Christmas season report

Carolyn Chute reading at Gulf of maine books
photo by Roger Leisner, The Maine Paparazzi

The Christmas season has come and gone, and we keep hearing words like dismal, disappointing, flat...We had no idea what to expect this year - with Bookland closing, Grand City closing, the first squadron from the base leaving at Thanksgiving, but our sales were actually better than we expected. Part of this seems to have been new customers who used to do their Christmas book shopping at Bookland. A number of people told us that they used to buy their calendars at Bookland, and we certainly sold a lot more calendars than in past years.
The shopping trend also tended toward buying local. Our best selling calendars were the Maine tide calendar, the Maine Geographic, and the Down East calendars (with the usual strong showing from WeMoon and the Audubon and Sierra engagements -). Our top two best selling titles were published by the Maine Department of Conservation - The Forest Trees of Maine, and Your Maine Lands - a guide to Maine's public lands by Tom Hanrahan. Maine authors led our hardcover fiction sales (Carolyn Chute's School on Heart's Content Road and Colin Sargent's Museum of Human Beings) and our childrens book sales were led by Dahlov Ipcar (My Wonderful Christmas Tree, and The Little Fisherman) Charlotte Agell's Shift, Karen Schneider's Adventures of Skiff, and the Harpswell Anchor's book about Janet Bonney resuscitating her chicken - Martha To The Rescue - quite a diversity of information and ideas.
We want to thank everyone who came in, made purchases, said hello, came to readings, authors who came and signed books, and small local publishers who are bringing
out such good books, even in a time of economic gloom.
We do have the inauguration to look forward to, and on Feb. 28 there will be a party at Gulf of Maine to celebrate our store's 30th birthday, most books 30% off.
Thank you all, and a very Happy New Year!
Gary and Beth