Do some local literary travel today. It’s National Bookstore Day and a great time to start your holiday shopping, pick up some travel guides for planning future adventures, or stock up on reading selections for yourself. Maybe a copy of Matthew Pearl’s The Last Dickens or Gyles Brandreth’s Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man’s Smile, both of which are about classic writers and feature literary landmarks.
One of my favorite bookstores is the Strand in New York City (above, decorated for the holidays last year). There are “18 miles” of books lined on shelves and stacked on tables throughout a warren of rooms on three levels. They were featured in an article in last Sunday’s Los Angeles Times, “A Tour of Literary Manhattan,” along with Idlewild Books, a travel bookstore where titles (guides as well as fiction and narrative nonfiction) are arranged by destination.
National Bookstore Day was started this year by Publishers Weekly magazine to encourage people to shop locally. (Scroll down on their information page for a list of participating retailers.) Click here to read about it on Entertainment Weekly‘s Shelf Life blog.
And please let us know in the comments sections about some of your favorite bookstores, in town or around the world.
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November 7, 2009 at 11:14 pm
Poe Blogger
Brattle Bookstore in Boston, Massachusetts is a fun place to waste substantial amounts of time. Although there is a “rare books” section on the top floor, plenty of great treasures are scattered throughout. On most days, they also take over an adjoining lot, fill it with tables, and stack books to eye level, priced to sell. I usually go with no specific book in mind, and just wander through the stacks to see what I find.
There’s another gem of a bookstore called Baldwin’s Book Barn in West Chester, PA. What looks like a quaint, old-fashioned barn (still heated by a wood-burning stove) is, in fact, a mansion of endless books. Searching every nook and cranny will take hours.