Independent Bookstore Tour, Part I

On Thursday, I had one of the unsettling realization that I am a the foulest sort of hypocrite.

I was drooling over a book on Amazon and was this close to ordering it with a single click when I had a moment of clarity. For someone who claims to support bookstores, I sure buy a lot of books on Amazon. In fact, I haven't purchased a book from a brick-and-mortar shop since before Christmas, and even then I just went to Barnes and Noble instead of one of the independent bookstores whose virtues I tout to anyone who will listen.

I love bookstores. Even the uninspired, antiseptic airport variety generally keep me entranced for ages. I browse the display tables, pull volumes off shelves, flip through known and loved books, and snap cell phone pictures of attractive new ones that may earn a place on my to-read list. Amazon is convenient, but I'm a big believer in voting with my wallet, and I've been chipping away at the fragile existence of wonderful bookstores with every dollar I spend on Amazon. This, I decided, would not stand.

I set my jaw and began to asked Google about great bookstores in New York. I've walked by many during my years here and have even shopped in some, but I was having a tough time recalling exactly which streets to go down. Instead of pointing me to one establishment, my search kept turning up lots of "Best Of" lists, all accompanied by tantalizing pictures of overflowing shelves and titillating descriptions of the wonders housed within each store. How silly to think that a city as rich and vibrant as New York would have just one great spot; rather, there were tons. And I couldn't pick just one. So I decided to go to all of them.

Well, not all, of course. The Strand, for example, is a wonderful bookstore, but I've shopped there enough that it doesn't offer an air of mystery anymore. Ditto the Upper West Side's wonderful Book Culture. No, I decided, this trip should involve bushwhacking. I wanted to turn over mossy stones and reveal hidden treasures. So I settled on a modest list of eight independent bookstores, all in Manhattan, and formulated a route--as luck would have it, I'd need to take only one subway and otherwise be able to walk between all of my targeted stops--and a  plan of action. I would visit each one, take a few pictures, and spend some time browsing. In an act of penance, I would purchase at least one book from each store. I planned to bring a list of wanted titles with me just in case nothing caught my eye, but I hardly anticipated needing it.

I planned my odyssey for Sunday, but a wrench was thrown into the works when I was a little too vigorous in helping my friend Eddie celebrate his birthday on Saturday night. Accordingly, once some of the fog had cleared from my brain, I reduced my eight-stop tour to a more modest three. I'll look forward to visiting the other five stores on another weekend. Here, then, is an account of the first segment of my adventure:

Posman Books (75 9th Ave.)
Purchased: The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner

This pleasant bookstore is in Chelsea Market and fits the mold of the other stores housed there. It's nice enough, but there's nothing really endearing about it to set it apart from just about any other bookstore, even many chains. It's spacious and has a nice selection of books arranged on tables and shelves, but it lacks soul, somehow. I would certainly recommend it to anyone who happened to be in the area and needed a book, but it's not a place I'd rave about. There was a shelf with hand-written notes by employees propped in front of books they'd enjoyed, a feature I always like. And the children's section was appealing, with comfortable-looking poufs and, best of all, round cutouts set into the lower wall just waiting for a small person to haul a book into. I was tempted to try them out but thought I might get some strange looks.

Left Bank Books (17 8th Ave.)
Purchased: The Mambo Kings Sing Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos

This hole-in-the-wall used bookstore is the kind of place you'll either love or hate the second you step into it. I thought it was a pretty interested place to poke around, but it's definitely not the kind of store to go to if one had a particular book in mind. That said, the owner, a thin, pale, balding man of indiscriminate age, did seem to have a good sense of what he had in stock, so perhaps he'd be able to help if one asked. The space was jam-packed with books: Shelves lined every wall from floor to ceiling and a composite of shelving and several small, mismatched tables took up the center of the room where still more books were arranged. The aisles were cozy for one and downright intimate if you had to move past another customer to access another shelf. Valuable, signed books were housed near the front in a locked glass-front case. Although the collection seemed jumbled, the shelves were actually well organized, alphabetical by author with categories hand-written on slips of paper and taped to the shelves. I was impressed to see that the owner had taken the time to wrap the dust jacket of each hardcover book with plastic film, not taped in place but snug enough to protect the book until the buyer took it home. The ceiling was made of stamped tin and the floor was decorated with a tile mosaic pattern that had seen better days but was still pretty. Pleasant jazz played in the background at a volume that was just loud enough to give one a sense of solitude but not too loud that it was overpowering. As I browsed, the owner of the shop was busy sorting through a box of books a man had brought in to sell him. "Most of these are bad," he said, with a short bark of a laugh. "I mean, there are some I'm interested in, but the bad ones are really bad." Hmm. Not one to sugarcoat things, apparently. I found a copy of Open City by Teju Cole, a book I'd been wanting to read for a while, but put it back hastily when I found that it was $75 because it had been signed by the author. I'm a fan of collecting my own signed books, but I'm not about to pay that much for a book that was signed for someone else. When I presented my book to the owner, he wrote down the title and author in a composition book splayed open on his desk next to an elegantly designed but dirty teacup, a beret, a calculator, and scattered pens and books. I read in a review that Left Bank is the kind of place you can spend hours reading in without drawing annoyed glances from the staff. I wouldn't want to test the owner's patience, though. He seemed a bit crusty.

Three Lives and Company (154 W. 10th St.)
Purchased: The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee  and The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt

I was particularly excited about this, the final stop on my tour. I'd ventured into this little West Village gem back in January when my friend Marion came to visit and was instantly charmed. It's a small space, but an inviting one. The employees have certainly done their best to cram as many books as possible into the small shop, but they're artfully arranged and so the overall effect was welcoming and not overwhelming. I was also impressed by the quality of their selection; most of the fiction on offer was true literature, and their smaller offerings of children's books, non-fiction volumes, and travel books were all top notch. Ed rightfully pointed out, however, that it was somewhat difficult to navigate the store. Most of the their collection seemed to be fiction, but I know that only because I walked around the whole perimeter of the place scouring the shelves for a particular non-fiction volume I wanted and found mostly Austen, Rushdie, Strout, and Twain. None of the sections were labelled, so if one came in looking for something specific, they'd need to either dedicate some time to a thorough search or ask one of the employees. That said, unlike the acerbic proprietor of Left Bank, the staff at Three Lives is both knowledgeable and friendly. I narrowed it down to two books and decided that, since Three Lives would benefit from my patronage, I didn't need to choose just one after all. When making my purchase, I inquired about the non-fiction book I'd been unable to find, something my boss has mentioned several times and I'd like to read. One of the staff found that they didn't carry it, but he cheerfully took down my name and number and said they'd order it for me.

It's tough to compete with the Strand, which offers a mixture of new and used books and is so enormous yet thoughtfully laid out that one is almost guaranteed to find just about any book without searching for ages. But Three Lives has such a different vibe that I think maybe it's OK for me to have two favorite bookstores. Of course, committing just yet would be premature. I look forward to the rest of my tour, which will have to wait a few weekends, unfortunately. But I have plenty of great reading material to keep me busy until then. I started The Emperor of All Maladies last night and it's wonderful.