Contests
Latino Book Contest at Conversational Reading and An Earnest Post About My Favorite Independent Bookstore
To enter, simply email me a short description of your favorite independent book store. Make sure to include the city and state it’s located in, and why it’s your fav. Also include your mailing address (sorry, no entrants outside the U.S. and Canada, and no PO boxes) and make the subject line Conversational Reading May Contest.
I’ll pick five winners at random and announce here next Friday.
Here are the books:
1. B as in Beauty By Alberto Ferreras
2. Into the Beautiful North By Luis Urrea
3. Hungry Woman in Paris By Josefina Lopez
4. The Disappearance of Irene Dos Santos By Margaret Mascarenhas
5. Houston, We Have a Problema By Gwendolyn Zepeda
I’m not sure if he’ll post all of the entries, but I hope he does. I enjoyed reading the Bookstores Category at Maud Newton, so it would be nice to have more of that, I think. After the jump, some memories of my favorite used bookstore.
For nostalgic reasons, my favorite independent bookstore will always be Burke’s Books in Memphis, to which I went often when I was in college. I just figured out that Burke’s moved from its original location, so it was really hard for me to find a picture of it as it was when I went to it.
Fortunately, Google Maps saved me and I can revisit old times. I’d park my ’92 Ford Explorer (stick shift) in that little parking lot on the left, and then go into the store straight to the fiction shelves, which were on the right as you first walked in. After looking to see what recent used books they had shelved, I’d then check the essays section, then head back to the philosophy and religion sections. Near the register they had a glass display case of early McSweeney’s stuff, and I remember they even had that huge Vollmann set on violence. Memorable purchases from this store include (but are not limited to) the following: Snow White by Donald Barthelme, Fiction And The Figures Of Life by William Gass, Levitation by Cynthia Ozick, A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace, Mystery And Manners by Flannery O’Connor, and Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, which I read without understanding a single word (I loved it, though, for the numerical sequences and how everything looked on the page).
I like this bookstore because it was small, but very comfortable, and the books on the shelves always seemed to change (I don’t know how they got so many good incoming books). I have nice memories of this bookstore because I went there as a young, immature sort of wannabe writer, a time when everything was exciting to me and I wrote recklessly. A lot of foundational books, for me anyhow, came from this bookstore. I never met the owner, Corey Mesler, but I see his name around the internet in various publications. I wish him luck in the new location.
If you are in Memphis, visit Burke’s at 936 S. Cooper St. so you can buy something.
***
Oh, Google Maps, how sad you’ve made me now: I just moved the little man west one step and it looks like Google updated the streetview, and now you can see construction on the building after Burke’s left (it became an auto shop). I’m off to weep and change the tire on my car.
Tags: Burke's Books, Conversational Reading, Scott Esposito
“latino book contest” turned me off and i almost didn’t read this post.
i don’t understand the need to be defined by race or sexual orientation.
the mere fact these authors have been published shows there is no need to classify them as “latino” since i am guessing the classification is a “fuck you” to the white main stream book sellers? Or is it pure exploitation of a market?
I am a latino author buy me because you are latino.
anyways. i am Portuguese. what free shit am i entitled to?
“latino book contest” turned me off and i almost didn’t read this post.
i don’t understand the need to be defined by race or sexual orientation.
the mere fact these authors have been published shows there is no need to classify them as “latino” since i am guessing the classification is a “fuck you” to the white main stream book sellers? Or is it pure exploitation of a market?
I am a latino author buy me because you are latino.
anyways. i am Portuguese. what free shit am i entitled to?
Dear Scott,
My favorite independent bookstore is BookCourt on Court Street, between Dean St. and Pacific St, in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. The reason why it is my favorite bookstore is because it is two blocks from my house. I’ve been buying books from them for the ten years that I’ve lived in my house and even before that, when I rented an apartment on Altantic Ave that I still love more than the house I own. (It was a great apartment. My house is a bit cramped and smells strongly of cat urine. That, and I was young when I lived in that apartment and now I’m middle aged.) I special order books from them. Henry is the man who runs it and his wife is there too, but I don’t remember her name, although I’ve spoken to her as well about where some book is and so on and so forth. Once, I asked them if a very well known author (and a friend) could do a reading for the paperback release of his book. They said no. I got really angry. I think they were wrong to say no. Another time, I asked if they would carry this journal that had published a story of mine and they said, “I’ll think about it” and didn’t do it until recently, which is four years after I asked them to. Once, I spoke with the woman about her house upstate (I was buying one too) and she talked about her teenage sons and how they want to go there when she’s not there ( and party, was the unsaid thing). That made me like her. I felt for her dilemna. Now, one their teenage sons helps run the place- his name is Zach- and he’s cute and friendly and I think once he clocked me because I was wearing this tight CBGBs shirt and come to think of it- where is that shirt? I love that shirt, For some reason, it made my boobs look bigger. Anyway, they have expanded! How cool is that. Now I have no idea where anything is, but I’m happy they are doing well enough to expand even though a Barnes and Nobles is down the block. And there reading series is ass kickingly good, although I’ve never been to one reading there because I only go to readings if Blake Butler reads, or at least, that is the fact of the last year of my life.
OK. By now.
Dear Scott,
My favorite independent bookstore is BookCourt on Court Street, between Dean St. and Pacific St, in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. The reason why it is my favorite bookstore is because it is two blocks from my house. I’ve been buying books from them for the ten years that I’ve lived in my house and even before that, when I rented an apartment on Altantic Ave that I still love more than the house I own. (It was a great apartment. My house is a bit cramped and smells strongly of cat urine. That, and I was young when I lived in that apartment and now I’m middle aged.) I special order books from them. Henry is the man who runs it and his wife is there too, but I don’t remember her name, although I’ve spoken to her as well about where some book is and so on and so forth. Once, I asked them if a very well known author (and a friend) could do a reading for the paperback release of his book. They said no. I got really angry. I think they were wrong to say no. Another time, I asked if they would carry this journal that had published a story of mine and they said, “I’ll think about it” and didn’t do it until recently, which is four years after I asked them to. Once, I spoke with the woman about her house upstate (I was buying one too) and she talked about her teenage sons and how they want to go there when she’s not there ( and party, was the unsaid thing). That made me like her. I felt for her dilemna. Now, one their teenage sons helps run the place- his name is Zach- and he’s cute and friendly and I think once he clocked me because I was wearing this tight CBGBs shirt and come to think of it- where is that shirt? I love that shirt, For some reason, it made my boobs look bigger. Anyway, they have expanded! How cool is that. Now I have no idea where anything is, but I’m happy they are doing well enough to expand even though a Barnes and Nobles is down the block. And there reading series is ass kickingly good, although I’ve never been to one reading there because I only go to readings if Blake Butler reads, or at least, that is the fact of the last year of my life.
OK. By now.
you should email that to him.
you should email that to him.
my husband just read it and emailed me this: “at first I thought you said your boobs had expanded but now I get it’s the store.”
my husband just read it and emailed me this: “at first I thought you said your boobs had expanded but now I get it’s the store.”
hahaha! i totally read the same as your husband.
hahaha! i totally read the same as your husband.
i guess i was spoiled. growing up in portland i had Powell’s. my weekly bus ride to exchange used books for new books was my past time for a long period of my youth.
then i would walk over to ozone records and look at nirvana imports and other rare shit.
then i would walk over to django’s and spend hours perusing used cd’s.
powell’s is the only place left in downtown portland i believe.
i guess i was spoiled. growing up in portland i had Powell’s. my weekly bus ride to exchange used books for new books was my past time for a long period of my youth.
then i would walk over to ozone records and look at nirvana imports and other rare shit.
then i would walk over to django’s and spend hours perusing used cd’s.
powell’s is the only place left in downtown portland i believe.
Jereme–there are some other (newer) very cool business in downtown Portland–Reading Frenzy (sort of Portland’s version of Quimby’s), Jackpot Records, The Half & Half Cafe, and a bunch of other places. I loooove working at Powell’s, especially knowing that it will always be there.
Jereme–there are some other (newer) very cool business in downtown Portland–Reading Frenzy (sort of Portland’s version of Quimby’s), Jackpot Records, The Half & Half Cafe, and a bunch of other places. I loooove working at Powell’s, especially knowing that it will always be there.
yeah it has been a few years since i’ve been back. the last time i was there Ozone was moved down the street a little. I enjoyed it’s original location acros from powell’s. I was taking my friend on a tour of pdx and was a little sad at how many of the places i loved where gone or moved or failing.
powell’s was the only place exactly the same for the most part. I think they made it slightly bigger (added more to the bottom floor?).
i miss portland.
i will gladly trade any one Orange County for Portland. Who wants to switch locations?
yeah it has been a few years since i’ve been back. the last time i was there Ozone was moved down the street a little. I enjoyed it’s original location acros from powell’s. I was taking my friend on a tour of pdx and was a little sad at how many of the places i loved where gone or moved or failing.
powell’s was the only place exactly the same for the most part. I think they made it slightly bigger (added more to the bottom floor?).
i miss portland.
i will gladly trade any one Orange County for Portland. Who wants to switch locations?