This is the beginning of the end; the beginning of my last week at the incomparable, tremendous, stupendous Brookline Booksmith.
To be clear: it's not closing!! I'm just moving away, returning to my homeland of coffee, books, and Honda Civics (Seattle).
It's been such an extraordinary nine months and I really don't know how to say goodbye when it feels like I've hardly finished saying hello. Rather than trying to say it myself, I thought I'd let some fabulous authors say it for me. So here they are - favorite last lines of some of my favorite books:
To be clear: it's not closing!! I'm just moving away, returning to my homeland of coffee, books, and Honda Civics (Seattle).
It's been such an extraordinary nine months and I really don't know how to say goodbye when it feels like I've hardly finished saying hello. Rather than trying to say it myself, I thought I'd let some fabulous authors say it for me. So here they are - favorite last lines of some of my favorite books:
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"And so the boy and his friend went home together, talking of wonderful things all the way."
Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers
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"Hey, Earthman? You hungry, kid?" said Zaphod's voice.
"Er, well, yes, a little peckish, I suppose," said Arthur.
"Okay, baby, hold tight," said Zaphod.
"We'll take in a quick bite at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe."
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
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"And Little Sal and her mother went down the other side of Blueberry Hill, picking berries all the way, and drove home with food to can for next winter - a whole pail of blueberries and three more besides."
Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey
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"So ... be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray
or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O'Shea,
you're off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So ... get on your way!"
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"And it all began with a dream."
Brontorina by James Howe, ill. by Randy Cecil
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"When I grow up ... I too will go to faraway places and come home to live by the sea."
"That is all very well, little Alice ... but there is a third thing you must do."
"What is that?"
"You must do something to make the world more beautiful."
But I do not know yet what that could be.
Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney
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"All their life in this life and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth had read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before."
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis
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Brookline Booksmith, I love you. I have how you creak, I love how you look, I love your dusty bookish fifty-one year-old charm, and I love the people who work tirelessly to keep you successful and brilliant. Since I can't bear to actually say the words "bye" and "good" to you (not necessarily in that order), I'll just say,
"Until we meet again!"
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