Bishop Pit Stop on the Way to Mammoth

A trip to Bishop always causes me to think about the opening scene in The Other Side of the Mountain. The story switches back and forth between the young Jill Kinmont and her mother dashing to get ready for the first day of ski season and then the older, paralyzed Jill Kinmont and her mother in the same room laboriously starting a new day which happens to be the first day of ski season. Bishop is a quaint town with a hint of melancholy for me.

We have three traditions when we drive through Bishop on the way home from Mammoth — we stock up on jerky at Mahogany Smoked Meats and Beef Jerky; we eat lunch at La Casita Mexican Restaurant; and, we end with a trip to Spellbinder Books & Coffee. Spellbinder is a storefront in the center of Main Street, in the very heart of the community. This is my favorite part of the trip to Mammoth.

The store has a significant collection of western and titles. I picked up a book of letters from women crossing the continent in covered wagons and read it to my daughter when she was learning about the West at school. Once I visited after a significant roof leak and everything was covered in plastic, it was a bit like book browsing on a construction site.

The staff is incredibly friendly; they do a terrific job chatting up my husband, allowing me to browse to my heart’s content. He’s the one who actually got the “construction tour” after the roof leak; I just eavesdropped while meandering among the shelves.

It has a large bookshelf for books loved by the staff, though sometimes turnover on these shelves is slow. I bought William Boyd’s Any Human Heart several years ago; now it is falling apart from use, but the next winter when I returned to Spellbinders, it was still sitting on the recommendation bookshelf. Now I know some years are better than others in publishing, but I’ve never experienced a year when I couldn’t recommend a different book after twelve months. Someone at the store truly loves Any Human Heart. Now every time we go, I tell the kids to look for Any Human Heart on the recommendation shelf.

Spellbinder Books and Coffee
124 S. Main Street
Bishop, CA >93514
Tel: 760.873.4511
Fax: 760.873.8468