Reading, Reading, Reading

WELCOME BACK TO READING, READING, READING!!!!!

Guess what today is?!

December 8, 2018, marks the FIVE YEAR anniversary of the creation of Reading, Reading, Reading! I cannot believe that I am still writing on this book blog for all of you amazing people to read! Reading has always been a huge passion of mine, and I am so thankful that so many of you come back to read all of my blog posts. I am also very thankful to all of the publishing houses that I receive books from, and that trust me to read and review their books in a meaningful way. I am forever thankful for this opportunity.

In order to truly express my gratitude, I have decided to do a giveaway!

YOU will have the chance to win one $10 gift card for my favourite place to buy books… BOOK OUTLET!!! This giveaway is open to anyone in the world (just make sure that Book Outlet ships to your country before you enter the giveaway please).

Here are the ways that you can win:

You MUST follow me on either my Instagram (@ReadingReadingReading) AND/OR my Twitter (@ReadingReadingR). After you do that, you must come back to THIS post and comment the handle of the social media account you used to follow me so I can make sure you entered the giveaway correctly.

In addition to the mandatory entry on either Instagram or Twitter, you can add another entry into this giveaway by following my blog either via your WordPress account, or via your own email. You will only get emails for my new posts, and not anything else. If you do either of these things, please COMMENT ON THIS POST WITH THE SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNT USERNAME AND PLATFORM THAT YOU ORIGINALLY ENTERED MY GIVEAWAY ON so I can count your additional entry to your profile!

This giveaway will be running from December 8, 2018 (the day I’m posting this) until January 8, 2019. I will be announcing the winner on a blog post on January 13, 2019, and will be contacting you via your social media account (so make sure you check your DM’s on that day).

Thank you all SO much for an amazing five years, I’m so thankful for each and everyone of you!

If you have any questions about the giveaway, feel free to make an additional comment and I will get back to you ASAP!

Good Night Book Owls!

FINE PRINT:

1. No purchase of any sort necessary to win.

2. Following @ReadingReadingReading on Instagram, or @ReadingReadingR on Twitter is the mandatory entry. An additional entry will be added for anyone who follows me via their WordPress account or personal email address.

3. Giveaway is open to anyone internationally as long as Book Outlet ships to the country in which you currently live. Check this to find out.

4. The duration of this giveaway is specified in this post.

5. The number of eligible entries in this giveaway is specified in this post.

6. The giveaway prize is specified within in this post.

7. The number of entries received and total prizes available determines the odds of winning.

8. Winners must comply with all terms and conditions of these official rules, and winning is contingent upon fulfilling all requirements.

9. The giveaway winner will be notified by via the social media account they used to enter.

10. If a potential winner of any prize cannot be contacted, fails to reply to the notification email within the required time period {two weeks}, or prize is returned as undeliverable, potential winner forfeits prize. 

11. In the event that a prize winner is disqualified for any reason, the prize will be awarded to an alternate winner by random drawing.

12. Participation constitutes entrant’s full and unconditional agreement to these Official Rules and aponsor’s and administrator’s decisions, which are final and binding in all matters related to the promotion. Winning a prize is contingent upon fulfilling all requirements set forth herein.

13. Void where prohibited by law.

Welcome back to Reading, Reading, Reading!

My current favourite mall called Hillcrest has been getting a huge “Glow-Up” over the past year. They have added a ton of new stores including Old Navy, Lindt, and Honey, just to name a few! However, my favourite and most anticipated addition was the new Indigo (the biggest book department store in Canada)! It opened up last Monday, and over this passed weekend I visited it for the first time! The actual “Grand Opening” is actually this coming Saturday, December 1. With every purchase you make at Indigo @ Hillcrest on Saturday, you will receive a free book tote. Also, for the first 100 people that enter the store, you will get a free $10 gift card upon entry!

The outside of the store was nothing fancy, it was just the logo for Indigo and IndigoKids.

The inside of the store was absolutely BEAUTIFUL. It was basically just different open rooms that have items from categories/themes (ie. YA books, Adult Books, Paper/Stationery, etc.).

On the right side as soon as you walk in, Indigo features some Fiction and Non-Fiction bestsellers, which happened to be 40% off thanks to their Black Friday sale(s)!

Like I said, there were a ton of great Black Friday sales that Indigo created, and many of them were featured on tables with beautiful center pieces for the holidays!

Probably my most favourite part of the store were bookshelves with labels on them that featured some of the best books from the past few years. This one features “Heather’s Picks”. To read more about Heather and her book picks, click here!

Indigo also had a lot of 40% off items that were specifically for the holiday time. These include socks, hot chocolate, and mugs!

Indigo creates and purchases a lot of kinds of cards, including Birthday, Anniversary, New Child, and more! All of the boxed holiday cards were (are!) 40% off.

Near the very front of the store, there is a section called “The Joy of the Table”. This section area features all things related to cooking/baking/food. All of the books and accessories featured were so pretty and nice to walk around!

Indigo is home to some of the coziest home accessories, including candles and pillows! These were on full display at the new store.

There was a huge section dedicated to picture frames and home goods (coffee table books, records, pictures, DIY shelves, etc.). This was one of my favourite sections to walk and peek through, plus it was my parents favourite too (yes, that’s them – hi Mom and Dad, I know you’re reading this!)!

As in all bookstores, “The Paper Shop” was another one of my favourite areas! I am such a sucker for cute stationery and planners, so The Paper Shop always sucks me in no matter what time of year!

“A Room of Her Own” was a very cool new sections implemented in Indigo. It featured room decor that was more feminine, as well as some gender neutral items.

“The Wellness Shop” is a great place to look for Self-Help books, as well as items that will better your sense of self.

As always, with snow and cold weather comes hockey season! While you should all know that I am a baseball kinda gal, I still enjoy the hockey season! Indigo had a lot of great hockey accessories to go along with some of their hockey themed books, and a few of them can be featured in the picture.

Even though board games are not as nearly popular as they have been in the past, there are still a very fun way to have lots of entertainment without the use of technology! Indigo featured a great variety in their “Games and Puzzles” section.

Both on the walls and on tables, Indigo featured a lot of bestselling and new Non-Fiction books.

Near the back of the store close to “The Paper Shop” was a huge section of all kinds of Magazines, both national and international.

And of course, my favourite section was the Young Adult section of the store! While I didn’t get too many pictures of this section, I was wandering in this area for several minutes, and I must say Indigo did a great job with it!

Thrillers are an extremely popular genre in the book world, and are one of my personal favourites! A ton of popular Thrillers were featured on the $15 table, which is a fantastic deal for books that can retail over $25 CAD!

Since this is a bookstore after all, there were millions upon millions of general fiction books, that fall into several different genres. Some were featured on specialty tables, while others were spread out onto the magnificently large shelves!

Along with “Heather’s Picks”, there were also many “Staff Picks” featured all around the store. All of these books have an easy to remove customized sticker, put on by the employee that recommended the book!

What I liked and appreciated most about this Indigo in comparison to other Chapters/Indigos as well as other book stores was the fact that there was a lot of open space, which made it easy to maneuver and walk around, even when there were a lot of people walking around at the same time.

Indigo is nationally known for its phenomenal section of Kids books, and this store had an entire section just for kids to pick books and sit around! They also had a large American Girl area, which was pretty neat.

And that, my friends, was the Alyssa Cohen edition of a virtual tour of the BRAND NEW INDIGO IN HILLCREST MALL! I hope you all enjoyed this, it took quite a while to put together, but I LOVE the way it turned out! I am NOT getting paid to post this blog post, so if you feel like doing a good deed, feel free to share this with Indigo in whichever way you’d like!

Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram and Twitter for exclusive blog post sneak peeks and to be updated on what I am currently reading!

Good Night Book Owls!

P.S. There is no way I could leave this new store empty handed! Indigo had 50% off select box sets, so I picked up the box set of “A Darker Shade of Magic” by V.E. Schwab! I have heard incredible things about this series, and the box set was an absolute bargain! I posted a picture of it on my Instagram, which you can see below!

View this post on Instagram

I hope that you all had a fantastic #Thanksgiving and #BlackFriday! I just made my first ever visit to the new @chaptersindigo in @shop_hillcrest! It was STUNNING. I will have a new blog post with a TON of pictures all about it sometime in the coming week! I recently made a huge @bookoutlet purchase from their #BlackFriday sale, and I didn’t want to buy any more books until literally 2019 because I bought so many… however, that didn’t exactly happen! #ChaptersIndigo has some PHENOMENAL sales going on this weekend, including 50% off (select?) box sets! I have been wanting to read the #TheShadesOfMagic series FOREVER, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. Fortunately, the box set of all three books was 50% off, so it ended up costing me just over $30!!! I’m SO excited to start this series. Have you any of you read it yet? I’d love to hear your thoughts! #bookblogger #yabooks #bookstagram #bookworm #booklover #boxset #booksale #bookoutlet #chapters #indigo #canadianbookblogger

A post shared by Alyssa Cohen (@readingreadingreading) on Nov 24, 2018 at 3:28pm PST