Garden District Book Shop - New Orleans, Louisiana

It's well-loved and well lived in. An attic on a main floor. The Garden District Book Shop is one of a number of shops housed inside the former location of the South's first skating rink. It's also across the street from the Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, the resting place of New Orleans' Voodoo Queen, Marie Laveau.

Despite its potentially haunted neighbors, I felt right at home as I walked into the Garden District Book Shop. Every shop has their thing, and Garden District's is author events. There are large, signed posters from author events hanging from the rafters and resting atop on the bookshelves around the store. They were advertising several upcoming events, including one that evening, at the front door.  Garden District's other "thing" is everything New Orleans. Books of local history, various guides, books by local authors, antiquarian books about New Orleans locked behind the glass of curio-like cabinets. It's incredibly heartening to see a store so dedicated to creating community around books and curating books about community, not just getting them off the shelves.

The store had a pleasant messiness about it. (As a messy person, I deeply appreciate the right amount of clutter.) Books displays arranged on the floor, some stacked three deep on top of each other. This book shop had one of my favorite bookshop features: a reading nook. The best kind of reading nook, too, on a worn leather couch. And then there was this, which warmed my heart:

It's in a quieter (and allegedly haunted) part of town, but very much worth the visit.