Book Cover of the Day

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
By Jane Austen and Seth Grahame Smith
Quirk $12.95

Happy Halloween!!

Book Cover of the Day

I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I want to be Your Class President
By Josh Lieb
Penguin $8.99

Book Cover of the Day

The Ayatollahs' Democracy
By Hooman Majd
Norton $26.95

I like this a lot. You don't generally see a pop art cover for a book about foreign politics. It definitely stands out on the shelf in that section.

Halloween Reading

And for the grown-up set, author and former Sam Weller's staffer Ben Higginbotham will read from Demonica, also on Saturday, October 30th at 6:00 PM!

Demonica Valios just wants to be normal. But normal doesn't come easy for her. Maybe that's because of the fact that she's half demon. Or maybe it's due to the three-foot long tail that comes along with her origins. But things are about to get weird, even for Demonica. Lately, more and more demons seem to be centering in on New Orleans, but little does she know that something even bigger than she's used to is coming to tow. Something controlled by a single old man, rolling a pair of dice endlessly, and when he releases his fury, all of Hell's fury will come along with it.

Children's Halloween Reading

Children's picture book author Barbie McConnell will be at Sam Weller's Bookstore reading Marsipity on Saturday, October 30th, at 1:00 PM! Come in costume!

Marsipity is an enchanted young lady with bad luck who delights and astounds her best friend, the indispensable Marlin, on the sweetest of all holidays, Halloween Night. A story of friendship, loyalty and giving, Marsipity is about never underestimating the people around you, and the simple joy that comes from thinking of others first.

Book Cover of the Day

Primal Cuts: Cooking with America's Best Butchers
By Marissa Guggiana
Welcome Books $37.50

This cover is great. The letters are cut out of the brown wrap to reveal the meat printed on the boards beneath.

Book Cover of the Day

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk
By David Sedaris
Little, Brown & Company $21.99

You can't go wrong with a David Sedaris book, and this cover is so cute.

Book Cover of the Day

Great House
By Nicole Krauss
Norton $24.95

One writing desk connects the various people in the stories of Great House. What a neat way to tie different people and years together to tell a 'bigger picture'-type story. This book was just nominated for the National Book Award.

Book Cover of the Day

Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword
By Barry Deutsch
Amulet $15.95

Book Cover of the Day

Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things
By Randy O. Frost and Gail Steketee
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt $27.00

Book Cover of the Day

Danger! An Encyclopedia of all Things Dangerous
By DK Publishing $19.99

Towers of Midnight

All signed and numbered copies of Towers of Midnight have now sold. Thanks to everyone who called and ordered! We're looking forward to working with Brandon on his next book.

Book Cover of the Day

The Poets Laureate Anthology
Edited by Elizabeth Hun Schmidt
Norton in association with the Library of Congress $39.95

Book Cover of the Day

Monsters Eat Whiny Children
By Bruce Eric Kaplan
Simon & Schuster $15.99

Book Cover of the Day

The Corrections
By Jonathan Franzen
Picador $16.00

Book Cover of the Day

Never Count Out the Dead
By Boston Teran
St. Martin's Minotaur 2001
Our price used: $12.00

Rabb Recommends

John Henry Days
by Colson Whitehead
978-0-385-49820-3
Anchor Books
$14.95

Looking for free drinks & prime rib, cheapskate-junketeer-freelance writer goes for the record of the most consecutive junketing days as he covers the John Henry postage stamp festival of West Virginia.

Book Cover of the Day

The Border of Truth
By Victoria Redel
Counterpoint 2007
Our price used: $10.00

I like this a lot, it reminds me a little of this amazing set of pictures on Flikr.

Danse Macabre

Join us and Gerald Elias as he reads from Danse Macabre, his latest mystery featuring the crusty violin teacher and ex-concertmaster Daniel Jacobus.


Just after his Carnegie Hall swansong and before his imminent departure for retirement in France, beloved violinist and humanitarian Rene Allard is brutally murdered with a mysterious weapon. His young African American rival, crossover artist BTower, is spotted at the scene of the crime hovering over the contorted body of Allard with blood on his hands. In short order the aloof and arrogant BTower is convicted and sentenced to death, in part the result of the testimony of blind and curmudgeonly violin pedagogue Daniel Jacobus, like millions of others, an ardent admirer of Allard. Justice has been served . . . or has it? Jacobus is dragged back into the case kicking and screaming, and reluctantly follows a trail of broken violins and broken lives as it leads inexorably to the truth, and to his own mortal peril.


A graduate of Yale, Gerald Elias has been a Boston Symphony violinist, Associate Concertmaster of the Utah Symphony since 1988, Adjunct Professor of Music at the University of Utah, first violinist of the Abramyan String Quartet, and Music Director of the Vivaldi Candlelight concert series.

Book Cover of the Day

Radiant Cool
By Dan Lloyd
MIT Press 2004
Our price used: $10.00

Frank Recommends

Basin and Range
by John McPhee
978-0-374-51690-1
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
$15.00

John McPhee travels Interstate 80, whose road cuts did much to advance our knowledge of the geology of the U.S. Geologic facts mixed with personal insight and commentary

Book Cover of the Day

Plays Well With Others
By Allan Gurganus
Knopf 1997
Our price used: $12.00

Book Cover of the Day

The Hottest State
By Ethan Hawke (yes, that Ethan Hawke)
Little Brown & Company 1996
Our price used: $10.00

Book Cover of the Day

Diana, The Goddess Who Hunts Alone
By Carlos Fuentes
Farrar Straus & Giroux 1995
Our price used: $7.00

Book Baby

The staff of Sam Wellers would like to welcome the newest addition to Weller World, Lily Aya Kali. She was born to Travis (Special Services and IT dept) and his wife Julie last night. Congratulations and wishes for a good night sleep to all!

Book Cover of the Day

Breathless Homicidal Slime Mutants
By Steven Brower
Random House $24.95

This book is awesome. It celebrates the art of pulp-type paperbacks and it was ironically released in hardcover.

Book Cover of the Day

Fat Vampire
By Adam Rex
Harper Collins $16.99

Vampires are supposed to be young and sexy, but what if you're the fat kid and you get turned into a vampire? Now you have to be the fat kid forever. Great use of slushy as blood on this cover.

Book Cover of the Day

Rat Girl
By Kristin Hersh
Penguin $15.00

Oh my goodness, a memoir from Kristin Hersh! I was sure happy to find this on the shelf, and it has a fun cover. I love the illustration and the colors and the fact that it's not flashy.

Book Cover of the Day

The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work
By Alain de Botton
Vintage $15.95

This cover is elegantly simple and I love the way the text is split into columns.

Book Cover of the Day

The Unnamed
By Joshua Ferris
Reagan Arthur/Back Bay Books $13.99

This cover is clean and simple and this book is in our Fiction section (where new books are 20% off in October).

Book Cover of the Day

John Henry Days
By Colson Whitehead
Anchor $14.95

The symmetry is lovely.

Book Cover of the Day

Sick City
By Tony O'Neill
Harper Collins $13.99

I like this cover, it looks like a movie I would want to go see.

Book Cover of the Day

The Financial Lives of the Poets
By Jess Walter
Harper Collins $14.99

The designer did a great job fitting all that text onto the front cover and still making it look good, it's a challenging thing to do.