For today’s installment in our local holiday shopping series, we spoke to Manda Riggs of Elm Street Books at 35 Elm St.
Here’s a transcription of our conversation.
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New Canaanite: How’s it going so far this holiday shopping season?
“How Does Santa Go Down the Chimney” by Mac Barnett ($18.99 at Elm Street Books). This is the big Christmas book that Penguin put out last year and the publisher ran out of copies, so this year Elm Street Books heavily front-loaded it this year.
Manda Riggs: I would say it’s been soft, actually. I’m not entirely sure if it was the shorter shopping season—‘longer November, shorter December,’ as we say—not sure if it was an election result. I looked at our numbers from 2020 and 2016. It looks like our Decembers in those years were also a tiny bit soft, so we’ll see. But we’ve also just done a recent push through New Canaan Moms to shop local and to just remind people to please spread your money everywhere so to speak and keep New Canaan downtown vibrant.
And what is moving during the season? What are some of your good sellers or good areas that are moving?
Sports this year is really deep. In terms of selection, ‘The New York Game,’ the big baseball book that came out. ‘The Baseball 100—Joe Posnanski, who wrote that series, also wrote a ‘Basketball 100’ this year, so that’s selling quite well. I would say our other sections—always fiction. Historical fiction this year, we’re featuring a book called ‘The Champagne Letters’ in hardcover. It’s the historical—of course, fictionalized—account of the Widow Clicquot, who was the founder of Veuve Clicquot. A lot of girls read it early, and so we’re featuring that as one of our Christmas reads. In mystery, our big story this year is an espionage tale. As we know, John le Carré is deceased now and there’s a gentleman, Nick Harkaway, who has picked up his story of George Smiley, which we all may know from ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.’ So he’s written a book [‘Karla’s Choice’] that sets itself right after the end of the Cold War. So he’s picked up the gauntlet there, so to speak, and that book has sold like crazy for us.
Is that the same guy from ‘The Spy Who Came from the Cold,’ George Smiley?
Yes. In biography, Ina Garten’s bio [‘Be Ready When the Luck Happens: A Memoir’] is the biggest seller of our year so far.
“New Canaan Modern: A Preservation History” brand new by Gwen North Reiss ($45). The New Canaan Museum & Historical Society kindly sold copies of the book—featuring modern houses in town—to Elm Street Books, so they ordered many copies and will get in more soon, though the copies in the store have nearly sold out.
For people who haven’t had a chance to come in here, maybe people who just saw the ‘Shop Local’ call but they’re used to buying their books online or somewhere else, what would you say about the store, Elm Street Books?
We’ve been around for a long time. I’ve been here 13 years and it’s kind of my life’s work, I would say. It is a singular shopping experience. We have great gift items, lots of ornaments, lots of little gift stocking-stuffer type things, as well as mahjong we’re featuring very heavily this year, which is trending. I’d say the one thing that differentiates us from Amazon is customer service. We are here to recommend to every genre, children’s all the way to the hardest person in your family. We call him ‘Uncle Bob’ here. The Johnny Carson book is really good for him this year. It’s an excellent bio. I would say that our return policy is excellent. So if you find that you’ve already bought the book or someone doesn’t want it, it’s not your cup of tea, we’ll always take things back, which I think is tough these days in online sales to get things returned. And then we wrap, with love, every single book or purchase with our beautiful gold ‘Elm Street Books’ sticker. And we deliver locally, so if you’re someone who’s stuck at home or can’t get out or you’re busy or you’re a mom or you’re working, whatever, we’re happy to deliver as well.
“The Champagne Letters” by Kate MacIntosh ($28.99 hardcover at Elm Street Books). A new release for adult fiction, the book is a historical (ca. 1805) portrayal of The Widow Clicquot, the founder of Veuve Clicquot in Paris.
And then finally, what’s it like being part of the downtown with the garlands and the lights? We had the Stroll.
I’m a big fan. Of course, I sit on the Chamber executive panel and so we’re really, as a store, a proponent of the lights. We support those. We also support the lamppost sponsorship for Christmas. I think the Holiday Lights are one of the best parts of being downtown at the holidays. And Stroll was really cold this year, so our attendance was down a tiny bit, but it’s always such a fun event with the music and the Waffle Cabin and everybody. The street being closed—I love that, personally. And I think the restaurants did really well, too. I try to talk to everybody on the street to get a sense. It has been a little soft for everybody on this end of Elm Street. But I think maybe this week will be the turning point. Better be, because there’s only 10 days left. So come out and shop.
Caffeine & Carburetors has partnered with the New Canaan Chamber of Commerce to encourage local holiday shopping by increasing the purchase power of the New Canaan E-Gift Card program by 40%. The gift card can be used at over 45 different retailers in town. More information is available here.