My Bookstore: Writers Celebrate Their Favorite Places to Browse, Read, and Shop edited by Ronald Rice

By Kate Phillips

          For readers and writers planning summer vacations, check out My Bookstore: Writers Celebrate Their Favorite Places to Browse, Read, and Shop, edited by Ronald Rice and Booksellers Across America, published in 2012). There are eighty-one independent bookstores in thirty-six states to choose from as an added bonus to or as the main purpose of any trip.

          After reading the fantastic tributes by writers like Isabel Allende, Wendell Berry, Meg Waite Clayton, Fannie Flagg, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Pete Hamill, Ann Hood, Mameve Medwed, Ann Patchett, Chuck Palahniuk, Michael Tisserand, Luis Alberto Urrea, Abraham Verghese, Terry Tempest Williams, and Simon Winchester, not surprisingly, I want to visit all of the bookstores. Luckily, two are within an hour of my home. On the next trip to see my dad, we will visit the one within an hour of his home.

Then I will branch out with friends and other family members in tow. I think we could visit maybe ten or twelve more in daylong trips from their homes—only one or two a day so we have plenty of time to browse, read, and shop once we arrive. That is the point after all.

All of these tributes mention the importance of the book-loving owners and knowledgeable staff. Beautifully summed up by Ann Haywood Leal in her tribute starting on page 201: “Finding a book a home in someone’s heart is a talent. They may not know it, but…the staff of Bank Square Books [Mystic, Connecticut] are in the business of matchmaking.”

Some excerpts from the tributes:

The floors have to creak, of course. There should be a bit of a chill inside—not dank, or damp, but enough to bring on thoughts of curling up somewhere with one of the bound companions. If the table displays, favorite picks, and the like have a quirky randomness to them, in defiance of the latest imperatives from publishers, all the better…

All of this you take for granted at The Elliot Bay Book Company in Seattle.

                                                Timothy Egan (page 88)

At Watchung Booksellers [in Montclair, New Jersey] there’s a daily rhythm to the life of books. Kids are running around—a bookstore like this is where kids are first brought into the wider world of reading—and there are the sounds of conversations about books, and the humming quiet of the browsers, and the crisp tearing and folding of gift-wrap paper at the counter, and it smells like books, with that fresh, subtly seductive smell. Independent bookstores such as Margot’s [owner] collaborate with writing in such an intimate way that makes cyber bookselling seem merely retail.

                                      Ian Frazier (page 119)

…The event is an author series called Book Your Lunch, and it’s the brainchild of bookseller Jill Hendrix, owner of Fiction Addiction an independent bricks-and-mortar bookstore in my hometown of Greenville, South Carolina. Book Your Lunch is a fantastic way to bring readers and a wide range of authors together—from mystery writers, to award-winning novelists, to non-fiction and cookbook authors. Fiction Addiction sells tickets in advance, and the featured author reads from her work, or gives a short talk, followed by a Q&A session, a delicious lunch, and then an on-site book signing.

                                                          Mindy Friddle (page 121)

Some of the writers of the eighty-two tributes may not be familiar to readers. All of the essays end with writer bios, listings of their books/works, and/or website addresses. (While 84 writers wrote tributes, two were collaborations and The Strand in New York City received two tributes so in total eighty-one bookstores are celebrated.)

As if dream bookstores and writers new and familiar to readers weren’t enough to delight readers of this book, within the essays many of the writers mention their favorite authors.

What more could a reader ask for? Well, I do wish the bookstores’ addresses, phone numbers, and websites were listed at the end of the essays or in the Bookstores by Location index on pages 375-378. Not hard to find online, but still it would have been better in the book.

Whether you are traveling or not this summer, My Bookstore is plain fun--fabulous destinations and numerous book suggestions for readers. It’s almost as good as visiting one of these treasured bookstores!

                     

Essays by Ann Patchett

   By Kate Phillips

 

As a reader, I always love finding books that appeal to me. As a writer, I am twice as pleased when the authors also provide masterclasses within their books.

        Masterclasses take place when performance artists and musicians work one-on-one with students. Writers don't generally have this option, but I have found some books to be masterclasses for characters, backstories, plots, settings, voice, and/or creativity.

 
        I adore essays. The best are elegant affairs filled with truth and wisdom.

Want proof? Read any of Ann Patchett's in her latest collection—especially "The Getaway Car: A Practical Memoir about Writing and Life," "The Sacrament of Divorce," "This Dog's Life," "The Wall," "Love Sustained," "The Bookstore Strikes Back," "This is the Story of a Happy Marriage," and "The Mercies."

While I love these essays and most of the other fourteen published with them, I hate the title of the book: This is the Story of a Happy Marriage. It just sounds smug—and the essay it's based on is not. In fact, Patchett left a very unhappy marriage, see "The Sacrament of Divorce," and swore she would never remarry, but her plans go engagingly awry a dozen years later.

If I hadn't read a rave review of this book by someone I trust, I never would have picked it up—and I would have missed this Masterclass. I think the paperback (and the hardcover) should be reissued/renamed as My Getaway Car. That grabs interest without putting too many people off. Who hasn't wished for a getaway car at some point in his or her life?

In "The Getaway Car," Patchett shares how she became a published author. She always knew she was a writer, but it took a while to support herself with just her words.

A college class taught by Allan Gurganus, who assigned a story a week, is the basis for her career. "Ninety percent of what I know about fiction writing I learned that year. Write it out. Tell the truth. Stack up the pages. Learn to write by writing. Slowing down was for later, years later. We were to keep going at all costs…Had I wound up with a different sort of teacher, one who suggested we keep an ear cocked for the muse instead of hoisting the pick, I don't think I would have gotten very far." (page 28)

Patchett paid her dues. She worked as a waitress after completing the Iowa Writers' Workshop. "With so much time for thinking and so little time for writing, I learned how to work in my head…I was going to make up a novel…the novel was going to be my getaway car." (page 39) Patchett is the author of six novels to date.

"This Dog's Life" made me laugh as Patchett states, "I have believed that happiness and true adulthood would be mine at the moment of dog ownership…[She adopted a puppy named Rose, but people just said she must want a baby badly.]…Being a childless woman of childbearing age, I am a walking target for people's concerned analysis. No one looks at a single man with a Labrador retriever and says, 'Will you look at the way he throws the tennis ball to that dog? Now there's a guy who wants to have a son.'" (pages 75-76)

In her essay "The Wall," Patchett recounts her training and tests to get into the Los Angeles Police Academy. "Love Sustained" illuminates the caretaking side of love that takes grit and gumption. "The Bookstore Strikes Back" tells the tale of opening a successful local bookstore despite Amazon and the naysayers. And "The Mercies" highlights friendship and caring through decades.

All of these essays reveal the allure and strength of this art form whether Patchett is celebrating the truth about love, her grandmother, her husband, her dog, books, friends, and fate.

These essays are the story of a now happy writer's life.