80 West Portal, San Francisco, CA 94127
415-564-8080
www.bookshopwestportal.com
Open 10:00 AM - 9:00 PM, Every Day

Dear Friends & Neighbors,

Here are a few great things you should know about us this Holiday Season:

As a way to help you get acquainted with our new website, we're offering free shipping if you spend $40 or more while shopping online during the month of December.

If you shop in the store this Saturday, you can have your purchases gift-wrapped by local mystery writer Cara Black, author of Murder in the Marais and creator of Parisian sleuth Aimee Leduc. Cara has graciously offered to wrap gifts from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. This is a terrific opportunity to meet the bestselling author and chat while she wraps your books and other gift items!

Speaking of gifts, don't miss our expanded selection of games, toys and stocking stuffers while you are in the store. Or, you can check them out right now online.

For example, the Key Gnome Key Covers and Sock Monkeys Key Covers make fun and merry stocking stuffers.

The Neato! Peg Game is a classic wooden puzzle in a collectible box that everyone in the family will enjoy. Jump the pegs to remove all but 1 peg from the board - this is not as easy as it seems!

Finally, it is always our goal and pleasure to provide you with a great selection of hand-picked titles, which is why our Holiday Picks are all 20% off through the month of December! Below is a sampling that includes books for kids, teens, sports fans, food lovers, and those who appreciate art. Come on by and check them out! Or if you prefer to browse from home, check out our Holiday Picks page and do your shopping online.

Yiddishkeit: Jewish Vernacular and the New Land
By Paul Buhle, Harvey Pekar

We hear words like nosh, schlep, and schmutz all the time, but how did these words become part of American English? The editors trace the influence of Yiddish from medieval Europe to the tenements of New York's Lower East Side. This amusing anthology contains original stories by notable writers and artists such as Barry Deutsch, Peter Kuper, Spain Rodriguez, and Sharon Rudahl. Through illustrations, comics art, and a full-length play, four major themes are explored: culture, performance, assimilation, and the revival of the language.

West by West: My Charmed, Tormented Life
By Jerry West, Jonathan Coleman

Now for the first time, the legendary Jerry West ("Mr. Clutch") tells his story - from his tough childhood in West Virginia, to his unbelievable college success at West Virginia University, his 40-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers, and his relationships with NBA legends like Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Shaquille O'Neal, and Kobe Bryant. Unsparing in its self-assessment and honesty, West by West is far more than a sports memoir; it is a profound confession and a magnificent inspiration.

Good Night, Good Night, Construction Site
By Tom Lichtenheld, Sherri Duskey Rinker

As the sun sets behind the big construction site, all the hardworking trucks get ready to say goodnight. One by one, Crane Truck, Cement Mixer, Dump Truck, Bulldozer, and Excavator finish their work and lie down to rest—so they'll be ready for another day of rough and tough construction play! With irresistible artwork by best-selling illustrator Tom Lichtenheld and sweet, rhyming text, this book will have truck lovers of all ages begging for more.

The Food of Morocco
by Paula Wolfert

Wolfert brings more than forty years of experience to this definitive book on Moroccan cuisine, from tender Berber skillet bread to spiced harira (the classic soup made with lentils and chickpeas), from chicken with tangy preserved lemon and olives to steamed sweet and savory breast of lamb stuffed with couscous and dates. The recipes are clear and inviting and infused with the author's unparalleled knowledge of this delicious food. Essays illuminate the essential elements of Moroccan flavor and emphasize the accessibility of once hard-to-find ingredients such as saffron, argan oil, and Moroccan cumin seed.

Every Thing On It
by Shel Silverstein

A spider lives inside my head
Who weaves a strange and wondrous web
Of silken threads and silver strings
To catch all sorts of flying things,
Like crumbs of thought and bits of smiles
And specks of dried-up tears,
And dust of dreams that catch and cling
For years and years and years . . .

Have you ever read a book with everything on it? Well, here it is, an amazing collection of never-before-published poems and drawings from the creator of Where the Sidewalk Ends. Let the magic of Shel Silverstein bend your brain and open your heart!

Me...Jane
by Patrick McDonnell

In his characteristic heartwarming style, McDonnell tells the story of the young Jane Goodall and her special childhood toy chimpanzee named Jubilee. As the young Jane observes the natural world around her with wonder, she dreams of "a life living with and helping all animals," until one day she finds that her dream has come true.

With anecdotes taken directly from Goodall's autobiography, McDonnell makes this very true story accessible for the very young - and young at heart.

Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942
by Ian W. Toll

The winner of the Samuel Eliot Morison and William E. Colby awards for Six Frigates has written an excellent, thoroughly researched chronicle of the tense period between the bombing of Pearl Harbor and American victory at the battle of Midway. Relying predominantly on eyewitness accounts and primary sources, Toll spotlights recent scholarship that has revised our understanding of the conflict, including the Japanese decision to provoke a war that few in the country's highest circles thought they could win. The result is a page-turning history that does justice to the breadth and depth of a tremendous subject.

Rome: A Cultural, Visual, and Personal History
By Robert Hughes

From Robert Hughes, one of the greatest art and cultural critics of our time, comes a sprawling, comprehensive, and deeply personal history of Rome—as city, as empire, and, crucially, as an origin of Western art and civilization, two subjects about which Hughes has spent his life writing and thinking.

Starting on a personal note, Hughes takes us to the Rome he first encountered as a hungry 21-year-old fresh from Australia in 1959. From that exhilarating portrait, he takes us back more than two thousand years to the city's foundation, one mired in mythologies and superstitions that would inform Rome's development for centuries.

The Hunger Games Trilogy Boxed Set
by Suzanne Collins

The extraordinary Hunger Games trilogy is complete!

The ground breaking New York Times bestsellers The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, along with the third book in the trilogy, Mockingjay, are available for the first time ever in a beautiful box set edition. Gripping and powerful.

The Louvre: All the Paintings
by Erich Lessing, Vincent Pomarede

Endorsed by the Louvre and for the first time ever, every painting from the world's most popular museum is available in one stunning book. All 2,981 paintings on display in the permanent painting collection of the Louvre are presented in full color in this striking, slipcased book.

Please visit our new website to read more about
these titles and our upcoming events.

80 West Portal, San Francisco, CA 94127  |  (415) 564-8080

www.bookshopwestportal.com