If you’re like me, you work a remedial day job and you spend a lot of time at said day job cruising around the Internet and reading about books. You read The New York Times Books section daily, and you visit The Rumpus as well (obviously, I mean, you’re here), and maybe some other literature-based websites. You might subscribe to the The New Yorker, so you read their book reviews / articles too. When you visit The Huffington Post, you read their book section. When you visit New York Magazine, Salon, Slate, you always read their book sections.
Maybe you live in Brooklyn like me.
I’m feeling self-conscious and pretentious. Oh well, I’ll keep going.
What I wanted to say – and indeed, why I’m bothering to write this – is that yesterday I went into BookCourt, which is that awesome bookstore in Brooklyn on Court Street, just a stone’s-throw away from the Trader Joe’s (still feeling pretentious; still gonna keep going). What I enjoy about shopping at BookCourt is the curation of the store; in fact, the last three times I’ve been in there I’ve had to pull aside an employee and swoon, “oh, I just love the way you guys lay out your books!” Whoever is curating the shop must surely be reading the same papers and blogs and magazines that I do. Thus, when I walk into the store, there are all of those books that have, for me, up until that time, merely existed as ideas in essays and reviews. And then lo and behold, there they all are!
I think yesterday the one that got me, and moved me to write this, was 03 by Jean-Christophe Valtat, this 83 page monologue that I have been wanting to read for some time. It got a lovely write-up in The New Yorker some months ago, and I believe other press as well (I can’t quite remember, the articles and blogs all sort of blend together after a while into a literate smoothie). When would you find this book facing shoppers, cover out, at, say, a Barnes and Noble? And even if it was – how could you find it and notice it, inside that behemoth?! Curationally-speaking, Barnes and Noble and Borders seem to me like vomiting giants, shouting: HERE ARE 50,000 BOOKS WE THINK YOU ARE GOING TO LIKE! I certainly don’t fault them. They’re fighting with Amazon, which is like fighting with a deity, which, if I recall my Greek mythology correctly, never works out well for the mortal. And indeed, I value the chains, and their spacious stores and their wonderful reading events and speakers’ series, with such recent luminaries as Nora Ephron, David Sedaris, Steve Martin, etc. Talk about amazing curation!
But BookCourt seems to take a different stance. They certainly know they’ll never be Amazon, and they won’t even be one of those big chains, and they don’t want to be. They seem to say, “We’re only going to highlight 100 books – but they are going to be the 100 books you, literate Brooklyn consumer, most want to read.” Can we go back to the Greek mythology metaphor again? BookCourt is like Theseus – not the strongest, but it exists and succeeds thanks to its cunning and intelligence. It lays out its books carefully, like the string our hero leaves behind as he ventures further into the labyrinth, never forgetting how to find his way home. Or in BookCourt’s case, taking time to think about its type of customers, and what information portals they choose to plug in to, and letting that information affect their layout decisions. (Actually now that I think of it, that Theseus comparison is kind of weak. BookCourt as Perseus, wielding the mirror to slay we consumer-Medusas? BookCourt as Odysseus, crawling inside the Trojan Horse of curation to slay our wallets? Man, there’s a lot of slaying in Greek mythology! I’m going to stop with the simile now. Wait, no, one more: the curation of BookCourt is like Aphrodite – stunning, beautiful).
Some people know a lot about modern art. They walk through MoMa and they nod with appreciation at the layout of the work on the walls. Well, I read media websites and blogs about books. So I nod with appreciation as I walk through BookCourt.
Now, there is a slightly darker query looming behind this little anecdote, and I can see it now, reading back over the paragraphs above: what about books that don’t get press? Are they doomed to stay off of BookCourt’s limited shelving space (and therefore, our own)? That’s a much bigger topic of conversation. I’m not prepared to address that at this time. All’s I’m saying is, I happen to be someone who does read press and certain blogs and so forth, and so, it’s nice to enter a place that seems to know what people like me might like. I suppose the same experience might occur at a Nacho Bar, but we are not speaking of Nachos, we are speaking of books.
For the record, I didn’t end up buying Valtat’s 03 yesterday. My rule to myself is no more book-buying until I crack the spine on the untouched copy of Freedom that sits on my shelf – as perhaps your copy does the same on your shelf, if you are at all like me, which I think, indeed, you just might be.
