What Does Make a Bookstore?

A very old post on bookstores, "What Makes a Bookstore?", at The Millions (A Blog About Books) got me to thinking about my own experience at the bookstore a few days ago.

When it comes to hanging out, it's hard to beat the chains. Your nearest Barnes and Noble probably has dozens of plush chairs and couches where you can sit for as long as you want. The stores are vast wide open spaces with a controlled climate and a bit of piped in music wafting just overhead. The shopper can make a day of it, grabbing a snack and a coffee from the cafe and lounging through the uncrowded weekday afternoon...likewise if you need to pick up a specific title, but don't expect to walk away with anything unexpected from these forays. Don't plan for a literary discovery.

I’m a very frequent shopper at Borders. There are at least three on my way home and, as a Borders preferred member, I enjoy saving 10 and 20 percent when I can. In addition to that, I can usually find what I’m looking for in less than five minutes, even in the smallest Borders and I like making an afternoon of it, lounging in the “plush chairs” and the “wide open spaces.” Theoretically, I could do this at the library but the libraries in D.C. are so unesthetically depressing that I try to grab what I need and get out as soon as possible. A few days ago though, I went into Borders with no particular book in mind, looking to be pleasantly surprised I suppose, and found only...more of the same. All of the prominently displayed titles were books I’d seen on bestseller list after bestseller list for last two years and I thought, “Is this all the book world has to offer right now?”

I left soon after, empty-handed and disappointed, which is my own fault really. I should have known better than to expect to be pleasantly surprised at Borders. Needless to say, my recent experience and The Millions old post have reminded me as to the error of my ways. It’s not on my way home, but I don’t care; I’m going out of my way tonight to make a beeline to the nearest indie bookstore, the amazing Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe. I can hardly wait. And I'm pledging here and now that from here on out I will do all of my one-stop book shopping at independent bookstores, whenever and wherever possible. It's time I started doing my part in keeping the dying breed of independent bookstores alive.

To the Library and Beyond

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine remarked that, for someone who reads as much as I do, I don’t go to the library very often. I told him what I tell everyone who asks: I don’t go to libraries because they always want their books back. I’m possessive about my books, especially books I like, and I don’t like having to give them back. It’s selfish I know, but after having accumulated $30 dollar fines on a number of occasions, I’d decided that everyone would be better served – my pocketbook and honest library patrons alike – if I got my books from the bookstore where, for a set price, my books could languish on my shelves as long as I liked.

My pocketbook, however, has of late been rather bare so this past weekend I bit the bullet, promised to be a good library patron, and applied for a new library card. I’d forgotten how much going to the library is like being a kid in a candy store with license to get whatever and however much I liked. Oh, the bounty I escaped with:

Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell
Tokyo: Cancelled by Rana Dasgupta
Nice Big American Baby by Judy Budnitz
Heat by Bill Buford
Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage by Alice Munro
And a bunch of plays by Shakespeare that I haven’t read in a while or ever (King Lear, As You Like It, and the Henry VI plays to name a few).


Habitually, I read the first chapter of any new book I acquire. It satisfies my curiosity and allows me to finish books I’ve already committed to reading. So I spent a very pleasurable afternoon dipping my toe into a new book before flitting off to a another pool. Here’s a sampling of the first sentence from a few of the books:

“One night last summer, all the killers in my head assembled on stage in Massachusetts to sing show tunes.” –- Assassination Vacation

“Not so long ago, in one of those small, carefree lands that used to be so common but which now, alas, are hardly to be found, there was a prince whose name was Ibrahim.” -- Tokyo: Cancelled (Alright, this isn’t exactly the first sentence in the book. Tokyo: Cancelled is modeled after The Canterbury Tales. This is the first sentence in the first story “The Tailor.”)

“There was a woman who had seven sons and she was happy. Then she had a daughter.” -- from “Where We Come From” in Nice Big American Baby. I’m not going to give away the story but someone please tell me: is it even possible for a woman to carry a baby inside for her for four years and not – I don’t know – die?

"Years ago, before the trains stopped running on so many of the branch lines, a woman with a high, freckled forehead and a frizz of reddish hair came into the railway station and inquired about shipping furniture." -- Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marraige

“A human being is primarily a bag for putting food into; the other functions and faculties may be more godlike, but in point of time they come afterwards.” – Quoted by George Orwell, from The Road to Wigan Pier as preface to Heat

Oh, You Lazy Reader, You

Alright, I admit it. I haven’t been reading as much as I should be, or even as much as I’d like to. I’ve just been so darn tired lately. As soon as I get off work, all I want to do sleep. Even on the weekends when I have absolutely no commitment to be anywhere else other than in my apartment all I want is sleep. This past Saturday I did manage to clean and wash clothes and stay awake long enough to see “300" (it’s what you’d expect if you don’t expect too much) but Sunday passed in a narcoleptic haze. I couldn’t stay awake even when I tried, and I did try.

Of course, now I’m beginning to feel the symptoms of reading withdrawal plus I’m getting incredibly behind. It’s also taking me an incredibly long time to finish anything, even for me. Even I know I’ve been working on the same four books for entirely too long. So I’ve promised myself to put some pep back into my biblioaddict step. So, my friends, inspired by The Guardian’s list of unfinished books (http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/), I’ve decided that there are a few books on my own reading list that I just need to let go of. The two that will be biting the dust this week are David Eggars’ You Shall Know Our Velocity and Michael Chabon’s McSweeny’s Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales.

You Shall Know Our Velocity wasn’t a bad book but I found it entirely too depressing. If I want to feel that depressed, I’ll throw myself off a cliff. As for Chabon’s Mammoth Treasury, well let’s just say, I didn’t find the tales very thrilling at all. The concept, like that of Collapse, was great but the execution was underwhelming. I won’t toss it into my Bookmooch pile yet but it’s going on the waiting list.

Mailbox Goodies

I've just returned home to find a pleasant surprise in the mail - a complete catalog of the classical literature published by New York Review of Books. In the interest of full-disclosure, technically this catalogue doesn't belong to me. It belongs to the previous tenant - D. Williams, wherever you are - but since it was so nicely lodged in what is now my mailbox I saw no need to give it back. I mean really, could I be so cruel as to banish it to some gray, nondesript postal warehouse of unclaimed mail? Not even I. Not even I. Besides, does flipping through a catologue qualify as stealing someone else's mail? It's not like I a took a knife to an envelope or held it over a kettle of hot steam. If flipping the pages of a catologue or a magazine is stealing, then I think my mailman and I should have a chat. Maybe I could bribe him. I am hard up for cash right now...

But I was talking about my catologue, not defending myself to the likes of you. Now, I don't claim to be familiar with every book that rolls off the presses these days [who could be?] but I do pride myself in being at least remotely familiar with the classics, even if I haven't read half of them - you know, Dickens, Orwell, Faulkner, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Wolff, and the the like. But, ahem, I'm pretty chagrined to say I've never heard of the classics in this catalogue. Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker, The Diary of a Rapist by Evan S. Connell, The Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton...who the heck are they? I've never heard of them or their books a day in my life! Is there an alternative list of classics circulating about or am I just being completely oblivious? Come now NYRB, why not just call it what it is - a bunch of previously out-of-print books that deserve a second chance at canonization?

Some of the titles do sound interesting enough, like The Tenants of Moonbloom by Edward Lewis:

Norman Moonbloom's brother, a slumlord, hires him to collect rent in the buildings he owns in Manhattan. Making his rounds, Moonbloom confronts a wild assortment of brilliantly described urban characters, among them a gay jazz musician with a sideline as a gigolo, a Holocaust survivor, and a brilliant young writer modeled on James Baldwin. He finds he is drawn, in spite of his best judgment, into a desperate attempt to improve their lives.

Why "in spite of his best judgment" though? Because the "urban" characters are irredeamable or because Moonbloom realizes he is in no position to improve someone else's life? I've always thought that to improve someone else's life for the them was rather presumptuous. But before I presume too much, I should probably save my questions until after I've read the book.

Coincidental Circumstances

Life is so often filled with the strangest coincidences that for a skeptic like me, who believes that there is no such thing as a grand plan for any of us, the unexpected intersections that occur out of the infinite possibilities of life are endlessly amazing. For reasons which I fail to remember at the moment (and probably never will), about a month ago, I decided I wanted a collection of essays written by David Foster Wallace and added both A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again and Consider the Lobster to my wish list on Borders.com.

Then a few days ago, while on a business trip to Baltimore (that sounds so sophisticated, doesn’t it – “business trip”, ha, ha) I went into the most beautiful Barnes & Noble bookstore I’ve ever seen. Initially, I went in to just look around but, since I can’t go into a bookstore without leaving with something in my hand, I decided that it would be a good time to get a few things from my wish list. After an hour or so of browsing (for such a large bookstore, its selection was fairly poor), I finally went in search of David Foster Wallace. With a little assistance from a Barnes & Noble saleswoman, I found the last copy of A Supposedly Fun Thing on the shelf, its edges wrinkled and looking rather pitiful.

In any case, as I often do, at the last minute I decided I just didn’t feel like spending $13.95 on Mr. Wallace. Instead, I bought a romance novel I don’t care to name, The Best American Science Writing 2006, and Don’t Get Too Comfortable by David Rakoff.

Now, if you’ve been paying attention to my posts, and I’m wise enough to know that no one actually does, but if you have, you’d know that it was only a few weeks ago that I admitted to not being able to get though Mr. Rakoff’s previous book Fraud. In fact, I said some very disparaging things about him. I believe I may have called him something in the way of “an un-funny, less-talented David Sedaris rip-off.” But, if you remember that, you’ll also remember I said that, after having read Mr. Rakoff’s selection in TBA Nonrequired Reading, the excellent “Love It or Leave It”, I’d decided that perhaps Mr. Rakoff deserved a second chance. Since I was unaware that Mr. Rakoff had already come out with a new selection of essays, when I saw Don’t Get Too Comfortable on the shelf, I snatched it up and clutched it to my chest all the way to the check-out line.

That still, however, left me David Foster Wallace-less. But, wait! Unbeknownst to me, a coincidence was right around the corner. That coincidence happened today when, after an attack of cabin fever, I went on a wandering stroll around my neighborhood, vaguely in search of some food and some trouble to get into. Unfortunately, my radar for trouble always seems to lead me into bookstores, which I guess, if you’re my wallet, could actually be considered trouble. In any case, my feet inexplicably led me to Idle Time Books, a cute little used bookshop that, unfortunately, opened up a few years ago. I say unfortunately, because the last thing I need is a used bookstore within walking distance from my home.

As usual, I was drawn in by the sale books they always set outside on nice days like today. Browsing the .50 cent box of throw-away books found me a wonderfully ratty edition of five Euripides plays, three of which I don’t already have in my collection. And since I had to go in to purchase the book, well, I figured I might as well browse and see what else there was to see, right? Right.

So, I looked around, picked-up and put back down Alice Munro’s Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (I’m not really into Munro but I love the title of that book), found nothing in the travel literature section, picked up and put back down P.D. James’ The Lighthouse (eh, maybe another day), and then finally, I looked to my right, glancing over at a few books displayed at the top of a shelf and what do I see? Oh, come on, I’m sure you can guess – that’s right, David Foster Wallace’s A Supposedly Fun Thing!

It appeared as if the book gods were smiling down on me with favor this day. Three days ago, I’d balked at paying $13.95 for a novel I wanted and now, here it was, in a used bookstore, as crisp and as clean as the day it rolled off the press, and half the price! Sure, I got a few odd glances when I let out of squeal of delight and danced a little jig right there in the store but I didn’t care (truthfully, no one else did either. I’m sure they all assumed I was a part of the odd Halloween grocery cart relay race that was taking place outside. I have no idea what it was or why it was happening, so don’t ask).

Naturally, I purchased the book ($7.50 - beat that Barnes & Noble! Ha, ha.) along with my Euripides, of course, and grinned all the way home. These days are the days when I love being alive. The clouds part, the sun shines, you leave in search of adventure, and return home with some good books, and an extra seven dollars in your pocket. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t get any better than that, I don’t care what anyone says.

The Story of Me, pt. 1

by J.S. Peyton
pgs. 1-3

It's discouraging to discover that what I am doing, or rather in this case, what I have only just started trying to do is already being done by someone else. Not only that, but that someone else is doing it much better than I could ever do it. I have no illusions that my little book blog is in no way one of a kind. After all, there is no shortage of opinions in the world and a quick navigation to www.amazon.com will reveal that there are a plethora of people only-too eager to share their opinion on books with the world. And then there are the professional critics who make a living, however wanting, offering their studied criticism up for consumption in stately publications such as The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books.

But I had hoped that, even if certain elements of my blog couldn't be original, at least my unique combination of such elements would be. Sigh, no such luck. Only yesterday, as I'm browsing in Olsson's, a D.C.-based indie bookstore, I come across Housekeeping vs. The Dirt: Fourteen Months of Massively Witty Adventures in Reading by Nick Hornby. Shit. But I don't really like Nick Hornby. His book How to Be Good was one of the few books I never bothered to finish and I gladly gave it away to a used bookstore, which is something I never do. This book, however, is a collection of essays and every writer deserves a second chance, I figure. So I open it up and what do I see? He has, at the beginning of every section, a list of books he bought and of books he read for every month of 2005.

Double shit. It is at this point that I realize that I am essentially holding my blog, in print, written by an author who, as the cover his book so kindly tells me, was the National Book Critics Circle finalist for criticism. Great. Just great. Disgusted, I went to buy it and then realized that I didn't have any money. Even more disgusted (I get testy when I can't afford to buy books), I returned to my apartment in a piss-poor mood, talked dispassionately on the phone for a while, then rouded out the night by burying my nose in a book until finally, I dozed off.

Today, I have just returned from Kramerbooks, another fabulous indie bookstore, where I bought, unethusiastically, Hornby's book, in addition to Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading by Maureen Corrigan (another obsessive reader), and Empires of the World: A Language History of the World by Nicholas Ostler. I bought the first two, because even as it depresses me by reminding me of how unoriginal and inexperienced I really am, maybe, please God, I'll learn a thing or two. Perhaps by reading the masters, I'll learn how to write like one.