Birthday Book Hunt

 We had the recent pleasure of helping a neighbor find a few dozen books from his wife's to-read list for her birthday. Some were easy - classics we always stock. Others (like the Infinite Jest pictured) just happened to burst through our doors in the nick of time. Better than an Easter egg hunt by far.

Summer in the City

Ravenswood Used Books is two blocks south of Lincoln Square's core, a small pedestrian friendly shopping area with a central courtyard and fountain. In the summer months this court hosts live music throughout the week, some of it commercial groups sponsored by the chamber of commerce, and some just impromptu performances by just about anyone willing to stand before an audience, or even create one from scratch. This photo illustrates a typical performance for Sunday brunchers, especially those sitting in a left bank cafe listening to Parisian songs in tango rhythms, my own personal favorite, but I have to stay here and sell you books, no offense intended, of course. ¶ Thursday evening's a good time to catch a scheduled group unless that program has fallen to budget cuts. It's all free and intimate with kids, bikes, and lawn chairs spread casually through the courtyard. There's a new book store across the street and our own much less expensive and far more interesting store to the south a few yards or more, and along the way you pass a Chase bank, in case you need some cash to shop with in our plastic-free environment. J.M.

Dear Diary of a Bookstore,

It's one of those rainy days in Lincoln Square that makes the store seem that much more cozy, what with our deep yellow lamp light drawing in the drowned passers-by, moth-to-flame-like. My favorite saloon playlist can just barely be heard wafting in the rafters (think 1920s blues). The shelves are extra padded with a load of volumes exhumed from a personal library estimated at a half-million books. The seller was a third generation merchant of magic paraphernalia. He's been steadily selling off his grandfather's library for five years.

Sir Jim has taken the week to revel in musical festivities and gator wrastlin. In his absence I've been strictly instructed to remind any and every book peddler how cheap we are, an unapologetic virtue of a dollar for hardcovers, a half dollar for paperbacks. The first peddler cried and said, "But I walked in the rain!" (We don't pay more for weather-related efforts (unless of course you bring us coffee in the snow)). The second peddler shrugged and said he was Kate Chopin's g-g-grandson just trying to make room for a nursery for Kate Chopin's g-g-g-grandson. He used to own a coffee shop in Lincoln Park that he decorated like a bookstore. What does that mean?

Little else happening except the addition of a new bookcase. Come in and see! If you can find it I'll give you a dollar. But if you guess the wrong one you have to give me a dollar (or a green tea latte). Other than that, just trying to fill the hole Jim left in in my heart with Cheeze-Its and horseradish hummus. Crunchy-spicy!  Oh and I nearly cut off my pinky. Never fear, it's still basically here. I can tell because there's blood all over the keyboard. I'll be spending the day reading Blind Assassin, which the blog says I've been reading for weeks now. That's a lie. I curled up with Anne of Green Gables for the first time in my life and cried for the first time in years (over a book, that is). Picked up Bachelard's Poetics of Space again, and once again had my mind blown to bits. I'll continue with it once I've gathered them back in. But no, today is Atwood's day. Savin all my love.

Over and out,
j.s.

Ps: found that coffee shop! Now I see what he meant, although it might be more accurate to say "I owned a coffee shop/library." And I'm sad it's closed now.

creep-chasin mug