The Nonfiction Section is All Around You

Today is my last day working at Brookline Booksmith! Starting next week I will be working in a building in midtown Manhattan, at a new job about as far away from my Idaho origins as I could have ever imagined.

Furthermore, I will be not working at Brookline Booksmith for the first time in just shy of 4 years. That is just about the longest I have ever worked at one place (I'm young!) and has comprised the bulk of my life in Boston. I have met the most amazing people here, read the best books, shared them with you all, met lots of celebrities and learned the city inside and out while I was here!

This place is the craziest mix of unique staff, and we're incredibly lucky to be in a neighborhood full of die-hard buy-local bookworms that keep us around. It's also a place I've learned a lot about working hard, communicating with people, and being surprised daily by people you think you know. It's been a fertile training ground for my next endeavor, a place I've been nurtured in the book industry and will carry with me as I set off for the Big City!

Thanks so much for everything, take care of each other, and shut off your computer (after this sentence) and pick up a book :D

With Love,
Natasha

P. S. Read Arto Paasilinna! 

Return to Book Expo America

New York City's Bryant Park is lovely on a summer evening. Back-lit by the warm glow of the New York Public Library, the park's green lawn spreads across the square, empty save for a sprinkler system and a sign or two asking people to keep off the grass. And people do. But they gather at its edges, like spectators at a game that will never be played, talking quietly or simply staring. At what? I can tell you that they are looking at something, but that something is the absence of everything. The lush green grass and the fathomless empty space above it--through which a few bats swoop noiselessly--is a novelty in New York.

I joined them on the sidelines after attending this year's Book Expo America, where people like you, reader, who like to read silently to themselves in cozy spaces, gather together in an uncharacteristically extroverted celebration of that very act. Readers, Booksellers, Writers, Agents, Teachers, Librarians, Publishers--representatives of the literary community of America--all come together for a few days of chaos and connection at the Javits Convention Center in New York City.

While I am someone who needs a Bryant Park after a day on the trade floor, I still find the expo incredibly stimulating and motivating. I was heartened by the warm reception my co-workers and I received at each glance down at our name tags that let people know we sold books at Brookline Booksmith: from local presses, to BPL librarians, to loyal customers, my name tag never failed to garner a welcome. The most notable reception had to be from the folks at Lonely Planet and the least notable from the notorious Grumpy Cat who was snoozing when my coworkers and I snuck up behind for a picture, after waiting in line for over an hour.

And following those greetings were inspiring conversations with those who have joined the book world out of a common love of literature--even if that very passion has us heaving a huge, but happy, sigh of relief when we return to our Bryant Parks and cozy corners and curl up for a nice, quiet read.

Twenty-four Hours with Proust

A few years ago, as my friend Tera and I were wandering around the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris, I wondered aloud if Proust’s manuscripts were there, either on display or hidden away in some dusty archive. So when we inadvertently befriended a bored security guard, we asked. Unfortunately, neither of us spoke much French. But the guard seemed to understand, became animated, and sent us off down a long hallway with directions to turn at the end. We eagerly complied, only to end up at an exhibit of Louis the Something’s Globes.

Proust’s coveted hand-written drafts of his 3,000 page novel, In Search of Lost Time, have never been on display outside of Paris. When I left the city I thought I had left my chances of ever viewing the spidery scrawl and crowded margins of my favorite author. But now, in celebration of the 100^th anniversary of the publication of Swann’s Way, Proust’s papers have made their way outside of the confines of the Bibliothèque national, and are on display at the Morgan Library in New York City.

In conjunction with these celebrations, 192 Books in Chelsea decided to host “Proust in 24 hours” a 24-hour reading of Swann’s Way. And they decided to hold this event last Tuesday, February 19, in other words: on my 30^th birthday. As could think of no better way to celebrate, reflect on, and downright ponder the passing of time, I decided to go.

I spent the afternoon at the Morgan with Proust. At least, that was what it felt like, as I enclosed myself in the small, cubicle exhibit and poured over his manuscripts. Never mind that his handwriting was illegible and that, while my French has improved somewhat since my miscommunication with the library guard, my continuing education French classes haven’t quite got me up to the speed of, well, Proust’s vocabulary. I remembered that Proust translated his favorite author, Ruskin, without learning English, and I stared at those pages until I began to recognize the passages I had committed to heart.

On the opening page to Swann’s Way, Proust had drawn a bold line through an entire first paragraph. Then, near the bottom, he had penciled in a line so tenuous and faint it was difficult to discern: “Longtemps, je me suis couche de bonne heure.” In another draft on display the famous madeleine was referred to as a “biscotte”—it originally had its source in a commonplace slice of toast. This toast to madeleine transubstantiation will forever stand in my mind as the quintessential transformation of life into art.

Sufficiently immersed in Proust, I dropped my bags at The Jane Hotel and headed up 10^th Ave to 192 Books. The small, one-room carefully curated bookshop was cozily packed with people crowded around a small table where Adam Gopnik and Anka Muhlstein would introduce the 24-hour reading. Champagne was poured and madeleines nibbled as we listened to Gopnik read an exchange of letters between Proust and André Gide, who declined to publish Proust. Muhlstein talked about her new book Monsieur Proust’s Library, which chronicles the literature Proust both references and draws from throughout his novel. There are over 200 characters in In Search of Lost Time, and a good many of them are readers.

We had quite a few readers that night at 192 books. I felt privileged to be among them as I took my turn at the mike. And while I did not make it through the entire 24 hours, I did stay long enough to hear the madeleine dipped into tea, and of how its taste conjured up a past believed to be lost, the narrator’s panacea, and one for us all, against the forward turning of the years.

I thought that was the end of my Proustian pilgrimage to New York City, but I was wrong. The following day, as I was walking down 5^th Avenue, I glanced in the window of Bergdorf Goodman. The luxury department store had decided to go literary, giving five window displays over to great moments in literature, among them, In Search of Lost Time.

Not Always a Tourist

In the summer of 2008, I moved to Manhattan to be an editorial intern at Fortune Magazine. The internship was two months long, and I moved into the spare room of my boyfriend's brother's apartment in the lower East Side. The apartment fulfilled all the stereotypes I had about New York City living. My designated living space was also part of the kitchen, and I slept on a lofted bed which overlooked the top of the fridge and beyond that, the stove. Up on that bed I had a stack of books and an alarm clocked wedged in one corner, a small box television perched on the edge of the window sill, and two huge body pillows resting against the guard rails, for added cushioning. It was claustrophobic but had character, and was perfect for my brief stay in the big city.

Among that stack of books on my bed was my Not For Tourists Guide to New York City, which became an extension of me during my two months in Manhattan. I had lived in Boston for two years by then, but was immediately a bit wary of New York City life. I was most intimidated by the many subway lines, a mix of colors and letters and numbers all tangled into a large knots on the poster sized subway maps. That was what drew me to the NFT guide in the first place.  The NFT Guide divides a city into sections, with their own rectangular maps. They give you the same map a few times, each map highlighting something different - the area's transportation, entertainment, essentials and sundries. I could go the neighborhood I was in and orient myself, and then go to transportation page, find the closest subway stop, and flip to the back and see how far that line stretched. The book was handsome, black and pocket-sized, perfectly suited for what I was: not exactly a tourist.

You can see a picture of my ridiculously tiny Manhattan apartment and read the rest of this post at our blog on the globecorner.com.

Dispatch from Book Expo America, or the "Halapalooza of Reading Quietly in a Room by Yourself"

New York is a city of extremes. As soon as I arrived I remembered how it was possible to love and hate the city at once. “You either sink or swim here,” Pat Carrier of the former Globe Corner bookstore told me as he guided me through the labyrinth of  publisher booths crammed inside the illogically (it seemed to me) laid out Javits Convention Center. I had come to NYC for two days of Book Expo America, beginning with an author breakfast with Stephen Colbert, Barbara Kingsolver, Junot Diaz, and Jo Nesbo, the last of whom, I thought, proved funnier than our host, who kept his punch lines to Fifty Shades of Grey jokes.

After coffee with Colbert (okay, it wasn’t quite as intimate as it sounds, and listening to Colbert crack Fifty Shades jokes over blueberry muffins wasn’t exactly an appetizing way to start the day), I stepped onto the exhibition floor full of publishers, authors, booksellers, librarians, and readers all conducting the business of books, which included much elbowing for the latest free advanced reader copy. I wandered disoriented among the chaos for quite some time, unsure of how exactly I fit between the world of swanky New York publishers and the woman in front of me who just jammed a display copy I am not certain was free into an already burgeoning shoulder bag of ARCs.

Unidentified BEA attendee with bags full of free books.

I felt exactly as I had when I first stumbled off my train from Boston the night before, weaving through Penn Station crowds and onto the metro–instantly overwhelmed, intimidated, and drained by the city. But when, 15 minutes later, I had emerged from the underground up onto a quiet, tree lined street in Greenwich Village, where I was lucky enough to find a room, I discovered that I could breathe again, and deeply. Perhaps it was the refreshing contrast from home, the thrill of new streets and shops to explore, perhaps it was the contrast with the crowds of the metro that made the sudden space and sunshine more charming than was their due, but I was enamored.

These extreme reactions continued at BEA, leaving me baffled at first, overwhelmed, then charmed and grateful at once. By the second day on the exhibition floor, I began to take a few faltering strokes. I found space to think and even to be inspired in a few of the educational sessions, and I began meeting people within the book industry, talking, exchanging cards. Once conversations began to open up, I began to see inside the work that was going on before my eyes. Though I had much to learn, I was no longer an outsider.

As Booksmith recently expanded our travel section, the session that most interested me at BEA was a panel of travel publishers talking about recent trends and changes in the travel industry. Yes, people are still traveling post 9/11 and economic crisis, but their habits and tastes and itineraries are constantly shifting, as are the sources of information travelers turn to when faced with an unknown destination. This was an interesting conversation to listen in on as a bookseller trying to find the perfect guidebook for each unique traveler to visit the Globe Corner at Brookline Booksmith, and also as a traveler myself who was at that very moment trying to be at home in a city she felt somewhat intimidated by.

On the exhibition floor.

Publishers of travel guidebooks are doing their best to meet the needs of today’s travelers, who are inevitably turning to the most convenient and local sources for information. I understood this impulse myself when selecting which coffee shop to frequent in my New York neighborhood. I didn’t use a technological device, but I did look at the lines. Where were the locals going? I followed suit, and was rewarded by freshly baked bagels smothered in so much cream cheese that my breakfast resembled a whoopie pie. Local tastes can sometimes seem infallible. And when choosing where to go or what to eat, technology allows us to access our college roommate who lives in the city, or general local opinion, in seconds. The publishing industry has to answer.

And they are. I was impressed with the thoughtful conversation going on around me at BEA regarding how to get the best, trusted, local information to readers, how to edit, filter, and control that information to make sure it is accurate, and how to remain a trusted resource for travelers. The conversation renewed my faith that the guidebook is not obsolete, a belief that is backed up every day I go into work and find our freshly-widened travel aisle crammed full of travelers who want to hear from their chosen guide, be it Rick Steves, Lonely Planet, Michelin, Frommers, Fodors, Moon, Eyewitness, or other trusted sources.

The title of another session I attended intrigued me: “Discovery, Recommendation, Serendipity.” The panel discussed the role of serendipity in getting the perfect book into a reader’s hands and how to create a context for these magical moments. Might it be possible, if not to do the work of serendipity  itself, to at least do the work that might create a space—physical or virtual—in which these moments between a reader and a text, might occur. After all, wasn’t it in the service such moments as these that we were all gathered at the convention, “the halapalooza of reading quietly in a room by yourself,” as Colbert put it?  Most of the discussion surrounded the tools we have to create such contexts, such as blogs and websites, which can be used to reveal the inter-connectivity of stories and make apparent the threads of culture that make up those stories, in the hope that one of these threads might cross with, connect to, coincide with, a reader’s life experience–thus creating a serendipitous and meaningful moment.

Boy practicing violin on the street in my neighborhood.

On either end of my days at the convention, I was getting to know my neighborhood, striking up conversations with the local baristas and booksellers I discovered along the charming streets of Greenwich Village. That evening, as I stumbled back to my room, I passed a used bookshop, just two doors down from my own that I had somehow missed upon my arrival. I did not stop in at first—I had to take off my shoes after a day of traversing the exhibition floor. But I ventured out again an hour later. And there, staring out at me from the store front window, was Fernando Pessoa. I have had a fascination with the poet and his city of Lisbon for years now, and I ducked inside to inquire about the book.

“I just put that out, 90 seconds ago!” the bookseller inside told me, and I reflected that had I stopped by earlier, Pessoa and I might never have exchanged that potent glance that sometimes passes between a reader and a book. The thin volume, I sensed, was something of a rare find, from a 1985 London exhibition and full of precious autobiographical information surrounding the life of the elusive poet and his over 72 alter egos, or heteronyms.

“Can you part with it so soon?” I asked the bookseller, whose name was Zeke. He was soon convinced that he could, once I had told him of my obsession with Lisbon and opened my wallet. After we completed our conversation and transaction (which was, Zeke admitted, the fastest sale in Left Bank Books history), we exchanged cards (I’d gotten into the habit at BEA). I stepped out the door into a fresh downpour but did not mind. I knew that I had just experienced the serendipitous moment we had been discussing at BEA. There was the work of the artists, writers, curators, publishers, and a bookseller about to make his fastest sale behind it, but there was also the sense of a connection made up of countless threads beyond my control magically coming together in that moment when Pessoa caught my eye. I suddenly saw the chaos of the exhibition floor at BEA as many of those countless threads weaving and interweaving and creating a web of meaningful conversation that, at its best, might somehow converge to create a moment for a reader like the one I had just stumbled into. And I left BEA motivated to work to create a context and place for others to discover their own moments of serendipity, when a story they had no idea was coming, converges with their own.

Whenever I visit NYC I always end up, on my last day in the city, seated on the banks of the Hudson with my back to the skyline, staring out into open space, absorbing it, if at all possible. Perhaps it’s the Midwest in me, longing for horizons. For while I have learned to love the city, I have also discovered its pace: sprint and recover, sprint and recover. This was the strategy my Iowa high school basketball coach once instilled in me, and the mantra I found myself repeating under my breath whenever overwhelmed by the crowds. And while I can’t say I prefer the pace to the slow laid back swagger of the West Coast, almost lackadaisical in comparison, or to the industrious steady tread of the Midwest, or to the unceasing marathon that is Boston, I find that somehow it works—I lose my breath but always find it again, I sink, but then—buoyed up by some unlooked for thrill or serendipitous moment—I float.

Destination: New York City (Part II)

Last week, we traveled to New York City and saw how Teju Cole's Open City (just awarded the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award) could, well, open New York to the traveler. But I failed to mention all of the other titles lining our Destination Literature shelves waiting to take you to Boston's sister to the south. Just shelving these books gives me a little thrill, the same kick I get when I first glimpse the skyscrapers of New York City out my bus window.

One of the newest books to read before you go to New York is the recently published New York Diaries, edited by Teresa Carpenter. The book takes the reader through one year, and for each date includes a few diary excerpts from residents in NYC across time (the entries range from 1609-2009). For example, on this day in 1849 William Macready wrote, "Let me die in a ditch in England, rather than in the Fifth Avenue of New York here."

A few days later--but in 1922--Edna St. Vincent Millay reads an article about her book selling 10,000 copies, and strikes a happier tone: "Oh, what a thrilling winter this has been...what fun we've had!--how happy we are." The next day, in 1957, Allen Ginsberg describes New York from aboard a ship: "Past the docks of Brooklyn and black dirty ships' asses stuck out in void green water...the towers of Manhattan spiring and rocking on the Island behind us...green statue standing and turning in the world as we passed."

For more personal accounts of present day New York, check out My City, My New York, in which famous New Yorkers let you in on their favorite spots around the city. Get Kevin Spacey's recommendation on the best pizza joint in town (Joe's), or discover little known spots, like the flower district Nora Ephron frequents early in the morning.

If you're looking for fiction, NYRB has published a few collections of short stories set in the city, including the New York stories of Edith Wharton, a New York native, and of Henry James, whose imagination made frequent returns to the city as he traveled abroad. The collection of his stories, edited by Colm Toibin, includes his famous novella, Washington Square.

And finally, the essay that first introduced me to the city and remains my favorite piece of literature ever written about New York: E.B. White's  classic Here is New York. "A poem compresses much in a small space and adds music, thus heightening its meaning," White observes, "The city is like poetry; it compresses all life, all races and breeds, into a small island and adds music to the accompaniment of internal engines."

Read White's slim volume on your next trip down to the city and you are sure to arrive there with an unmistakable feeling, almost a recognition, if not a revelation: "Yes, there is New York."

P.S. As a nod back to Natasha's blog (czech it out), introducing the new Destination Literature section instigated in our Used Book Cellar, and featuring Czech literature, I wanted to mention the recently re-published Conversations with Kafka, by Gustav Janouch, complete with cover illustration of the writer by Maira Kalman. The book, in which a young poet walks around the city with his mentor, Franz Kafka, would make an excellent traveling companion for your next trip to Prague.