My Bookstore

by Ronald Rice

  Your unflagging belief in the merit of my words.

  Where are those words? It would have been nice to close with a flourish of cleverly nuanced phrases, but they aren’t coming and the deadline is.

  So, Roberta, please accept my apology for failing to provide the flowery, literary bouquet you richly deserve. You have made our lives better, yet the only gift I can offer as an expression of thanks is embarrassingly simple to describe.

  It’s a smiling face.

  But who would put that in writing?

  MIKE LEONARD joined NBC News in October 1980 and, using the small town of Winnetka, Illinois as his base, has traveled across the country and around the world in search of stories that define our lives. In addition to his regular Today assignment, Mike’s stories have appeared on NBC Nightly News, Dateline, NBC Sports, MSNBC, Showtime, and PBS. He is the author of The Ride of Our Lives–Roadside Lessons of an American Family.

  Robert N. Macomber

  The Muse Book Shop, DELAND, FLORIDA

  I just had one of those odd mental moments. While folding underwear and socks into bizarre shapes so they’ll fit into an already crammed suitcase, Janet Bollum and The Muse popped into my mind. Yes, I know that’s a strange connection, but bear with me, because there is a cause and effect here. Or a more accurate description would be “unanticipated consequences.” Pretty nice unanticipated consequences.

  I’m packing for a six-week journey through the South Pacific, my favorite region in the world. Beautiful islands, friendly people, and fascinating cultures, all making the perfect grist for a novelist like me. And best of all—this time I’m invited to see it in luxury, for a very exclusive private-condominium ship (160 ultra-comfy apartments circumnavigating the world each year) has asked me to be the guest author aboard for sixteen days as she steams through Fiji, the Cook Islands, Tonga, and the Society Islands of French Polynesia. After that, I’ll be back on my own, living on Upolu Island in Samoa (close by Robert Louis Stevenson’s house), then revisiting Pago Pago in American Samoa, and old-town Honolulu—all to research and finish writing my next novel.

  Janet Bollum and The Muse had a role in this, for they are part of the reason for my success. The Muse is a quaint little bookshop located in the pleasant college town of DeLand, Florida. No chain-store glitz, hype, or come-ons; just a friendly oasis of 50,000 books, lovingly owned by Janet for thirty-two years, making it the state’s second-longest-operating independent bookstore. Like every other author who signs there, I love the place. It’s the sanctum sanctorum for bibliophiles who come a hundred miles to talk books, search the nooks and stacks for literary treasures, meet their favorite authors, and ask Janet or her helpers for their opinion on books.

  It’s the place where my readership in central Florida began, because Janet Bollum took a chance ten years ago on a new author from out of town and had him do a signing at The Muse for his third novel. She put the word out and readers came. They came because they trust her to understand what they like. Because of that they were already in the mood to like my books. For the next seven novels I’ve returned, and each time more and more people join me.

  Janet knows how to do a book signing right. Unlike the tired lines of sullen people silently enduring frustration at dreary chain-store book signings, Janet makes sure that readers coming to author signings at The Muse have fun! Music, snacks, drinks. Laughter. Buzzing conversation. Readers enjoying time with their favorite author. It builds readership, which builds success, for an author.

  And successful authors get asked to do some unique things, like being guest writer aboard an ultra-comfy condo ship steaming through the South Pacific.

  Thank you, Janet and The Muse, for helping to build my success, and for the pretty nice “unanticipated consequences.”

  ROBERT N. MACOMBER is an award-winning novelist, international lecturer, television commentator, and consultant. He lives at Matlacha Island, Florida. For more about the man and his work, visit www.robertmacomber.com.

  Paolo Mancosu

  Moe’s Books, BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA

  I do not exaggerate when I say that Moe’s has been a key element of my Berkeley experience since I moved to UC Berkeley in 1995, where I teach logic and the philosophy of mathematics. However, my discovery of Moe’s goes back to the mid-1980s, when I was a doctoral student in philosophy at Stanford University. At the time connections between Stanford and Berkeley were made easier by a shuttle that ran between the two universities. All my visits to Berkeley religiously included a visit to Moe’s, and I would return to Stanford with a large bag of books that I had selected from Moe’s philosophy and mathematics sections. Ever since my move to Berkeley in 1995, my library has grown to the point of covering almost every wall in my house, as weekly visits to Moe’s keep luring me into new discoveries and acquisitions. Among my favorite sections of the bookstore are those in philosophy, mathematics, history of science, foreign languages, medieval studies, history, and music.

  I like to think of my passion for second-hand bookstores in mythical terms. Just like Eros (love) in Plato’s Symposium, it is the offspring of Poros (expediency, resourcefulness) and Penia (poverty, need). In my case, the poverty was real and not allegorical. As an undergraduate student in Milan, with few means at my disposal, finding books in second-hand bookstores was an expedient solution for buying what I needed. But what might have seemed a sad necessity, one to be discarded as soon as my financial means would allow, turned instead into a pleasurable experience that is still with me when I enter a second-hand bookstore, and Moe’s in particular. It is the pleasure of the hunt, the possibility, always renewed, of running into something unexpected that will surprise me and pique my interest. Moreover, I find browsing to have therapeutic virtues. After a strenuous seminar in mathematical logic, there is nothing better to clear my mind than a visit at Moe’s!

  I cannot think of another second-hand bookstore anywhere in the world—and I have visited quite a few, from frontier towns in Rio Grande do Sul and the Patagonian badlands to the high-ceilinged, labyrinthine hallways of Parisian librairies d’occasion—that compares in academic quality to Moe’s. In addition to its being a “trading zone”—namely a place where people with different languages, products, and expectations interact and exchange goods and ideas—the constant renewal of the stock and the store’s fair prices keep bringing me back as a faithful customer.

  Of the many books I have bought at Moe’s, one chance encounter in particular triggered a chain of events that opened up an entirely new world to me. In 2011, I began studying Russian again, a language I had studied in the late 1980s and early 1990s but had not continued to practice because of more pressing commitments. As I often do when I start a new project, I began buying some books in the area, and this is how I stumbled, that November, on a copy of Doctor Zhivago in Russian at Moe’s. I paid $20 for it without knowing exactly what I was buying. Once at home, I decided to check online booksellers just to get some information about the edition and its value on the market. I thus discovered that I had bought the first official edition of the Russian text, published by the University of Michigan Press. I was stunned when I saw that some booksellers were selling it for $5,000. Intrigued by the history of the book, I learned that the first worldwide edition had come out in Italian in 1957 from the publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli. It was through an agreement with Feltrinelli, who owned the copyright for Doctor Zhivago, that the University of Michigan Press had published the Russian text in early 1959—the copy I had bought! (Doctor Zhivago was published in the USSR only in 1988.) I began reading more about the publication history of Doctor Zhivago, and the more I read the more I wanted to know. I was puzzled by a few aspects of that history, and my research became more serious, eventually leading me to work in American, European, and Russian archives. In the course of this research, I was also given access, for the first time, to the Feltrinelli archives in Milan, which were invaluable for reconstructing what is certainly the most complex literary-political publishi
ng story of the 20th century. The publication history of Doctor Zhivago features Pasternak, Feltrinelli (one of the richest men in Italy at the time and a member of the Italian Communist Party), the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Italian Communist Party, the KGB, the CIA, and countless other characters. All of this, and much more, is recounted in my book Inside the Zhivago Storm: The Editorial Adventures of Pasternak’s Masterpiece, which is the outcome of that serendipitous encounter with the Russian Zhivago at Moe’s. The book came out in October 2013 and it was a great satisfaction when, in April 2014, the CIA released 99 documents confirming its role in the Zhivago saga as I had reconstructed it in my book.

  But that was not the end of the story. My book was received favorably by specialists and I thus found myself invited to contribute to a major conference on Pasternak at Stanford in the fall of 2015. For the occasion, the organizers asked my cooperation in putting together a book exhibit on the publishing history of Doctor Zhivago. The exhibit was accompanied by my booklet Smugglers, Rebels, Pirates: Itineraries in the Publishing History of Doctor Zhivago, which contains, in addition to my narrative, numerous reproductions of rare editions of Doctor Zhivago that illustrate its tortuous publication history. For my keynote address, I decided to pursue some open problems that I had mentioned but not addressed in my 2013 book. I started exploring more than 20 archives and extended my work into new and exciting territory. The result is a new book: Zhivago’s Secret Journey: From Typescript to Book. In it I tell the story of the several typescripts of Doctor Zhivago that reached the West and detect which one became the source for the first pirated edition of the Russian text, a publication covertly organized by the CIA that saw the light in September 1958 (the so-called Mouton edition). These projects have brought me into contact not only with prominent Slavic scholars but also with important publishers, such as Feltrinelli’s son, Carlo, with Pasternak’s relatives, with a formidable French countess and scholar, with the man who smuggled Doctor Zhivago out of the Soviet Union, and with many other protagonists of the Zhivago saga. And it all started with a book I bought at Moe’s!

  Let the above comments stand as an expression of gratitude for Moe’s unique and irreplaceable role in our community.

  PAOLO MANCOSU is Willis S. and Marion Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of numerous articles and books on logic and the philosophy of mathematics. He is also the author of three books on the publication history of Doctor Zhivago. During his career he has taught at Stanford, Oxford, and Yale. He has been a fellow of the Humboldt Stiftung, the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, and the Institut d’Études Avancées in Paris. He has received grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.

  Jill McCorkle

  Flyleaf Books, CHAPEL HILL, NORTH CAROLINA

  Imagine the Bible Belt if you will, and then, at its center, place a shining, star-studded buckle; that’s the Triangle area, and there in the very center of that buckle is Chapel Hill, site of the first public university in the United States and the place Senator Jesse Helms once suggested be fenced off and called the state zoo. Thanks to a thriving interest in the arts and higher education and independent thinking, the Triangle is an area that can rival any place in the country. And when it comes to successful independent booksellers, this state is one of the country’s most exemplary, with thriving stores peppering the land from the mountains to the coast. At a time when other businesses are shutting down and when more and more people are resorting to the solitary path of online ebook buying, these are stores that are all about enhancing the community and preserving the history and business of real typeface-on-paper works of art, while also looking ahead to the transitions of the future. There is a lot of proof that people still love real bookstores and real books and those who read them, and you don’t need to venture any further than the front door of Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill to witness it. People, books, conversations about books, readings from books. Flyleaf being a common destination, I am one of many who make that regular pilgrimage, sometimes with something specific in mind, and other times just taking the opportunity to pause and browse and escape whatever else is going on in the day.

  I have rolled in and out of this town since I graduated from the university in 1980, and the big wishes you hear expressed have consistently been for less-humid summers (impossible), more parking (nearly impossible), more NCAA titles (possible), and an easily accessed independent downtown bookstore (wish granted). Less than three years old, this store already has the good, comfortable feel of a long-loved and well-populated establishment.

  Build it and we will come, the locals had said, and this is exactly what happened in 2009 when owners Jamie Fiocco, Land Arnold, and Sarah Carr joined forces and made it happen. This young and lively triumvirate—their talents and areas of expertise covering all corners of the book business—has taken the challenge and run headlong into success and beyond. Their names all run together may sound like the name of a prosperous law firm or accounting business, and the success of their endeavor may lead you to think they are just that, but then add passion—lots and lots of passion for the world of books and all people who share this love, from writers and publishers to readers and the community at large, and you’ve got the makings of what will prove to be as fixed and attached to this place as hot summers and ACC basketball and pride in having once summoned the wrath of the likes of Jesse Helms. Before the Christmas rush last year, they had already surpassed their sales of the year before. So now imagine that belt buckle getting bigger and shinier all the time. This is not a hold-your-pants-up kind of belt buckle, but one worthy of a heavyweight champion—a big, shining, powerful star.

  Though I no longer live in Chapel Hill, Flyleaf is still my home-base store and easily reached on my daily paths to and fro. Sandwiched between two great places to eat, the store really does feel as if it’s been there forever, people spilling from bookstore to the outdoor tables of Foster’s Market, where they sit and read. Inside, the ceiling-to-floor shelves are fully stocked and there are big tables overflowing with the newly published and staff picks. There is an impressive used-books section and a large reading space that is now on the publicity radar of writers touring the country, so that each week there are scheduled readings and book-club programs and meetings that bring people into this amazing space. There are colorful posters and reminders about future events and memorabilia from the great events that have already happened. There is a terrific children’s section, something that always thrilled me when I still had little ones in tow, because such a section immediately promises a little more browsing and shopping time, not to mention getting those new readers up and moving.

  Before Flyleaf Books moved in, this was a gym, and I often imagine the sounds of iron pumping and hearts racing as bodies were transformed from flabby and weak into strong, sculpted pictures of good health. And so it continues. Flyleaf is the mecca for those seeking the ultimate workout program, only now the focus is that big gray muscle in the center of the skull as people get stronger and more flexible, the stamina of their own imaginations tripling and quadrupling, their hearts still racing with the sight of what’s hot off the press and with jacket art and with the intoxicating smell of paper and ink. And, if you’re like me and can’t see anything without a pair of readers, they have a huge selection to insure that browsing is never interrupted. They also have beautiful jewelry and other creations from local artists. In fact, they have one of the best selections of purses and travel bags. I always find myself wanting to fill a bag with books and fly off to some quiet place to read for a month or two. But of course, what I actually do is also fine: buy a book or two, a new journal, some spare glasses, and head back home.

  A flyleaf is that blank piece of paper at beginning and ending of a real hold in your hand and turn the pages book. That blank page is like a curtain r
ising, the promise of what is to come, and at end, it is the curtain closing, that collected pause before you face the slow return to the outer world. It’s exactly what it feels like when you open the door to Flyleaf Books and step into that comfortable and stimulating world; when you leave, it’s with the knowledge that you can always turn around and come right back, and chances are that Jamie or Land or Sarah will be there to greet you. For me, a visit to Flyleaf is like opening your favorite book—once-upon-a-time and happily-ever-after here in a great and thriving wonderland of independent booksellers. If anyone can keep that champion belt buckle all shined up and growing for generations to come, this is who I will bet on.

  JILL McCORKLE is the author of four story collections and six novels. Her work has appeared in a variety of publications including The Atlantic, The American Scholar, Ploughshares, Best American Short Stories and Best American Essays. She lives in Hillsborough, North Carolina.

  Mameve Medwed

  Porter Square Books, CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

  I once wrote a novel called How Elizabeth Barrett Browning Saved My Life; its launch took place around the corner from me at Porter Square Books, that home away from home where I now celebrate all my launches and those of my friends. That novel sprang from my imagination. In the real world, however, I can offer a nonfiction variation on that title: Porter Square Books Saved My Life. After all, a bookstore within two blocks of a writer and reader is mother’s milk and a hot fudge sundae and a destination and a community and an antidote against both loneliness and—horrors!—having nothing to read. This bookstore is the best thing that ever happened to my neighborhood and one of the best things that happened to me.

  Let me backtrack. In Bangor, Maine, where I grew up, the single bookstore that sold current books was tiny and three miles downtown; its secondhand cousin occupied a dank basement that smelled of mildew and old age. At home, the classics stuffed our shelves. Our encyclopedias were as antique as our furniture. We didn’t buy books. Like the Boston Brahmin’s hats, we simply had them. Anything suspiciously new, we could borrow from the library. Just as long-distance calls were considered a luxury (my husband’s father stuck a clock next to the phone when his son dialed from Skowhegan to set up our first date), you never bought books that weren’t self-improving dictionaries or SAT preps.