New Email Newsletter, New Couch, New Orchid Bag.

Our email newsletter went out today--you can read it here. We've got info on James Pickering's "Of Mice and Men" preview, plus upcoming features on Rebecca Scherm, Nicholas Petrie, and Mark Zimmermann. You're a blog reader, so you saw most of this already. Sometime between Friday and Monday, we'll have another email newsletter with two special event announcements. 

If you didn't read our email and don't come in the store much, you haven't seen our new brown loveseat. It replaces a beige fabric one with piping that was covered by a not-quite-big-enough slipcover. The truth is that slipcovers are a difficult thing to buy readymade. We were always shocked by how popular it was to sit on, and needed special attention as it's a bit out of the way. our nickname for it is the canoodling couch. The new couch gets a better spot, replacing the gray leather (mushroom?) loveseat, which will now take the broken down couch's place. Right now are holding onto the old canoodler, but it will soon be gone. But if you're coming to Of Mice and Men, I'm excited to tell you we have two extra couch seats tonight.

Another new item at Boswell are our replacement Boswell plastic bags. By popular demand, the bags are now 2 mil instead of the previous 1.5. We think the extra strength will make them easier to use. Of course we welcome folks not taking bags, and we sell a lovely Boswell boat tote that is probably the perfect substitute for disposable. But the truth is when its snowing or raining, a lot of people take bags. 

Alas, the deliver was close to a month late, so we wound up having to buy plain white bags. It turns out that these are available at the Associated Bag warehouse down by the airport ("Everything baggy" should be their tagline but I'm afraid it isn't) and were in fact 2 mil thick. So the amusing thing is that for every customer complaining that we were out of the Boswell bag, there was another customer complimenting the new bag's strength. And because we can do will call, we actually saved a lot of money by substituting these plain bags, but we lost the marketing value..

Our new bags are the best of both worlds, but I should note that they are more expensive. And that's something for you to know. If you are contemplating paper vs. plastic from us, be aware that our large plastic bag is three times the cost of our medium paper one. That's another reason to choose paper over plastic if you're on the fence, though I will note that the paper bags don't have handles.

The new color is orchid, thought some are saying that it's a little redder than that and perhaps almost fuschia. Being that several of us like to talk color a lot, this is a very exciting conversation to have. And one bookseller noted that I must have this color family on my mind because the bags are very close in color to our current event calendar.