As many of you know, I' a struggling atheist, one that slips into superstitious thinking and panicky prayer when I hurt or lose something. But there is one thing I REALLY can't let go of; I've always said that the closest I've come to the experience of having real faith is through reading. I'm thinking of Haven Kimmel in particular. She would love this, I'm sure.
Maybe I am a little prone to romanticizing bookstores (ahem): the scope, the nature, the feeling they give you. But I also believe, dear readers, that they are my holiest places, where I can breathe in the smell of paper and glue, silently commune with my fellow parishioners, and sometimes, just sometimes, feel the presence of something larger than myself and terribly good.
What are your favorite bookstores?
Thanks to Tara for this
For some reason, Cross County Shopping Center in Yonkers, NY is considered to be one of the first malls in New York. It's not really a mall, it's more like what Crossroads in Cary is like now.
ReplyDeleteIf you're not familiar with the area, Yonkers forms most of the northern border with the Bronx. Growing up in the north Bronx, the distinction was lost on me. Going to Yonkers and going to Manhattan were kind of the same to a 10-year-old. Anyway, to me, Cross County was special for what was my favorite (read: the world's greasiest) Chinese food, a Nathan's hot dogs that had dozens of arcade games, and The Dragon's Den.
The Dragon's Den was a comic book store with drab fluorescent lighting, smelly carpets, not enough room, and a horrendously shitty organizing system. Utter crap was mixed in with pure gold and it was all fucking impossible to find and made no sense when you eventually did find it. It was also heaven.
To my 10 year old self, it was a completely new world. During my mom's shopping trips, I would spend the whole time in the Den, pawing through the latest comics and beginning my descent into utter nerddom with Dungeons and Dragons, Battletech, Shadowrun, and Paranoia books. I would wonder why this stuff was in 7 different parts of the store and mixed in with Howard the Duck comics, but still, it was heaven.
I don't know if a comic book store counts as a bookstore in this context, but nevertheless I don't have a better answer than this.
Upcycling big box stores is about to be big in America. Heartening to see that upcycling churches (indisputably gorgeous) is becoming a fad in Europe, where they've outlasted their initial purpose. See also http://theexpertsagree.com/2009/09/dois-tempos/ and http://theexpertsagree.com/2009/08/vai-com-deus/
ReplyDeletefavorite bookstores...
ReplyDelete• Taschen always does a good job making theirs cathedralesque.
• The new MoMA has one inside the ticketed area, like library stacks on a skywalk, floor to ceiling windows. One of my favorite minimalist-architecture spaces.
• Powells (Portland) and Green Apple (SF) for having acres of used books sprawled across multiple floors and shoved into every corner.
• Adobe Books in SF when it was organized by color (google image search has some good shots but nothing compares to standing in front of a shelf of all black spined books... It was very eerie and slightly rothkoesque). That bookstore much more than most used bookstores has the feel of "we could care less about sales of books. We just enjoy being surrounded by them."
• Paul "the Collins Library" Collins has a book called Sixpence House about living in Hay-on-Wye, where the UK sends all their books to die. It's pretty a vividly drawn portrait and yet nonetheless if I ever travel to the UK I will take a side trip to Wales to visit.
• And of course Reader's Corner, Raleigh, where all of this bibliophila began.
These are great. And Marco OF COURSE cahmeek shops count!
ReplyDeleteSee also http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2008/09/bittersweet-art-of-cutting-up-books.html -- Adobe color coded is in there. But also books being used as raw material for sculptural art.
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