So far we've visited four:
1. Spoonbill & Sugartown
Wonderful name, and besides it's around the corner from Chad & Kara's apartment in Brooklyn, not far from the subway entrance. Small, with a large stock of used books. A lot of illustration and design books (picture book for adults? Great browsing!).
2. Idlewild Books
The idea is to specialize in travel. They're located near 5th Ave. on a second floor; the wood paneling smells wonderful as you climb the stairs. Lots of travel books, of course, and books from many countries, some in their original languages. I looked briefly at the section from Scotland (the Other country I know most about): two shelves, with new editions of Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Trainspotting, and a couple of histories, no poetry (Burns? Maybe), no other novels. Sparse.
3. McNally Jackson
in Soho, between Lafayette & Mulberry Streets. Big: approaching the size of a local Barnes & Noble, with two floors and a coffee & pastry section. Substantial fiction section, but I couldn't find anything by Sigrid Nunez, whom I get to meet at the Antioch Writers' Workshop in a month.Found and bought John the Revelator by Peter Murphy. With coffee, looking out a window, I saw two women: One (straw hat, stocky) was going through trash bags for aluminum cans. The other (stick-thin legs, hair colored white/black/blue/magenta) was doing a little slinky dance for someone who had a camera, presumably showing off the black suit she wore. I know who earns more, but I suspect the other is more useful to the neighborhood, in the long run.
4. Revolution Books
on West 26th, between 6th & 7th Aves. Here are my ideological friends: Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges (bought Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle). The store was recovering from the previous evening event: An Emergency Forum: Condemn the Israeli Attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. The crowd was so large they had to put speakers outside so everyone could hear the panelists, including Hedges.
Also: here I met Clark Kissinger, a former SDS Leader and still working on The Revolution, I learned from the store's paper, which has the revolutionary rationale spelled out by Bob Avakian, owner of Revolution Books. More than I could take in.
Revolution Books was the most interesting store, and Kissinger (no relation to Henry) was a pleasure to talk with, and is the one most likely to read my book and stock more.
EACH OF THE FOUR BOOKSTORES ACCEPTED ONE COPY. So, New York friends and visitors, I urge you to go to one of the stores and ask for it. The other buyers were "busy," hesitant and a little grudging; authors apparently troop into bookstores all the time these days expecting their books to be snatched up with welcoming hands. I didn't think I expected that, but I left with the sense that the independent bookstores are struggling, maybe three steps away from people I also saw who were selling books from tables they'd put out on sidewalks.
One more thing: Up front in all four bookstores was The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (and two more by Stieg Larsson) which is also paired with mine on Amazon. Clark Kissinger explained that publishers are paying bookstores for the space. WARNING: My book is not like Stieg Larsson's. None of my characters resembles a tormented, vengeful grown-up Pippi Longstocking or a methodical investigative journalist, and my book has no sadistic sex or torture.
Enough for now.
1. Spoonbill & Sugartown
Wonderful name, and besides it's around the corner from Chad & Kara's apartment in Brooklyn, not far from the subway entrance. Small, with a large stock of used books. A lot of illustration and design books (picture book for adults? Great browsing!).
2. Idlewild Books
The idea is to specialize in travel. They're located near 5th Ave. on a second floor; the wood paneling smells wonderful as you climb the stairs. Lots of travel books, of course, and books from many countries, some in their original languages. I looked briefly at the section from Scotland (the Other country I know most about): two shelves, with new editions of Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Trainspotting, and a couple of histories, no poetry (Burns? Maybe), no other novels. Sparse.
3. McNally Jackson
in Soho, between Lafayette & Mulberry Streets. Big: approaching the size of a local Barnes & Noble, with two floors and a coffee & pastry section. Substantial fiction section, but I couldn't find anything by Sigrid Nunez, whom I get to meet at the Antioch Writers' Workshop in a month.Found and bought John the Revelator by Peter Murphy. With coffee, looking out a window, I saw two women: One (straw hat, stocky) was going through trash bags for aluminum cans. The other (stick-thin legs, hair colored white/black/blue/magenta) was doing a little slinky dance for someone who had a camera, presumably showing off the black suit she wore. I know who earns more, but I suspect the other is more useful to the neighborhood, in the long run.
4. Revolution Books
on West 26th, between 6th & 7th Aves. Here are my ideological friends: Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges (bought Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle). The store was recovering from the previous evening event: An Emergency Forum: Condemn the Israeli Attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. The crowd was so large they had to put speakers outside so everyone could hear the panelists, including Hedges.
Also: here I met Clark Kissinger, a former SDS Leader and still working on The Revolution, I learned from the store's paper, which has the revolutionary rationale spelled out by Bob Avakian, owner of Revolution Books. More than I could take in.
Revolution Books was the most interesting store, and Kissinger (no relation to Henry) was a pleasure to talk with, and is the one most likely to read my book and stock more.
EACH OF THE FOUR BOOKSTORES ACCEPTED ONE COPY. So, New York friends and visitors, I urge you to go to one of the stores and ask for it. The other buyers were "busy," hesitant and a little grudging; authors apparently troop into bookstores all the time these days expecting their books to be snatched up with welcoming hands. I didn't think I expected that, but I left with the sense that the independent bookstores are struggling, maybe three steps away from people I also saw who were selling books from tables they'd put out on sidewalks.
One more thing: Up front in all four bookstores was The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (and two more by Stieg Larsson) which is also paired with mine on Amazon. Clark Kissinger explained that publishers are paying bookstores for the space. WARNING: My book is not like Stieg Larsson's. None of my characters resembles a tormented, vengeful grown-up Pippi Longstocking or a methodical investigative journalist, and my book has no sadistic sex or torture.
Enough for now.
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