Lost in Place

“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”

- Robert Frost

Based on where I am currently living, can you guess which neighborhood landmark I visited yesterday? Click on the color to find out.

My thanks to the always informative NewYorkology for the tip that this tiny treasure would be open to the public yesterday.

Travelling is like a night of heavy rain. It can clear away the heat and dust of the day, of all that has gone before. It can teach you how to be light, to let go.

from Geography, by Sophie Cunningham

(Slowly continuing my recap of visits to some of Boston’s independent bookstores.)

They worship Planet Earth in style at The Globe Corner Bookstore on Mt. Auburn St. at Harvard Square. Case in point, this elegant “map altar” to the gods of geography nestled near the rear of the store. Travel guides, memoirs, narratives and essay collections are arranged by region and sit on gorgeous custom shelves in an eco-friendly LEED-certified green building.

Bookstore lovers should flock to Cambridge this weekend to visit this fabulous travel shop, as well as all the other area bookstores that are participating in the Passport to Wisdom Book Stroll and Bookish Ball taking place this Saturday, April 12. It’s a fantastic idea — a self-guided walking tour, various author events, and an evening party for the community — all of it in celebration of the bookstores of Harvard Square.

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What’s In My Journal

Odd things, like a button drawer. Mean
Thing, fishhooks, barbs in your hand.
But marbles too. A genius for being agreeable.
Junkyard crucifixes, voluptuous
discards. Space for knickknacks, and for
Alaska. Evidence to hang me, or to beatify.
Clues that lead nowhere, that never connected
anyway. Deliberate obfuscation, the kind
that takes genius. Chasms in character.
Loud omissions. Mornings that yawn above
a new grave. Pages you know exist
but you can’t find them. Someone’s terribly
inevitable life story, maybe mine.

- William Stafford

More here.

Although I’ve been to Cambridge about a 1/2 dozen times in my life, the trip I took earlier this month included my very first visit to the Harvard Book Store. It’s a beautiful shop with eye-catching window displays and tall wooden bays of books that hug every wall of the store. I was fortunate to have a chance to meet a few folks from their knowledgeable staff — Marketing Manager Heather Gain and Head Book Buyer Megan Sullivan were kind enough to show me around and chat briefly about events and the book-selling biz, specifically the academic side of things, since both our stores serve university communities.

I also chatted with Steve downstairs in the Used Book section, where he pointed out the fantastic “book finds” that decorate the shelves of this basement area. The staff tapes up whatever they find inside used books, and they’ve also managed to wallpaper an entire door in bookmarks gathered from other stores:

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This is the first in a series of posts about my recent visits to several Boston-area indie bookstores.

My Boston bookstore visits began with a St. Pat’s Day stop at Brookline Booksmith, just a short walk from the Coolidge Corner “T” stop. I strolled around the neighborhood for a bit first — Brookline is a walkable community where chains and local businesses seem to co-habitate fairly well. I was surprised to see a Barnes and Noble literally one block down from the independent store. Their shop seems to do just fine, despite the neighboring chain. The indie bookstore has been serving readers in this town for over 45 years — a tradition that seems to ensure its continued existence on Harvard St.

The main floor of Booksmith houses most of their books, stretching from bestsellers and bargains up front, to a children’s section at the back. To one side is a Cards & Gifts area where most items are now marked down. (I snagged some deeply discounted cards and a few unnecessary pocket-sized books, both of which just happen to be translated titles: Moscardino and Little Red Ink Drinker.) Keep reading →

My most recent bookstore visits included stops at Taschen’s stylish SoHo outpost on Greene St. (where I snapped this photo of the Atlas Maior) and the tiny mind-body bookshop inside the New York Open Center on nearby Spring St.

At Taschen, I was temporarily transported to Barcelona, and other lands, while flipping through glossy pages, many in massive tomes much too heavy in weight and price. But they have a wonderful series of inexpensive art books, so I treated myself to a $10 paperback primer on one of my favorites, Edward Hopper.

Just a few blocks away at the New York Open Center, I bypassed their selection of spiritually-minded books and instead indulged on a Hemalaya yoga DVD, which has not disappointed. They had a small collection of mini buddhas too, but I had picked one up earlier that day while purchasing red paper lanterns at the fabu Pearl River Mart. (Not to be confused with the place where I grew up, Pearl River - The Town of Friendly People.) Keep reading →

Boldtype’s latest issue includes an interview with Michael Chabon, about his forthcoming nonfiction collection, Maps and Legends. His explanation of “writing at the borderlands” caught my eye:

The primary sense that I’m interested in is the borderlands among and between various genres of literature that tend to be thought of as being pretty distinct and somewhat impermeable. These are borders that are enforced very stringently in the bookstores of America — where what’s mystery must forever remain in the mystery section; what is science fiction must forever remain in the science-fiction section; and Doris Lessing’s science-fiction novels are shelved under literature because they’re considered “literary.” Those borders can seem so firm, but they’re actually fairly arbitrary and not especially helpful or descriptive. As soon as you start looking at some of the greatest works of literature of the 20th century, and now the 21st century, it becomes tricky to assign them with any kind of certainty. I think that’s actually a mark of the fertility and creativity that can be derived from hanging out along the borders, allowing influences from different sorts of genres to cross over into the work that you’re doing. I’m not saying they’re meaningless terms at all. They do describe patterns and conventions and formulas and so on. But I think they’re granted too great a degree of descriptive control over what writers do and what is considered to be literature.

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Let’s call this step one in the spring cleaning of my writing life, that gets underway today. We’ll start with this — à la George Steiner (but without any deep or important reasons for my lack of writing) — here are shortened versions of blog posts I intended to write in February, yet never got around to:

Goodreads: Connecting Bookworms Worldwide

In which I rave about how much I like Goodreads as an easy way for me to track what I have read, as well as my ever growing and ridiculously unrealistic “to-read” list. Cool social networking for book lovers — want to be my friend?

Reading Roundup: What I’ve Been Paging Through

In which I write a short blurb about each book I’ve read so far this year. Yeah, right. Adding titles to my Goodreads list is about as far as I’ll get. Quick summary: Two fiction titles (by Langer and Lahiri), two memoirs (by Lamott and Manzoor*), a book for the day job (Why We Buy), one to inspire my freelance work (Keep it Real), and a few (as always) to nourish the soul (The Gift; and the poetry of Rumi and Jewel.)

*I agree with Publishers Weekly that Greetings From Bury Park (April, Vintage) is an “uneven memoir” but I still enjoyed it enough to recommend it, especially to die hard Bruce fans and/or folks interested in learning a bit about Pakistani and British culture from a guy who loves The Boss.

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