Duthie Books’ annual sale starts tomorrow and runs until the 28th of January. 20% off all stock, so it’s worth making the pilgrimage to the sole remaining Duthie Books store, at 2239 West 4th in Kitsilano.

I used to wait all year for this one; that’s how I came to own my (treasured, but now somewhat outdated) Times Atlas of the World, which a while back made my list of “five books that mean a lot to me.”

Duthie Books used to be a formidable force in bookselling in Vancouver, with several outlets downtown, another on 10th Avenue, and smaller ones at the Vancouver Film School and in the arcade of the VPL main branch; they even had the BC Ferry concession for a while. They tried bravely (if not wisely) to go head to head with Chapters when “big box” book retailing hit Vancouver back in the early 1990s, but the necessary deep pockets just weren’t deep enough.