Bookstore Roundup
So far, I haven't been able to give every bookstore I've visited its due. Some I found unexpectedly and wasn't ready to cover them. Sometimes, I couldn't get great pictures. Sometimes I was so excited about the books, I forgot to take pictures altogether.
(Reader, I am not a great photographer, I like to out of the way and observe as much as possible. Getting good photos doesn't allow that.)
But I've stumbled into (and fumbled) some terrific bookstores, so I wanted to write a little bit about them.
The Briar Patch - Bangor, Maine
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| The Briar Patch's photo, taken from their Facebook page |
It would have particularly appealed to young me (and to present me) because The Briar Patch is a bookstore dedicated to young readers. It has sizable early reader, middle grade, and young adult sections. All three sections gave significant shelf space to sci-fi and fantasy, which particularly warmed my heart. The shop was bright, mural-covered, and I instantly felt at home.
The Bookery - Manchester, New Hampshire
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| Shelf Awareness |
The Bookery was a warm harbor in a storm. We arrived in Manchester on a very blustery afternoon after burying my grandmother and we needed a place to work for a few hours before I went off to my friend's bachelorette party. (It was a whirlwind week, to say the least.) And then there was the Bookery: warm and inviting and offering desperately needed coffee. Part bookstore, part cafe and meeting space, it's a place to really hunker down with a new book or your laptop. They also had some very groovy spinning top chairs.
Crow Bookshop - Burlington, Vermont
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Crow Bookshop, with its aura of an old musty library, has an eclectic mix of new and used books. Although this shop is popular and well-loved, I was underwhelmed by my visit—in part because used selections can be so hit or miss, but also because of certain small things about the store. For example, the middle-grade staff suggestions were placed so high that I had a hard time reading them, let alone a ten-year-old. This spot did feel more geared toward the collegiate and academic set. The old and selectively exclusionary environment would have made Bernard Black feel right at home.
Politics & Prose (On the Wharf) - Washington, DC
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| DC Fray |
I wasn't able to get to Politics and Prose's original location (the one with the wine bar), but I did make it to one of their newer locations in the trendy Wharf area on the Potomac. The store was spare and industrial in its style, entirely white and glass, but not spare on books. Although they had an unsurprising focus on politics in their displays and recommendations, there was a healthy mix of genre in the small store. It was a welcome respite on the rainy, chilly night that I went to visit.
Parnassus Books - Nashville, Tennessee
The shop itself was pleasantly dim and airy, complete with a leather couch circle in the center of the floor and a nearby stage for readings and performances. The highlight of the store, however, was the down-the-rabbit-hole, child-sized doorway that led to the children's section. (Don't worry, there were other entrances, too, for adult-sized people.)
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