Looking back at 1985 in Truro EDITOR’S NOTE:
Local book merchants report brisk winter sales
Colchester Capsule recounts stories, names and nuggets that appeared decades ago on the pages of the Chronicle Herald and the Central Nova Scotia Bulletin. The flashback runs each week in the Colchester Wire.
The old adage that books make the perfect Christmas gift was perhaps never more true than it was for Truro shoppers during the 1985 holiday season.
The two local outlets of major chains, W.H. Smith and Coles, both reported brisk sales during the NovemberDecember period.
“Our Christmas sales were way, way up over the same period last year,” said Ruth Watson, assistant manager at W.H. Smith.
Overall, the company’s Atlantic region stores recorded a 30 to 35 per cent increase over last year, she said.
“Art books are always big at Christmas but there’s no particular section that does well over the other.”
Watson said books remain popular gifts because they are easy to wrap, package and mail and are sold tax-free.
“It’s been a very good year
Sidney Sheldon’s If Tomorrow Comes was one of the bestselling fiction publications in 1985, Truro bookstores reported at the time. for books,” reported Patrice Kilpatrick, assistant manager at Coles. “We sold a lot more hard-cover books right up until Christmas Eve.”
In general, Coles’ holiday sales were probably equal to last year’s numbers, she said.
“The main reason people buy books is that they last a lifetime, really,” said Kilpatrick, noting hard-cover books are ideal for personal libraries and are durable enough to be
handed on to other people.
Watson said the favourite book for W.H. Smith’s shoppers in 1985 was The Canadian Encyclopedia, a three-volume set that was five years in the making and covers every aspect of Canada. Since the $175 set became available in September, the store has sold more than 60 sets.
Both Truro bookstores noted the book in greatest demand during the Christmas season was Straight from the Heart, the story of Liberal MP Jean Chretien.
“We sold more than 100 after selling out our first shipment … about 150 in total,” Watson said.
The World of Robert Bateman was regarded as the big art book of the year, despite its $50 price tag. A followup to the best-selling Art of Robert Bateman, it contains 94 new images of birds and mammals in their natural habitats.
Sidney Sheldon’s If Tomorrow Comes and Jean M. Auel’s The Mammoth Hunters were rated highly among fiction publications.
Watson said the top books in individual categories included Canadian favourite Company of Adventurers by Peter Newman and, in sports, Howard Cosell’s I Never Played the Game.
Among other popular nonfiction books were Iacocca, which has been a big seller for more than a year, Elvis and Me, and Frank Sobey:
The Man and the Empire, by Harry Bruce.
Kilpatrick said books on Canada, such as photography collections, make for popular gifts to send to other parts of the world.
Photographic essays of Atlantic Canadian subjects, including Atlantic Wildflowers and collections by Sherman Hines, were local treasures, as were Bruce’s A Basket of Apples and Andy MacDonald’s Tell Pa I’m Dead.