bookstore

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Urban Think! in Orlando Now, but Soon to be Gone!

March 4, 2010 in bookstore, essay, politics by Kim | 2 comments

I visited family in Orlando for the first time since starting this blog.  Game to get on the bookstore visiting bandwagon, each day started with “which stores are we going to today?”  Top of my list – Urban Think! I’d seen it pop up on Shelf Awareness and it was in an area of Orlando new to me.  We all stopped by, Dad, step-mom, sister and two squirrelly toddlers.  Urban Think! is located in a quaint neighborhood, one of the oldest in Orlando (which probably means it’s about the same age as Los Angeles, this isn’t St. Augustine).  Surrounded by blocks of old homes with wide front porches, a cluster of restaurants, cute shops and multi-use buildings, the store is airy, compact and comfortable.

The display that caught my eye, and my wallet, was a display of books on books and reading.  I wondered what shopping for books about book shopping would be called, meta-bookshopping?  I wanted the entire shelf, but I was responsible for lifting my suitcase up into the overhead compartment, so I settled on Used and Rare: Travels in the Book World by Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone (I wondered if they were thinking of me when they wrote this book, it’s not dedicated to me, maybe it should be, but we haven’t met) and  Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman.  Have I mentioned lately how much I love Anne Fadiman and want to grow up to be her?  It used to be Cokey Roberts that I wanted to metamorphosize into, now it’s Anne.

I stopped by the recent events table to see which authors stop by Orlando.   It’s not a city I see on many author tours, but with Disney World close by, I would have thought it would be top Read the rest of this entry »

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Almost Corner Bookstore – Rome, Italy

February 26, 2010 in bookstore, translation by Kim | 2 comments

When I told people I was visiting Rome, several people suggested I stop by the Almost Corner Bookstore.  It sells English books in a cozy shop with wall-to-wall books.  A center table stacks current bestsellers and books with Italy as the subject matter.  Angels and Demons by Dan Brown, due to the release of the film, received the center spot. An observation from a customer who lives in Rome, “clearly Dan Brown didn’t visit Rome before he wrote the book.” For such a small store, they carried an impressive selection of genres, from English fiction and non-fiction to contemporary Chinese literature.  I also noticed several bestsellers in paperback that were still in hardback in the US. [Aside:  This always irritates me.  I finished the third of the Millennium Trilogy, The Girl Who Kicked the  Hornet's Nest, in paperback over the Christmas holidays because a friend bought it overseas.  It won't be out in hardback here until May.]

The atmosphere was fun, when I visited two booksellers were holding court along with a professor from Cal State Los Angeles and an ex-pat who later delivered us to a terrific dinner restaurant.  Their customers are tourists to a certain extent (apparently an Australian Cardinal drops in every time he’s in Rome to buy a novel for the plane ride home), but at least a third are English speaking Rome residents.  Many Italians who read English books because book options are limited in Italian, the publishing world is smaller. The store’s bestsellers are detective and mystery books, even before the likes of Dan Brown, especially if the locale is Italy.  Once Almost Corner buys a book, they keep it until it’s sold.  While the store doesn’t sell used books, some of them may be very old.

Rome was the last stop on our trip to Italy and by the time I reached the Almost Corner Bookstore in the Trastevere neighborhood of Rome, I couldn’t help noticing lots of the small bookstores scattered throughout the country in both large and small cities.  Finding a native English speaker and bookseller, I asked about the prevalence of bookstores everywhere.  The answer, there isn’t competition.  To buy a book is to buy it at the local bookstore.  There are bookstore chains, Read the rest of this entry »

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Book Alley – Pasadena, CA

February 18, 2010 in bookstore by Kim | 1 comment

I Have Never Seen This in a Bookstore

When we walked into Book Alley, a group of about 15 people were solemnly saying goodbye to one another and leaving, each with a red carnation in their hand.  Talk about being involved with the community, a memorial service was just breaking up.  That is a full service bookstore.  I have heard of speed dating in a bookstore, birthday parties in a bookstore (I may try that), I even have a faint memory of reading about a wedding in a bookstore, but a memorial service?  A first for me, but for a person who loves books, having your friends and loved ones surrounded by them while they remember you isn’t such a bad idea.

New, Used and Rare Books & Other  Works on Paper

And these are lovely books to be surrounded by.  Book Alley is the classic used bookstore I love to meander around.  Books on shelves, stacked on the ground, sale tables bursting, all call out the sleuth in me.  The huge art section drew me in.  Just what I was hoping for, I found gems I didn’t know I wanted until I opened them.  For me, some books are more interesting used than new.  The Harold Letters:  The Making of an American Intellectual by Clement Greenberg is just such a book.  Clement Greenberg was the great American art critic who influenced the course of post-WWII American art.  I’ve read about him, but never his writings, nor do I have a sense of him.  The Harold Letters are a collection of letters written from 1928 to 1943 to Harold Lazarus, a college friend.  The letters start the summer of their sophomore year and comprise a sort of epistolary bildungsroman autobiography.  The Harold Letters reminded me of the books Helene Hanff would request in 84, Charing Cross Road. I haven’t been disappointed, the letters reflect Greenberg’s striving to lead an intellectual life.  They include what he’s reading, what books he purchased, and a variety intellectual observations, all in nugget bite-sized pieces that I can read while I’m waiting for my printer or sitting on hold.

Keith spent his time looking at the extensive collection of rare Los Angeles books.  He found several he loved, alas, the recession.  The bookseller was willing to be flexible with the price (love that) and Father’s Day isn’t that far away, hmmm.  The website highlights a variety of rare books, right now they are selling a collectible edition of The Hound of Baskervilles and a unique bootleg Russian version (in English) of Salinger’s works.  It’s worth perusing.

Book Alley

1252 E. Colorado Blvd.

Pasadena, CA 91106

T:  626.683.8083

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Vroman’s Bookstore – Southern California’s Oldest and Largest Independent Bookstore

February 9, 2010 in One of the Nation's Best, bookstore, mystery by Kim | 1 comment

Every fan of independent bookstores talks about their importance in creating community.  Sometimes it’s hard to know what that means.  There is certainly interaction between the customers and the booksellers, and between readers and authors at events.  Those are “wheels and spokes” models of interaction, all directed toward a center.  How does an independent bookstore create an opportunity for the spokes to interact?  Visit Vroman’s.  It’s not unusual for me to chat up complete strangers looking at books in a bookstore.  Just pick up The Elegance of the Hedgehog and get ready to hear my thoughts despite the fact you’ve never met me.  At Vroman’s, customers were clustered in groups and talking all over the store.  And not all of them knew each other, I know because I was eavesdropping.  I wasn’t in the store for 10 minutes when a customer walked up to me, pointed at The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig and told me it was a beautifully written story.  Wanting to exchange the favor in the D section of fiction, I recommended The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson.  We both walked away with a new book.

Just when I was going to ask a bookseller for a recommendation, I heard one of the employees recommend Louis de Bernieres for a “sophisticated, educated woman” who was in the hospital.  Well, I’m not bedridden, but I flattered myself that the rest of the description may apply so I discretely followed along (stalked them).  I didn’t connect de Bernieres with Corelli’s Mandolin, probably because I’ve only seen the movie, but the bookseller raved about it.  I bought his A Partisan’s Daughter to give it a try.

What else did I find?  Looking at the WALL of employee recommendations I found Read the rest of this entry »

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NEVER Would Have Read This Book if a Bookseller Hadn’t Recommended It

February 7, 2010 in book review, bookstore, memoir by Kim | 2 comments

A few weeks ago, Leslie and I and our respective husbands went to hear a friend sing Vitello’s in Studio City.  Knowing Portrait of a Bookstore was right across the street, we left the club with 30 minutes to spare before the store closed (love the late night hours at the store!).  How much damage could we do in 30 minutes?  Well, a lot.  Keith bought most of my birthday present, plus books for himself.  After a very convincing pitch from the bookseller, Leslie bought Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress by Susan Jane Gilman, a book that generally would not have attracted either of us.  So much for what we know, here are Leslie’s thoughts on the book:

One of the things I like most about independent bookstores is that the employees (many of whom are owners or invested in the business) are truly big readers. Since I’m assuming none of them are getting rich working there, they must really love books.

When I walk into an independent bookstore, I typically ask “What can you recommend?” This may either be for me or for my two pre-teen daughters. In many cases, my question has been rewarded with wonderful surprises.

Recently, Kim and I, along with our husbands, went to Portrait of a Bookstore, one of my favorite independents, is just across the street from a jazz club we visited. Needless to say, we walked out with books in our arms. Well, actually, the guys carried them.

As usual, the woman that was working that evening was just chock full of recommendations. One of the books that she mentioned was Hypocrite in a Pouffy Dress, a memoir, by Susan Jane Gilman. This is a book, had I simply seen on a shelf, I would never have picked up. I’m really fussy about the non-fiction I Read the rest of this entry »

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