What a relief. I wanted to write about the bookstore I loved when I was growing up and I thought, “I’ll see if they have a website.” And the website had a long article that reassured me in all the ways I needed reassuring that the New England Mobile Book Fair is alive and well and still has the same crazy organizational system it did when I was a kid. (They shelve the books by publisher, not by genre or subject.)
I don’t need to tell you their history, because that’s all on their website — what’s important to me is MY history there. A couple of times a month (I think — maybe it wasn’t that often but it felt like that), my mom would agree to take us kids to “Strymish’s” as we always called it (the owner and founder’s name was Lou Strymish). We’d drive about ten minutes to get there from our house in Newton. Once there, you entered a crazy, mixed-up world of long, dark aisles and piled up stacks of remainders. You could get lost. I did. It was industrial before industrial was chic.
It was at Strymish’s that I arrived at my
Barbara Cartland/Virginia Woolf crossroads and it was at Strymish’s that I learned to read through every book an appealing author wrote — so long, of course, that they were all published by the same publisher because, if not, you had to go through the laborious process of looking your books up in the publishers’ index they helpfully provided at the front of the store. I did that sometimes, but mostly I’d discover authors that certain publishers liked. It was a weird, backwards way of looking for books, but it meant you might stumble on something you’d never have read otherwise.
The place felt huge to me. I was little then and I haven’t been back in years so maybe it wouldn’t feel that big anymore, but it’ll always be emotionally huge for me: Strymish’s will always make me think of my mother who died a few years ago and who was the one who always took me there. It also makes me think of my siblings who’ve spread out across the country but who all happily piled in the car back then to replenish their own book piles — we’d all split apart at the entrance and then cross paths fifteen minutes later in some dark and obscure corner of the store.
You didn’t shop at Strymish’s for what you knew you wanted: you shopped there in the hopes of finding something you’d never heard of (and because you could then buy it at a discount). It was browsing at its finest and, from what I read online, it sounds like it still is.
Happy hunting.
The New England Mobile Book Fair
82-84 Needham Street
Newton Highlands, MA 02461
Tel: (617) 964-7440
Fax: (617) 527-5817
Tags: discount, Massachusetts, Massachusetts bookstore, Needham, Needham bookstore, Newton Highlands, organized by publisher
Reply
Recent Articles
-
Wonderful Video of What Happens in a Bookstore at Night
I’ve been in a bit of a posting slump, but I’m working my way out and what better way to start the new year than with this lovely stop action video, “The Joy of Books,” about what happens in Type bookstore at night. I can’t wait to visit Toronto just to stop by Type Books to [...]
-
Scrambling For A Last Minute Gift? Head To Your Local Bookstore!
Farhad Manjoo ignited the latest round of ‘will the local bookstore survive’ with his “Don’t Support Your Local Bookstore” tirade on Slate. (I couldn’t fail to notice that while Salon promotes a campaign to support local bookstores, Slate is bashing them.) Numerous responses Manjoo were published, twitter feeds with special hashtags popped up, and even [...]
-
57th Street Books – Chicago, IL
57th Street, the actual street, is perfect for the meandering bookworm. We started with lunch at the graffiti clad Medici Restaurant. Famous for its burgers and scribbled upon walls and furnishings, we filled the time waiting for our food by adding our own “tags” to the table top. More importantly, within blocks there are three [...]
-
Essay Challenge Recap
I coming in just under the wire this year, this challenge must be completed today!! The Essay Challenge over at Books and Movies is the only one I joined this year, even so, I didn’t keep up with it the way I have the past two years. Not that I haven’t read essays all year [...]
-
Salon says “Support Your Local Bookstore!”
In the latest pitch to keep bookstores alive and well, or at least breathing, Salon.com gave credit to indies for finding and promoting the latest excellent book most of us don’t know: An independent bookstore brings a lot to a city or a town: a showroom for the latest literary releases, an auditorium where authors [...]
-
Small Business Saturday – Shop at Local Businesses on November 26th!
Actually shop at them as much as possible, they are the engine that drives your local economy. But, let’s give the little guys a leg up in the middle of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Drop by a local business, chat with a real person, and contribute to your neighborhood economy by purchasing a Christmas [...]
-
Which authors would you invite to Thanksgiving dinner?
Taking a riff from NPR’s story last week about which deceased composers Miles Hoffman would invite to Thanksgiving dinner, I pondered the same question for authors and asked quite a few friends. Here are the guidelines: which dead authors would you invite to Thanksgiving dinner? Which author would you invite to give a reading Thanksgiving [...]
-
Breaking Dawn – Part 1 Opens Today
One of the pleasures of having a teenage daughter is the opportunity to share silly, girlly experiences. While I understand all of the criticism about the Twilght series, and agree with some, as I’ve written before, I’ve enjoyed the ride. Even more, I’m grateful for the opportunity to share the sheer reading fun with my daughter. [...]
-
Abbey Books & Gifts – Valyermo, CA
I spent just over 24 hours last week at St. Andrews Abbey. I’m not Catholic, but I enjoy joining the monks in the Daily Office. For those of you new to that term (and that would’ve been me a couple of years ago), it’s the practice of pausing at several set times through out the [...]
-
Alexander Book Co. – San Francisco, CA
Alexander Book Co. is a traditional independent bookstore tucked around a corner in downtown San Francisco. Wedged between office towers and the Academy of Arts complex, it’s a cozy respite from steel, glass, and marble. The store even smells like good books waiting to be discovered. The first time I tried to visit the store, [...]
No comments
Comments feed for this article
Trackback link: http://www.bookstorepeople.com/2008/08/the-bookstore-that-made-me-love-bookstores/trackback/