My husband and I were early for dinner plans in Chelsea and it started to rain. We spotted an intriguing storefront across 10th Avenue between 21^st and 22^nd and made a dash for the doorway. The sign outside read “Printed Matter,” but at first glance I couldn’t tell if it was a bookstore or an art gallery or an obsessive shrine to a band I’d never heard of called Destroy All Monsters. Turns out it was a bit of all of those things.

Printed Matter is a non-profit dedicated to the promotion of publications made by artists. Their website states that they “foreground the book as an alternative venue – or artistic medium- for artists’ projects and ideas.” The friendly clerk (don’t be put off by the fact that he’s cooler than you, he’ll still take pity on you and answer your questions) told me that there is an open submissions policy. Anyone can submit their book, whereupon a committee decides if they consider it an art book or not and whether it will join the mind-boggling collection of thousands of art books on Printed Matter’s shelves.

I picked up book after surprising book by artists I hadn’t heard of, including a minimalist poet, a Dada-inspired mail artist and a lesbian collective who paper neighborhoods with posters full of provocative self-identifiers. I opened a couple of the books and had that odd experience of seeing an image reproduced from a dream I just had, or of reading a line of poetry that echoed the exact sentiment running through my brain on the subway ride downtown.

For example, I had been walking through New York for days thinking that I kept seeing people I knew. As if parallel universe doppelgangers of my eighty-four year old neighbor and my old boss and my first boyfriend were all hanging around in Central Park. Then I happened upon a book in Printed Matter called New York: Everything Reminds Me of Something, a book of photographs by Sissa Marquardt and Markus Schmolz. It’s a gorgeous little gem that I decided to add to the weight of my suitcase.

The other serendipitous aspect of my browsing experience involves the psychotic shrine I mentioned, which is actually an art installation called Hungry for Death. It showcases the work of the band Destroy All Monsters, a Michigan collective consisting of Cary Loren, Niagra, Jim Shaw and Mike Kelley among others. I happen to live two houses away from the warehouse that serves as Mike Kelley’s studio. We bought the DVD of his film Day is Done.

As I was purchasing my treasures, I admired a little round book bound all the way around with a spiral binding. It was entitled Boundless, which is a good word to describe Printed Matter as well.

Printed Matter

195 10th Avenue

New York City, NY 10011

T:  212.925.0325

The Power of Art

It’s not uncommon to hear that a work of art changed a person’s life.  In The Return of the Prodigal Son, Henri J.M. Nouwen, one of the great 20th century Christian writers, describes his encounter with Rembrandt’s painting of the same name. Nouwen first sees the painting in a colleagues office when he is exhausted after lecturing in US churches about preventing war and violence in Central America.  Over the next few years he ruminates on its meaning as he leaves his teaching post at Harvard and begins working at Daybreak, a home for the mentally handicapped.   Nouwen opens the book:  “A seemingly insignificant encounter with a poster presenting a detail of Rembrandt’s “The Return of the Prodigal Son” set in motion a long spiritual adventure that brought me to a new understanding of my vocation and offered me new strength to live it.”  Talk about life altering, it almost makes me afraid to visit a museum.

Nouwen divides his book into three primary sections which follow the primary players in the prodigal son parable:  the younger son, the elder son, the father.   In each section, he analyzes that character in the painting, in Rembrandt’s life, and in Nouwen’s spiritual journey.

The Younger Son 

In the parable, the younger son asks his father for his inheritance early, the father gives it to him, and the son spends it on wine and song.  Penniless, he works feeding pigs and realizes he would live far better as a servant of his father.   He returns home to find his father watching for him, and then greeting him with exuberance.  In Rembrandt’s painting, the younger son is in tatters and kneeling before his father receiving an embrace.  Nouwen looks at one of Rembrandt’s earlier self-portraits, a vision of the younger son in the amidst of his spendthrift living, a girl in his lap, fancy clothes and a tankard held high, and compares it with this painting:

As I look at the prodigal son kneeling before his father and pressing his face against his chest, I cannot but see there the once so self-confident and venerated artist who has come to the painful realization that all the glory he had gathered for himself proved to be vain glory.  Instead of the rich garments with which the youthful Rembrandt painted himself in the brothel, he now wears only a torn undertunic covering his emaciated body, and the sandals, in which he had walked so far, have become worn out and useless.

Nouwen looks at how he is the prodigal son.  Every time he looks at how the world values him rather then how God sees him, he rejects his spiritual journey for a worldly one and denies his sonship.  When Nouwen expects God’s love to be conditional and dependent on his own actions rather than from grace, Nouwen turns his back on the embrace we see between the father and son in Rembrandt’s painting because “one of the greatest challenges of the spiritual life is to receive God’s forgiveness.”

The Elder Son

The elder son worked side-by-side with his father his entire life.  He is furious at the father’s reception of the loose-living, irresponsible son and leaves the party.  In the parable, the father meets the elder son outside and reassures him of his importance.  Rembrandt’s painting twists the events a little bit.  In the parable, the elder son returns home in the midst of the party, but in the picture the elder son is witnessing the homecoming the moment it happened.  During Rembrandt’s time, it was common to associate the elder son with the Pharisees, those unforgiving, uber-rule followers of Christ’s time.  Here, the stern, disapproving man on the right fits that personification.   Nouwen discovered Rembrandt was just as much the elder son during his life as the younger.  Rembrandt was known to act bitter, resentful and vengeful.  One of the worst examples was Rembrandt’s maneuvering to have his former housekeeper placed in a mental institution to be rid of her.  Nouwen reflects that it is much harder to appreciate a man ”with deep resentments, wasting much of his precious time in rather petty court cases and constantly alienating people with his arrogant behavior.”

The younger son was externally lost among the world, but interiorly he repents and returns to a wonderful homecoming.  The elder brother does all of the right things externally, but internally seaths and is lost in resentment.  Nouwen describes his own struggle as the elder son:

The more I reflect on the elder son in me, the more I realize how deeply rooted this form of lostness really is and how hard it is to return home from there.  Returning home from a lustful escapade seems so much easier than returning home from a cold anger that has rooted itself in the deepest corners of my being.  My resentment is not something that can be easily distinguished and dealt with rationally.

Nouwen finishes this section with how he found a way home of the land of resentment and judgmental reactions.

The Father

It is with the father that Nouwen feels Rembrandt painted the intersection of the human and the divine.  The father is a half-blind, old man who suffered much but exudes love, compassion and forgiveness.  Even from the reproduction on the cover of the book, I could feel the emotion, this is the heart of the masterpiece.  Nouwen talks about the roles we all need to take on as the father, to “steal all the real joy in life” and point it out to others, not to ignore the hardship but to live in it while trusting the good more than the bad, to live without comparison, and to live with compassion.  The role of the father reminds me of the saying of a former pastor–when living my everyday life, always chose grace.

The Return of the Prodigal Son is a beautiful story of how a masterpiece launched a spiritual, life-changing evaluation.  The book analyzes the painting, the artist and the odyssey it sent the viewer on.  Far more than an art history book, it also tells the personal story of viewer.

I love their motto “Northshire Bookstore, creating community one book at a time.”

Second, the Rutland-Herald printed a review of the bookstore and mentioned the live bluegrass music every Saturday since March.  The floor manager, Erik Barnam said “It was kind of an experiment. I wanted to keep it low-key and informal … some nice mellow musicians to kind of serenade our browsing clientele and guests.”  It’s worked so well that Barnam is expanding the program.  Classical music will be added soon and performances will occur on Friday and Saturday night, all for your browsing pleasure.

As if there weren’t already enough reasons to visit beautiful Vermont!

Northshire Bookstore

4869 Main St.

Manchester Center, VT

T:  800.437.3700

My favorite part of the book--that's the author on the front cover

  The Concubine of Shanghai by Hong Ying tells an age old “beach read” story–truly deprived girl makes good but the cost is high.  It even has a fairly common Asian twist, the girl is sold to a brothel owner and starts as a prostitute.  Cassia works as a servant in the Duchess Pavilion, the best whorehouse in Shanghai, and the leader of the Hong Brotherhood (presumably the powerful Triad, it’s never fully explained) falls for her unbound feet and breasts and her feisty attitude.  Their torrid romance is cut short when he is brutally murdered.  With Cassia’s support gone, she eventually re-makes herself as the leader of an acting troupe.  The new Triad leader notices her and as his mistress she rises once again to prosperity.  To the extent we all like stories that sweep us away, Hong Ying provides moments of that, but it feels like Judith Krantz Chinese style.

While the book quotes the New York Times describing Hong Ying as “a raw and powerful writer,” I think the reviewer was reading another book or the translation was bad.  As Claire discussed in last week’s Translated Tuesday post, sometimes reading translated books can feel alienating and it’s hard to know if it’s the intent of the writer, or if the writing just isn’t as good as it could be, or if it’s the translation.  Here, I suspect there is enough blame to go around.  Awkward phrasing is clearly the responsibility of the translator, especially when the word “the” is missing or when there is a direct translation of the words but the meaning is lost.  At one point in the book, the author pokes fun at a speech by the American ambassador saying “his pronunciation was good, but the words he used were too formal, causing most to applaud blindly even though they didn’t really understand what he was saying.”  The same could be said for parts of the book.

In any event, the translator can only work with what is provided and here I found the characters flat and the emotions between them unsupported.  I was constantly confused by how Cassie and Madame Emerald felt about each other for the first 200 pages.  The setting is the politics of the Triad, but the isn’t any explanation of them.  I have a basic sense of a mafia style organization, but there seemed to be an assumption that the reader understood the secret cermonies or that secret ceremonies and tests even existed.  And  maybe that is a safe assumption for the Chinese audience.  It made me want to go back and compare how the mafia was described at the beginning of the The Godfather.   Occasionally, the author would break in and speak directly to the reader, I almost always find that technique irritating and felt in this instance it was unnecessary.  The end the book is a 13 page chapter about  how the writer developed the story, I wish she saved it for the interviews. 

Sometimes the book was a page turner and at other times I wondered if it would ever end.  There are so many excellent books that provide an escape from life, I’d pick one of them and give this one a pass.  Of all the books this summer, I think The Concubine of Shanghai is an example of how books can’t always translate well to another culture.

Target.  Ah, Target.

One of the things I like best about small independent bookstores is that the owners’ touch can be felt throughout the stores.   A smaller shop and a restricted buying budget means someone has to make choices about what to keep in stock.  There will always be certain titles everyone has to buy and display (I have yet to find a general bookstore that turns its nose up at New York Times bestsellers) but once you get beyond those requisite big names, indie owners get to influence their clientele by picking and choosing the books they want to promote.   That’s what gives these bookstores so much individuality and makes the experience so much richer than simply walking into any chain and getting bombarded by, well, everything.

Target stores should be the anti-Indie.  They’re the opposite of everything we promote on this blog–they’re ubiquitous and sprawling and have huge volume sales.  They’re also not bookstores–they’re department stores.  But for that very reason, Target is able to take a similar “pick and choose” approach to promoting books and authors that small independent bookstores do.

About a month ago, Motoko Rich had an article in the New York Times entitled “Target Can Make Sleepy Titles into Bestsellers.”  In the piece, she writes, ”Compared with a large chain bookstore like Barnes & Noble, which averages about 200,000 titles per location, Target carries only about 2,500 titles in each of its 1,700 stores . . . .  By assembling a collection of books by unheralded authors, Target behaves more like an independent bookstore than like a mere retailer of mainstream must-haves.”

She goes on to say that while Target does stock major authors and bestsellers, their books buyers do something unusual: they sift through upcoming books and choose a few to promote in their “Bookmarked Breakout” section.  They also have a Target book club.   The books they choose to promote on their aisle ends and (fairly small number of) book aisles aren’t necessarily by well-known authors, but because of the huge volume of Target shoppers and their incredible visibility (Target shelves books so that their entire covers face out, not just their spines), sales tend to shoot way up for the books they showcase.

Okay, now for the full disclosure paragraph of this post: Target picked my last two novels for their “Bookmarked” section.   It’s been an amazing and wonderful thing for me, and I’ve been showing my gratitude by shopping frequently and with financial abandon at our local Target.   (Okay, I was doing that anyway, but at least now I can justify it.)

But even before I felt I owed Target for their generosity toward me, I liked shopping for books there.  The choices are narrowed down in a way that appeals to me.   I don’t know if it’s my gender, my age, my reading habits (probably all of the above), but when I walk down their trade paperback aisle, I kind of want to buy all of the  books there.   Part of that is the way they’re displayed: the titles are easy to read, the covers are visible, and there aren’t too many choices.  What’s there appeals to me.  And (forgive me for this) the price point is good.

I’m uneasy as I write this.    I clearly have a conflict of interest.  I want to promote independent bookstores but I owe Target a lot.   And I like Target as a department store–always have.   All I can do, I guess, is be completely honest and refer you to Rich’s article which is interesting and shows the power a mass retailer can have in shaping tastes.  Whether you find that appealing or worrisome is completely up to you.

Excited to dive into Mastering the Art of French Cooking, I leafed through it at the bookstore.  Every recipe had multiple steps and a long list of ingredients.  I cap out at 5, maybe 8, ingredients and a page of instructions made my head ache.  I put the book down.   Mastering the Art of French Cooking is not The Way to Cook, Julia’s book that first taught me how to cook. 

Prior to marrying Keith, I prepared one dinner for him.  It was a given that he would be the cook in the family and with 5 recipes under his belt, his knowledge surpassed mine.  One year later, I couldn’t bear to eat another bite of any of those recipes.  Keith’s parents came to the rescue by giving me The Way to Cook.

The introduction hooked me: “I am aiming this, my seventh book, at the new generation of cooks who have not grown up in the old traditions, yet who need basic knowledge of good food so that they may enjoy fresh, healthy home cooking. ”  That was me!  The book is organized by technique allowing me to fumble through one recipe and then apply what I learned to different foods.  Julia even laid out the first steps for neophytes like me: learn to saute chicken, deglaze the pan and pop Provencal tomatoes in the oven (page 306, I love that recipe), toss a simple salad, and I had a yummy meal. 

I fell in love with Julia when she understood I arrived home from work late and did not want to tackle a multiple step Martha Stewart recipe, not even on a weekend could I face them:

Even if you’re working all day, why buy Chinese take-out food, or frozen dinners, or eat at a fast-food joint when you can make a fresh, informal home-cooked meal even in a minuscule kitchen–and you will know exactly what you are eating.  Pour out a glass of wine, and while you’re gossiping about the day and trimming the fish fillets, a big pot of water can be set to boil for skinning the tomatoes and blanching the green beans . . . While the fish has a short sojourn in the oven, you’re all by ready to dinner and everyone is refreshed and happy.

And that is exactly what we do, Keith comes home from work, pours me a glass of wine and we chat while I make dinner (Keith has clean up duty).  The Way to Cook changed our dinner life.  Julia’s love for cooking and confidence that anyone can master basic techniques and prepare tasty nutritious meals caused me to start cooking.

Since my first romance with The Way to Cook, I’ve fallen for other cookbooks, Mark Bittman is my current crush.  After watching Julie & Julia, I returned to Julia with my daughter, now she is the “new generation.”

We all piled into Leslie’s mini-van and stormed Coalesce Books.  This store is vintage coastal California.  The entire aura was a warm golden brown, there were books everywhere, the strong aroma of incense, colorful signs wherever my eye wandered, and a community bulletin board that advertised all types of events including the evening on sustainable living that the store hosted the night before.  Coalesce Books is a combination new and used bookstore.  The new books are on shelves in the front, but the strength is in the wide selection of used books.  It is one of the best organized used bookstores I’ve come across in a long time.  Often I enjoy wandering around a bookstore looking to see what I may stumble upon, but this time we were a party of six, too large for long term browsing.  At Coalesce, there was a sub-division for almost every genre making meandering easy, even a ”pirate” literature shelf, which I guess is 1990s for “vampire” literature.  I asked one of the employees if the store kept any Twilight books in stock, she laughed, they can hardly get them in let alone keep them.  I know my daughter isn’t willing to part with her well worn set any time soon.

The atmosphere is friendly, I joined a conversation about the appropriate age to read Ayn Rand.  As I’ve mentioned before, for a work of serious literature over 500 pages to be worth my time, it’s star has to shine for quite awhile.  Last summer, I read Bleak House. I won’t be reading 2666 any time soon.  Ayn Rand’s works aren’t Dickens, but their consistent critical acclaim passes this test.  That being said, I have heard over and over that if I didn’t read Any Rand in college, I’m too old.  The time frame for her books is newly post-adolescent.  I stood with two strangers discussing the merits of trying to tackle The Fountainhead.  One woman finally picked it up, felt its heft and agreed, we’re too old to read it.  Another example of what I love about bookstores, the ability to have fun conversations.  When was the last time you asked the patrons in the local diner their thoughts on Ayn Rand?

When you drop by, leave time to meander up and down Main Street, it’s full of cafes, cute stores and art galleries.  Behind Coalesce Books is a garden and chapel built years ago as a Cal Poly student project.  We arrived during a farmer’s market full of crafts and food–free produce samples and a sweet bookstore, what could be better?

Coalesce Books

845 Main St.

Morro Bay, CA 93442

T:  805.772.2880

Kim and I had a long discussion about books in translation recently.  I  said that I find something distancing about books that have been translated–that the very nature of their not being read in their native language makes them feel a little less emotionally present for me.  

For instance, as much as I enjoyed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the characters never felt entirely real to me.   (Read this for Kim’s take on that book and its sequel.)  I was fascinated by their story but I didn’t live it along with them.  Maybe it’s a stretch to blame that on the fact I wasn’t reading it in the original Swedish, but I genuinely did find some of the writing jarring.  Sometimes the tone of the book was very slangy and relaxed; other times, it felt oddly formal.  Of course, for all I know, that was exactly what the author intended.  But to me it felt like a translation issue.

Kim argued that it’s the type of book I’ve read most recently in translation that’s made me feel distanced from the protagonists, which is a valid argument.  I tried to think of a book or books I’ve read in translation that’s completely swept me up, and the only thing I’ve come up with so far are Colette’s Claudine novels.  Claudine’s voice always felt real and close and fresh to me.  I believed in her and cared passionately about her.  I can’t say I felt quite as drawn in by any of Colette’s other books, but that does mean that my theory of translations being inherently alienating doesn’t hold true 100 percent.

The book I’m currently reading in translation–Celine Curiol’s Voice Over–is about as alienating as you can get.  Curiol goes out of her way to keep her heroine remote, starting with not giving her a name.  The poor woman is only referred to as “she” throughout the novel which becomes somewhat confusing when another female character is referenced in the preceding sentence.  I found myself thinking, “Oh, THAT she,” after perplexedly rereading a sentence more than once.

The heroine herself is a creature of alienation.  She slinks through life remote from other people.  No one she works with likes her or talks to her.  She’s often silent in public.  She’s an observer, not an actor.  A man kisses her and she falls in love with him but he has a girlfriend.  When anything does happen to her, it’s usually out of her control: she has the attitude of a sleepwalker as she moves throughout her world.  There’ s a reason the author made her an announcer at the Gare du Nord: what’s more remote than a disembodied voice?

None of that is to say I haven’t enjoyed the book.  I have.  It’s beautifully written and there are crystalized moments of naked honesty that are quite powerful.  But it is definitely a book that thrives on alienation.

Still, I wonder: is it simply the tone of the book or does the fact that it’s translated add to my feeling of distance from the protagonist?  Kim argued the latter (she pointed out that this book fits into the genre of literature of alienation).  By way of retort, I read her a quote:  ”She realizes  that she has been waiting for him to phone.  How are things?  He never presents himself as if he were sure he is  the only man who calls her.”  Presents himself?  There’s something off about that translation–it may be literally correct, but we would say, “He never says who he is.”  Enough little differences like that, and maybe it affects how you read a book.

I’d be interested in whether other people feel that they tend to be less emotionally drawn into books in translation.   Of course, you can love a book that leaves you slightly alienated–emotional investment is not the only criterion by which you should measure your reading pleasure.  I still remember the chill I felt reading the first line of Camus’ L’Etranger: “Aujourd’hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas.”   Talk about alienation.

Looking up that first line in translation, I found as many different versions of it as there have been translators.  “My mother died today, or perhaps it was yesterday.”  “My mother died today…or maybe yesterday, I don’t know.”   “Mother died today, or maybe yesterday.”    And so on.   Subtle, minor differences, yes–but writing is a subtle art and small decisions can have a big impact.

In the end, I have to believe that I feel alienated from Voice Over for the same reason readers feel alienated from The Stranger–because that’s the author’s intention, and I’d recommend the former wholeheartedly, especially to people who enjoy books that revel in those feelings of alienation from our strange, modern world.   But I’m not going to embarrass myself by “recommending” The Stranger.  Camus has done pretty well over the years without my support.

Capitola Book Cafe sells both used and new books shelved together.  My daughter grabbed almost as many YA books as she could hold and given how fast she reads, the used book discount is nice.   For my son, I found a guide from a local author:  25 Month Until College:  The Don’t Panic, Step-by-Step, What-When-Why-How Guide for Students and Parents, by Judy McNeely.  It starts with December of sophomore year and has specific tasks for each month, some a little more hectic than others.  I appreciate the bullet-point layout including charts and deadlines.  If you have a sophomore or junior, buy it, while not all inclusive of everything you need, it provides the highlights and some organizational structure.  Needless to say, when I handed it to my son during vacation, he wasn’t thrilled.  I’ll be keeping the book until December to ensure that it doesn’t get “lost.”

Capitola Book Cafe has a fun recommendation bookshelf entitled “Our Community Reads” open to writers, readers and faithful supporters.  This month, Laurie King’s favorites were listed along with those of Doug Abrams and his family.  We bought The Alchemyst by Michael Scott after learning that the Abrams family was reading it.

The Cafe part of Capitola Book Cafe is not your typical coffee drinks and pastry eatery.  There was a wine list and a variety of salads and sandwiches, I loved it since svelt readers cannot survive on pastries alone.  We’re in the area every August and next year we’ll drop by there for lunch.

Capitola Book Cafe made news recently when it started its “Friends” program.  In exchange for an annual fee, friends receive a discount on books and special privileges.  The program gives the store a base income that helps even out the cash flow.  The program is going fairly well but had a hiccup when the store stopped running the cafe and leased it to new management.  I asked why, Politics and Prose did the same thing a few years back and for basically the same reason, they are booksellers not cafe operators.  As a result of the change, Friends of Capitola lost the cafe discount, but the bookstore is making it up with other perks.

Drop by for a glass of wine, a good book and a lovely time of reading in their various seating areas.  They’re open until 10PM, so while away an evening among book lovers.

Capitola Book Cafe

1475 41st Ave.

Capitola, CA 95010

T:  831-462-4415

It was one of those summer days when I had two kids at home and two off in their summer programs, and the whole expanse of the day stretched out before the three of us with no plans.  We needed to get out of the house and I needed a new bookstore to write about.   Venice Beach seemed like a fun destination–we hadn’t been there in ages–so I did a quick search and discovered that Small World Bookstore was right smack on the boardwalk.  Off we went.

When you’re on Venice Beach, you know you’re not in Kansas anymore.   People are hawking their wares from every inch of the boardwalk–wares that range from the normal tourist kitsch (we scored a Michael Jackson in memorium tee for their big brother) to a vast array of hemp friendship bracelets to original paintings that were clearly made earlier that day by someone who figured if he threw some paint on a piece of wood, he might earn enough money to party that night (“All I need is a single buyer!”).

The air smells of the ocean and the unwashed fat guy with crazy hair and no shirt who goes skateboarding by you, and spicy incense billowing from all the stores, and, over all the other scents lies the sickly-sweet odor of marijuana smoke.  (Rest assured, it’s all for medical use.  The signs on the storefronts that sell it make that quite clear.)

There’s something unreal, almost cinematic, about Venice Beach.  You feel like someone’s going to yell, “Cut!” at any moment.  Even the toughest looking scary dudes with their piercings and tattoos look like they come from central casting, and the muscle guys working out at Gold’s Gym can’t possibly be made out of flesh.

In this sordid fairytale of a place, any independent bookstore would be a sort of miracle.  The fact that there’s a GOOD indie right there on the boardwalk . . . well, that’s kind of above and beyond anyone’s expectations or demands.

And Small World Bookstore is good.  My kids and I walked in and immediately scattered, happy to be lost in our various sections.  It’s medium sized, warm and inviting–big enough to have every section you’d want, small enough that you get the sense there’s a smart buyer behind all the choies.  I did my usual check: do they have a decent fantasy section, a decent graphic novel section, do they stock my books?  (Yes, yes, no–but that last one doesn’t really mean anything to anyone other than me.)

The recommended books on display were varied and interesting that day, as you’d hope for a store that services an area like Venice and has to appeal to many eclectic tastes from midwest tourists to resident artists and stoners.  They managed to please us–my 15-year-old son was deep into David Sedaris’ essays at the time, and was pleased to find a display of them right on the front counter.

The same owners run The Sidewalk Cafe next door, which was mobbed when we were walking by.   We didn’t get a chance to try it, but as far as we could tell from walking along the boardwalk, it was the most popular restaurant there–and I figure eating there also helps support the bookstore so it’s all good.  (Kim tells me a receipt from Small World gets you a discount at the restaurant.)  According to the restaurant’s website, the building both businesses are housed in was once a bingo parlor and it does have a wonderful jaunty old-LA feel to it.

So go to Venice Beach, gawk at the people around you, buy the books you’ve been meaning to buy at Small World, have a bite to eat at Sidewalk Cafe, and maybe even take home a canvas from one of the artists who looks like he’s clean and sober and serious about his work.

But whatever you do–don’t inhale.

Small World Books

1407 Ocean Front Walk

Venice, CA 90291

Tel: (310) 399-2360

Fax: (310) 399-4512