Destination: Books

Readings on Remediation

A  couple of years ago when visiting Berlin where my older daughter lives, she told me about community garden known as Prinzessinnengarten or Princess Garden.  In 2009,  a community garden was started in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin, reclaimed from an industrial, wasteland area that had been unused and abused for half a century. To combat the problem of  the barren soil coupled with the possibility that the city could reclaim the land at any time all the plants were grown in mobile containers.  Not only has the city turned a brown space to green, but Prinzessinnengarten has become a center for community education about gardening and sustainability and a melting pot for Berlin's diverse population. This link has a short film (in English) that tells a more complete story.

I was unable to visit the original Prinzessinnengarten while I was there, but I did get a tour of its sister site that has recently been opened in an old church graveyard in the Neukölln borough. Navigating complicated civil and religious rules, the non-profit company Nomadic Green, which spearheads these reclamation efforts pulled up gravestones (nothing fresh) and the site is being turned into another community garden site as well. Again mobility is part of the design of the space.

Inspired,  I have begun to try to remediate an eroded, barren patch of rocky hillside that butts up to the development where I live.  Fortunately being here at Destination: Books  I have ready access to gardening and environmental books to consult. 

• Leah Penniman devotes a whole chapter to "Restoring Degraded Land" in her book Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm's Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land. Pulling in techniques from throughout the globe, she writes about how soil contaminated with lead can be restored (sunflowers can pull out lead) and details on how terracing can stop soil erosion. 
• Other books can be useful too. In Lawns Into Meadows: Growing a Regenerative Landscape, Owen Wormers and illustrator Kristen Thompson dedicate an entire chapter to profile over 20 flowers and grasses that turn your ecological, havoc-wreaking lawn into an organic meadows. Black-eyed Susans and sunflowers appear to be likely candidates that might work on my project because they like sun and can handle poor soil. (I have a lot of that). Moreover, both flowers attract pollinators. 
• And for those who want to deep drive into soil regeneration Nigel Palmer's The Regenerative Grower's Guide to Garden Amendments provides detailed recipes for "greater soil biological activity  and mineral availability, and increase pest and disease resistance yields, and nutrient density."

All three books will be available for browsing/scrutinizing when Destination: Books returns to the Freedom Farmer's Market at the Carter Center on Saturday morning, April 24, 2021. In the meantime, as you can see from the photo below, I have plenty of work to do.

Destination: Books Pop-up Book Stall Returns to Freedom Farmer's Market

After a year hiatus Destination: Books returns to the Freedom Farmer's Market at the Carter Center this Saturday morning, March 27, 2021. Our inventory will include many titles about gardening and sustainability. And as space permits, we'll have books on other topics as well. For a preliminary list, visit the Pop-up Inventory Page. 

We will be following public health protocols (the market does as well) including contactless payment and spacing the inventory for distance browsing. All of this is a little dependent on the weather because books don't do well in heavy rain and storms. (We worry about the weather just like real farmers.) For updates, join Destination Books on Facebook and on Instagram at #destinationbooks_atl.

Resuming Operations

After a pandemic-related hiatus Destination: Books has resumed operations at its online store at Alibris.

Operations Suspended

Because of the latest surge of the COVID-19 cases, Destination: Books has put its Alibris online store on "vacation" hold indefinitely.  In the meantime if you have any questions, contact Murray Browne at murray.browne905 (AT) gmail.com. 

Book Stall Review

As the coronavirus pandemic rages on, (enough of the Super Spreader events already!) the Destination: Books business plan of venturing out into the world of popup books stalls remains on hold for the foreseeable future. In the meantime, I must be content to put more books online at the Destination: Books Alibris Store and reading about other booksellers.

One story comes from the Liz Alderman of The New York Times, “Amid Rows of Classics Along the Seine, a Sad Ending in the Making”(November 8, 2020).  Alderman writes sbout the Paris open air book sellers known as “les bouquinistes” which have been selling books and magazines along the left and right banks of the Seine River since the Middle Ages. The article gives an account of the approximately 230 books shops who are struggling during the Pandemic, because tourism has nosedived in the Eternal City along with curfews and quarantines that have limited local pedestrian traffic. (The color photographs accompanying the article will take you right there.)

I have not been to Paris to see these booksellers, but when I was in Ljubljana, Slovenia last year they had a few booksellers along the promenade overlooking the scenic Ljubljanica River (See photo above). It is not Paris, I guess, but it did feed my wishful romantic idyll of book selling on the streets.

One can be easily disabused of this notion by reading the popular Diary of a Bookseller (2018) by Shaun Bythell.  The book is part memoir and part occupational handbook as Bythell, who owns a large used bookshop in Wigtown, Scotland gives daily account of the trials of being a bookseller, dealing with customers and maintaining an online inventory. To keep his stock up, Bythell must go look at estate sales and is often forced to wade through heavy boxes of discarded books in various states of decomposition in order to find a few gems to make it worth his while. He is crusty and candid about his customers and those who wish to sell him books. He reinforces the theme of one of the chapters from my own book (The Book Shopper: A Life in Review) about book shopping.  In the essay, “Book Lovers Are Not Necessarily People Lovers.” I pontificate about the anti-social tendencies of book people, which includes librarians as well as book sellers.

One of the reasons Destination: Books exists is to find homes for what I believe are fine books in my own library that deserve a better fate than the shredder or to be sold for next to nothing. Also, I do not want my books end up in a dismal estate sale (as described by Bythell).  This explains why after a year after opening Destination: Books I am sticking by the plan. Online selling only is just kind of transactional and I prefer the interaction to talking to people informally at popup book stall. Bythell (and other bookseller-friends) have disabused any notion of wanting to own a bookstore or rent a permanent site. Not only its financially precarious, but just dealing with customers day after day could be an irritating.

So, in the meantime here at Destination: Books I stay the course of hoping for a vaccine and an end to the pandemic in 2021 and then to reopen on the book popup on some localized version of the Seine here in Atlanta.

End of the Gardening Season Sale

Though your garden plot might be winding down for the season (like mine at the community garden plot), this could be the time to catch up on your sustainability reading or reliving some of the joys of gardening. Destination Books has several new books at its Alibris online store for sale at reduced prices and a few older used books. 

Here's a list of the available new books:

Grassroots Rising by Ronnie Cummins ($5 plus S & H)

The Worm Farmer's Handbook by Rhonda Sherman ($20 plus S & H) SOLD!

The Permaculture City by Toby Hemenway ($15 plus S & H) 

Slow Gardening by Felder Rushing ($13 plus S & H)

Lazy Ass Gardening by Robert Kourik ($24 plus S & H)

Here's a list of the available used books 

Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered by E.F. Schumacher with a new forward by Bill McKibben ($6 plus S & H)

The English Cottage Garden by Jane Taylor and Andrew Lawson ($12 plus S & H)

The Herbal Tea Garden: Planning, Planting, Harvesting & Brewing by Marietta Marshall Marein ($5 plus S & H)

Bringing a Garden to Life by Carol Williams($5 plus S & H)

Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less Are the Keys to Sustainability by David Owen ($5 plus S & H)

Note: When purchasing a books from the independent seller (like Destination: Books Alibris store) and putting them in your cart you can expect discounted shipping for each additional item your purchase when it goes to the same address.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Believers For Sale

I have been a Believer subscriber for over ten years and rarely have I thrown away or recycled an issue even though I am nonplussed about the publication. In one (and in the most important) way I've always found each issue containing some interview, feature or essay that introduced me to a new writer or filmmaker which enriched my cultural capital. Funny thing is that when I read them on the subway, I always felt that people --given the name of the periodical -- were suspicious that I was on the verge of proselyting. Adding to my anxiety, I always had the insecurity that The Believers publishers were always “too hip” for someone like me. Moreover, their subscription history is spotty at best. There was a longtime hiatus of issues when then they changed owners and they still have trouble managing renewals.

Last year at the Decatur Book Festival, I took some of the stock, displayed in handsomely on a rack and sold it at my Destination: Books booth finding homes for about 20 to 30 issues.  I would use the salesperson pitch of: “Take your change in Believers?”

But alas there is no DBF this year for Destination: Books. I would feel guilty just tossing them  so I am try to find homes for them and free up some shelf space by making them available online. 

With a few exceptions (which I have flagged) they are in good shape considering their age and this is also a tribute to the quality printing of the originals.

For purchasing details and a list of which past issues are available visit  The Believer Catalog Page.

Civilization For Sale

If you are stuck at home, yearning for travel, and running out of things to read, perhaps you are thinking to yourself, "Maybe it's time to read Will and Ariel Durant's 11 volume The Story of Civilization. " If so, you are in luck.  Destination: Books in its ongoing efforts to find good homes for fine used books has made the complete Simon & Schuster set (published from 1935 to 1975) available for $95 at its online store at destination.alibrisstore.com. 

I rescued this set from a building superintendent purge of another apartment in the late 1970s and have hauled them around with me ever sicne.  I tried to read the entire series but only got as far as the middle of Volume 1, Our Oriental Heritage.  They are excellent reference books and I have pulled them out on occasion before to familiarize myself with the history of Spain, Turkey and Italy before visiting those countries.

Moreover, these are the kind of books that will  give some classic heft to your Zoom background, which if you've read my piece "Books in the Background" in my companion blog, you would know people are constantly judging you.  Take political historian Heather Cox Richardson shown here. Everyone agrees she's smart and insightful.

For all details on the pricing and individual, visit the Story of the Civilization product description page.

 

Destination Books Stays at Home

With no foreseeable end to the COVID-19 lock down the Destination: Books popup book stall remains at home with no opportunity to wear our T-shirt "uniforms" out in public. Last year we were at the Georgia Antiquarian Booksellers Association (GABA) Paper and Art Fair at the Decatur Book Festival but GABA has already decided to sit 2020 out and let our books and ephemera age a little longer.Most GABA members do lots and lots of online selling.

In contrast Destination: Books has less than 20 listings at its destination.alibrisstore but what we lack in numbers we make up for in personality, eclectic offerings and creative deals.  Check out the updated online catalog.

Destination Books Goes to Italy

Even though Destination: Books remains on lockdown during the COVID-19 crisis, we have used the time to read some of the inventory.  One book of interest has been Dottoressa: An American Doctor in Rome (2019) by Susan Levenstein, MD. 

After Dr. Levenstein finished her medical studies at Mount Sinai in New York in 1978  she moved to Rome with her  Italian husband to set up a medical practice and immerse herself in the culture. The marriage didn't last, but her love of Italy did and she remains there to this day. 

Her account can be enjoyed as one might a frittata, with the tale of establishing herself as a physican in Rome serving as the eggy part, enhanced by the tasty ingredients within like food, booze, drugs and sex.  She mixes them together with the skill of a top chef. 

Since COVID-19 ravaged Italy before it overran the United States, Dr. Levenstein's observations on the Italian medical community have even more relevancy; more medical updates appear on her blog, Stethoscope on Rome. Dottoressa also reveals by comparison (for better and worse) the medical establishment here in the United States.  But the book is actually more of an overview of the plusses and minuses of Italian society, which she writes about with humor and affection.  There are also revealing personal chapters where Dr. Levenstein is candid about her own feelings about life and death and the sometimes complex relationship she has with her patients. "Compassion and annoyance are potentially two sides of the same coin of engagement," she writes. Often times the book reminds one of the stories medical friends tell over cocktails about the real behind-the-scenes doctor stuff (with names changed of course). 

In these stay-at-home times, the book can scratch that travel itch that many of us have, and for my partner Denise and me it serves as a pleasant reminder of our trip to Italy last fall. (Full Disclosure: the picture of the Coliseum is from Verona not Rome.) If Destination: Books ever gets out of the house again we'll have it available at our pop-up book stall. In the meantime, you can order directly from Dr. Levenstein's publisher, Paul Dry Books, which is one of the publishers we enjoy working with and some of whose books appear on the bookshelf below.