Bookish Adventures!
My campaign for touring the local bookshops has begun fairly well, with sarinda's help. (Having a cohort always helps in anything you choose to term a 'campaign.' Probably.) It also has given me a prompting to Not Be A Freaking Shut-In All The Damned Time, which is also a worthwhile campaign. Probably. Just in general, knowing a city through its independent booksellers seems to be a good way of knowing the soul of where you live, and also generally a low-pressure adventure.
Now begins my ticky list, so that by year's end I can see where I've been. In the course of sarinda's visits in the past few months, we've popped into the following:
Awesome Books being like the most wonderfully curated garage sale of books you would ever hope to visit. It's now opened up a secondary location, as part of some of the grant money floating around to revitalize downtown. I think perhaps that they have fleshed out their space a little more than they did on opening night, so a return visit might not be a bad idea. They also have some mighty fine taste in art to display.
Eljay's has a bit of a reputation for being the place to go in town if you are looking for secondhand scifi and pulp and general pop cultural oddities. Gorey first editions? They have them.That book that you lost in your last move and does not seem to exist anywhere else on the face of the earth? They probably have that too. Supremely friendly and knowledgeable staff, who will give you the run-down on how Peter S. Beagle is doing with his copyright issues because they know him personally? They have those as well. (Mr. Beagle is doing well and has resolved them as of this winter! Also, he will be going on a world tour in 2013, so hurrah for that!) While most of the store is devoted to used books, there are a few timely titles on display out front, along with some shelves of local talent. Eljay's also has chairs all over the place, in case you need to plop down and reacquaint yourself with a book. Chairs of greatness, like so:
Kards Unlimited is something that we found almost entirely by accident - I was charmed by the miniature fun fair at the bottom of their display window (shiny! twirly! lights!) and it was only after sarinda listed off about five of the titles of the non-shiny, non-twirly things that were also in the window that I noticed that it was a bookshop. Ok, calling it a 'bookshop' may be a little bit of a stretch. About a third of the store has books in it, the other two thirds are devoted to cards, wrapping paper, and novelty gifts. Fine. It's plumb in the middle of the university district; running a straight-up bookstore is not particularly feasible because you saw what happened to Borders, just a few streets over, amiright. What Kards Unlimited does really, really well is to sell series, in the most beautiful bindings you could want on your shelves. All of the individual art deco versions of P. G. Wodehouse with the matte dust jackets? They've got them. Edward Gorey reprints, glossy and new? They've got over a dozen different titles. The fancy cloth-bound edition of Jane Eyre? They've got it, and the rest of the fancy cloth-bound Brontë titles to keep it company. The fourth book in A Series of Unfortunate Events that you lent out and never got back? They've got a replacement for you. If you have any type of library OCD, or completist urges when it comes to your book collection, Kards Unlimited is your enabler. If physical books are to become a thing of the past or a specialty item, it only makes sense to me that you would want a book to also be a beautiful object. That is the reasoning behind Kards Unlimited having books at all, I think.
Elsewhere in our gadabouts, we passed Beyond Bedtime Books but did not go in. Partially because it looked closed and partially because there was so much more to see at the time. Poking around in ye olde crystal shoppe seemed much more entertaining, oohing and ahhhing over every piece of labradorite in the place, and giving in to the temptation to pick up a pyrite sphere to see how it balanced for contact juggling. (Verdict: astonishingly well. Palm spinning a couple of those would be kind of amazing.) Technically, ye olde crystal shoppe sells books, but more of an afterthought than anything. What they did have was a "Joseph Cornell Starter Kit," which made us titter a bit.
(The concept is an interesting gift idea, perhaps for a 10 year old niece that you want to introduce to the corrupting influence of the arts. But . . . buying it pre-made? Really? Does that not seem to be ever-so-slightly counter to the point of found-object artwork? Making up a d.i.y. version for a gift . . . a few choice oddments and artifacts . . . with a small book on Cornell tucked in with it . . . perhaps.)
((Eljay's would be happy to sell you a biography of Joseph Cornell to tuck in with it. Just sayin'.))
(((The zeitgeist arrow points to Joseph Cornell, by the way. It is a thing.)))
Knowing the character of each of these shops has been an interesting experience, one that helps me be mindful about which books I bring home with me and which ones I do not. Anyone who has ever had shelving woes sympathizes with this, I'm sure. The big box store model for selling books easily overshadows this aspect of bibliophilia, since the aim of big box stores is endless, mindless consumption and therefore profit. It's good to be back in a place that gives me the breathing space to get to know a book, and it's good to know where to go when I want a certain kind of book.† Definitely I'm looking forward to writing up more reports from the field, adding to my ticky list, taking pictures of their chairs.
Has anyone else done this sort of thing? Bookstores? Other kinds of specialty stores? Either as straight-up tourism or as a way to rediscover the place where you live? I feel like I can't possibly be the only person to do this, in all the cities in all the world.
† Although . . . I have yet to find anyone willing to sell me Urbane Fantasy and Fictional Science. Possibly the problem with that is that no one has written those kinds of books. Psshhhht. SELL ME BOOKS THAT DO NOT EXIST! I DEMAND IT!
This entry was originally posted at http://chronographia.dreamwidth.org/87396.html and has
comments. Please comment there using OpenID.
Now begins my ticky list, so that by year's end I can see where I've been. In the course of sarinda's visits in the past few months, we've popped into the following:
- Awesome Books
- Eljay's Used Books
- Kards Unlimited
Awesome Books being like the most wonderfully curated garage sale of books you would ever hope to visit. It's now opened up a secondary location, as part of some of the grant money floating around to revitalize downtown. I think perhaps that they have fleshed out their space a little more than they did on opening night, so a return visit might not be a bad idea. They also have some mighty fine taste in art to display.
Eljay's has a bit of a reputation for being the place to go in town if you are looking for secondhand scifi and pulp and general pop cultural oddities. Gorey first editions? They have them.That book that you lost in your last move and does not seem to exist anywhere else on the face of the earth? They probably have that too. Supremely friendly and knowledgeable staff, who will give you the run-down on how Peter S. Beagle is doing with his copyright issues because they know him personally? They have those as well. (Mr. Beagle is doing well and has resolved them as of this winter! Also, he will be going on a world tour in 2013, so hurrah for that!) While most of the store is devoted to used books, there are a few timely titles on display out front, along with some shelves of local talent. Eljay's also has chairs all over the place, in case you need to plop down and reacquaint yourself with a book. Chairs of greatness, like so:
Kards Unlimited is something that we found almost entirely by accident - I was charmed by the miniature fun fair at the bottom of their display window (shiny! twirly! lights!) and it was only after sarinda listed off about five of the titles of the non-shiny, non-twirly things that were also in the window that I noticed that it was a bookshop. Ok, calling it a 'bookshop' may be a little bit of a stretch. About a third of the store has books in it, the other two thirds are devoted to cards, wrapping paper, and novelty gifts. Fine. It's plumb in the middle of the university district; running a straight-up bookstore is not particularly feasible because you saw what happened to Borders, just a few streets over, amiright. What Kards Unlimited does really, really well is to sell series, in the most beautiful bindings you could want on your shelves. All of the individual art deco versions of P. G. Wodehouse with the matte dust jackets? They've got them. Edward Gorey reprints, glossy and new? They've got over a dozen different titles. The fancy cloth-bound edition of Jane Eyre? They've got it, and the rest of the fancy cloth-bound Brontë titles to keep it company. The fourth book in A Series of Unfortunate Events that you lent out and never got back? They've got a replacement for you. If you have any type of library OCD, or completist urges when it comes to your book collection, Kards Unlimited is your enabler. If physical books are to become a thing of the past or a specialty item, it only makes sense to me that you would want a book to also be a beautiful object. That is the reasoning behind Kards Unlimited having books at all, I think.
Elsewhere in our gadabouts, we passed Beyond Bedtime Books but did not go in. Partially because it looked closed and partially because there was so much more to see at the time. Poking around in ye olde crystal shoppe seemed much more entertaining, oohing and ahhhing over every piece of labradorite in the place, and giving in to the temptation to pick up a pyrite sphere to see how it balanced for contact juggling. (Verdict: astonishingly well. Palm spinning a couple of those would be kind of amazing.) Technically, ye olde crystal shoppe sells books, but more of an afterthought than anything. What they did have was a "Joseph Cornell Starter Kit," which made us titter a bit.
(The concept is an interesting gift idea, perhaps for a 10 year old niece that you want to introduce to the corrupting influence of the arts. But . . . buying it pre-made? Really? Does that not seem to be ever-so-slightly counter to the point of found-object artwork? Making up a d.i.y. version for a gift . . . a few choice oddments and artifacts . . . with a small book on Cornell tucked in with it . . . perhaps.)
((Eljay's would be happy to sell you a biography of Joseph Cornell to tuck in with it. Just sayin'.))
(((The zeitgeist arrow points to Joseph Cornell, by the way. It is a thing.)))
Knowing the character of each of these shops has been an interesting experience, one that helps me be mindful about which books I bring home with me and which ones I do not. Anyone who has ever had shelving woes sympathizes with this, I'm sure. The big box store model for selling books easily overshadows this aspect of bibliophilia, since the aim of big box stores is endless, mindless consumption and therefore profit. It's good to be back in a place that gives me the breathing space to get to know a book, and it's good to know where to go when I want a certain kind of book.† Definitely I'm looking forward to writing up more reports from the field, adding to my ticky list, taking pictures of their chairs.
Has anyone else done this sort of thing? Bookstores? Other kinds of specialty stores? Either as straight-up tourism or as a way to rediscover the place where you live? I feel like I can't possibly be the only person to do this, in all the cities in all the world.
† Although . . . I have yet to find anyone willing to sell me Urbane Fantasy and Fictional Science. Possibly the problem with that is that no one has written those kinds of books. Psshhhht. SELL ME BOOKS THAT DO NOT EXIST! I DEMAND IT!
This entry was originally posted at http://chronographia.dreamwidth.org/87396.html and has
comments. Please comment there using OpenID.