@emmdub Thanks for helping last Saturday..we got 19th out of more than 200 teams. You'll be missed at the store. Wish you the best. -Julio
about 2 hours ago from twhirl
Thanks for helping us last Saturday..we got 19th out of more than 200 teams. Also..you'll be missed at the store. Wish you the best. -Julio
about 2 hours ago from twhirl
Capitol Hill Books said goodbye Saturday (sort of) to staff star Meghan. Like MJ, Meghan’s legacy will be shined and polished in the wake of her leaving.
Here are some of her achievements:
Meghan has been employee of the month a shocking, unprecedented 136.5 times.
She invented our patented subliminal audio track hidden within our seemingly innocent music that convinces people their eyelashes will catch fire if they do not purchase at least three books they did not come in for.
On March 3, 1875, Meghan successfully lobbied the Congress of the United States of America to ratify specific requirements for the state of Colorado to obtain statehood, an act that would eventually be signed by then-President U. S. Grant on August 1, 1876, just 28 days after the United States Centennial (thus giving the state the moniker “The Centennial State”).
17 years later, she lead the people of the State of Colorado to be the first state to grant women the right to vote, clearly paving the way for Capitol Hill Books to put in its controversial “No Boyz Allowed” rule that stayed in place until the fall of 2003 when they realized the golf section was not selling at a rate that was financially desirable.
Her most famous achievement, and the one she will be remembered for the most in pop consciousness, was being Michael Jackson until 1992, when she allowed a crazed fan to take her place so that she could more acutely concentrate on the operations of the book store and, of course, on her eccentric modeling and trapeze artist careers.
This is why Capitol Hill Books now wishes Meghan a safe journey. A nostalgic photo montage of your time here is in the works. We promise.
Posted in Uncategorized on 06/23/2009 04:34 pm by CapHillBooks
June 24 is Bike to Work Day
In light of Bike to Work Day June 24, we would like to talk about how our workers get to the job every day.
Of our six employees, two ride bikes (Meghan and Tom), two walk (Jae and Julio), one takes the bus (Ben) and one drives (Holly). But, hey, it’s a Prius!…
While Bike to Work Day is a great event, it’s main effect will hopefully be to show people how easy it is to get around Denver on a bicycle (or public transit and a bicycle if you are far away). The city is flat, and the drivers are (relatively) friendly towards bikers. Sure most our employees have the advantage of living closely, but it is remarkable how far you can get with just a bike without even breaking a sweat.
This article about Robert Hurst (who’s books about bicycle commuting are nearly always out of stock and on our want list) is about the same idea. Every day should be bike-to-work day!
Posted in Uncategorized on 06/04/2009 03:01 pm by CapHillBooks
Here is Wally, the cute and precocious beagle of a great customer of ours. Whenever he comes, everyone in the store goes gaga over him and Wally loves the attention. He also loves the doggie treats we keep behind the counter. Wally is a wonderfully well-behaved dog, who rarely (well usually) grumbles when he is inside the store. He usually comes in right after playing with the squirrels in Civic Center Park, so he is laconic and happy at Capitol Hill Books.
If you have a well-behaved dog, feel free to bring him or her inside the store. We have some doggie treats for them if they would like some and they’ll certainly get lots of attention from our customers and staff. Just make sure they are on a leash and under your control at all times or unfortunately they will have to leave.
We also have 169 books on pets at the store, so if you need any help on choosing, training or taking care of your pet, we probably have that too.
Tom plays the ukulele (among other things). He moved to Denver in August 2008 from Kansas City, where he wrote features for the Kansas City Star for a summer as an intern. Before that, he went to college at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois.
Originally from St. Louis, Missouri, Tom has determined that Denver could not be more different from his home city and still be in the USA. Denver’s streets mostly make sense, the weather is mostly dry and beautiful, and there are far fewer murders (though, to be fair, STL isn’t as dangerous as people make it out to be…). He co-founded Big Muddy Records in 2004.
You might best know Tom as the guy who made this Web site. If some of the code is not entirely valid, that is probably because he has no idea what he’s doing. But you can hardly tell!
In his free time, Tom might be riding his bike, reporting a story (amateur journalism!) or plotting the collapse of capitalism.
The second part in a series of profiles about our wonderful staff. This week: Julio
A life-long Denverite, Julio can tell you where the 15 meets the 0 and where Celebrity Sports Center used to be. He has a knack of knowing lots of useless facts, which isn’t actually so useless for him since he regularly wins bar tabs at pub quizzes.
He reads a lot of very random stuff, especially science fiction and nonfiction that doesn’t involve a lot of footnotes. His favorite authors include William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, Donna Tartt, Michael Pollan, and Orson Scott Card.
He also enjoys biking, journalism (check out his transit blog RTD Watch), gardening, trying out new foods, outdoor activities and anything involving trivia.
Here is the first of some very short profiles to introduce our wonderful and friendly staff.
Jae showing off her hard rock wardrobe
First up is Jae, a longtime clerk here at Capitol Hill Books who always has a big smile and an uncanny ability to attract free food from some of the Colfax regulars. She is a bohemian chick that you will often find hanging out with the other cool kids at the Mercury Cafe. Come in and say hello to Jae. She’ll be usually behind the front counter chatting and laughing with our customers.
Posted in Uncategorized on 05/12/2009 11:32 am by CapHillBooks
Clearly the best part about having a searchable database of all our books is the ability to find fun factoids about our book collection (these figures do not include bargain books, of which we have hundreds). So here we go:
We have over 30,000 books in the store at any one time
Over 27,000 of those books are under $10
The median price is $6.50
Only six books in the store were written by someone named “Hank”
10,000 of the books are hardcover
We have 62 books about books (not counting criticism and author biographies)
We have 62 books by Jonathan Kellerman, 83 by Tom Clancy, 58 by James Patterson, 63 by Robert Ludlum and 83 by Stephen King. The obvious question is, who would win in a fight, Stephen King or Tom Clancy? If a fictional F-16 fighter jet carrying a Navy Seal on a super-secret covert operation crashes in the woods, will anybody buy it for $4?
Over 23,000 books are in “Very good” condition
We have 250 books about Colorado, 11 about Feng Shui, 167 about pets and 13 about UFOs (non-fiction)
240 books have “day” in the title, compared to 250 with “night”. Our collection is truly in balance with the natural world
Posted in Uncategorized on 05/09/2009 11:27 am by CapHillBooks
Hanging in the clearance corner
In any economy, it’s a good idea to save money. Since our books are already discounted, you save money by choosing Capitol Hill Books over a new bookstore.
However, Capitol Hill Books has an even cheaper way to get your book jones on. Our clearance corner has a wide variety of books in good condition for as little as $.50 to $2. And its good stuff too: lots of hardcover mysteries, and interesting nonfiction books.
You can check out our window displays while browsing the carts
And if you just need a book but only got a tiny bit of dough, be sure to check out the carts we have just outside of the store. Paperbacks are only a quarter, and hardcovers just 50 cents. And since the money from those books goes to local nonprofits, you can feel great inside and out knowing that your book purchase is helping others in the community.
Posted in Uncategorized on 05/08/2009 11:06 am by CapHillBooks
Aside from selling books from this web site and to walk in customers, we also list on Amazon. We sell several books every day and send them all over the country. And for every book we sell, Amazon takes a disgusting commission (seeing as how they do nothing but include our listing).
About a month ago, they decided that every morning, they would send a giant list of 20 or so books that did not go on the site for some stupid reason or another. And sometimes, they contradict themselves and we go nearly mad trying to figure out what they want us to do to list a book for them.
Here’s an example:
I want to list the following book.
Note the “Plastic Comb” binding note. So under binding in our inventory program, I put “Plastic Comb”.
In the morning, I get this error message: “The data you provided for [1408046] does not match the list of valid values. Please select a valid value from the Data Definitions and resubmit.”
Well, after much wrestling (and because I can’t let a problem go until I get to the bottom of it), I figure out that I need to type “plastic_comb”, not “Plastic Comb” like they list on their own site.
This is just one reason why Amazon is terrible and going the way of eBay.
Here’s a wide shot. We certainly have a lot of books (this is only part of one of our three rooms). The woman reading was nice to stay in the photo after we asked if she minded being on the web site. If you want to be on our site, let us know, and if someone has a camera we’ll get you in a funny pose and put it up. We have no shame.
Ok, so it's a little blurry up close.
Now you feel inspired, don't you?
And to end on a relatively dumb note:
New decoration in the Science section. We have tons of random decorations (and even more hidden in the basement, waiting for the right time to come out).
