April and May are always wonderful months for book buying. Students are moving out and often unload their treasures at our shop. Professors take a look at their offices and feel the urge to purge. This year is no exception. We’ve been getting new stock in daily. This year, however, there’s a new spirit of great relief. Folks are coming through the door with boxes, happy to be out and about and SEEING people. Seeing book people! We love opening these boxes, never knowing exactly what is inside. Better than any Amazon delivery, that’s for sure. A first edition McLuhan? Lovely reprints of the Oz books? Philosophy? Tolkien? We’re a generalist shop specializing in the best books available. We’re open to anything.
These books come in, are purchased or traded, then vanish behind our saloon desks. Sometimes they sit back here for months depending on how many titles come in. Sometimes we catalogue them voraciously, unable to hold off from detailing their loveliness in these emails. We have trunks around the edges of the shop (you might have seen them) that are all full of books and collections purchased waiting to be rediscovered by our eager brains. People sometimes ask us what the stuff is behind the counter and we reply, “It’s the we have to deal with it soon section.” Or, put another way, it’s the stuff waiting to be catalogued for our members emails.
On a good day we come in, park ourselves at our desks, and make two piles by our computers. We flex our fingers, flex our brains, and get to work. This pile could have anything. Detective stories, Abbie Hoffman, John Locke, porn, cult movie novelizations from the 1960s, and it’s a scatterbrained/laser-focused climb to the top. What is each book about? What is it worth? Why is it important? More importantly, who will love it? We interrupt each other constantly, exclaiming some rando bibliographical detail aloud. “Did you know this guy was the most prolific BDSM author of his time?” Pregnant pause. “I didn’t know that, Vanessa.” Pause.
Type type type type.
The books then get shelved in our members section, a two bookcase section behind the white glass cases WHERE NO PLEBIAN CUSTOMER MAY SEE THEM. We usually stop after the work is done and admire the books. They’re so beautiful. Here they sit, the creme de la creme, in temporary stasis, a collection for a few days only, before this email goes out and the orders come in. Then you pounce. Carl Jung, gone. Joan Didion, gone. The most prolific BDSM author of his time, totally gone. The books then get moved to the hold shelf, where they tempt and frustrate all other customers. “Is that Jung for sale?” an irregular asks. “No, sir,” we reply. “It has been purchased by a passionate reader who will not be named. But fear their desire, for it is endless.”
The books then go to you. Your life, the slice of it, at least, that we see, is a beautiful thing. Some of you just swoop in and collect your piles, disappearing into the windshield-lit, blinding light of Richmond. Some of you stay and share stories about your life, and patiently listen to ours.
Much love,
Jason and Vanessa