On a morning after an author event in the store, my body moves slower than usual. A previous late night full of extraverting and guiding a conversation and entertaining a few dozen people in our store leaves me blinking my eyes extra times and trying to remember what day it is.
It’s Sunday morning. I drive my daughter to work (or, more accurately, I go along with her as she practices driving on her permit), drop her off, then head into the city. I park on Prince Street but instead of going straight to the store, I swing by the bagel place to see my older daughter and grab one of their delicious breakfast sandwiches. She’s doing well, tired, but good.
I walk down the street to the store but get sidetracked by Lancaster Pie and Coffee, sneak in and grab an iced vanilla latte, hoping the shots will give me what I need. There, I chat with Tara about what’s happening on our block, the new construction coming, how we can work together to keep the small businesses alive while they close down the sidewalk. One of her employees volunteers to do the children’s story time for us. I get her number then walk out with my bagel and my coffee and the cheery voices of fellow Sunday morning city-goers wishing me a good day.
At the store I take a deep breath and sigh with contentment. It is so quiet. I vacuum and steam clean the floor in the kids’ room. I turn on the lights and the air conditioning. I eat my bagel and straighten books on the shelves. I light a candle, look through a catalogue of upcoming titles, and, at 10:00, I unlock the door.
A young couple comes in for a few minutes and buys 1984 before they leave.
Another couple comes in, and one of them is looking at David James Duncan’s Sun House. After we talk about what he likes, I try to steer him to one of Duncan’s earlier works, maybe The Brothers K (even though those are $10 cheaper), and he leaves with The River Why.
Later in the day a girl asks about Parable of the Sower, and I describe it to her, and she gets excited, especially when she finds out it has a sequel. “I can’t wait!” she says, walking out with a grin on her face.
The day before, a 50-something-year-old mother and her 20-something-year-old daughter took turns picking out children’s books and reading them to each other. I had to go back and chat with them when I heard them reading the very book we had read to our children when we lived in England and they were babies.
This is how the days go, person after person, every one of them looking for stories. Every one of them on a quest to be encouraged or to laugh, to escape, to find beauty and love and adventure.
And it’s all there. Every single bit of it. All of those things can be found inside the store where we sell books.
Today’s “Top Shelf” begins with a poignant, subdued, melancholy story about a Chinese man, Yitian, living as a professor in America who receives a call from his mother. It is the 90s, and there are no cell phones—his mother has to walk to a neighboring village and call him in the middle of the night. She tells him his father has simply walked away from the village, and no one knows where he is.
The book is called A Map for the Missing, by Belinda Huijuan Tang.
“ . . . he seeks out a childhood friend: Tian Hanwen, who as a teenager was “sent down” from Shanghai to Yitian’s village as part of China’s rustication campaign. Young and in love, they dreamed of attending university together. But after a terrible tragedy, their paths diverged, and while Yitian ended up a professor in America, Hanwen was left behind.”
There’s so much going on in this book—a revived romantic relationship from childhood, concern for Yitian’s father and where he might be, and most prominently, Yitian being forced to face the childhood he has hidden away from in America.
The nature of love changes over time, as does the nature of the relationship between fathers and sons. A really beautiful book.
The second book today is James by Percival Everett, a novel that spins off of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, following the enslaved Jim and his escape after hearing a rumor that he was to be sold away from his wife and child.
It’s a fabulous read, brutal at times, illuminating not only the barbaric practices of the time but also the three-dimensional human nature of these people who were bought and sold like commodities.
“While many narrative set pieces of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place (floods and storms, stumbling across both unexpected death and unexpected treasure in the myriad stopping points along the river’s banks, encountering the scam artists posing as the Duke and Dauphin…), Jim’s agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light.”
The odds of James achieving his goal are slim, but in the end the book is a statement on courage, desire, and the importance of fighting evil where we see it in the world.
Finally, Victory City by Salman Rushdie.
It’s been many years since I’ve read anything by Rushdie . . . maybe Midnight’s Children in the early 2000s? So I wasn’t sure what to expect when I picked up his latest book
What I found was a far-reaching epic, a beautiful story of an entire society, and one woman’s reach through the centuries.
The generational element, as well as some of the fantastical storylines, reminded me quite a bit of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. And the book has much to say about the never-ending squabbling of human beings and how those in power are constantly dragging the weak or the otherwise content into war after war.
A fascinating book.
What’s your favorite book about a different culture, or another time and place?
To order these books, or any other book on your mind, email us at hello@nooks.gallery. All orders over $25 receive free shipping. Our deepest thanks to those of you who buy your books from us—you help keep the dream of a small, independent bookstore alive.
Upcoming author events at Nooks include appearances by Christie Purifoy, Anne Beiler, Kaitlin Curtice, and Andi Cumbo! For more information, head HERE.
I would like to read _James_. One of my favorite books as a 10-12 year old was _Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry_ (and its sequels) by Mildred D. Taylor. It really transported me to another time and place and set me on a path of fighting for the dignity of all people alike.
So Parable of the Sower is considered sci fi, right? How sci fi are we talking?
Thanks for the add to my TBR; my book club is reading James in the fall and I can't wait!
In answer to your question, off the top of my head, I think I'd have to say Cry, the Beloved Country, by Alan Paton.