Reviews of independent bookstores because buying and reading books is an adventure
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If I could pick anywhere in the world to be on September 12th, I’d choose the Brooklyn Book Festival. In the Brooklyn area next weekend? You have to go!
Who would I want to see? Paul Hardin, Paul Krugman and Sam Lipsyte top a long list. A weekend of events and several independent bookstores in the area, it sounds like paradise.
Tags: book festival, Brooklyn, literary festival, New York, new york city, NY
It felt pretty luxurious to spend a few days in New York City without my kids. I only had to get myself out the door (Keith was with me, but he doesn’t need my help), I could spend as long as I wanted in front of a single painting at an art museum or bookshelf in a bookstore, and we could start each evening watching the sunset from a roof top bar. I didn’t think I would visit any kid’s bookstores, this was adult time. But, it was raining and I had an extra half hour before Idlewild Books opened so I headed north a block and found refuge in the Books of Wonder.
People Were Reading Everywhere
It was a wonderland of reading! A Mom was sitting with her kids reading to them. A young couple cuddled on a bench, she had her head in his lap and was reading a picture book to him. A kid was on the floor in the aisle flipping through a book. Two teens were hogging the YA aisle passing books back and forth. I loved the vibe. I especially enjoyed how the picture books were divided along two sides of the aisle, contemporary picture books on one side and classic picture books on the other, all on shelves allowing most of the covers to face out. What I would have given to have been there after Kyle was born and I was constantly trying to remember a classic picture book to share with him and I could only conjure up a partial name or a vague cover. This would have been my Mecca.
I wasn’t struggling around the teens in YA long before a bookseller came up and asked if I needed help. I described Kelsey, that she reads everything, and she handed me gimme a call by Sarah Mlynowski, a story of a senior getting a phone connection to her freshman self. Kelsey had just told me that she wanted to write a story that is a series of letters to her older self, what a perfect book for her!
SUZANNE COLLINS IS LAUNCHING MOCKINGJAY AT MIDNIGHT ON AUGUST 24TH AT THE BOOKS OF WONDER
The bookseller asked me if Kelsey had read Hunger Games, I laughed and said “Pssh! Before anyone in her school, she is famous for her love of that book!” Then she told me that at midnight on August 24th, the first moment that anyone will be able to purchase Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins will be at Books of Wonder. I squealed. I asked how many copies they ordered and she said “more books than any independent bookstore has any business buying.” We laughed and acknowledged that they won’t have any problems selling signed first editions of Mockingjay. I told her that we timed when we were flying home from vacation to be back from the airport long enough to Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: New York, New York bookstore, new york city, New York City bookstore
Can't you tell it's a very welcoming store?
While I absolutely admit that New York has the most hustle and bustle of any city in the country, for visitors during a summer heatwave it can be a bit overwhelming. My favorite respite is walking the High Line in Chelsea with a pause here and there to gaze at the Hudson River, preferably with a gelato in hand. After walking the High Line twice, I stopped by Chelsea Mall for a snack and found among the artisan food stalls Posman Books. Is there a better combination for a mall: a cheese store, a wine store, a chocolate store and a bookstore? If I had to design heaven, I might just hand over the plans to the Chelsea High Line and Chelsea Mall.
The booksellers were having fun when I walked in, everyone was laughing. Between their friendliness and the warmth exuded from the wood floors and bright atmosphere, I felt immediately welcomed. I asked if they had a favorite under-the-radar book they could recommend and one immediately raved about The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman. She was surprised it was the first time I learned of it. It’s about an English newspaper struggling to survive in Rome. Still intrigued by how the Italians interact with the Internet (which is gutting our newspapers) differently than we do, I bought it.
Actually, as much as I say that bookstores reflect their community so they are different, I was a little taken aback that at least a third of the front table books were new to me. This encouraged me to discover what else was different about Posman Books. The front section is full of tables and bookshelves on current fiction, non-fiction, reference books, New York books, and travel books. A nice space is set aside for cooking books-remember it’s a foodie mall-and I noticed that an upcoming event was a cookbook author who was to arrive with samples. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Chelsea bookstore, Chelsea Mall, New York, New York bookstore, new york city, New York City bookstore
The store is full of cozy areas like this one
If I ever live in New York City, I would chose an apartment close to McNally Jackson, that’s how much I loved this store. I first heard of it in 2009 when it was on The Millions NYC bookstore walking tour and then Michele Filigate (who I really think of as readandbreathe on Twitter) of RiverRun Bookstore recommended it. With that information, it made the top of my list for NYC bookstore stops.
McNally Jackson is a thinking persons bookstore. I almost shouted for joy at the three floor-to-ceiling bookcases of essays and criticism, a genre I love to read. Determined not to buy any more books, I left with only two. Arguing (with myself) that both were in an incredible essay selection that should be supported, both were 10% off because they were staff picks, and given my memory I won’t remember to buy them ‘later,’ I ended up with The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton and The Forest for the Trees: An Editor’s Advice to Writers by Betsy Lerner.
Every genre is represented in this two story store (even the beach reads all of us thinking people need at times), yet the books are displayed in such a way to cast them in a new light. This is the first time I’ve seen a literature section in a non-travel bookstore organized by country. I learned a little about myself walking through the fiction section, just by the name of the country I noticed I was more drawn to some shelves more than others. Of course, then I had to overcompensate for what I felt was the wrong way to judge a book. Yet, in all honesty, the British section evoked the coziness of Jane Austen and Latin America just reminded me of how much I struggle with magic realism. Who knew I would have to think about my prejudices just by reading fiction headings.
I took a long look at the Jose Saramago’s books because McNally Jackson created a display of his work. It’s easy for me, and all readers, to know what’s new, but I appreciate it when a Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: New York, New York bookstore, new york city, New York City bookstore
If you’re interested in modern art, your Mecca is the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Room after room contain stunning examples of some of the best art in the last 150 years. I spent an entire morning in the current Matisse exhibit and then all afternoon in the permanent collection. On the way out, I stopped by the two MOMA bookstores.
My first test for a museum bookstore is what books are available to supplement the current exhibit. For the Matisse exhibit, MoMA produced a stunning catalogue, Matisse: Radical Invention 1913-1917. I bought the catalogue before visiting the museum, read most of it, and then brought it along with me. This is a great approach if you love the art you are going to visit, I appreciated the paintings more than if I was just encountering them for the first time. However, beware of the heft of catalogues, this one could throw out your back. In the bookstore, there was a variety of Matisse related items, a few biographies, a book about his relationship (competition with?) Picasso, a small book about the MOMA permanent Matisse collection, and a collection of his writings. It was very tempting not to pick up some of these gems, however, the catalogue was all I was willing to cart back 10 blocks to my hotel room.
The rest of the bookstores are equally as impressive. There is one store located on the second floor mezzanine which can only be accessed with an entrance ticket, it is quieter and has a row of chairs for reading and perusing books. The downstairs store has a wider selection. MoMA publishes its own books that help access its permanent collection. I bought a small book on Lichtenstein works in the permanent collection (simply called Lichtenstein) and read it over lunch. I saw a Lichtenstein at SFMOMA, “Figures with Sunset,” that I fell in love with and was hoping to learn more about the artist at MOMA. The book is terrific, in fact if I had more time at MoMA, I would by books on other artists in this series (Picasso, Van Gogh, Matisse). In about 40 pages, the author, Carolyn LanchnerRoy, pinpointed Lichtenstein’s place in pop art and his foundation in and reference to art history in his works. The disappointing part was that only one Lichtenstein was on view that day. While I understand that there is limited space, if a museum is bothering to write a book about its collection of a certain artist, it should have more than one piece on view.
In addition to shelves of books published by MoMA (a catalogue of the permanent collection, a highlights book, catalogues from past exhibits), the bookstores have masses and masses of monographs on specific artists. Given the time frame that modern art covers (1860s onward) when technology created new genres of art, the stores include significant photography and film sections, topics generally not covered well in non-modern specific stores. In general, it Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: art history books, modern art reading, museum bookstore, New York, New York bookstore, new york city, New York City bookstore
Claire
Kim
