Voting is open once again for CityHub Victoria’s most-loved business. Last year our amazing customers voted us #1 and we would love to repeat that this year. If you would like to show your support head over to and cast a vote for Bolen Books.

As many of you have noticed, Bolen’s has shrunk, albeit temporarily, thanks to that construction wall that now bisects our store. This has prompted a mixture of concern that we’re shrinking and, as a result of all the banging and sawing coming from there, curiosity towards what the heck we’re building in there (to paraphrase Tom Waits). Finally, one of us was brave enough to disregard the signs saying “Construction Workers Only” and “Do Not Enter” to snap a few progress shots.

Looks like progress is being made!

The B.C. Book Prizes were awarded over the weekend and Bolen Books would like to congratulate all the winners.

Bill Gaston won the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize for his latest novel The World, Geoff Meggs and Rod Mickleburgh received the Hurber Evans Non-Fiction Prize for The Art of the Impossible and Shelley Fralic won the Bill Duthie Bookseller’s Choice Award for Making Headlines: 100 years of The Vancouver Sun(all of which are in stock at Bolen Books at the moment.

A complete list of the winners can be found at the B.C. Book Prize website

Success by 6 Early Years Awards 2013. Favourite Family Friendly Retail Store

When you own and operate an amazing store like Bolen Books I am rewarded everyday by having amazing experiences with customers. Small interactions, smiles from happy browsers and spenders along with piles of books beside people making the right choice, let me know that we are creating the kind of store Victoria needs. Today something exceptional happened. We won an award presented to us by Success by 6. The award honours us for having the most family friendly retail store in Victoria!. Some of the comments that were read aloud to the breakfast crowd at the Oak Bay Beach Hotel, were so heart warming and reaffirming that it made me realize Bolen Books is more than just a family friendly store where you can buy books, it’s something to do with your family. I could not be more proud.
- Samantha Holmes

The Dark, a joint effort by the shadowy sensation Lemony Snicket and the darkly delightful Jon Klassen offers a brand new take on an old fear. Laszlo is afraid of the dark that lives in his cellar and creeps out through his house at night, enveloping all the safe familiar things and shrouding every room in blackness. Then comes the night when the dark arrives at Laszlo’s bed…what happens next? You’ll just have to screw up your courage and read on. Possibly the finest book on overcoming fear written in the last decade, this book should be read and shared by all who’ve ever wondered—and worried—about things that go bump in the night.

Fresh from his desk and on the air, our very own Robert Wiersema (yes, me) was on CFAX 1070 this morning, talking books.

He talked about:

River of Stars – Guy Gavriel Kay
There are still tickets left for our event with Kay, this Thursday at 7:30 at St. Ann’s Academy!

Double Feature – Owen King
Give Me Everything You Have – James Lasdun
The Age of Miracles – Karen Thompson Walker
The Prisoner of Heaven – Carlos Ruis Zafon