Auld Lang Sign of the Times

by Jas Faulkner The last meeting of the Central Avenue Readers Group did not happen in the usual place. There was no collection of chairs gathered from throughout the store and placed in a circle near the big front window of Central Avenue Books. There was no dimming of the lights throughout the stacks, a … Read more

NY Antiquarian Book Show

At the annual New York Antiquarian Book Show, even the paper within a bookseller’s catalog, has a refined air. A fragrance if you will, of  expensively  printed sheets of paper, beautifully bound with my favorite illustration from In Powder and Crinoline by Kay Nielsen’s hand.Within its pages are detailed descriptions of tomes I’ve never heard … Read more

Murphy’s Loft Bookshop

Murphy’s Loft, Mullica Hill NJ. This was my third experience in this laid back book and ephemera store. I visited years ago, and then a few months back, right after the original owner retired, and her son (grandson?) took the reins. Unfortunately, his mother decided to rid herself of half the inventory, so he let it … Read more

Remembrances of Bookstores Past

Myles Friedman’s excellent post about the lack of bookshops reminded me of all those wonderful bookstores I had the luck to visit during my years living in New York City. I took them for granted. It never occurred to me back then that bookstores were about to become extinct. If I happened by one, I’d go in. Simple as that. I seemed to find them easily, or they found me. I don’t remember the exact location of the original Murder Ink bookstore, but I do remember it was tiny, on a side street, and terribly intimidating. The only impression I remember was the owner wasn’t all that friendly. Apparently, that characteristic spread to many others who followed in the first Murder Ink’s footsteps. (The person I encountered was apparently the second owner, the original had already sold by the time I entered–20 or so years later, after many various booksellers, including myself, it closed. No, I wasn’t responsible for it going, ha. (maybe the last owner’s contempt of the genre he was selling had something to do with it–“After 10 years of owning Murder Ink, I was sick of mysteries, having felt as if I’d read every possible permutation of perfect crimes and brilliant, but flawed, detectives.”)

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A New London CT Bookshop Dream

To go directly to Indie GoGO to donate money to help get indie bookstore Monte Crisco up and running:   http://www.indiegogo.com/montecristobookshop With major changes to the entire industry leaving the concept of a bookstore, period, on shaky ground, opening an independent bookshop during these uncertain economic times sounds like savings suicide. Yet, this is exactly what a … Read more

Uplifting News About Independent Bookstores

I was off looking for a different article, when my path crossed this rather nice upbeat article on the state of indies. Take a gander and hopefully it will give you a spring in your step as you enter your shops. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-petrocelli/a-band-of-determined-ecce_b_1242177.html?ref=books

The Old Book Shop

Sometimes the urge comes on me, and I desperately need to be among old volumes. The scent of fine aged paper, unopened boxes of new acquisitions, rows of superior bindings and dust jackets, ordinary reading copies that will be passed along to some other biblio, is essential to my mental health.  The spot I rush … Read more

Where Do The Books You've Read Go?

I’m asking, because I need new creative places to take them! I have long ago left behind the notion that I could keep all the books I’d read. As a teenager, it didn’t seem so difficult–stack them in a corner of the room, and let them be. By college, I didn’t want to lug them … Read more