Holiday Shopping Tips & Gift Ideas

Holiday Shopping Tips

You probably don’t want to hear about global supply chain issues, but they are real and impacting the book biz! If you’re thinking of getting books for the readers in your life, we suggest getting started early this holiday season.

We have also put together this little holiday shopping guide for you:

We strongly recommend using priority mail because Standard USPS Media Mail may be subject to unforeseen delays.
Deadlines for Hanukkah: Standard USPS: no later than November 8, 2021; PRIORITY (USPS Priority & UPS Ground): no later than November 19, 2021
Deadlines for Christmas & Kwanzaa: December 6, 2021 for Standard USPS; December 10, 2021 for Priority (USPS Priority & UPS Ground).
Our distributor's gift-wrapping capabilities have been fully exhausted until after the new year. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this may cause you this holiday season.
Please consider giving Rozzie Bound Gift Cards, which can be sent to any valid email address. Please click here to purchase them in a range of amounts starting at $10.

Gift ideas for all ages from FRBL!

We have once again partnered with the Friends of the Roslindale Branch to create Holiday Gift Lists. To make your shopping experience easier, we gathered some of our favorite giftable books from a wide variety of genres and interests for adults, young adults, middle grades, and young children. The Friends will receive 50% of store proceeds from all books sold from the lists to support future programming and the newly renovated branch!

One of the books on the adult list includes Vogue and the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute by Hamish Bowles and Chloe Malle. This visually stunning book is a perfect gift for someone who loves art and fashion. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute's annual fashion exhibition is the most prestigious of its kind, featuring subjects that both reflect the zeitgeist and contribute to its creation. Each exhibition--from 2005's Chanel to 2011's Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty and 2012's Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations--creates a provocative and engaging narrative drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors.

This updated edition includes material from 2015's China: Through the Looking Glass, 2018's Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination (the most visited exhibition in the museum's history), and 2019's Camp: Notes on Fashion. The show's opening-night gala, produced in collaboration with Vogue magazine, is regularly referred to as the party of the year, and draws a glamorous A-list crowd, drawing an unrivaled mix of Hollywood fashion. This updated edition of Vogue and the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute once again invites you into the stunning spectacle that comes when fashion and art meet at The Met.

You may also want to check out some other themed shelves such as The Music Department, curated by our friends at Backline, a local business offering an all-in-one platform for independent venues and artists that provides ticketing, livestreaming, and archival services.

For art lovers, check out our newly updated Art Museum Gift Shop or Architecture + Design shelves.

For local history buffs, we have Boston History and a whole shelf dedicated to Images of America photobooks, with books on Roslindale, Jamaica Plain, Roxbury, Franklin Park, Forest Hills Cemetery, and dozens more Boston neighborhoods and institutions.

Dispatch from “Reimagining Bookstores”

Last week, several members of our Worker Owner Group attended a 6-hour, virtual convening of booksellers, authors, publishers called Reimagining Bookstores (https://reimaginingbookstores.org/). The goal was to explore ways that bookstores can deepen literacy and strengthen community while also paying workers a living wage, goals we are striving to meet right here in Roslindale.

The gathering exceeded our expectations. Using a process called Open Space, this was a kind of “unconference” in which the agenda was created by the participants. Rozzie Bound founder Roy Karp led a breakout session about cooperatives that was attended both by booksellers from worker-owned co-ops such as Firestorm Books in Asheville, NC and those interested in learning more about the cooperative model. The discussion was lively and informative and gave us the sense that we are part of a growing movement to bring cooperative principles to bookselling.

This was not a one and done conference. The organizers have created a platform for participants to propose follow up meetings on any topic. Rozzie Bound has proposed a gathering in November aimed at starting a Cooperative Booksellers Network, a project we have been working since the Spring. We are also planning to join a Stewardship Council being planned by Reimagining Bookstores, so stay tuned for more details.

We may be just one community bookstore, but we are also part of a growing movement to strengthen local economies and provide workplaces that are more democratic and equitable. One inspiration has been The Making of a Democratic Economy by Marjorie Kelly and Ted Howard of the The Democracy Collaborative.

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