Soup to Nuts*

Claire’s novel, The Smart One and the Pretty One, hit the bookstores in early September, causing her to fill up her calendar with readings at local bookstores and festivals hoping to find new readers and entertaining those of us who read everything she writes.  She always serves great hummus, so I tag along; amazing how far I’ll drive for free hummus.

I especially looked forward to the reading at Book Soup, one of Los Angeles’ premier bookstores.  I moved to Los Angeles 19 years ago, but I never stopped by Book Soup.  I’ve purchased from them, they sell books at cultural programs all over the city; I’ve attended dozens of lectures or events with a book tie-in and Book Soup sets up a table to sell the relevant book.  While a fan for years, I just never made it to the store (in my defense, I lived a few blocks from Dutton’s).

First off, a terrific newsstand runs yards and yards down the side of Book Soup, curving around to the front.  It’s hard to imagine a magazine in print that isn’t at the newsstand.  In fact, when I walked by I thought why do we need this many magazines in print?  Of course, when I’m trying to find the right magazine for a piece I’ve written, it doesn’t seem to exist, so maybe we do need more.

When I walked in, on my way to Claire’s hummus, I first noticed that Book Soup smells like fresh paper and new books, how a bookstore should smell.  I fell in love with the bookshelves; they’re high, dark, nicely stuffed with books (not sparse but not overwhelming), with a waist level shelf that juts out so books can be on display there or if a customer holds stuff in her hands, like crackers and hummus, she can set the book on the shelf and leaf through it.  I’m a huge fan of the waist high desk/shelf when I’m shopping for books, mostly because I like to see the whole cover when I’m browsing.  I know ‘don’t judge a book by it’s cover,’ but I like eye candy.  Book Soup satisfied my craving for eye candy, with tables, waist-high shelves and stands displaying books.

Book Soup stocks an extensive selection of film books, biographies, art and photography and non-fiction works, including shelves of writing books (I particularly noted the writing books because I was standing next to them during Claire’s reading, not that I wasn’t listening).  I am impressed with how much space was dedicated to non-fiction works of all varieties, a full half of the store, if not more, with depth in each of the categories.  My 14 year old son favors non-fiction and he was busy looking through the rows of bookshelves.

Kim and Claire after the reading

Some of the works are edgy.  In fact, as I talked with Claire afterward, I noticed next to her podium was a table with a stack of The Big Penis Book placed next to a stack of the The Big Breast Book (one point for gender equality); the large cover photos were close ups of the respective titled body part in a Tom Jones or Pamela Anderson fashion.  Claire said she was distracted during her reading because she kept seeing The Big Penis Book out of the corner of her eye.  Hilarious.  I don’t want to call Book Soup an adult bookstore, especially after the last few sentences, but it isn’t a family bookstore.  There is a children’s section, but the focus is on people who love books rather than those who are learning to love books.

And now for my favorite part, the literature room.  I’m happy to wander around tall, dark bookshelves for hours, but dinner time was approaching and we needed to leave.  I did my trick, I looked to see if an employee recommended Atonement and found “Julia.”  Julia liked Atonement, so I followed her recommendations around the store, she chose Pride and Prejudice, Crime and Punishment, the Sun Also Rises; Julia is me in another body!  I’ll be back to follow her recommendation cards around the store soon.

I talked to several employees at Book Soup.  They are a friendly, thoughtful group.  One said she had just finished reading The Red Leather Diary by Lily Koppel.  Ms. Koppel is a New York Times journalist who found in a dumpter in Upper West Side Manhattan a diary of a young woman from the 1930s.  The diary paints the life of a curious, socialite teenager of the era.  Ms. Koppel tracks down the diarist who is 90 years old and describes what she was like as a young girl, where her life is now and how she feels about how it turned out.  I bought it, but I haven’t read it yet, if anyone has, let me know what you think, it sounds intriguing.

As we were leaving, I noticed business cards next to the cash register that only said “STOP TALKING.”  I was tempted to buy one because I am working on a piece right now with the title “Stop Talking.”  However, it occurred to me if my teenager saw it, he would be the one to use it on me.  But then again, isn’t that what he’s already saying as he travels through life plugged into an iPod?

* For all of you idiom fans, ‘soup to nuts’ means from the beginning to the end.  It comes from the descriptions of an American full course dinner, the first course was soup and the last course nuts.

Book Soup
8818 Sunset Blvd.
West Hollywood, CA 90069
Tel: 310.659.3110
Tel: 800.764.BOOK
Fax: 310.659.3410