Tales from the Bookshop

Apparently the rumors of the death of the book are greatly exaggerated. I have been "managing" -- as if that were possible -- the Provincetown Bookshop for almost three weeks now, and every day I hear from customers about how glad they are that the bookshop is still there. The Provincetown Bookshop is the last remaining full service bookstore in the town -- or, for that matter, on the Outer Cape. (Next book stop, Orleans, 30 miles away.) There is a wonderful used and rare bookstore almost next door to us, but no other general bookstore. Not only are people voicing their love of books, bookstores, and the Provincetown Bookshop in particular, they are buying an amazingly arcane and intellectual bunch of books.

In less than three weeks, I've sold:

• two copies of a biography of Cicero
• two copies of the poetry of Pablo Neruda
• two copies of The Memorial by Christopher Isherwood
• Dharma Bums and On the Road
• Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath
• two biographies of St. Francis of Assissi (in this case, to the same person)
• innumerable editions of poetry by Mary Oliver
• obscure literary fiction, essays, and biographies too numerous to mention
• an eclectic mix of history books on Indians, the Civil War, and WW II, none of them best sellers except the biography of John Adams by David McCullough.

This is in addition to all the Cape Cod books and music books that the store is known for. And, of course, the usual suspects: the indie bestsellers that you can find in any good independent bookstore.

Perhaps the most heartening harbinger for the future of books is the children's section. Children's books sell like hotcakes. I've noticed two patterns. Adults buy classic children's books (Winnie the Pooh, The Velveteen Rabbit) as gifts for the children in their lives -- or for baby showers, which is a great idea. And book-loving children as young as three pick out their own books, and can hardly be torn away from the shelves once a selection is made. One little one threw a total tantrum when told he couldn't walk out with every book he had picked up! Although I hate to hear any one cry -- big or little -- it was kind of cool to know that he was crying over books. I know the feeling.

Back to Bookselling

After almost a year of unemployment, I have a summer job, managing the Provincetown Bookshop! This is wonderful for many reasons. One is that I love bookselling. Another is the Provincetown Bookshop itself. In a world where bookstores are becoming extinct, the Provincetown Bookshop is a dinosaur among dinosaurs. Not only is it a local, independent bookstore, but it is the kind of old-fashioned literary bookstore that has a large poetry selection and carries all the classics (from Austen to Zola). As a friend of mine once said, "It's the place to go when you need a copy of The Iliad." It has many treasures.

The Provincetown Bookshop is a very local bookstore, with lots of books about Cape Cod. Their current bestseller is The Outermost House by Henry Beston, beautiful nature writing about a year in a dune shack on Nauset Beach -- in 1926! They carry books by local authors past and present (which happen to include Norman Mailer, Eugene O'Neil and Mark Doty). Longtime Provincetown resident Mary Oliver signs every book of her poetry in stock. Fabulous filmmaker John Waters used to work there. The bookshop was founded in 1932.

All this history can lend the store a somewhat fusty, musty aura. In fact, many people believe that it is a used bookstore (probably because that copy of The Iliad can sit around for a couple of years before it's needed). The owner and staff tend to believe that people either know their way around books or they don't. Hence there is little to help them find their way. The signs appear to have been scrawled by hand sometime back in the Fifties, probably the same summer that Tennessee Williams was at the Atlantic House, interviewing Marlon Brando for a spot in A Streetcar Named Desire. I can't wait to get in there!

Meanwhile, I have to brush up my bookselling. As you probably know, the art of bookselling is not so much to share the books that you love as to recommend to people the books that they will love. This requires a lot of information about a lot of books that you personally don't even like. I might be fine recommending mysteries, but I need to have some ideas on other fiction, biographies, non-fiction, poetry, fantasy, etc. Even dystopian young adult fiction: I'm sure some tween will want to know about another book as good as The Hunger Games.

This is where you come in! I need to know some of the best new books that are out there, and I want you to tell me. Please leave comments in answer to two questions:

• What was the best book you read in the last six months?
• What is the book you're most looking forward to reading?

Of course I also need to know why -- what makes it so good, or why are you interested? And it's only fair if I start.

I had real trouble picking out the best book of the last six months, and not from a surfeit of candidates. Many were enjoyable but few were memorable. But then I remembered Midnight Fugue by Reginald Hill.  After excoriating depressing British police procedurals in a previous blog I rediscovered Hill's wonderful constabulary team of Dalziel and Pascoe.  Over a couple of dozen books, Hill has created almost Shakespearean characters and plots, mixing high tragedy and low comedy in quintessentially British fashion. In particular, Superintendent Dalziel rivals Falstaff as a force of nature -- vulgar, canny, and damn near omnipotent.  Midnight Fugue is one of Hill's best because it's so tightly structured, set in a 24-hour time frame when Dalziel returns to duty after a near-death experience. As The New York Times Book Review said, "Hill writes of these tricky matters in a fluid and witty style that eventually lifts the old lion from his torpor and restores him to roaring health."

The book I'm most looking forward to is Alison Bechdel's new graphic memoir, Are You My Mother? Bechdel is the brilliant cartoonist who drew the strip Dykes to Watch Out For throughout the Eighties and Nineties (from Bush Senior to the end of W, in fact). Her graphic memoir about her father, Fun Home, was smart, sharp, funnny and painful -- sometimes all in one frame -- plus classical allusions (Icarus/Daedalus, James Joyce, etc.) and fine, detailed pen-and-ink drawing. Even Bechdel's old, highly topical comics are worth re-reading, given all they pack into the language and the visuals.

Now it's your turn. Tell me about the best and most exciting books out there. And I'll tell you tales of the old curiosity shop, I mean the Provincetown Bookshop. Leave a comment.