By Wendy Glaas
The Call of the Open Bookstore
It’s not so bad that I’ve got piles of books dotting the floor. But now piles have sprouted on my nightstand, radiator covers, and coffee table as well.
Each book enticed me with its glossy cover and the new world inside; somehow, I never stopped to consider the space issue. Once I got them home, the really good ones tempted me to forsake sleep or put off chores. And I don’t want to think of how much I’ve spent on them over a lifetime.
I admit it: I’m a bookstore junkie.
"Room 4" © John Robinson
I developed my addiction quite innocently. In the summer, my mind turns to road trips, the kind with little preconceived idea about where those roads may end. It was through one of these meanderings in the mid-1990s that I found the Montague Book Mill in Western Massachusetts, years before it was a destination spot.
Once I found it, I returned frequently. I liked the setting above the churning falls of the Sawmill River. I liked combing through the sometimes dusty, sometimes haphazard piles, unsure of what I’d come across. Since these were used books and thus a relative bargain, I could rationalize buying a number of them at a time. At one point, before the Great Basement Floods of 2005 claimed a few boxes, perhaps a quarter of my books came from the Book Mill alone.
Since I live in the bookshop-laden Boston/Cambridge area, it’s easy for me to get lazy about finding new browsing sites. But this year, after coming across Richard Wright’s blog piece about hitting four Vermont bookstores in one day—“One-Day-Bookstore-Tour in Vermont”—I was inspired. I set out, guerrilla-style, to explore as many stores as I could, culled from the New England Independent Booksellers Association website.
Throughout the course of one week, I visited eleven, from Massachusetts to Maine.
"This is Dust Muffin" © Bonbon
I imagined I’d find myself in cluttered, cozy places, with cats reclining on armchairs and pots of tea at the ready. I was a little disappointed not to encounter any resident dogs or cats. The beverage situation was a bit better. A Novel Café (Tewksbury, Massachusetts) had a variety of caffeine and sugar offerings and ample lounging space, and the Andover Bookstore (Andover, Massachusetts), which bills itself the second-oldest continually operating bookstore in America, greeted browsers with a large urn of complimentary coffee.
Several bookshops humbled me by their deceptive outward appearances. The Toadstool Bookshop (Milford, New Hampshire) and The Book Cellar (Nashua, New Hampshire) were located within a few miles of each other on Route 101, a commercial highway peppered with strip malls and at least one place to buy fireworks. I didn’t expect to find a great bookstore next to a Dollar Tree. But I did. Larry Portzline would have been proud.
Portzline, a college teacher from Pennsylvania, first popularized the term “bookstore tourism” in 2003. He describes the appeal in his self-published guide Bookstore Tourism: The Book Addict’s Guide to Planning and Promoting Bookstore Road Trips for Bibliophiles and Other Bookshop Junkies.
He notes that when he meets up with a new tour group, one of the first questions he asks is, “How many of you are completely addicted to books?” He goes on to say:
Almost every hand goes up, and people are looking around the bus and smiling. Then I ask, ‘How many of you have piles and piles of books on the floor at home because you ran out of shelf space a long time ago?’ And the same hands go right back up. And by this point, they’re laughing and looking around at all these people who were strangers just a few seconds before, and they realize that they’re among their own kind.”
I didn’t charter a busload of bookworms, but I definitely get the appeal of bookstore tourism. Bookstores provide a visual, tactile experience that you just can’t get from shopping online. I often walk into a bookstore without an agenda and go wherever my eye leads me, purchasing books on a whim.
In Kennebooks (Kennebunk, Maine), for instance, I picked up Maine writer Paul Doiron’s The Poacher’s Son. I liked reading bits of Maine lore I wouldn’t have otherwise known about, like a hunter’s use of deer urine to cover his scent in the woods. I wasn’t thrilled with the ending, but I enjoyed the strong sense of place conveyed by this book.
My visit to Kennebooks made me realize an additional thrill offered by brick-and-mortar bookstores: the unpredictable and usually unintentional juxtaposition of the books on the shelves. I loved seeing biographies of Ronald Reagan and Mark Twain side by side and finding, in a display aimed at gifts for the graduate, Glenn Beck’s The 7: Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life next to Eleanor Roosevelt’s You Learn by Living.
I suspect that independent bookstores are proxies for the community, a form of literary profiling. Judging from Jabberwocky Bookshop’s large section on landscaping, I’d guess that people in Newburyport, Massachusetts, really love their gardens.
"Books" © Kate Mereand
Used bookstores take profiling to another level: getting into the heads of the previous book owners or the mores of the time when a book was published. When I came across E. Werner’s She Fell in Love with Her Husband in The Book Bear (West Brookfield, Massachusetts), I laughed out loud over what I figured was an obvious prerequisite for marriage. But maybe that wasn’t the case in 1892, when people were motivated to marry for other reasons, such as financial security or social expectations.
And while it’s common to find Nancy Drew books in used bookstores, I’d never seen them printed in another language. The Book Bear had a handful of these in Swedish.
Regardless of all doomsayers, it’s these quirky finds that convince me the closing of a big chain like Borders is not a bellwether for bookstores in general. Bookshops are more than just a venue for buying books or glimpsing regional culture. There’s a definite social aspect to hanging out in one, unlike other public spots where it’s considered suspect for strangers to make eye contact and initiate conversation.
For an inveterate people watcher like myself, bookshops are great for observing human nature, an especially fun pastime if the store has a lounging area. Even if I’m not close enough to hear actual conversations, I can tell which customers are on a first date based on body language. I sometimes make up the tentative, getting-to-know-you dialogue between a couple (“What do you like to cook?” “I’m an only child too!”).
Bookstore owners are usually as friendly as their customers. Newburyport, Massachusetts, a town of less than 25,000 people, has not one but three bookstores. Most do more than sell hardbound or paperback books. They cater to e-readers as well and will track down out-of-print books on request.
"Don't Forget" © Green Kozi
The bookstores I visited are vibrant hubs for activities ranging from writing and meditation workshops to sewing classes for teenagers. They offer author readings, art exhibits, and book clubs. The wealth of services is repaid in customer loyalty. When RiverRun Bookstore in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, moved to their current digs, volunteers and customers formed a chain to pass books down the street to the new location. Pictures of the moving day are immortalized on the bookstore’s wall.
In Portzline’s words, these people are my “own kind.” The nerdy kinship I feel is no less real than the connections made in Red Sox Nation.
When I enter yet another bookstore with its lovely, jumbled, quirky shelves, time stops—or at least slows down. For as long as I can, I’ll keep building my piles.
Additional Information:
- Larry Portzline’s website
- New England Independent Booksellers Association (NEIBA)
- “One-Day-Bookstore-Tour in Vermont” from Richard Wright’s blog, On Saving the Rural New England Bookstore
- “The Joy of Cookbook Shopping: Why Bookstore Tourism Matters” by David Farley, AOL Travel, January 31, 2011
- “A World Tour of Bookstore Cafes” by Mark Vanhoenacker, Los Angeles Times, February 6, 2011
- “Written Off?” by Alex Beam, Boston Globe, May 31, 2011
- The Poacher’s Son by Paul Doiron (Minotaur Books, 2010)
- She Fell in Love with Her Husband by E. Werner (Rand McNally, 1892; reissued by General Books, 2009)
- Bookstore Tourism: The Book Addict’s Guide to Planning and Promoting Bookstore Road Trips for Bibliophiles and Other Bookshop Junkies by Larry Portzline (Bookshop Junkie Press, 2004)
"Flowerbox Bookshelf" © Lauren Baker
Wendy Glaas
Wendy Glaas is an editorial assistant at Talking Writing.
With grad school now in the rearview mirror, Wendy is tickled to be reading for pleasure again…and to be chipping away at her piles. In the absence of future Stieg Larsson books to look forward to, she’s discovered another middle-aged Swedish gumshoe: Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander.
She looks forward to reading Mankell’s Faceless Killers and finishing Elyssa East’s Dogtown during an August trip to Vermont. Thunderstorms are predicted for nearly every day of her trip, so she’s bringing along Asne Seierstad’s The Bookseller of Kabul, too. All three books are souvenirs of her bookstore jaunts.
Yes! Love the article….I am a bookstore junkie, too.
And my home is a book storage facility….
I love the article as well. My wife looks around the house in dismay because there is no longer an opportunity to decorate as she would like; the books say the essential thing it seems. Old books (a few new) say so much. I love the quality of the paper and impression of the type (mostly letterpress) and the bindings and dust jackets all say something to me beyond their content. Our daughter is amused, but she welcomes old books for Christmas and other occasions eagerly.
What a wonderful idea to go on a book shop tour! I found a wonderful all sci-fi/fantasy book shop while on vacation in San Diego once. It was one of the unplanned highlights of the trip. I can also relate to the piles of books on the floor at home. : ) Great article.
Hi Wendy!
This was a great piece and I’m jealous that you were able to visit all of these bookstores. You’ve inspired me, though and I’m definitely going to follow your path through New England later this year. I’m especially grateful for this piece, because I have a debut novel coming out in May from Harcourt (The Year of the Gadfly), which is set in Western, MA.
Congrats on finishing grad school, by the way. I also turned in my grad school thesis a few weeks ago.
All best,
Jen
@propjen on twitter
I am guilty myself. I love them all and I too have stacks of books on the side of my bed…under the bed….strewn throughout.
Lovely article.
Loved this! I always find out what bookstores are in any town I visit on vacations or other trips. I’ve been to some great ones over the years and don’t think I’ve ever in my life left any book store empty handed. I have books and other reading material all over my house – and like it that way. I love book stores and will do my part to ensure they never disappear! I’ll be the last person to get an e-reader – nothing compares to shopping for books in person, pulling a great discovery off the shelf and adding it to my collection.
Thanks, everyone, for the nice comments! I’m glad you enjoyed the piece and I hope you find some new haunts too. I found a couple of other good bookstores in Vermont last week – Boxcar and Caboose Cafe in St. Johnsbury, and Woodknot Bookshop in Newport. Lovely, helpful staff at each and a good book selection, considering the relatively small size of the bookstores. Drive safely!
Bravo, Wendy! Here are the little havens that preserve our sanity and enrich the quality of our lives … indie bookstores.
Though I live in the NW, I grew up back east. Every summer we went tent camping in Upstate NY, PA or the New England area. One of my favorite times was at Buttermilk Falls near Ithaca, NY. We found a lovely old bookstore like you describe here and brought back books to read. Thus began my love of IVANHOE. When I visit family in the Harvard, MA area I’m always looking for bookstores. Will look these up the next time I come.
Great article. The brick & mortar bookstores and the people who support them, not to mention the people who take busloads of book lovers to them, are the very best. Small vendors like me also depend on customers who love & buy their books at the indies…let’s not let the big ‘A’ kill our indie bookstore love affair!
Hi Wendy,
I share your passion for bookstores. It’s what motivated me to buy the Book Hunter Press, and reincarnate it as http://www.literarytourist.com
Please check the site out. Happy to offer you a complimentary membership
Hi Wendy…at age 61, I can assure you that the books continue to pile up and, eventually, tumble over unless extreme steps are taken. Fortunately, I discovered a website not long ago that motivated me to get serious about organizing and cataloging mine (librarything.com). The site also introduced me to others who suffer from/benefit from bibliobibuli (loosely translated as being drunk on books). Excellent website…I was so grateful that I stumbled upon it. Also, I often visit the Andover Bookstore…my daughter went to school in Andover, and the bookstore was one of our favorite places. Thanks for a great article!
Wait, is Domino aka Dust Jacket still alive and now known as Dust Muffin? Or is Dust Muffin a look-alike?
[...] This post was Twitted by prathambooks [...]
[...] …read more Leave a Comment LikeBe the first to like this post.Leave a Comment » [...]
I’m glad that you found inspiration to seek out the rural New England bookstore. It was inspiring to me years ago to read Larry Portzline’s book about Bookstore Tourism and I see from the many comments to your blog that there are a lot of “readers” and “collectors” still in the hunt. My favorite top 25 bookstores keeps changing, but your readers may find more inspiration for future visits at my website: http://www.guidtonewenglandbookstores.com. See you on the road.
Great post. I’ve been sharing it with all my friends.
BTW, I tracked down the photo of DJ (Dust Muffin) on Flickr and realized it was taken in 2006, so I guess that does not mean DJ is still alive. It was really nice to see an old friend’s face so unexpectedly. (I worked at the shelter that DJ was originally adopted from.)
Loved reading this – thanks for posting it! Sharing with my book loving friends. I am more of a library booksale junkie but have been known to spend alot in some wonderful used bookstores.
Thank you, Wendy, for such an informative, well-researched article. It makes me miss New England and the Book Mill in particular. I’ve purchased many books there, including an affordable first-edition Dickens. I especially appreciate the old hardcovers with their lovely old-fashioned gold-inked covers. There has been the occasional surprise when a decades-old receipt or some personal correspondence pops out as you’re flipping through the pages. Not to mention all those ancient inscriptions in elegant cursive handwriting. Ahh… meet me for a cup of tea by and a mint-chocolate muffin by the falls!
I always love how time seems to stand still the moment I enter a bookstore. I also love the sensual pleasures old books bring : the spicy smell of the binding, the feel of the paper.
And used books offer the same kinds of pleasures I experience in my 130-year-old home. Why does this pine floor have this series of dents just here – what was happening in this room? What is this oddly shaped piece of iron in the attic – was it part of a stove, or a tool, and how did it find it’s way here?
Similarly, used books so often offer lovely momentos from past readers — a carefully bent page corner, a tiny smudge of (jam??), a faintly underlined phrase. These things remind me that I’m in community with other readers.
Hi Wendy!
Thanks for introducing me to the Book Mill all those many years ago. We’re still friends and we still love used book stores!
Call me a curmudgeon, call me a Luddite, but I’ll never own a Kindle.
Keep reading and keep writing,
Lara
Wendy,Linda sent the link to your story which enjoyed so very much. In this world becoming more and more dehumanized and people becoming more isolated thanks to cyber space, it’s so refreshing and hopeful to read a story like yours. I wish music held out like the book stores in your story. It’s almost over for music lovers looking for that same tactile human experience. Best, John
Ann, thanks for passing along the librarything.com web site. I took the tour and think it’s a great idea, but am wary of how long a process it would take to enter in all of my books! I take it this is a work in progress kind of thing, as opposed to a rainy afternoon project. It sounds like it was energy well spent, though. How long did it take you? Have other readers/commenters used librarything.com, or a similar site to help organize their book collection?
Nigel, thanks for the literarytourist.com link! I added it to my bookmarks and will keep it mind for future wanderings. I hope other readers/commenters get a chance to tinker with the search engine. By plugging in a region and month, you can find area bookstores, collections and literary societies as well as current events (book fairs, films festivals).
Thanks again, everyone, for commenting on my bookstore piece. Mary, that’s a great observation that time stands still when one enters a bookstore. I hadn’t thought of that consciously, but it makes perfect sense. Suomensisko, I often use my book receipts as bookmarks, and also like the “archaeological find” when I pop open a book I’ve not read in a while.
Janet, I’m not sure where the photo of Dustmuffin/DJ came from. The fact that you knew him shows that it’s a smaller world than we realize! Bertram & Oliver Bookstore in Amesbury, MA, is named for two pet cats.
John, nice to hear from you
I’ve thought about the music industry as an analogy when reading about the future of publishing. I still buy CDs, but it’s true that there aren’t as many music stores around as I remember in the 80s and 90s.
Jen, I went to college in western Mass. and my parents spent part of their retirement years there. I’ve a real fondness for the area and will keep an eye out for your book (congratulations!)
Thanks again, everyone…and feel free to share your favorite book stores! It may spark others to visit.