Destination: Florence

I don't usually get nostalgic when shelving books. Occasionally, when a customer brings Laura Ingalls Wilder, Anne of Green Gables, and even, sometimes, Ferdinand the Bull by my register, I'll feel a slight pang. But last week, as I slid our new laminated Streetwise maps into the travel section, and happened across the gray, bumble gum pink, and seafoam streets of Florence, I was suddenly flung back into a time and place far away from Booksmith's aisles.

My father had purchased a Streetwise laminated map of Florence for me when I was a senior in high school. As a graduation present, he brought me along on a business trip to Italy. It was my first experience of solo travel; while my father was in meetings, I was set lose on the cobblestone streets, free to explore at my leisure.

As I looked at the map in Booksmith's aisle, I remembered how I had studied those streets, buildings, and parks with the intensity I used to apply to my textbooks. The result was magic. When I stepped onto the streets of Florence, the two-dimensional shapes I knew so well transformed themselves into the tangible, sensuous reality of a place.

Now, that magic worked in reverse. Instead of the images leading my imagination into a place I had never seen, each place name on the Streetwise map transported me back to Florence. As I opened the accordion folds of the map, I could almost hear the music of some Italian street grinder floating through the streets. Streetwise maps are not pop-ups, but that is the impression I got as the city's cathedrals, gardens, and museums bloomed into memory.

Illustrations from Andrea Ponsi's gorgeous Florence: A Map of Perceptions. Check it out in Destination Literature!

I traced my finger along the Arno River, stopping at Ponte Vecchio, the only bridge to survive the bombing in the war, my father had told me. The bridge led toward Palazzo Vecchio, past the Uffizi Gallery, which I recognized on sight because of how its unique concave shape was depicted by Streetwise. Above the town loomed the Duomo and next to it Giotto's bell tower, all of which appeared before my wandering feet with an accuracy that left me breathless.

I traveled back across the bridge in order to discover a large patch of green on my map, Boboli Gardens, where I ended up wandering for hours, awed by the pristine beauty of the park. I also stumbled on Piazzale Michangelo on that side of the river, affording a stunning view back at the buildings I had just discovered, simply because the name on the map intrigued me.

In one plaza, I paused too long at a fountain, and my blond hair caught the attention of a young Italian man, who asked me to dinner. I told him I had a date with my father. But before we met up that night, I followed my map to the white facade of Saint Croce, where Stendhal records a fainting fit the cause of which was thought to be simply the beauty of the city. The Stendhal syndrome, as it has since been called, seems to occur most often in the city of Florence, as visitors overwhelmed with the beauty of the streets and galleries, succumb to their emotions with spells of weakness and fainting. As I finally closed the map, and placed it back on Booksmith's shelf, I felt a little dizzy myself.

P.S. If anyone sees a bookseller struggling to refold a map in the travel aisle, please stop and help her. One of the reasons I'm a fan of Streetwise maps is their easy, fluid accordian folds. But we're selling more than just Streetwise maps. Check out a whole new array of Italian touring maps in Travel, covering every bit of Italy imaginable. If you've already been to Florence, the rest of the country awaits!

"Keep Our Secrets" by Jordan Crane

This is an emergency blogpost by Zoe and Katrina! Do not attempt to adjust your television! Last night we were closing and discovered this book on the gift books table:

At first, I this was a slightly bizarre but interesting board book, but upon further inspection, I discovered that the point of the book is to heat up the black areas of the book with your hands or, more effectively, a hair dryer.

Even the cover is magical.

I was blown away. This book is amazing. Straight up wizardry. Come in, check it out! This has been an Emergency Blogpost by Zoe and Katrina! You may new resume regularly scheduled programming!

Those Wacky Authors!

It's no secret that authors don't make a whole lotta dubloons sitting in their rooms banging out the keys and keeping us entertained. So lots of authors have day jobs; Chuck Palahniuk was a car mechanic while writing his first book. The guy who cracks open your 'Gansett down the street has probably written 13 poetry manuscripts. Several Booksmithies have aspirations to write the Great American Novel, and our very own Ric is even already published, and we sell his volume of poetry upstairs! But sometimes, writers write to pay the bills so they can WRITE. Before Julian Barnes made it big he wrote mystery novels under the name Dan Kavanagh, because they paid better than the literary stuff that he really loved to write.

Conversely, mystery novelists Jo Nesbo and Henning Mankell have both written kids books, a pretty big turn from their dark and bloody Scandinavian mysteries. I think Nesbo and Mankell don't necessarily write kids' books to pay the bills, but it is a pretty incongruous image to think of these writers writing such quiet books as Shadows in Twilight about a 12 year old, or ... noisier, sillier books like Doctor Proctor's Fart Powder. The latter two books we both have in the UBC, and as they crossed the desk, it got me thinking about the double-lives of authors. And not just their double-lives, but the way they present themselves. We get lots of books vintage and contemporary that feature some pretty wacky author photos. Here are some recent favorites:

Author of the Bloom County comics Berke Breathed

Thomas McGuane

Christopher Moore

Do you have any favorite author double-life stories? Or author photos? Share in the comments!
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Destination: Booksmith

As many have already noted, we were gratefully overwhelmed by the holiday crowds that came surging through Booksmith's aisles this season. I've heard many speculations about the cause of such overwhelming support from our community. Some say the e-book is not as popular as the media would suggest. Others say it is, and that is is because there are so few bookstores left that those of us still standing saw the crowds. Zoe thinks it's because Brookline harbors a secret crush on Booksmith. Based on the constant conversations I had and heard going on around me as I navigated the aisles this season, it sounded to me simply that people love books, and that perhaps we should not have been so surprised that they showed up to get them, for loved ones on their gift list, or for a quiet winter read.

"A written word is the choicest of relics..." Henry David Thoreau observes in Walden. "Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations. Books, the oldest and best, stand naturally and rightfully on the shelves of every cottage. They have no cause of their own to plead, but while they enlighten and sustain the reader his common sense will not refuse them."

Gratuitous Cat Pictures!

So sales have been good in the UBC lately (thanks times infinity!) so my original idea for this post--awesome author photos found on the back of books--has to be postponed because all of my favorites have found homes. BUT. Do not despair, because what I have for you is a hybrid of awesome writers (found frequently in the UBC) and CATS.

Observe, culled from the marvelous blog Writers and Kitties:

Camus! (We just got in L'etranger in! En francais!)

Julio Cortazar (you HAVEN'T read Hopscotch yet? Or Blow-Up? There's a short story in it about a guy who can throw up bunnies! We got 'em both in the UBC)

Tove Jansson! Of Moomin fame!

And staff favorite Yukio Mishima! Even samurai can love kitties!

To be closely followed by its sequel, "donkeys never lie about altruism"

This is one of those books that I feel like I shouldn't want to read, but I do. 

Friends, the holidays, they are over. At long last we can all put our feet up, heave a great sigh, and continue eating everything in the world at the same disgusting breakneck speed we have been the whole month of December, until our jeans don't fit and we're all like, "hey what happened?? Must of shrunk in the wash!"

Yeah they didn't, no, they didn't shrink in the wash. You ate a whole cheesecake to yourself yesterday, and then worked off the calories by taking a nap. And when I say you, I mean me. You know what though, that's okay. December is a tough month, especially if you happen to be in the retail world. At one point during the holidays, I was with Jamie in the break room and she bequeathed this knowledge unto me: "I am just going to keep eating, because if I stop eating, I will fall asleep and then I will never wake up. The only option is to keep eating. Keep eating or die."

It's not like I'm a stranger to stress eating, so I give myself leave to slight expansion during the winter months. Besides, I need that body fat, right? These vital organs ain't gonna insulate themselves, and I live in Allston, where the buildings are not handicap friendly and are heating by chance and whimsy alone. Maybe you freeze, maybe it's a sauna, you never know. You pray to the great Building Manager in the sky and go to bed in eight layers of pajamas and a stocking cap and you hold on for dear life. 

Lets get serious here, January sucks. So does February, and March. April truly is the cruelest month, also known as the rainy season. Winter is the worst, you guys, there's no way around it. Nobody wants to have to blow-dry their wet hair every day because it will freeze on their walk to work if they don't, nobody asks for that. It just is. If you're from Massachusetts or somewhere that has an equal or greater winter experience, then you're used to it. If you're not, I'm so sorry, it's debatable as to whether you'll survive. 

However. January 22nd is our store party. 30 Rock returns to NBC this month, and on January 27th, 1988, a sweet little baby angel was born unto this world, the likes of which had never been seen before. Cherubs gathered her in their swaddling blankets and bore her forth unto her mothers breast, where they surrounded her with the dulcet tones of their chorus. Lo, that baby was...............me. Yeah that's right, this month I turn 24 years old, so don't panic. There is still something to celebrate. Keep your chins up, Brookline, everything is going to be just fine.

It's not regifting, it's personal

Inspiration comes from familiar, unique places and experiences. One of mine is my favorite movies, You've Got Mail -- if you know me you need no explanation on why this is. So, I was reading over an original script and -- oh, my -- so much has changed between the script and the final cut. Most of the cut scenes I am very glad they altered or removed, as they take away from the integrity of the movie. But there's one line I wish they had kept in: "My mother would never have wanted us to have a website. 'Every book you sell is a gift from your heart.' She always said that."

 

At first I completely agreed with this, every book you sell is from the heart. But as I mulled it over, I believe it is more appropriate to say "every book you give is a gift from your heart." Though I recommend books I love and feel strongly about, they aren't always from my heart. They can't be. For instance, when a customer asks what book to give for a Wimpy Kid and Percy Jackson fan (two series I respect but aren't a fan of), I'm going to recommend Mystic Phyles. I'm not partial to this book, but I recommend it because it is what they are looking for -- it is what their literary attention is craving. My goal, as a bookseller, is to give (a) a great piece of literature, (b) provide the customer with a book they will love and is appropriate for them.

 

I am not the one ultimately giving the book to this child I have never met. I am simply providing an important direction. Therefore, I think it is the gift from the giver that should be given from the heart. It's painful when when a customer chooses a random book with little to no thought as to whether the recipient will love or learn from it.

 

Almost always, even if I am hand selling the most inspirational book I've read all year, there's a choice that trumps it. I encourage customers to give a gift that they have a connection with. So, if someone is looking for a gift for a young girl and they loved a particular book, like, The Secret Garden, and it changed their life, I will encourage them to go with The Secret Garden. Not only will their enthusiasm rub off on the givee, but there will be a connection made from the givee to the giver. Too often, gifts are just random objects, when they really should be pieces of ourselves.  Gifts should be personal.