Reviews of independent bookstores because buying and reading books is an adventure
You are currently browsing the monthly archive for July 2008.
I flew to Princeton, New Jersey a year ago and found only one bookstore, actually I found two, but one of them was permanently closed. The one I did find was in a basement with so few books I could count them. When I asked a bored clerk if he had any books to recommend, he curtly said “no” and turned away. What a jerk! I thought that Princeton would be like Cambridge or Berkeley, spilling over with new and used bookstores. What a disappointment. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: New Jersey, New Jersey bookstore, Princeton, Princeton bookstore
A couple of months ago, The New Yorker had a cover I couldn’t stop staring at: a bookstore owner is unlocking his door to start the workday, but he’s glancing over at the woman who lives in the apartment building next door who at that very moment is receiving a UPS package with a recognizable Amazon logo on the side. The woman looks embarrassed — she’s been caught. Read the rest of this entry »
Every year I go to Bend, Oregon with several friends for a girls’ weekend. We sit in our pjs long into the day, eat well (very well) and hike. Once over the weekend we clean up and go into town. We eat French fries and pine nut tart at Merenda and then head over to The Book Barn. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Bend, Bend bookstore, Oregon, Oregon bookstore, unique
My favorite book in the last year is The Swallows of Kabul by Yasmina Khadra. It is a heart piercing book about two couples living under the Taliban in Kabul. In one chapter a husband begs his wife to go for a walk with him and she finally agrees, only to have a solider abuse her and physically force her husband to attend the mosque, leaving her to stand in the heat boiling under a burka. The helplessness of both of them to protect each other in the face of such random brutality haunts me. With all the hype over Hosseni’s A Thousand Splendid Suns this jewel was never mentioned as a companion read, but I found it at The Bookseller in Grass Valley, CA. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: California, California bookstore, Grass Valley, Grass Valley bookstore
I’m a homebody. My family would say that’s the understatement of the year. I don’t mind traveling–so long as I have my entire family with me and our hotel room is dark and luxurious–but I’m happiest at home and most of my stress in life centers on trying to get everyone home by dinner time with no reason to leave the house again until the next morning. Or never. So it’s not surprising that my favorite bookstore is within a couple of miles of my own house. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: book club, California, California bookstore, Los Angeles, Los Angeles bookstore, nook, Pacific Palisades, Pacific Palisades bookstore
Claire
Kim
