The holiday shopping frenzy is coming to an end and this shopkeeper is officially exhausted! This is my second Christmas as a bookseller and I am pleased to announce that every special order came in on time and we did a much better job keeping popular books and other items in stock this time around. So now I am ready for a “long winter’s nap.” Or at least ready for a little down time to catch up on 
my reading. As I’ve mentioned before the greatest myth of book selling is that the shopkeeper spends her days sampling the myriad titles calling from the shelves. There is just never enough time to get through my ever-growing list and there is absolutely no way to even make a small dent in the hundreds-of-thousands of new titles published each year. Thankfully my business partner and I tend to gravitate in different literary directions that are equally diverse, which make for an eclectic selection in our shop. When we are bringing in new books we are guided by the obligatory reviews but also try to stock The Book Garden’s shelves based on recommendations from our family, friends, customers and other booksellers. Here is my short reading list from 2013. I’d love to hear what great books you discovered this year.
Our Reading List
Fiction:
The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
Want Not by Jonathan Miles
Non-fiction:
Room to Read: A Story of Hope in the Battle for Global Literacy by John Wood
Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life by Marta McDowell
Still Writing: The Pleasures and Perils of a Creative Life by Dani Shapiro
May I Be Happy: A Memoir of Love, Yoga and Changing My Mind by Cyndi Lee
Harley Loco: A Memoir of Hard Living, Hair, and Post-Punk, from the Middle East to the Lower East Side by Rayya Elias
Poetry:
A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver
Kids:
Pick a Circle, Gather Squares by Felicia Sanzari Chernesky
That Is Not a Good Idea by Mo Willems