hashtag #DogDaysOfSummer.

And here’s what you can win:

We’ll be choosing photos and tweets we particularly like and re-posting them daily. We’ll be choosing a winner out of those on August 31 and announcing it here on the blog. There is one single condition: the winner MUST be able to pick up their books in-store. Okey dokey?

That's it! We’re dying to know what you come up with...

~Kristen

Rainy Day Reads Vol. 2

Olive Kitteridge is an amazing short story cycle that fully deserved it's pulitzer a few years ago. The titular character is a retired school teacher with a raft of issues, but the fascinating thing about the way the story is told is how slowly she unfolds. Olive appears as a peripheral character in the early stories, and bit by bit she becomes more central. The themes of family and loss spun throughout the stories really culminate in the final pieces that take a clear eyed look at a life full of mistakes. Good for a rainy day if you're a fan of wallowing in epiphany, like me. ~Caroline.