bookstore tour
Jan. 14th, 2008 08:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacAP article on destination bookstores, ones worth your while to seek out if you're visiting the area. Rather than beginning by naming stores that should have been on the list, I'll relate my own encounters with their choices.
The article doesn't distinguish among used and new book stores. They serve quite different functions for a traveler. I will seek out even tiny and obscure used book stores on a trip, because you never know what you might find. (I once found Pat Murphy's The Shadow Hunter at a little all-pb store in the Willamette Valley for a buck.) Good new book stores are plentiful where I am, so I don't ordinarily hunt for new books on a trip, but the mark of a really great new book store is not just the size but the browsing quality: the selection of books on the shelves and on the display tables that you'd never have heard of if not for seeing them there. I've always been appreciative of this, and more so as it becomes rarer.
So here's their list, with the stores' web sites from the article:
What have they left out? Well, just among new book stores, here in the Bay Area, besides the ones I mentioned in San Francisco, there's Kepler's and Cody's, and the most intelligent selection closer to home is at the Mtn View outlet of a tiny local chain called Books Inc. But none of the Bay Area stores, even Cody's departed original location, have or had the sheer magnitude of Elliott Bay or Tattered Cover or - my candidate for the best US new book store not on the list - Vroman's, in Pasadena CA. Many's the time I've had to rush to a meeting in those parts because I decided to stop in at Vroman's first and could hardly tear myself away.
And one must mention, across the Water, the bookstore of all bookstores, Blackwell's in Oxford. My favorite of its many remarkable features is the small, unpretentious staircase running down from the main floor. Follow it down and it suddenly opens out into the enormous basement. It's like a secret underground military installation in some skiffy film, except that it's full of books.
And specialty stores, used stores ... enough for now.
The article doesn't distinguish among used and new book stores. They serve quite different functions for a traveler. I will seek out even tiny and obscure used book stores on a trip, because you never know what you might find. (I once found Pat Murphy's The Shadow Hunter at a little all-pb store in the Willamette Valley for a buck.) Good new book stores are plentiful where I am, so I don't ordinarily hunt for new books on a trip, but the mark of a really great new book store is not just the size but the browsing quality: the selection of books on the shelves and on the display tables that you'd never have heard of if not for seeing them there. I've always been appreciative of this, and more so as it becomes rarer.
So here's their list, with the stores' web sites from the article:
- Books & Books, Coral Gables FL - It must be at least 15 years since I've been to the Miami area, and I wasn't looking for bookstores of any kind when I was there: schedule too tightly constrained by the primary purpose of visiting relatives. All gone now, which is why I haven't been there for 15 years.
- City Lights Books, San Francisco CA - Though I live in the area, I've only been here a couple times. I don't get to North Beach much, and there are other new bookstores in the area and even in the City itself (Stacy's, Clean Well-Lighted) whose display selections are more to my taste. I don't recall ever buying anything here.
- Elliott Bay Book Co., Seattle WA - Now this is more like it. An awesome, suck-you-in new store. One of my regular haunts when I lived in the area, and still a place I like to drop in on during visits. Most memorable purchase: a remaindered copy of The Rotters' Club by Jonathan Coe, which I got so wrapped up in back in my Potlatch hotel room that I forgot to go to programming.
- The Strand, New York NY - Mostly used books, notable for its vast selection of turned-in review copies. An absolute must stop on any trip I take to NYC, and a good place to meet up with friends. Most memorable purchase: an essay collection by John Wain, one of the obscurer Inklings. I was startled when I opened the book and a clipping of the author's NY Times obituary dropped out - he'd only died a couple months earlier, and I hadn't heard.
- Politics and Prose, Washington DC - I'm sorry to say I've never been here. Must put it on the list for my next trip.
- Prairie Lights, Iowa City IA - I've only been to Iowa City twice, and neither time did I get bookstoring. Sorry.
- Tattered Cover Book Store, Denver CO - I've been here once, on my last trip to the area, seeking it out by reputation. Very much worth it, and I regret not having more time. Most memorable purchase: The Da Capo Catalog of Classical Music Compositions, my single most-consulted reference book.
- That Bookstore in Blytheville, Blytheville AR - You got me. Not only have I not been to this store, I've never been to Blytheville.
- Powell's City of Books, Portland OR - I need say nothing about this most perfect and largest of used-book stores (lots of new books too), just bow down three times in its direction. Most memorable purchase: a thoroughly detailed map of Southeast Alaska - far superior to any other I'd seen - became my lifeline when I visited the area. I still have it, a bit worn from use.
What have they left out? Well, just among new book stores, here in the Bay Area, besides the ones I mentioned in San Francisco, there's Kepler's and Cody's, and the most intelligent selection closer to home is at the Mtn View outlet of a tiny local chain called Books Inc. But none of the Bay Area stores, even Cody's departed original location, have or had the sheer magnitude of Elliott Bay or Tattered Cover or - my candidate for the best US new book store not on the list - Vroman's, in Pasadena CA. Many's the time I've had to rush to a meeting in those parts because I decided to stop in at Vroman's first and could hardly tear myself away.
And one must mention, across the Water, the bookstore of all bookstores, Blackwell's in Oxford. My favorite of its many remarkable features is the small, unpretentious staircase running down from the main floor. Follow it down and it suddenly opens out into the enormous basement. It's like a secret underground military installation in some skiffy film, except that it's full of books.
And specialty stores, used stores ... enough for now.
