I am happy to discover that one of my favorite bookstores, Brookline Booksmith, has a blog: brookline blogsmith. As a student in Boston, I spent many hours in this bookstore, back when it was called Paperback Booksmith (est. 1961). Now I get to visit once or twice a year. Booksmith has an excellent selection, a helpful staff, late hours, and no coffee.¹ The store feels to me like a necessary part of its community, an exceptionally bright spot in the general brightness of life at the intersection of Harvard and Beacon Streets. Visiting Booksmith makes me want to live in Brookline again.
Why bother with the blog of a bookstore you might never visit? It can be a good way to learn about books you might otherwise miss. So it is that a copy of Jǐrí Gruša’s novel The Questionnaire recently came home with me from the library.
¹ All pluses, to my mind. If you want coffee, just walk down the street. And if you want a bookstore with snarky brats at the front desk, keep going, to the other side of the River Charles.[Ben, you’re so lucky.]
comments: 3
want to live in Brookline becouse of ...bookstore
man , you are a hero to me :)
I would like to have such passion one day ...
Well, thanks. I lived in Brookline in the mid-1980s. The city has many points in its favor. (Affordability would not be one of them though.)
I sure am. :)
Ben
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