Who's Looking For Sweet Deals in Books?

Who's looking for great deals in books and is willing to take a short drive?

Sweet Briar Books will be closing its doors permanently on Dec. 24. The store is closing its doors on Dec. 24, and slashed its prices by 50 percent over the weekend.

Here are a few that stood out at the store: 

• Bon Appetit: Fast, Easy Fresh – List $34.95 / Sweet Briar $10.50
• Grimmer Tales: A Wicket Collection of Happily Never After Stories – List $16 / Sweet Briar $3.00
• Edward Gorey Deluxe Stationary Set – List $17.96 / Sweet Briar $4.50

I also saw a copy of Hemmingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls for $3, Christopher Moore’s Lamb for $4 and Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men for only $2.40. That's pocket change. 

Sweet Briar Books is located at 654 G St., in Davis. Check out the original story on Davis Patch about Sweet Briar Books going out of business below. 

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will be closing by the end of the year. A liquidation sale will begin next Friday, November 11.

The bookstore opened in June of 1996 and lasted more than 15 years. That’s an impressive run for a book store when you consider the rise of the Internet, the rise and fall of a mega bookstore chain like Borders and the overall business climate at the .

Sweet Briar’s owner Sharon Segal sent a brief and casual statement early this week notifying media of the closure.

“I would love to thank all my loyal customers for the encouragement and support over the years,” she said. “And I hope they will have fond memories of .”

This is the second bookstore to close since Davis Patch launched in late June. The first, obviously, was , which is now going to be .

So while the bookstore scene thins out, the .

Sweet Briar’s closing also speaks to a larger conversation about the G Street Shopping Center, which is about to get another vacant storefront. The center opened in late 60s and used to house a Safeway.

The shopping center’s staple is now the very successful Co-op, along with the fairly new Monticello Seasonal Cuisine. As you move north, the parking lot gets progressively emptier. 

Segal and I shared a few emails this week, but did not get into the details of the closure. She’s putting most of her efforts at the moment into the shutdown process, which will be completed before the year ends. 

Davis Patch recently ran a . The book explores the effects of recessions and how they have reshaped the country in the past. Often times, they speed up trends that were already in motion, the author says.

For example, bookstores were already at a difficult crossroads, and then the recession hit. Could this be the case with Sweet Briar, and even Borders?