Temporary Store Hours

Terrace Books will now open at 11:00 am. We are still open 6 days a week, Monday through Saturday.

Also, gripe time! Okay, a man just left kind of in an onery mood because I am "not much help." First, he comes in with a tattered book asking if I could fix it. Huh??? Does it say Book Bindery on the sign? I kindly responded, "no, I am not a book binder." He asked, "do you know where I can get it fixed?" I said, "hmm. . . let me think, the last time I saw a bindery was when I went to Oak Glenn. I really don't know of anywhere else, maybe you can look in the phone book." Okay, then he wanted me to search for some obscure book. Why? I am not a librarian or a book "dealer" who makes money through a finders fee. I told him that Terrace Books is a book exchange and that we deal with bestselling fiction paperback books to trade with customers. He looked at me as if I was crazy and said, "you're not much help." I kindly suggested he visit our local library and speak to the wonderful librarian whose name is - and here he rudely cut me off saying, "I don't see how that can help me any." At this point, I lost patience and smiled, saying, "sorry." He took a bookmark and left. Tell me, what should have I done? I had several customers in the store, who were buying books. I cannot spend my time searching for a book that will get me ZERO dollars while I have my own wonderful customers who appreciate the kind of help I can give them. This man was obviously not a prospective customer, oh, and by the way, I do search and order books for the regulars as a courtesy and appreciation for their years of loyalty to Terrace Books. This was a guy who walked in off the street with no intention of even browsing our bookstore! (~~deep sigh~~) So there, I let it all out! Much better . . . now on to better things, selling books, trading books, and reading books! Have a good one! Eileen

Halloween Decor

As our regular customers know, Terrace Books always gets dressed up for the seasons! Currently, we are in Halloween atire, with scary books in the window surrounded by flashing skeleton bodies! And of course we are in our traditional Halloween aprons: orange with black bats, stars and crescent moons. It's fun to add a touch of seasonal change to the bookstore which encourages our customers to keep coming in and see what kind of theme we have on display.

At the back of the store, our red "farmhouse-cupboard" display shelves are full of creepy spiders and funny jack o' lantern faces! In the horror section, you'll find numerous titles by King, Koontz and Saul. On the way out, be sure to take a candy from the dracula holding the Trick or Treat container full of yummy candy! Happy Halloweeen, from Eileen, Maureen and Susan.

I found it!

As Saturday begins here at Terrace Books, I have already been engaged in discussion with one regular customer. He is looking for books by Robert Jordan and Raymond Feist. Well, of course like all good sci-fi fans, he just had to tell me about the current author he is collecting: the Magicians series by Feist. And wouldn't you know it, but we had the first two books in the series! Needless to say, he was overjoyed. And once again, I felt the tingles of pride as I was able to help another avid reader find their treasure.
Finding the long lost book is like a treasure hunt. Once, I searched and searched for a customer who wanted a particular Golden Book. The story really touched me: his sister was pregnant with her first child, which would be his first niece or nephew. He recalled a Golden Book story that his sister read to him over and over, when they were kids. She never got tired of reading it to him and he never tired of hearing the story. Well, the new baby was due around Christmastime, and he just had to have the book to give as a gift to his sister. Lo and behold, I found it on ebay! I was able to bid for him and won the book! The day he came to pick it up, you'd think he won the lottery or something! What a super feeling to know that books will do that to people.
Although I don't have the time to search for used or out-of-print books any more, Terrace Books does have the 'firsts' in lots of series like One for the Money by Janet Evanovich (Stephanie Plum) and 1st to Die by James Patterson (Women's Murder Club). Also, if the book is still in print, I can order it. It will be full retail price, but if you have store credit, you may use it to pay for 1/2 the price! So at $7.99 you would use $3.99 from your credit and pay $3.99 plus tax, which means your total price for the book is $4.30! Then, if you bring the book back, you get $2.00 added to your credit if it is still in Like New condition. How can you beat that?
Coming next time: Books Wanted

Online store

Have you seen our Abe Books store online? Since the end of June, we have cleared out Terrace Books of non-fiction titles and have been selling them in our online store at Abe Books. It is a long and tedious process entering all the data. We have over 500 books listed right now. We just had our computer updated to a newer model which works 6X faster than the old one! You can search abebooks.com under bookstores and type in Terrace Books to see our inventory online.

Also, our website terracebooks.com is slowly but surely being updated. I've listed the guidelines for trade-ins on the front page. With the injured economy the Terrace Books store has been quite slow, which gives us a chance to work on the online "stuff." Of course, we'd rather be busy helping our regulars than anything else. Please pass the word about our much-loved book exchange here in the Inland Empire. I think most people would love new customers to trade books with!

A Quality Book Exchange for the Inland Empire

I have my reading moments. At times, I can read up to 5 novels in a week. I read the entire Maximum Ride series by James Patterson in a long weekend this summer. Then of course, I have my dry spells. I can't find the perfect book to hold my interest. I have to be in the mood. I do own over 20,000 fiction paperback books, and still can't decide what to read! I've noticed many of the customers at Terrace Books experience the same thing. It seems nothing I recommend will catch their attention! What avid reader can walk out of a bookstore with empty hands? Not many! The funny thing about meeting new customers, is seeing the dilemna they go through trying to decide which books to trade in. Amazingly, a woman today traded in her entire Nora Roberts collection! She brought in over 60 books by Nora Roberts and some of Debbie Macomber's series. I could tell she had a hard time letting go, she even had her daughter bring the books in! I think it's awesome that people have such attachments to books and reading. Although at times it's frustrating trying to get people to try new things. Like the women who will only read Danielle Steel. It's as if they are afraid of "cheating" on their author or something! I used to feel that way about genres. Me, read a cheezy romance novel? Never! But since I've discovered Sophie Kinsella, romance novels have never been the same. The Shopaholic series is anything but cheezy! And I get so caught up in the character's financial antics, I completely forget that it is a romance book. Poor Becky Bloomwood, whatever kind of trouble will she get herself into next?

But, back to my original intent, Terrace Books is now one of the only higher quality book exchanges in the Inland Empire. Our customers may be trying to keep us a secret (selfish!) but others really need to know. The more customers we have to trade books with, the better selection we can offer. You will save tons of money and feel good about recycling your books. For instance, a regular 7.99 book sells here for 4.00. And, if you have store credit, you pay only 2.00 (plus tax) becuase we take the other 2.00 from your store credit. How cool is that? We are open Monday - Saturday, 9:00 am to 5:00 pm. We know books, we read books, we trade books!