Coffeespoons

img src These books about books are difficult for book-lovers to ignore, I think. You put the word "bookstore" in the title, with a quirky name and, bam! Next bibliophile that comes across it is going to pick it up for sure. Well, in my case, I checked the Amazon page . I'd been seeing the hype around the novel. So, bookshop + quirky name + interesting book description + hype = Yes, I will get you. My initial question, though, was whether I'd get the print book or the ebook. I'd also read this interview of Robin Sloane implying that, in the age of ebooks, you have to find reasons for buyers to invest in the print book. I thought that was a pretty smart idea. There has to be added value to the print book, otherwise people like me, who try not to overburden our currently overburdened book shelves, are just going to get the ebook. So I checked out what added value the print book had. I usually get the print book if: 1) I know the book's going to be a...

Gentlemen: Your ad in the Saturday Review of Literature says that you specialize in out-of-print books. The phrase "antiquarian booksellers" scares me somewhat, as I equate "antique" with expensive. I am a poor writer with an antiquarian taste in books and all the things I want are impossible to get over here except in very expensive rare editions, or in Barnes & Noble's grimy, marked-up schoolboy copies. I enclose a list of my most pressing problems. If you have clean secondhand copies of any of the books on the list, for no more than $5.00 each, will you consider this a purchase order and sent them to me? The letter is signed Helene Hanff. She sent it to Marks & Co. Booksellers, at 84 Charing Cross Road, London, England. The epistle is dated October 5, 1949. When Ms. Hanff says "over here" in her letter, she means New York City, which is where she lived at that time. I copied the entire first letter because I desperately want to s...

In England, a traveling library stops near the palace and gets an unexpected visitor: none other than the Queen herself. (The present Queen of England, we are to assume.) Out of courtesy, the Queen decides to borrow a book by Ivy Compton-Burnett. And thence begins the Queen's literary adventure, much to her delectation and to her Cabinet's horror. For, believe it or not, reading as a hobby is quite a hindrance to the Queen's performance of her duties. So goes the story of Alan Bennett's The Uncommon Reader . One of the other uncommon things about this book is how I always find it misplaced in one of the local bookshops. Perhaps because the back cover blurb says it's about the Queen as a reader? Because it is always placed in the Nonfiction shelf, when it is most definitely NOT a nonfiction book at all. Unless, that is, at some point in her life, the Queen was...wait. That would be a spoiler. Anyway, it's a short and lovely book. I say that because I don...

Read: 4/18/09 5/5 stars! It has taken me a month to actually blog about this book. Why? Because after reading it, I was so astounded and, plainly, just in love with it that I could not write about it or did not know where to start. I did not think I had the words to do justice to how much I fell in love with the book. But given how much I really want to share the merits of this book with everyone, permit me then to talk about this book in a way that will in no way capture it's impact for me but at least give you an idea of what I loved about it and why. The King's English is the name of an independent bookstore in Salt Lake City, Utah. The owner, Betsy Burton, put it up back in 1975 with a business partner. And though Ms. Burton has a different business partner now, The King's English still stands and holds its own against the big-chain bookstores and dot-coms dominating the bookselling market today. So, yes, it's a non-fiction book. And as a testament to how much I lov...