Myles Friedman

Collecting Modern Library Books

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In the period during which I was working to create a store and open it for business I was asked many times if I would specialize in anything. This is not a question that I spent much time deliberating over. Most of my favorite bookshops have been general interest stores; they tried to find good books of all types, and offer books that fit their customers’ needs.

Still, I now realize that, without consciously intending to, I am in the process of becoming a specialist. It seems obvious now, but as I worked to fill the store I wasn’t aware how powerfully my tastes and interests – my personality – would contour the store’s collection. This is obvious, for example, in how many good history, biography and philosophy books I quickly acquired, and how few good science books I’ve found. As I’ve mentioned before, I have many hundreds of good baseball books; and relatively few on golf or auto racing. But the real specialty that I’ve found, and that I am now embracing, is Modern Library books.

collecting modern library books
Collecting Modern Library

Over the past 20 years, I have bought quite a few Modern Library books. These appeal to me for two chief reasons: they are inexpensive and they are (most of them, at least) the perfect size for a book. There are other good reasons to collect Modern Library books, beginning with the quality of the paper, the overall durability of the bindings, and the design, including the Rockwell Kent endpapers. And the catalogue contains all worthwhile titles, many of which have been forgotten by modern readers and dropped from the current canon of classic literature. But if you are willing to go on a blind date with a book, if it was published by Modern Library, you’ll probably be glad you took a chance.

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Walls & Wallaces: Author Reading and a New Mural

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Daniel Wallace arrived at Circle City Books Saturday afternoon and kept an audience spellbound with an artful reading of the first chapter of his new book, The Kings and Queens of Roam. Wallace’s appearance as the chief feature of our Grand Opening was a complete sensation for several reasons. First of all, if an author has a distinctive voice, and Wallace does, he can suffuse a reading with the inflection and tone the story requires. Second, he has a gift for inviting an audience into his world and making it feel welcome. And third, his writing, wry and ironic, smoothly unfolding in bold, picturesque sentences, sparkles when read aloud. The result was an audience eager for more but facing a six-month wait until the book is finally released. When it comes out this spring, it will likely catch the slipstream of the new musical adaptation of “Big Fish” that hits Broadway in May. I was loaned Wallace’s galley and though I haven’t finished it, I’ve read enough to know I won’t be the only reader enthralled by it.

Otherwise, the success of our opening was mostly due to my wife, Virginia, who organized the whole day. She solicited local businesses that generously contributed 25 door prizes, and is still notifying the winners. She ordered 20 new copies of “Big Fish” for the signing, but on Thursday it seemed impossible that they would arrive on time. Because of the hurricane, the shipping center in New Jersey was shut down Tuesday and Wednesday, though UPS wasn’t picking up in New Jersey anyway. But, somehow, the books made good time on Thursday and arrived here Friday. In the end, everyone who wanted one got a signed book.

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Week 1 in the Books for New Pittsboro Bookshop

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I finished my first week as a bookseller by closing up and dashing to a wedding, late of course, but there, nonetheless. Instead of disapproving looks from the on-time guests, and censure from the bride, I was welcomed with understanding and enthusiasm. I am the Quixotic bookman, tilting at windmills and Nooks and iPads, and slack must be cut. I get the same treatment in the store. I can’t count how many people told me this week how happy they are that there’s finally a bookstore in Pittsboro. It’s as if I’d opened the only health clinic in a remote wilderness. The customers are thanking me for opening my store as sincerely as I thank them for stopping by. But they also note how “brave” I am to be entering the bookstore business, by which they really mean “nuts,” and certainly, deep down, some of them mean “stupid.” But that’s nothing I haven’t thought myself over these past three months.

After a strong first day on Saturday, there was little business Sunday through Tuesday. Things picked up by the end of the week, and Saturday produced 35 sales which, if repeated every weekend, are enough to keep me open.  I have been trying to systematically calculate what books and what categories are most popular, and after a month or two, I’ll draw some conclusions. But I suppose I can make some assumptions about my customers based on the fact that of the hundreds of books that left the shop last week, only one was a romance novel. Perhaps the romance readers haven’t heard about the store yet, but I sold a lot of history and literature this week and I answered a lot of questions about interesting books and recorded three pages of varied book wants. It took about three days for the new books coming into the store to accumulate beyond my ability to keep up with them. Buying them and pricing them is one thing, but finding shelf space is another. I tried to fill the shelves before I opened, and for the most part I did, but I’ve added another four or five hundred books and by this time next month, my store may look like the Collyer brothers’ apartment. Besides that I still have 10,000 books in storage that I need to get into the store sometime. If it sounds like I perhaps need to suspend book acquisitions, I can’t disagree. The idea of an employee is still a little down the road – filling in a w-2 form and other accompanying work may be too much in the early days. Still, if a box of cookbooks finds its way into the store, I can’t imagine not at least looking through them – who knows when I’ll finally find the elusive “Kosher Cooking in Ireland.”

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Pittsboro Bookshop is Now Open

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I opened the door and people materialized – right before my eyes. It was surprising, like when I spent three hours putting together a remote controlled plane for my son and the thing actually flew! Our first customer browsed, then several hours later returned and bought a $50 Far Side cartoon collection. The actual first sale was a first edition of Annie Dillard’s “The Maytrees,” followed by Eco’s “The Name of the Rose.” We sold a biography of Richard III, William Manchester’s “The Power and the Glory,” Gunter Grass, Shel Silverstein, H.G. Wells… well, I shouldn’t try to list every book, but I was strangely affected by every sale. Many of the books were titles that I had picked out myself, believing they were books that someone would want, or at least that they were books that I thought someone should want. And when they sold, I felt gratified, like when you pick a horse and it wins the derby. And I was gratified to hear so many customers express their excitement about having a bookstore in town.  And I was surprised by the number of people that came in not knowing that we were a new store. These were people passing through Pittsboro who stopped because they saw the large “BOOKS” sign that we hung outside, as a placeholder until our real sign arrives.

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Circle City Books Opening Soon

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This is my last post before next week when Circle City opens its doors to customers. I am facing with a calm and serene acceptance the fact that my first week in business will be a chaotic welter of disorder and catastrophe. From credit cards to cash register to furnace to plumbing to signage – all is in flux, and by flux I mean completely beyond hope. All right, I am exaggerating. There is still a sliver of hope that in the next week I’ll get things straightened out.

Nevertheless, we are opening, ready or not. And what will be ready is a store full of books. I’ve finished building and installing the bookshelves, and I expect to spend most of the next week filling the shelves with books. I’ve finished the general fiction and literature room, which is stocked with a mix of classic and contemporary works.  I haven’t counted the books, but I know I have 3,172 inches of shelf space; I estimate about 4,500 books, priced and ready to sell. The most expensive book in the fiction room will be a copy of “The Fountainhead,” the 1949 edition that was published to coincide with the release of the movie, that I’ve priced at $35. I doubt there are more than 30 books priced over $10.

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Lose Weight Fast, Open a Bookstore

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If you want to lose weight, you should open a bookstore. It might not work for you, but I’ve dropped 20 pounds since this project began in mid-July. I doubt it is because of exercise, though I’ve carried more boxes of books than I could count. I think it is from not eating, which I often forget to do as the day passes while I am focused on one of the tasks that I need to complete if I am going to be ready to open the doors October 20.

faulkner biographyThis past week I devoted to organizing, sorting and culling books in the general fiction room. I have made the following two decisions and I am curious if they offend anyone: first, I am shelving some non-fiction books with the general fiction when it means keeping all the books by an author together. Lawrence Durrell, Annie Dillard, Tom Wolfe and Paul Theroux are examples of writers who have produced works of both fiction and non-fiction. It seems to me that browsers are more likely to buy books by these authors if they are shelved together, even if they violate category definitions. Second, when a book is about a writer, I am shelving that book with that writer’s own work. So, Joseph Blotner’s two-volume biography of Faulkner is not in the biography section, but with Faulkner’s novels. Again, this seems like the best way to interest a Faulkner reader in buying a Faulkner bio. But, perhaps I am overlooking some other consideration?

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Bookstore Opening Soon Approaching

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As I write this on Sunday night, there are now just 20 days until the bookstore’s opening, Oct 20. I don’t know if I’ll be ready or not, but I am determined to open regardless. It’s time to start selling some of the astounding mountains of books that continue to grow around me. This week was the Chatham Community Library book sale, and somehow I managed to find room in my store for 500 more books. On Saturday, bag day ($5 per bag) I packed 430 books into 20 bags. These were books that had not sold the day before for $1 per trade paperback or $1.50 per hardback. Yet, there were many great books left, and other buyers found as many or more than I did. My wife keeps telling me “we don’t need any more books,” and she’s right – in the abstract. But need isn’t really the point. I don’t need a copy of the “Essays of Montaigne,” even if it’s 1947 edition illustrated in color by Salvador Dali. Or the luxuriously illustrated 1958 “History of Paris and the Parisians.” Or Ezra Pound’s “Personae” (1956 edition) with a nice dust jacket. And those are just three of the interesting, if unnecessary, volumes I unearthed for less than 25 cents per book.

The library sale is also worthwhile because I get to meet some of my fellow book dealers. On the first day I would guess there were 30 dealers of one kind or another lined up before the doors opened. Most, I gather, are internet dealers, identifiable by the hand held scanners they brandish like gunslingers. Someday I may join their ranks, but first I have to learn what I can sell in my store; the internet and the rest of the whole wide world will have to wait.

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Circle City Books has a Logo

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After several weeks of fine-tuning, I’ve finally got a logo. That means I can start working on the signs that will go on and around the building. Our graphic artist came up with a much better design than what I had in mind when I presented him with my rough idea. My wife and daughter went back and forth over colors and details and, I think, everybody is happy. We’ll see what it looks like four feet high.

Circle City Books LogoAs time passes, and word spreads of my existence, I am getting more calls from people who want to unload their books. I’ve seen a lot of worthless books over the past month. The hope that, at long last, someone might actually pay money for torn, wet or coverless books is a powerful incentive for some people to lug boxes downtown. Several times sellers with large boxes have told me they had some good books, but since I wasn’t the first store they visited, they’re gone now. This seems an odd admission for someone to make, if they want me to buy their books. But I suspect their desire to profit isn’t as great as the embarrassment they feel showing me such lousy books.

Today I visited Trenton, North Carolina, population 200. Judge Walter Henderson, a commercially unsuccessful novelist, passed away some months ago, and his nephew needs to liquidate the estate. I was called by a mutual friend, and after a three-hour drive, I spent a couple of hours in the judge’s library. It was located on the first floor of the old Trenton railway station which, after the station closed, was bought by the judge and moved out into the country where he made his home, overlooking the Trent River. The books were situated just by the ticket window, across from the freight entrance. My calculation was that an educated, well-to-do judge, with a literary background, was just the sort of person who might have a library full of signed William Faulkner books. This was not the case, however. He did love Faulkner, but most of his books were recent reprints. I took a few books, and agreed to pay the nephew fifty cents each for a couple hundred more, were he to bring them to Pittsboro. It was an interesting trip, nonetheless, and one I will keep making, if there seems a reasonable chance of finding something special.

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