As a bibliophile*, there was obviously no way I was going to visit New York without shopping for books. (We also did some shoe shopping for Karli - it's important that both people in a relationship get to enjoy their interests when travelling together.) We managed to get to three bookstores during our time in Manhattan, which between them represented almost the full spectrum of independent book retailing.
(Come to think of it, I can’t think of many chain bookstore spottings during our time in Manhattan, which probably speaks to the difficulties of maintaining a storefront in the age of internet shopping.)
On Thursday morning, we made our way to Greenwich Village via the High Line, New York's groundbreaking elevated railway-park conversion. After an excellent lunch at the trendy Spotted Pig, and a quick photo op at Carrie Bradshaw's brownstone**, we stopped at Book Book, located on Bleecker Street in the heart of the Village.
Book Book is very much the archetypal small generalist bookstore: a little bit of everything with a focus on mainstream fiction, discounted hardcovers, and an acceptable selection of affordable remainders. It's a well-lit space, with a good layout that makes for easy browsing.
Due to the limitations of Book Book's modest footprint, their science fiction and fantasy section is almost non-existent, restricted to five shelves at the back of the store. That being said, I have to give them credit for its comprehensive nature. If someone told me to stock five shelves with what I considered to be the best of science fiction and fantasy, I would be hard pressed to improve upon Book Book’s tiny perfect offering.
Next stop was Carmine Street and Unoppressive Non-Imperialist Bargain Books, which managed to live up to all the parts of its name - I found it lacking in both oppression and imperialistic ambitions, and it had an interesting selection of affordable reading. UNIBB and its sister store Carmine Comics each occupy about as much space as my spare bedroom, but still manage to offer interesting if somewhat cramped shopping. The store offers an eclectic range of bargain books with more of a focus on music, politics and philosophy than science fiction, but I spotted - and purchased - a hardcover copy of Give Our Regards to the Atom-smashers!, a collection of essays on comic books edited by Sean Howe, affordably priced at $7.00 after taxes.
According to Wikipedia, The Strand, New York’s best known independent book store, has about 2.5 million volumes in its four story Broadway location - or, as they prefer to put it, 18 miles of books. The problem with having that sort of inventory is, of course, finding the shelf space to display it. The Strand’s solution is relatively narrow aisles, quite high bookshelves, and a good supply of stepladders.*** This may allow them to fit everything in, but the result is that casual browsing is a bit of a challenge.
It would have been fascinating to methodically work my way through all the shelves in their Science Fiction and Fantasy section, but there are times when you just have to be realistic. As such, I decided to let chance lead me through the stacks - and after all, it's important to keep the high cost of overweight luggage fees in mind when book shopping in another country.
I'd already picked up a reduced price copy of The Princess Bride from a display near the checkout. My beloved die-cut cover paperback version has been due for replacement for quite some time, and it seemed like a good opportunity to take care of that.
Coincidentally, one of Karli’s friends had recommended that she read The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker, a tale of supernatural romance set in New York, which was fortuitously located at eye level and all but jumped off the shelf at me. Spaceman of Bohemia, Jaroslav Kalfar's debut novel, was a random purchase - again, just at eye level, and I was intrigued by the title. It also fit the New York theme: Kalfar emigrated from the Czech Republic to the US as a teenager, and now lives in Brooklyn.
My final selection at The Strand was more deliberate - I've been planning to buy Joe Abercrombie's Sharp Ends for some time. Abercrombie's grimdark fantasy novels are excellent: original and well written, with a wildly varied cast of detailed and believable characters. Sharp Ends is a collection of short pieces which act as grace notes for the larger episodes set in the world of his First Law novels.
Sharp Ends relies heavily on an existing knowledge of those novels, and as such isn't really a good introduction to Abercrombie's work. For example, the first story in the book, A Beautiful Bastard, would be meaningless unless the reader is aware that the titular character survives his heroic last stand, is captured, tortured, and reduced to a broken parody of his former self, and subsequently returns to his homeland to appear as the crippled, bitter inquisitor of the First Law trilogy.
Surprisingly, Karli ended up spending more than I did during our Sunday visit to The Strand, thanks to their large selection of giftable merch such as book bags, post cards, literary pins (she generously bought me a Dune pin), t-shirts, hats, and so on. I purchased myself a t-shirt – it’s unusual for me to buy t-shirts outside of my fandom, but I felt that supporting a book store was an acceptable indulgence.
I was initially disappointed that I didn't get to The Strand's Books By The Foot department, until subsequent research revealed what it actually was. Apparently, if you want to create the appearance of being a literary type by having a collection of noteworthy books, but without having to actually, you know, read the damn things or some such silliness, The Strand will cheerfully sell you literature by the foot - all you have to do is measure your bookshelves and provide them with your preferences. For example, if you were a neophyte lawyer, you might want a nice leatherbound library as a Facetime background, or your interior designer could order twenty or thirty feet of colour-coded books to match your new decor.
What a sad affectation! I may only have about a hundred feet of books, but at least I've read them all - without ever worrying about whether or not the colours clashed with the new couch.
- Sid
* And Karli bought me a pin, see!!?
** See the comment in the first paragraph about both people enjoying their interests.
*** “This is my stepladder. Sadly, I never knew my real ladder.”
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