News From the Front

WINSTON CHURCHILL AND BANNED BOOKS

To a bookseller especially nothing is more noxious than the banning of books. This week has been Banned Books Week, a commemoration and a celebration of books banned from schools and libraries in this country. We didn’t want to let it go without sharing our adamant support for the banning of the word “Banned” where books are concerned.

QUEEN ELIZABETH II ~1926-2022~

Winston Churchill knew “Lilibet” from infancy. On the occasion of Her Majesty’s State Funeral (the first state funeral since Churchill’s own) , we mourn her loss through his eyes.

A LOST “ROARING LION”

The case of the missing Karsh is still unsolved. And, no, we don’t know where it is. If perchance,  you have not yet heard, a signed original print of Yousuf Karsh’s immortal World War II portrait photograph of a scowling Winston Churchill (“The Roaring Lion”) has disappeared from a wall at the Château Laurier hotel in Ottawa, Canada, where it hung for 24 years; replaced by a forgery

CHURCHILL IN AUGUST

 August was always a hot month for Winston Churchill, historically. Even his vacations burned bright. In the heat of, and the heart of, this month we celebrate all that Winston Churchill accomplished in August.

WINSTON CHURCHILL AND THE POWER OF CLEAR, COLD, FACTS

As England’s soon-to-be-Ex-Prime Minister (and our one-time-in-store headliner) sinks slowly into the blistering heat of a climate-changed English summer, while our former-President (and longtime down-the-block neighbor, who never ever visited), simmers in the soup of his own cooked-up election lies, we turn for a cool draught to Winston Churchill…

A CHURCHILL DOODLE FOR YOU

Sometimes you just need a good doodle. The times they are apalling.  But a good doodle, especially one from Winston Churchill, can at least make you smile. Winston Churchill was a compulsive doodler.

THE QUEEN’S PLATINUM JUBILEE

We just wanted to take a moment to wish the Queen a jolly Jubilee.

Of course, Winston Churchill knew “Lilibet” from birth…

CHARTWELL BOOKSELLERS’ 39TH BIRTHDAY PAINTING

We have decided to commemorate our 39th (“Jack Benny”) Birthday with a diverting keepsake — a limited, original Winston Churchill paint-by-numbers portrait. Partial proceeds will be donated to the Ukrainian Safety Fund of the International & European Federations of Journalists .

HAPPY 39TH BIRTHDAY CHARTWELL BOOKSELLERS!

Thirty-nine years ago, on April 11, 1983, Chartwell Booksellers opened for business, in the arcade of the Park Avenue Plaza building here in NYC.

We have reached our “Jack Benny Birthday.”

DUNKIRK HERE AND NOW

 “We will not give up, and we will not lose. We will fight till the end — at sea, in the air, we will continue fighting for our land whatever the cost. We will fight in the forests, in the fields, on the shores, in the streets.”
-President Volodymyr Zelensky

CHURCHILL’S IDES OF MARCH

On March 5, 1946, at the invitation of President Harry Truman, Winston Churchill delivered an address at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, that introduced the world to the chilling phrase: “Iron Curtain.” The horror of the ongoing Soviet assault in the Ukraine reinvokes its resonance.

CHURCHILL IN FEBRUARY

Winston Churchill’s “Wilderness Years” began with his exit as Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1929 and ended with his return as First Lord of the Admiralty confronting impending war in 1939. Two rarities that we very recently acquired bracket this extraordinary period and both happen to have February connections. As we traverse February, the shortest, yet ever-seemingly endless month, we thought we would share them with you.