Scribbling alone in your notebook one night, you create the first draft of your Magnum Opus. The tangy smell of ink never left your body after you crafted a scroll to bring to your editor. Yet as she reads it, you learn that it is almost identical to a story written in Prague forty years ago. Cryptomnesia - a blog about literature and writing by author Joseph Patrick Pascale.
This blog makes it clear that I'm really into bookstores, and I've been to bookstores throughout North America and even parts of Europe. So I thought I'd share with you my personal favorite bookstore, Brier Rose Books in Teaneck, NJ. Now, perhaps I'm a bit biased because I used to live within walking distance of this store and I could go all the time, but I am still convinced that if you have the chance, you will have a unique and wonderful experience at a bookstore with a great selection.
The outside is quaint. With no huge sign on the building itself, you could almost miss it.
Walking in feels the way I imagine it would be to walk into a magical bookshop, if such a thing were real.
As soon as you enter, you are immediately surrounded by books on bookshelves. Whatever direction you go in, you'll be in a corridor of books, and at every end, all you can see is more books.
All of this makes it feel like you're not in a store at all. You've just stumbled into a maze of books. There's no one around--employees or customers. There's no music playing. There are no signs or obvious prices. It's just you and the books.
And I know this involves personal taste, but my wife and I always love the selection available. The fiction, the philosophy, the history, the science fiction and fantasy--there are so many compelling titles.
Way in the back corner of the store, there is a section of books for a dollar. It's all fiction, separated by general fiction, mystery, science fiction, and fantasy. And even in this section, we're always impressed by the books that are available. My wife always gets a big stack of sci-fi and fantasy books for $1 each, and I've picked up titles like Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut and Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse from this dollar section.
By now, you've probably been in the store a long time, running your finger over the spines of books, perusing titles, reading a few pages, and maybe you've even collected a few books under your arm. You started out in the front of the store, but now you've been to the back corners and corridors in-between and you still haven't seen another soul. If it were the weekend, you'd probably have seen a few customers in obscure aisles here or there, but it's desolate. The shelves are set up like a maze, and you need to find that path that winds into the very center of the store. That's where the owner and sole employee, Howard Rose, has his sales desk set up. This centerpoint also contains some couches, antique artifacts, and the glass cases containing the rarest valuable books in the store (Although it's likely to see him on his laptop, selling books online, which is actually where the most expensive books are. He once told me that he wouldn't be able to keep the store open if he didn't have the money coming in from online sales. I just checked the Brier Rose Books AbeBooks profile, and right now there's a listing for a rare Jack London book signed by Jack London and his poet wife). Mr. Rose is happy to assist with finding something once you know he's embedded in there (and sometimes while you're wandering the corridors of books, you'll hear his disembodied voice ask you if you need any help). He always wants to have a conversation about what books you're reading, and whatever other topics may arise. He tells interesting stories of going out to review libraries for sale that he sometimes buys for the store. He says he's got tons of books in storage, and when people buy the popular ones from the dollar section, he has to go fish out more of them to put on the shelves. Last time we were there, he was upset that after all the ordeals of someone driving a car into his store, causing tons of damage that required construction to repair, Google mistakenly had his store listed as permanently closed. Rest assured, the store is open and looking better than ever, so if you want to experience the charm of Brier Rose Books stop by 450 Cedar Lane, Teaneck, NJ 07666. ---------------------------------------------------------- You're reading this, so it's time to admit it You’ve been one – a bookstore hobo. Lingering too long among shelves of books. Sitting between the aisles reading a book you know you don’t have the money to buy, and thinking to yourself, “Oh, if I could only stay here forever.” So why don't you read my novella The Bookstore Hobos? Published in the Eunoia Review, The Bookstore Hobos is the story of Zaid, who tries to live in a bookstore when he finds himself unemployed. His adventures will take him to New York City, where he must attempt to apply what he's read to the real world. ----------------------------------------------------------
From what I've read about the origins of the new American Writers Museum in Chicago, there was confusion and resistance surrounding its creation, with many wondering how it would differ from a library. In a debate over what to name it, "Museum of American Literature" was evidently in the running, but Malcolm O’Hagan, who based the concept for the museum off of his visit to the Dublin Writers Museum, said, "The word ‘literature’ has a highbrow feel, and we wanted a broader audience...We debated it back and forth, but ultimately decided the focus on writers was the right one. People are always fascinated by creative people." That was an insightful decision to make, and it is reflected throughout the museum, since at many points you are encouraged to write with pen and paper, create letters on old typewriters, or storyboard with touchscreens and computers. It's presented as though you're doing this under the guidance of the American master-writers who have come before you. At the entrance to the museum, it is written, "Our mission is to celebrate the enduring influence of American writers on our history, our identity, our culture, and our daily lives." The first room we visited was the children's section. It has colorful artwork, interactive exhibits, and couches for sitting and reading the books that are available. The Langston Hughes exhibit stood out to me here.
Palm: All Awake in the Darkness
"Exhibit best experienced in a quiet, contemplative state." I'd say this is true of the entire museum. It's estimated that there are three novels' worth of text in the museum.
From what I can tell, "Palm" is one of two rotating exhibits at the museum, with the other being the Jack Kerouac/On the Road manuscript exhibit. If they plan on keeping it this way, that would mean one exhibit for a living writer and one for a historical writer. The "Palm" exhibit was created based on the "life and poetry" of W.S. Merwin.
Thirty years ago, Merwin and his wife, Paula, started the process of turning a wasteland on the island of Maui in Hawaii into "one of the most species-rich palm gardens in the world."
This exhibit attempts to provide the experience of visiting the palm garden as well as a physical version of his poetry. The creators of the exhibit, Susannah Sayler and Edward Morris in collaboration with Ian Boyden, explain, "In this installation, we make an analogy between gardening and writing." These are two activities that are "infused with a spirit of contemplation and awareness" for Merwin.
"Many of Merwin's poems, particularly his early work, are dark, even apocalyptic. Long before many others, Merwin saw how humans, through the rise of greed and anger, threaten their own lives, and all life on this planet. Our increasingly detailed understanding of climate change and the current extinction crisis has affirmed his early intuition. Indeed, some of his poems are poems of warning--retellings of the myth of Gilgamesh." I particularly appreciate that last part, as when I first read the Epic of Gilgamesh, I immediately imagined how the story of Gilgamesh and Enkidu defeating Humbaba, the guardian of the forest, and cutting down the cedar trees could be repurposed for contemporary audiences.
Also included in what they call "Ecology of Ideas" is a poem by Ross Gay: "Gay's poem about how the murdered Eric Garner once worked as a horticulturalist for the Department of Parks and Recreation in NYC is a reminder of how ecological justice and social justice are inextricably linked."
At the entrance of the Nation of Writers hall, there is this projector screen shaped like America that cycles through various parts of America's history through the lens of writers.
On this wall, a timeline of the United States runs above notable writers from the past through 2013.
The opposite wall is called a "Surprise Bookshelf," although they are not actually books.
The outward faces of these panels show a text by an author and a genre classification.
You can flip the face around to discover something on the back side. You can spend a long time flipping these to find different surprises on the back side.
For instance, see what you find for Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.
Or here, you can learn a bit about the social significance of "Howl" by Allen Ginsberg.
"[Anne Bradstreet's] book The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America (1650) made her the first published poet of America."
During their lifetimes, a president and a slave, but enshrined in this museum, they're on the same ground as notable writers.
The timeline running along the top gives an idea of the writers' historical contexts.
The text is constantly shifting on the Word Waterfall.
The cozy atmosphere of Readers Hall invites you to select a book and sit down in a comfortable chair.
The screens here let you use Goodreads to select your five favorite books and turn them into a digital bookmark that will be emailed to you.
It's easy to get distracted by the Kerouac exhibit on the left, but the Mind of a Writer section opens up with beautifully maintained antique typewriters, pencil and paper, and notebook computers so that you can write about your experience at the museum in whatever medium is most inspiring.
The paintings on the wall, which include nice quotes about writing from authors really make this section shine.
Based on your selection of fuel, writing habit, favorite things, and companions, this display informs you on what you have in common with famous writers.
This display lets you create dialogue.
"You don't start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it's good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That's why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence. It's just so easy to give up!" - Octavia E. Butler
"Work on one thing at a time until finished. Don't be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand. Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it. Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards." - Henry Miller
Isaac Asimov was beyond prolific.
There are games in this section as well. Here, you can sit across from someone and compare your ability to accurately fill in missing words from famous writing.
It's nice to see that the American Writers Museum also includes a section about writers from Chicago. It's likely that many visitors to the museum will also be visitors to the city like myself, so I appreciated having the chance to learn more about the literary history of the city.
Another interactive display lets you jump through different eras of Chicago's literary history.
"Considered by some to be America's first important gay novel, Henry Black Fuller's Bertram Cope's Year (1919) features a romance between the title character and his 'friend' Arthur Lemoyne...Fuller depicts the relationship as neither shameful nor melodramatic...he shows the complexity of being gay in a straight world."
"By the end of the decade, [Lorraine] Hansberry had completed A Raisin in the Sun. Her family's purchase of a home in a white Chicago neighborhood inspired the plot, but she had a bigger goal: to show the insidious impact of racism on everyday lives."
"[O]ur America is frightened of fact, of history, of processes, of necessity. It hugs the easy way of damning those whom it cannot understand, of excluding those who look different, and it salves its conscience with a self-draped cloak of righteousness." - Richard Wright, Black Boy (1945)
The only reason Roger Ebert stood out to me was because I had just read the biography of Dalton Trumbo, and he's about to review "Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got his Gun."
And of course the museum ends with a gift shop, although really, it's just some shelf space around the welcome desk, so that means it also starts with a gift shop. The wall with the map is about sister museums throughout the country. The plan is to share artifacts and exhibits between museums (many of the museums focus on one specific writer).
I don't agree with people who intimate that this project is foolish or redundant, as a library is already a museum to writers. The American Writers Museum clearly has a distinctly different mission from a library, and exploring the museum provides visitors with a unique experience. I'm sure that the museum's creators hope it can work as a complement to libraries, wherein visitors learn something about writers they didn't know and go home to their local library to read the actual books.
Something surprising is that the museum's creators made a conscious effort not to make it a museum of literary artifacts. In an interview with Tin House, O'Hagan said, "I would like to emphasize the American Writers Museum will be 'Story Telling' institution where artifacts will play a much smaller role than in a traditional museum." Nevertheless, I think they were smart to open the museum with Kerouac's On the Road manuscript. Being an embodiment of writing and the creative process, the scroll fits their mission. But I hope that they will continue to display these types of historical literary treasures, and maybe even acquire some permanent ones of their own as the museum expands. For me personally, as much as I enjoyed the rest of the museum, it was learning that Kerouac's manuscript would be there that inspired me to drive 781 miles across five states to visit.
---------------------------------------------------------- You're reading this, so it's time to admit it: You’ve been one–a bookstore hobo. Lingering too long among shelves of books. Sitting between the aisles reading a book you know you don’t have the money to buy, and thinking to yourself, “Oh, if I could only stay here forever.” So why don't you read my novella The Bookstore Hobos? Published in the Eunoia Review, The Bookstore Hobos is the story of Zaid, who tries to live in a bookstore when he finds himself unemployed. His adventures will take him to New York City, where he must attempt to apply what he's read to the real world. ----------------------------------------------------------
