“Baptized in ink and swaddled in a dust jacket, I’m one of those cats for whom a good bookshop serves as a temple, a cathedral, a holy shrine, a sacred grove, a gypsy caravan, a Tijuana nightclub, an amusement park, a mental health spa, a safari camp, a space station, and an indoor field of dreams.”
So begins novelist Tom Robbins’s essay in My Bookstore: Writers Celebrate Their Favorite Places to Browse, Read, and Shop (Black Dog & Leventhal, Nov.), an inspired collection of reminiscences by authors on favorite bookstores. Robbins’s enthusiasm was a bow to Village Books in Bellingham, Wash.
There’s a lot of territory covered in the book’s 75 pairings. Editor Ronald Rice, recommended for the job by beloved book marketing guru Carl Lennertz, queried bookstores nationwide to give play to as many stores as possible via writers whose shopping-destination preferences were well-known.
Among the pairings are Fannie Flagg on Page & Palette in Fairhope, Ala.; John Grisham on That Bookstore in Blytheville, Ark.; Isabel Allende on Book Passage in Corte Madera, Calif.; Abraham Verghese on Prairie Lights in Iowa City; Simon Winchester on the Bookloft in Great Barrington, Mass.; Ann Patchett on McLean & Eakin Booksellers in Petoskey, Mich.; Ian Frazier on Watchung Booksellers in Montclair, N.J.; and Chuck Palahniuk on Powell’s Books in Portland, Ore..
“The essays are absolute celebrations,” Rice says. “And they’re not just essays. They are anecdotal, poetic, one is even a comic strip. They are a fun look at an experience that can only be had at a brick-and-mortar store.”
Black Dog & Leventhal’s booth (4158) will resemble a bookstore. Stop by anytime for a 40-page reader featuring eight author essays from My Bookstore. A portion of authors’ fees will be donated to a scholarship fund established by BD&L for the ABA’s Winter Institute, while a portion of the BD&L revenue will go to ABFFE.
