Although it may surprise some, when on
vacation I don't go into every bookstore.
My longtime travel companion (life's journeys as well) Denise is
more than willing to accompany me. But you can spend your whole vacation
browsing, so we try to be selective. While traveling through some
iconic small towns in Maine last month from Portland to Acadia
National Park (the view from Cadillac Mountain is above) we did shop at two very good independent book shops
that are worth the time and effort to visit.
The
first book shop was Gulf of Maine Books in downtown Brunswick, Maine
near the stately campus of the Bowdoin College. It's the kind of town you might expect to
find a good liberal book store and Gulf of Maine owned by the poet
and activist Gary Lawless and Beth Leonard fits that bill. You are
not going to find Bill O'Reilly books at this place. Unlike many
book store owners that keep to themselves, Lawless chats with his
customers and there was a steady flow of conversation. When I
overhead him talking about using the
Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
(2012) in his veterans writing group, I mentioned that I had just
seen Rick Atkinson, author of the World War II Liberation Trilogy
here in Decatur. (Coincidentally, someone just gave me a copy of
Billy Lynn, which I am now reading.)
Gulf
of Maine is packed full of books with a large section of books about
the area. There are ample offerings of fiction, current events and a
good sized remainder table where I picked up Gary Shteyngart's Super
Sad True Love Story (2010).
Denise bought Linda Greenlaw's The Lobster Chronicles: Life
on a Very Small Island (2003)
and Rachel Herz's Scent of Desire: Discovering Our
Enigmatic Sense of Smell (2007).
Even
though we had purchased more than enough to read during our vacation
Happy Hours – where we drink, read and nap while overlooking the
water – we stopped by Blue Hill Books in Blue Hill, Maine. Where
Gulf of Maine is a little cluttered but inviting, Blue Hill situated
in a small house, is precisely packed with books not unlike a
library. Again, there were plenty of Maine books (Denise purchased
Joseph Dane's Dogfish Memory: A Memoir
2012), and a large selection of trade paperback fiction. I was
impressed at the selection because it wasn't limited to the latest
releases. There was a wide offering from respected writers who you
know but may not have read yet: Jane Austen, Philip Roth, Joesph
Heller and Christopher Hitchens to name a few. It was a rainy day
when we were there, and the owner and the single staffer were busy,
so I didn't strike up a conversation, but you could see from the
flyers and posters that Blue Hill Books was engaged with the
community, much like Gulf of Maine Books.
Of course, what
makes Maine a reader's paradise is that it also provides great venues
for reading. In the picture below, check out the two readers hidden in the rocks near
Acadia's Seawall trail, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.
