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Category: Gift & Stationery

This Summer’s Best Beach Reads

by Alisha
Fiction + Mysteries and Thrillers + Gift & Stationery + Kids + Picture Books + YA Fiction / July 29, 2015

Those Girls  Chevy Stevens St. Martin's Press Available Now   Chevy Stevens is back with this year’s must-have summer thriller—a powerful, emotional story of survival and revenge (now a Globe and Mail bestseller!).   “This is Stevens’s best book to   date.”—The Globe and Mail

The Santangelos Jackie Collins St. Martin’s Press Available Now   No summer reading list is complete without Jackie Collins. In The Santangelos, she delivers an epic family saga, filled with love, lust, revenge and passion.   Read an excerpt here.

 

  

The Girl Who Wrote in Silk Kelli Estes Sourcebooks Available Now   Set in the Pacific Northwest and inspired by true events, Kelli Estes’s brilliant and atmospheric debut serves as a poignant tale of two women determined to do the right thing, and the power of our own stories.

Does This Beach Make Me Look Fat? Lisa Scottoline  and Francesca Serritella St. Martin’s Press Available Now   This breezy, laugh-out-loud beach read by mother-daughter team Lisa Scottoline and Francesca Serritella “takes the…cake for best title of the summer.”—USA Today

 

  

Everybody Rise Stephanie Clifford St. Martin’s Press Coming Aug 18   Stephanie Clifford's "superb" debut is “a 21st century version of a grand 19th century novel—smart, moving tale of class, ambition, and identity" (Malcolm Gladwell).   Look for it on the People, TIME, Entertainment Weekly, and Good Housekeeping summer reading lists.

The Nature of the Beast  Louise Penny Minotaur Coming Aug 25   Celebrate 10 years of Louise Penny’s Chief Inspector Gamache series with her newest installment, The Nature of the Beast.   “Splendid . . . Penny's books mix some   classic elements of the police         procedural with a deep-delving   psychology, as well as a sorrowful   sense of the precarious nature of   human goodness, and the   persistence of its opposite.”—The   New York Times on The Long Way   Home

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Petit Collage is coming to Raincoast!

by Danielle
Design & Typography + Environment + Gift & Stationery + Home & Garden / July 18, 2013

 

July 18, 2013

Raincoast is now the exclusive Canadian distributor for Petit Collage, a leading lifestyle brand for modern families, based in San Francisco. Petit Collage encompasses over 200 eco-friendly products ranging from toys and games to wall décor and mobiles.

Petit Collage’s founder, Lorena Siminovich, is a noted designer, illustrator, author, and entrepreneur, who has been featured in Dwell magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. Petit Collage products are sold in over 500 stores worldwide including Barneys NY, Anthropologie, Pottery Barn Kids, and select Canadian boutique baby stores.

“Lorena’s design sense is hugely appealing to Raincoast, and her commitment to quality, sustainability, and fair trading practices truly resonates. Petit Collage both complements our existing client base and provides us with ample opportunity to stretch ourselves in a changing
retail market,” says Paddy Laidley, Executive Vice-President of Sales & Marketing for Raincoast. “Petit Collage is a perfect fit for Canada and Raincoast is highly motivated to expand their presence here.”

"We are very excited to partner with Raincoast Books,” says Siminovich. “We have long admired the quality of their lines and the breadth of their coverage in Canada. With their amazing sales force, we look forward to being introduced to new stores we weren't able to reach ourselves, while providing our existing customers a much faster turnaround and better customer service."

Raincoast will showcase the Fall 13 Petit Collage collection at the Toronto Gift Show August 11- 14, 2013.

For more information please visit: www.petitcollage.com

www.raincoast.com/publishers/details/petit-collage/

About Petit Collage
Started in 2006, Petit Collage is all about good design. Artist and founder Lorena Siminovich approaches all she does including authoring and illustrating over 20 children’s books with this philosophy. With her team of designers, she creates modern wall décor and home accessories influenced by midcentury design. The studio, located in an artistic hub of San Francisco, is an incubator of new ideas, art, and illustration where creating great design and pushing the envelope on new formats is the norm. Playfulness imbues every format Petit Collage touches from mobiles and mirrors to dolls, decals and more. Striving to handcraft their goods in a sustainable way using the best-quality, most forest-friendly materials available is equally important.

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My Favourite Books of 2011: Siobhan (Marketing)

by Siobhan
Art & Photography + Craft + Food & Drink + Gift & Stationery / December 20, 2011

Yesterday Dan talked about his favourite book of 2011. I can't quite narrow it down to ONE, so instead I've picked one favourite book for each day of the week... plus a little something extra for Sunday. This is essentially my ideal week, in book format.

Monday. We all know what Mondays are like. The day you need a hit of inspiration. And a cup of coffee. This book will give you a double shot of the former (sorry, you'll have you grab your own latte.) Paper Cutting: Contemporary Artists, Timeless Craft is totally gorgeous and full of amazing work by talented artists working with paper.

 

 

Tuesday is when you really start to wake up for the week. And you'll need your wits about you when you grab your scissors and a fresh sheet of paper, then fold, pleat and crumple your way to creating the incredible shapes in Folding Techniques for Designers: From Sheet to Form.
(P.S. If you're into paper folding, you'll love this documentary I recently saw on the Knowledge Network, Between the Folds.)

 

Wednesday is a funny day. Come on, hump day. Time for the brilliance and hilarity that is Hark! A Vagrant. If you don't already know Kate Beaton from her website, trust me, your life will be better once you do.

 

 

By Thursday, your work week is in full swing, and you can take on anything. You can even build a toaster... from scratch! As in, hey, let's dig up some precious metals out of the ground with my own two hands and make some wire, then figure out how to make plastic... Or at least you can read about a guy who really did this in The Toaster Project: Or a heroic attempt to build a simple electric appliance from scratch.
 

 

Friday is when you start to wind down, dream about the weekend that's oh-so-close.... a dream which involves owning a big old house in the country with chickens running around the yard, and your husband making you breakfast in bed, with poached eggs laid by your very own chickens. (Reality: let's just go out for brunch downtown.) Chicken and Egg: A Memoir of Suburban Homesteading with 125 Recipes is full of lovely design and photos,  stories about keeping chickens, and recipes for both cooking up eggs ... and chickens (sorry, chickens!)

 

A Saturday behind the pottery wheel is a good, good day. If you don't have clay or a kiln on hand, check out The Ceramics Bible: The Complete Guide to Materials and Techniques.

 

Sunday is a perfect treat. Much like Miette: Recipes from San Francisco's Most Charming Pastry Shop. These are some of the cutest, most perfect looking cakes you'll ever see (and maybe even bake). The book's pages are also scalloped for an added dose of cuteness.

 

 

And last but not least, for a litttle extra on Sunday (cause you know everyone wants to extend the weekend just a little bit more), I'm also going to include my favourite non-book item from 2011. I am admittedly biased here, but hey, this is my list. Shoegazing Notecards were put together by the gorgeous and always inspiring UPPERCASE magazine, based on a photo story they did in their magazine: UPPERCASE asked readers to send in photos of their feet. I was lucky enough to have a couple of photos in the spread... and now UPPERCASE partnered with Chronicle to put 20 of those photos onto notecards. Mine's the one on the red carpet with all the brightly coloured shoes. A friend of mine also has her feet on one of the notecards, wearing her roller derby skates. Here's the spread from the magazine - the notecards are also super cute and designed with classic UPPERCASE style.

So, that's my week in books for 2011. Looking forward to 2012!

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Intern Insights: Writing & Moustaches in November

by Janet
Art & Photography + Gift & Stationery + Vancouver / November 03, 2011

It's NOVEMBER! You know what that means: stores are breaking out the Christmas specials, Starbucks has their Candy Cane lattes and men grow their moustaches for a good cause (Movember).

It also is, in the literary and online world, National Novel Writing Month! NaNoWriMo is "30 days of literary abandon" and what better way to get started on your next novel than with a Moleskine and NaNoWriMo's own “Ready, Set, Novel!” (Chronicle Books)?

The spirit of writing a novel in a month isn't to churn out the next bestseller or Nobel prize winner, it's to connect online with fellow word-lovers and to find your creative self. Write with abandon for the next thirty days and you may be surprised at what turns up.

"Ready, Set, Novel!" is a great writing workbook. Whether you're a first time novelist or seasoned writer, it has a lot of great prompts and exercises to get your brain thinking about the world you're about to create.

My book is slowly filling up, it's one of two writing tools I always carry around. The other is my Reporter Moleskine.

Here are some great resources and tips to get you started on your masterpiece:

• The Snowflake Method - starting a novel and staring at a blank page can be daunting but with the Snowflake Method you can start with the big picture and work your way into the details.
• Creative Writing Exercises - some great prompts by Penn State University's creative writing course
• Nine Steps to a Novel - Author Garth Nix's 9 Steps
• Craft of Writing - Science Fiction Writers of America's blogs with many writing tips and strategies

"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down in front of a typewriter and bleed." —Ernest Hemingway

 

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Moleskine Star Wars

by Siobhan
Gift & Stationery / September 30, 2011

Moleskine.

Star Wars.

Two of your favourite things, am I right?

Well, now they have joined forces...

Read more details about Moleskine's Star Wars limited editions on Moleskine.com.

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What to expect… When you are expecting at Raincoast

by Liz
Fashion & Textiles + Gift & Stationery + Health & Wellness + Humour + Kids + Parenting / April 28, 2011

When you are having a baby, and work in an office, you can expect a number of things:

- Doors will be held

- Food is always  being offered

- Co-workers will discuss upcoming business while simultaneously rubbing your belly

But when you are having a baby in an office that deals with the distribution of top publishers from every genre, you can expect the extra gift of 'how to' and 'how not to' manuals of pregnancy and parenting to pile up on your desk (it's like little stork-elves appear in the night and hide baby books around my work area)

This is what has been delivered so far:

Pregnancy Planner: Essential Advice for Moms-to-Be (Chronicle Books)

- This is a great weekly planner that gives you facts, tips and hints about what is going on every week of your pregnancy. This week's interesting tidbit: My baby's teeth are already growing!

I'd Trade My Husband for a Housekeeper: Loving Your Marriage After the Baby Carriage (Chronicle Books)

- While I'm not ready to trade my husband in yet (thank goodness he cooks AND cleans!) this is an excellent book to keep on the bookshelf for after the babe is born and I need reminding of why I got into this whole mess in the first place.

After the Stork: The Couple's Guide to Preventing and Overcoming Postpartum Depression (New Harbinger)

- I can't really predict what will happen when our kid arrives but I can try to prepare in advance for what I can only imagine is an incredible emotional and physical upheaval. This book provides powerful tools for dealing with all the many changes that will come our way.

My Mom, Style Icon (Chronicle Books)

- Based on the awesome blog, Piper Weiss reminds us that our moms were people—young, hip, fashionable people—before we came along to monopolize their time. This book is an excellent reminder that having a baby doesn't mean I have to change who I am.

Mama's Big Book of Little Lifesavers: 398 Ways to Save Your Time, Money, and Sanity (Chronicle Books)

- As a first time parent any advice is appreciated. This book is full of hints and tips to help parents keep their sanity. Such as always carrying wipes, and if our child is messy eater don't let it stop us from eating out—just tip well! (as a former waitress I really like this one)

Fortune-Telling Book for Moms-to-Be (Chronicle Books)

- This is a fun little gift book full of ancient wisdom and old wives tales to decode everything from your baby's gender to their post-natal temperament. So far things I have learned are that tying knots during pregnancy can make labour difficult (note to self: give up macramé asap), and that I should eat avocados for a healthy and beautiful baby (but that a beautiful baby will make a homely adult... oh the dilemma...)

And I can't even get started on the baby name books we have. I'll save those for another post.

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New Passions

by Siobhan
Gift & Stationery / March 02, 2011

It's not quite the first day of Spring yet, but I'm tired of grey winter weather (and what's this about hurricanes predicted for BC today?!). I am ready for Springtime.

Spring is all about reawakening from our winter slumber, shaking off our grey-sky blues and reigniting our passions. So I was quite pleased to see that Moleskine has created a whole line of videos to showcase their new Passions Journals. Moleskine has added several new topics to their popular set of Passions Journals this season: Style, Travel, Gardening, Dog, Cat, and Baby.

Here are some videos that I hope will get you all fired up about your passion, whatever it may be.

Moleskine Passions Style Journal

 

Moleskine Passions Travel Journal

 

Moleskine Passions Gardening Journal

 

Moleskine Passions Dog Journal

 

Moleskine Passions Cat Journal

 

Moleskine Passions Baby Journal

You can also sample and download some of the interior pages from the Moleskine Passions Journals on Moleskine MSK.

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Valentine’s Day is a Week Away!

by Siobhan
Gift & Stationery / February 07, 2011

Consider this your official warning: Valentine's Day is one week from today. Now you have no excuse to forget! Here are some great V-day gift ideas, instead of the usual last-minute box of chocolates...

Books

Journals and Postcards

Coupon Books

 

(P.S. Also check out our kids blog for lovely books to share with your little ones.)

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Chapters-Indigo Relaunch Their Website

by Dan
Gift & Stationery / October 04, 2010

Canadian bookstore Chapters-Indigo relaunched their website at the weekend. Not only does the redesign look very pretty (see above!), but for the first time you can now buy gift and paper products online, including Moleskine notebooks and a beautiful new line of Indigo exclusive limited edition Moleskines:

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The Boho Index for Big Cities and Small

by Jamie
Design & Typography + Gift & Stationery / June 11, 2010

As the Canadian distributor for Moleskine, we are always looking out for information on people who love Moleskine. It is truism is that if you do creative work in your life you are probably a fan of Moleskine.

Richard Florida, theorist of the Creative Class, has a good post over at The Atlantic Monthly that discusses a recent study on the Boho Index for major North American cities (with populations over a million). Florida cites work from the Bohemian Index from the Martin Prosperity Institute that tracks cities with the highest percentage of working artists, musicians, writers, designers, and entertainers. Turns out that Canada is a Boho Haven.There are three Canadian cities in the Top 10; Vancouver is # 2, Toronto # 4 and Montreal rounds out the top ten. While flattering, none of this is hugely surprising.

But one of the major knocks against Creative Class theory is how can creative people actually afford to live in Creative Class cities? Most artists can't afford a fair-trade, organic, shade-friendly coffee at 49th Parallel in Kits let alone buy a house, condo or rent a single room apartment in Vancouver. This is what is cool about this index--it ranks smaller cities too, and here, Canada does very well: Halifax, Victoria, Peterborough, and Guelph all who have Boho Index values above the norm.

Lesson from all this? Grab your Moleskine Notebook and move to Peterborough, you will be very happy.

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