Tag Archives: used book stores

Jennifer’s Guest Blog

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Today’s blog is by bookseller Jennifer Gough, an organic gardener who staffs Ebenezer Books in Fairfax, Vermont. Jennifer read my book and emailed me; we became friends, so I asked her to write a guest blog for sometime in September. I didn’t know she was going to write about her favorite five books about books, or include me in that, but I sure like that she did! (And no, I didn’t pay her, but I do intend to buy her dinner next time I’m in Vermont….) Enjoy, and if you’re headed NE, look up her organic farming business. Jennifer, maybe you could put your contact details in a comment, since I forgot to ask you to include them here? :}

And now….. JENNIFER!

As a bookseller and confirmed bibliophile, I’ve, natch, read a lot of books in my life. I’ve read books about circus freaks and snails; housekeepers and elephants. I like mysteries and memoirs; fiction and non. I read bestsellers and secret gems. I’ve been known to read a romance, but only if it’s, ahem, a very literary romance. There’s nothing I appreciate more than the diverse bookcase, but there is one subject that I can’t ever resist…books about books! Give me a title containing B-O-O-K and I’m sold. I love books about book writers, book sellers, librarians and readers, and I love books about where books live; libraries, bookshops, under the covers on dark, stormy nights. It’s not that unexpected, I live there too. I know my way around. Of course it helps that the landscape’s usually alphabetized.

So here, in alphabetical order by author, are five of my favorite books about books, and the people who love them:

The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde

For anyone who’s ever wanted to dive into their favorite book…literally. As Jane Eyre is my favorite book of all time, the idea of jumping into Thornfield and palling around with Jane and the Edward had me in convulsions.

Parnassus on Wheels, Christopher Morley

Christopher Morley insisted his early writing was “received with absurd overpraise.” While I wouldn’t dream of overpraising anyone, I love this tale of coming of (middle) age in a traveling bookshop.

Running the Books, Avi Steinberg

I often daydream about becoming a librarian. Of being surrounded all day by enthusiastic patrons, stacks of books and…convicts?! Excellent memoir of an accidental prison librarian.

The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap, Wendy Welch

Three cheers for Wendy Welch! Keeper of Tales of the Lonesome Pine Bookshop and this blog, on which she has so graciously allowed me to spread a little book love. This memoir is a new favorite of mine. Wendy pulls no punches writing of the bookselling life, but somehow still makes us all want to live it.

The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon

While this book left me a touch despondent for a few days, it introduces one of my favorite places in all of book-on-book lit, The Cemetery of Forgotten Books. A collection of books, dangerous and rare, known only to a whispering few? Sign me up!

Science Fiction Escapees

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We work pretty hard to keep our bookshop tidy. Jack says I am fixated on it and that used book stores should be the wee bit sloppy – aids in the thrill of discovery, doncha know.

Yes, dear. But I do like a wee bit of order to my life, and the shop’s bookshelves. Which is why I’m befuddled at the science fiction section. The books keep escaping.

The customers who cruise sf in our shop are tidy people; they tend to be looking for particular authors rather than browsing, so they’re pretty easygoing about keeping the books in place. I’ve seen men slide books out from the bottom of a paperback stack, realize it wasn’t what they wanted, and hold the whole stack up so they could return it to the exact same spot. Book shoppers are good people.

So I know it’s not them, the reason that L. Ron Hubbard keeps winding up in the children’s room. Or that Jack Whyte hangs out in Home Improvement. I can just about understand Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series relaxing with the Amish romances in Christian Fiction, but why on EARTH does James Axler keep heading for Patricia Cornwell? You think they’ve got something going?

I swear, one of these nights, I’m going to creep downstairs with night vision goggles and just watch, to see when the books begin their migrations, and what they talk about. In fact, this may well explain the mysterious dips in the liquid levels in our whisky and wine collection. I’m going to have to check the copyright dates for legal drinking ages.

Meanwhile, every morning, as I carry Axler back to his spot at the top of the Science Fiction shelf, I swear I can hear the books snickering. And sometimes, I catch a whiff of cigarette smoke.

(Don’t forget to scroll back to Sept. 10 and enter the final Caption Contest sponsored by St. Martin’s Press. It closes Sept. 24; winner receives a free book. Ostensibly mine that comes out Oct. 2, but if you want another one we can probably manage that.)