The Book Shopper

The End of A Crusty Bookstore

"Books disturb people. They make them anti-social." - Montag, in the movie version of Fahrenheit 451

About a year ago, I posted an account of a book shopping trip to a couple of bookstores in the Carroll Gardens section of Brooklyn.  The most notable was Book Court, a spacious bookstore, well-stocked in quality fiction, but there was another store that also left an impression:

"A few blocks from Book Court is The Community Bookstore, which had not opened for the day. Looking through the store window, I must admit, was a little intimidating. My only thought was that this is what happens to books that are tossed in the dumpster."

 Well, The Community Bookstore is now closing after three decades of business. The New Yorker posted a short video about the owner John Scioli  and the store's impending departure.  I watched this feature a couple of times with mixed feelings. 

At first, it reinforced my longtime belief that "Book Lovers Are Not Necessarily People Lovers."  I have been in stores like Scioli's -- "curated" by a crusty owner---  but it's not the unfriendly attitude that bothers me as much as the clutter. We're not talking a few unshelved books here, we're talking a stack of books crashing down on your head (which happens more than once in the video).  Even more frightening is seeing Scioli smoking in the stacks. The whole place could ignite into one blaze of word and flame -- kind of like the famous scene in the movie Fahrenheit 451 (1966) when Montag torches the house of a woman who has a huge collection of books.

My lasting impression from the video is not the sadness of another bookstore closing, but the wistful comments from a young woman who said, "I feel like it's the responsibility of the next generation to make things like this happen. We can't expect them to stick around forever."

Who will lead that next generation of ornery book hoarders? If I am not careful, it could be me.

 

 

 

Catalog Speed Reading

One way to read -- or give the appearance of being well read -- is to skim through book catalogs from serious or less-than-traditional publishers. Last month when I was in Boston, I picked up the Fall 2015 and Spring 2016 catalogs from one of my favorite bookstores, the MIT Press Bookstore (shown above), which is kind of a direct-to-consumer outlet for the prestigious MIT Press. You can look at their book catalogs online, but it really doesn't replace the glossy look and feel of  fine, four-color printing on high quality paper. Their 100+ page catalog rates right up there with the Eighth Day Bookstore catalog, which is no longer being published and I sorely miss.

In addition to picking up the catalogs, I purchased a picture book about typewriters (Typewriter: The History, The Machines , The Writers by Tony Allen ), a book about memes from the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series and a book of essays (Paper Knowledge by Lisa Gitelman). The latter was a recommendation of the knowledgeable fellow working the register.

Bringing home catalogs  is a potentially expensive indulgence because the catalog becomes a tempting extension of the bookstore and publisher.  Here's just a few of the intriguing catalog entries from the Fall 2015 edition (the descriptions are theirs):

Fiction: Resentment: A Comedy, a new edition of first book in Gary Indiana's (yes, that is his "real" name and he's kind of well known in some literary circles)  trilogy, which chronicles "the more-or-less permanent state of depraved indifference that characterized American life at the millennium's end."  Literature: The Irresponsible Magician: Essays and Fiction by Rebekah Rutkoff. "Sharp, acerbic, and often humorous, her writings about contemporary culture reflect the present, in ways reminiscent of Renata Adler's and Joan Didion's writings about urban life in the late twentieth century. " Psychology and language education: Becoming Fluent: How Cognitive Science Can Help Adults Learn a Foreign Language by Richard Roberts and Roger Kreuz. Roberts and Kruez show how older adults can leverage their understanding of their own mental processes in learning a new language. Environment and urban planning: Sharing Cities: A Case for Truly Smart and Sustainable Cities by Duncan McLaren and Julian Agyeman. "Their case for sharing and solidarity offers a powerful alternative for urban futures to conventional 'race-to-the-bottom' narratives of competition, enclosure and division." Environmental justice and public health: Fracking the Neighborhood: Reluctant Activists and Natural Gas Drilling by Jessica Smartt Guillion. Touted as  a greener alternative and a means to reduced dependence on foreign oil, natural gas development is an important part of American energy policy. Yet, as this book shows, it comes at a cost to the local communities who bear the health and environmental burdens. Geography and transportation: Transportation and Revolution: Pigeons, Mules, Canals and Vanishing Geographies of Subversive Mobility by Jacob Shell. This book challenges conventional wisdom about the supposed obsolescence of transport methods that have become marginalized in the modern era."

The latter looks like must-reading for Atlanta's own MARTA Book Club.