I recently read an article that enumerated the many
bookstores in Harvard Square—and was shocked that there were so few left. At work, they thought it was strange I was
surprised: “they’ve been folding, one by
one, for years.” Some I certainly
noticed closing. When WordsWorth went out of business, a hole opened up. The closing of Globe Bookstore’s
brick-and-mortar store (now they are alive only online) was not only
bittersweet but profoundly inconvenient—there was nowhere else I could go to
immerse myself in travel guides and maps. These seemed almost blasphemy. But there were others that winked out without
my noticing, until I tried to find them:
Starr Used Books, Pangloss, Shambhala.
I just never counted them all up.
I decided to make a pilgrimage to the remaining bookstores
of Harvard Square. They may all be gone
one day—or transformed into something unrecognizable, businesses that sell
mostly e-readers or T-shirts. I wanted
to visit each one and spend some time there, absorbing its special sort of
bookiness and definitely buying something at each one. My old friends were especially important, but
I wanted to make new friends, too.
So, this morning I put on a T-shirt that reads “Literacy
Makes Democracy,” drove to Harvard Square, and parked my car in my secret
spot. (If you spend any amount of time
in Harvard Square and don’t have a secret spot where you can park for free, you’re
really not trying. And no, I’m not going
to tell you where mine is.) As I walked
to my first destination, I passed Dekey Tibet.
It’s not a bookstore, but it sells books related to Tibet and spirituality. Books often pop up in theme stores, positioned
as a tempting impulse purchase—after all, they’re not very expensive, so why
not buy one?
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9:35am found me at The
Harvard Coop, one of the two big bookstores I’d chosen as “bookends” for
the pilgrimage. It’s been owned and run
by Barnes and Noble for over 10 years now, and it definitely was the most
impersonal of the bookstores I visited, even though they’ve done lots to make
it seem “Harvardy.” Still, it’s big and
well-stocked, ranging from popular best-sellers to highbrow intellectual stuff,
with a friendly children’s section. Not
many bookstores these days have two full cases of literary theory, not to
mention a cartography section. Lots of
people were already ambling about, or enjoying their morning coffee with a book
at table near the shelves. They’ve also
perfected the art of themed display tables—this is where I always get in
trouble, choosing one impulse purchase after another. Near the front of the store are tables with
touristy stuff—everything about the Kennedys, Harvard, and Boston. But there are also displays of interesting
books on language, historical fiction, new arrivals to the store, etc. My favorite display was called “Doorstops.” I spent a long time drifting from section to
section—the same helpful saleswoman with the somewhat quirky hairdo and makeup
ran into me several times and asked if I needed help. There were so many things I wanted to buy . .
. I quickly realized I was never going to get out of there (or any of these
stores) with only one new book. I ended
up with one “fun” book, The Story of
English in 100 Words, by David Crystal, and one on a topic I care about, The Lost Soul of Higher Education:
Corporatization, the Assault on Academic Freedom, and the End of the American
University, by Ellen Schrecker. http://store.thecoop.com
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The World’s Only
Curious George Store has an interesting history, as I learned later in the
day. It was originally opened in 1995 as
Curious George Goes to WordsWorth. The
owner, Hillel Stavis also owned WordsWorth Bookstore and was a personal friend
of Margaret Rey, who granted him sole permission to use the character of
Curious George. That store closed in
2011 (rising rents and declining business), someone bought out Stavis, and
after being closed a year, the store re-opened under new management, with a
slightly different name; apparently the rights to use the character and image
of Curious George goes along with the address . . . ? (And the best part of the location is that it’s right under the supposed
offices of Dewey, Cheetham, and Howe—really the home of NPR’s show Car Talk.) Today Curious George is much
more of a toy and paraphernalia store, with a healthy selection of children’s
books in the back. This place was
bustling (although it was a little hard to tell, since the whole interior is
filled up with stuff.) Ironically, I found
a selection of “classics” that included books by Jane Austen, for example—not typical
in a children’s bookstore. I chose for
myself The Grimm Reader: The Classic
Tales of the Brothers Grimm, translated and edited by Maria Tatar. And, because I’m always looking for adolescent
fiction (for me), I got Marked, by
P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast. When I took
my books to the cash register, the young woman behind the counter said “Oh,
this Maria Tatar is really wonderful.” “I
know,” I said, “I had her as a professor when I was a student—but that was a
long long time ago.” “Me too!” she said.
She explained she had taken a class with Tatar on children’s literature
and ended up writing her master’s thesis on fairy tales. It’s nice to be around book people. https://www.thecuriousgeorgestore.com/
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| Eva |
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Raven Used Books
is a relative newcomer (est. 2005), but as I talked to the book people in other
stores, everyone praised it. “Have you
been to Raven?” they would ask. “Yes, it’s nice—but small.” “But he’s got a
really nice selection.” So yes, it's small, but
it has a nice selection. It is lovely in
being totally crammed in, with handlettered signs, unpainted bookcases. There were a couple of book-loving parents
with their kids. One little boy was
learning the art of browsing even though he was too young to read. He pulled one book after another and looked
attentively at several pages before moving on. I just wanted the store to go on and on . . . but I’m
really longing for the dear departed Avenue Victor Hugo bookstore, which always felt
to me like some insane library, trying to preserve everything ever written, one
lot at a time. At Raven, there weren’t
any novels by obscure authors from the 1940s that I’d never heard of, but I did
find some things that I didn’t know I needed:
Martin Heidegger’s The Question
Concerning Technology, and other Essays and Vergil’s Aeneid Book XII—a Cambridge
University Press printing from 1953 of the edition originally published in
1898. (The distributor for Canada,
India, and Pakistan was Macmillan . . . amusing since I now am part of a Macmillan
Higher Education.) It’s in Latin. I’m pretty sure I’m not going to read this
one. http://www.ravencambridge.com
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Schoenhof’s Foreign
Books (founded in 1856) is where I used to go to get my German
literature books for school, and they still had the shelves of yellow Reclam
editions. I had something in particular I wanted to find
here: a German translation of something
by Jane Austen, which I think would be a good way to get me back into the language. They didn’t have one in stock, so I was
directed to the manager, who could order one for me. This was a slow-moving operation, but I wasn’t
in much of a hurry, so we struck up a conversation—and he had
plenty to say. He started working at the
store in 1993 and knew all about all the other bookstores in the area: what the owners were like, why some had
closed (often because of increasing rents).
We talked about the German
language, kids these days (and the fact that J.K. Rowling has done a lot to
keep them reading), how everyone is impatient and wants everything immediately
(I was glad I agreed to order a book that’s going to take some days to arrive),
how much the Square has changed (Elsie’s, The Tasty, the Wursthaus, all gone), how
old we are, and how much disruption it can cause when technology goes awry. He asked why textbooks cost so much. I asked about the store’s Web site. The first one went up in 1998, and he said
the positive impact was apparent immediately.
For a niche bookstore like Schoenhof’s the internet is a great way to
reach your customers. He told me that
the name of the cat in the Victor Hugo bookstore was “Feet,” and we talked a
little about the cat that lives in Cardullo’s.
Even though my copy of Stolz und
Vorurteil hasn’t yet arrived, I
walked away with a copy of Les aventures
de Tintin, Reporter du “Petit Vingtieme,” au Pays des Soviets. http://www.schoenhofs.com/
For lunch, I went to Leo’s
Place, a diner that’s been in the Square since 1949. I ordered a tuna melt, just like the old
days. Because the owners, Richie and
Raffi Bezjian, were cooking behind the
counter and working the cash register themselves, I didn’t feel like I could
leave half of it on the plate, so I’ve now consumed my quota of high-fat foods
for September. They also have a fantastic
selection of root beers. I chose Faygo,
in honor of Detroit. I love this little
diner, with its barstool seats, formica-topped counters, and signed celebrity
pictures on the wall—including one from Tom and Ray Magliozzi, a.k.a. Click and
Clack from NPR’s Car Talk.
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I’ve never been into The
Million Year Picnic, and I’m now I’m sorry.
It’s a small place below street level overflowing with comics of all
varieties: vintage and new comic books,
graphic novels, and collections of cartoons.
Unshelved new inventory is stacked in boxes on the floor and piled on
top of display tables. Pipes cut through the space, creating charming
inconvenience. T-shirts hang up
high. And the owner is having friendly
conversation with a series of people who are obviously regulars. Tony Davis simply radiates intelligence and
warmth. He’s been there since the
mid-eighties (the store opened in 1974) and bought the store from the original
owner some years later. “I like your T-shirt,” he said, and I told him about my quest. We talked for a while about how great it was
to spend our youths (and adulthoods) hanging out in bookstores, why we’re print
fetishists, the publishing industry . . . and the demise of bookstores in the
Square. I also told him about a comic
textbook on writing that we’re going to be publishing soon—and he really wanted
to take a look. I’m definitely coming
back. I left with a Fantastic Four (a childhood favorite) from 1966 and Comic Book Lettering by Richard
Starkings and JG Roshell. http://www.themillionyearpicnic.com/
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| Tony |
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Grolier Poetry Book Shop
is a tiny gem founded in 1927, and apparently the floor plan is exactly as it
was then. Seriously. The bookcases are tall, the aisles are
narrow, and many many slim volumes tempt you from every shelf. (Clearly, my ideal bookstore is a bit
overstuffed.) This is a store with a mission, promoting written and spoken
poetry. Organizing and sponsoring
readings by poets is a big part of what it does, and photographs of poets hang
on the wall. When I came in, the saleswoman
was talking with another patron about the large number of poetry prizes won by
women recently. After very helpfully
directing me to the sorts of books I was interested in, we talked about taking photographs
(she liked my camera), the poets whose pictures were hanging on the wall, and
our favorite bookstores. It seemed like the
very store and the very conversation I’d want to be trapped in when forced
inside by a sudden summer rainstorm. And
it would have to be in person—although they have a Web site, there aren’t
really many books you can buy on it. My selections
here were Song of the Departed: Selected
Poems of Georg Trakl,translated by Robert Firmage, and Narrow Road to the
Interior, a book of haikus by Basho, translated by Sam Hamill. http://grolierpoetrybookshop.org
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The one store I was nervous about finding a purchase at was
James and Devon Gray Booksellers,
which specializes in books from before 1700.
Turns out, they were closed (despite the fact that their Web site said
they’d be open from 11am-3pm). Oh
well. It was fun looking into the window
at least. http://www.graybooksellers.com
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Perhaps not surprisingly, Revolution Books is sometimes omitted from lists of Harvard Square businesses: they’re all about promoting revolution and
communism. I went up the narrow stairs
and ran straight into an political conversation with Stan. (I was the only person there, so I had all
his attention.) The bookstore has bounced
all over the Square since its founding, and at this point it’s pretty small
with just a few shelves of books; they’re moving more and more live events as a
way to get the conversation going. Stan
liked my T-shirt too, of course, and that led to a conversation about education,
publishing, what it takes to get people thinking critically, and how glad we
are to be living in the Northeast. I
walked away with Quotations from Chairman
Mao Tsetung and Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life¸ by
bell hooks and Cornel West. http://revolutionbookscamb.org
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| Stan |
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And then, at the end of the road, Harvard Book Store. This has
been a family-owned business since 1932, although I’d learned earlier in the
day that it hasn’t always been the same family. Obviously they were once the new kids on the
block, but now they seem the vital stronghold of bookstores in Harvard Square. The provocative window displays draw people
in. Inside, the place is hopping, full
of life and energy and books and customers of all ages. It’s quite large, with used and remaindered
books in the funky basement. The shelves
go to the very high ceilings upstairs, and there are wheeled ladders that run
on tracks, just like you see in the movies. The book selection is both quirky and
comprehensive. It’s hard to believe they
don’t have the book you want—although I failed to find a copy of Kundera’s Slowness, a book I’d been looking for
all day. They’ve moved into selling
Harvard paraphernalia, but what really amazed me is all the other ways they’ve
found to keep the business going. They
have tons of events and a functional e-commerce on the Web, of course, but they’ve
also got bicycle delivery all over the Cambridge area and a print-on-demand
machine for out of print (or out of stock) books. I was happy here. I chose The
Complete Stories by Franz Kafka, edited by Nahum Glatzer, and Ragnarok: The End of the Gods by A.S.
Byatt. And a Jane Austen pin. http://www.harvard.com/
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| I really wanted to climb the ladder |
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| Excellent selection of books |
