Feb9

A book is like a garden carried in the pocket. ~ Chinese Proverb

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i have found my favorite bookstore, ‘literati,’ and feel happy each and every time i walk in there. it is independent, local, walkable, friendly,  and welcoming. when i open the door and step in, i feel like cliff in the old show ‘cheers,’ but without the bar or the beer or boston.  

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winter comes to literati

 one of my favorite pastimes is to spend time with books, reading, browsing, picking them up to see the cover, the text, reading the notes, and just hanging out among them. after the demise of borders, (created by the local borders brothers), which was based here and included the original store, a local couple decided to open ‘literati.’ a giant had fallen. and in it’s place, three lovely bookshops have come to the forefront here. one has held on throughout the mega-giant bookstore era, and been around for years, with the others, more recently arriving on the scene. each is wonderful, but something about the feeling of ‘literati’ has immediately grabbed me. the owners of the three have embraced and welcomed each other, and rather than be rivals, they’ve become friends and partners in the community.

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downstairs at literati

 in this, its first year, the store has supported and invited local authors to share their work, created nooks for reading, and spaces for browsing, provided a small staff that is well-read and friendly, a children’s story hour, a book club, a newsletter, took part in community charity events, and the place simply oozes with an amazing good feeling.

have an set up an old typewriter for people to leave notes and messages. here are a couple of them:

“To be in love gives you the ability to raise up the sky and see the whole world.” 

-Note left on our typewriter

“I am 7 months sober today. I’m finally learning how to forgive. Not only those who hurt me, but myself. I’m forgiving myself…”

-Note left on our typewriter

 a recent note from owners, mike and hillary, written in their newsletter to the community, shows a bit of who they are:

Happy New Year, everyone!

This past week, we’ve been feeling nostalgic. Since we signed the lease one year ago we’ve zoomed along with build-out, construction, opening, logistics, accounting, and the chaos of the holidays… Finally, we’ve had a chance to catch our breaths, pause, and reflect.

Thank you everyone who has bought a book from the store. You didn’t have to. You could have gone to Amazon, but you didn’t. You came to us.

A huge thank you to Jeremiah Chamberlin and this profile of our opening in the latest issue of Poets & Writers Magazine. Jeremiah witnessed the store long before anyone else did. He was there when we painted the floors, for our shipment of boxes, for all those anxiety-producing pre-opening weeks… and then he wrote about it. We thank Jeremiah for taking an interest in telling our story and doing such a wonderful job. 

Thank you all, again, for making our 2013 successful. It’s a scary time to open a bookstore. But everyone here made it much, much less scary. We have a lot of work to do. We are inspired by this year’s success, but there is a long road ahead.

Thank you again. -Mike, Hilary, and the rest of the Literati Book Ninjas. 

It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.  ~Oscar Wilde

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image credits and links:  http://literatibookstore.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

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83 responses »

  4. If our society ever becomes “paperless” I hope I’m not around to see it. Nothing beats picking up, holding and reading a real book. The last photo, of the downstairs, makes my mouth water (in a good way). I probably own far more books than I’ll ever be able to read, but I’m sure going to enjoy trying. I’m glad you’ve got a bookstore with a “Cheers-like” atmosphere.

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  7. This is a great post, Beth. How can you not love the LIterati Book Ninja group? Sign me up on the east coast. I miss our Borders here in Syracuse, too. Barnes & Nobel hangs in hard. The talk-and-signing I experienced there this October with my co-writer Mike Waters was really very cool, so I value their commitment to local authors very much.

    And, I see you got a great shot of the store out front. In the sbow. Does that mean I’m it again so quickly?

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    • thanks mark and i agree. any bookstore that goes under is a loss to a community i think. that’s cool about your appearance and as you know it means so much to the authors. indeed there is snow in that picture, so –

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  8. What an incredible store. A little like the fictional one I’d most like to live and work in – the bookstore from ‘You’ve Got Mail.’
    I’m going to live vicariously through you while you peruse those shelves and lose hour after hour. I wish you health and happiness in that new nirvana!

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  9. Great post. You are so fortunate to have independent bookstores. Barnes and Noble’s is the only bookstore left. Sad. We used to have so many and now we are down to one. Miss them, and all the time I spent there. Nothing can take their place. Enjoy yourself and write about them again so those of us who long for bookstores, can be happy in yours.

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    • hit – i do feel fortunate, and your are right, nothing can take the place of a good bookstore. i will write about them again, i’m sure they i will continue on their journey with them for a long time to come )

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  10. Books and independent bookstores will never go out of style. Love the Chinese proverb. If books are a garden, then the pages are the petals of flowers, each one with a different fragrance, taking us through the garden step by step, leaving us, as we leave, with a lovely and fragrant memory.

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    • miss fe – it is a wonderful place. i love the notes left on the typewriter, as well. just to add to the magic, the staff, including owners, leave handwritten notes posted throughout the store, talking about the books they’ve read and why they enjoyed them, along with their personal recommendations. these have nothing to do with book company marketing agendas, some are classics, others new, and simply a way of sharing their love of the written word.

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    • happy you enjoyed it rob, and it truly is awesome, i’m not exaggerating at all when i describe it. please do look further it will give you an even deeper glimpse into what it is like.

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    • yes, i hope many more of them pop up everywhere, they are an irreplaceable part of the community. and the people that work there, the book lovers, are just as irreplaceable.

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  23. This looks like such an incredible book shop! It makes me so sad that there is nothing similar anywhere near to me. In most English cities, the choice for books is either Waterstones or WHSmiths. When I was living in Oxford, we had Blackwells, which was a bit better, but still a big chain book shop. In the town I went to secondary school in, there was an independent book shop, but it was so small that you felt self-conscious (and certainly couldn’t go in with a backpack on!) and I think it struggles a lot financially.

    Long may your gorgeous book shop live!

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  27. In OKC I saw several wonderful little independent bookstores driven out of business by the big chains. It broke my heart. There’s something very special about such stores. We are lucky in Denver to still have the locally owned Tattered Cover stores. Apparently they were already big enough and well established enough to survive the influx of the chains. Now even the chains are struggling. So sad.

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  32. Oh, I love independent book stores like this. I’m happy to see that several are still flourishing in your city.
    That typewriter sounds awesome. There used to be a coffee table with a drawer in this cafe where I spent a lot of time and at some point I decided to leave a note in it. Someone responded and then a series of people went back and forth for a long time. Every so often I would take all of the old notes out and start a new one. Eventually the owner of the cafe glued the door shut. He was kind of a douche bag. I wonder if I still have those notes… possibly tucked in an old moleskine notebook…

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  37. I like the idea of a joint venture such as this, and it makes perfect sense to open book stores where everyone can enjoy the realness of a good book :) Sometimes technology reduces the enjoyment of reading, but with a book, instead of a tablet everything comes to life :) I love this posting Beth :)

    Andro xxxx

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  39. In Naperville, we have Anderson’s, a wonderful independent bookstore. We also have a Half Price Books, one of my personal favorite bookstores. We do have a large Barnes and Noble, but I’ve never liked them much and was saddened when Borders closed its doors. Of course, the library is my top favorite book portal, as I couldn’t afford even half the books I read in a year!!

    janet

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