A call to promiscuous readers: support your local bookseller

I had the great pleasure of visiting two independent booksellers that I claim as mine this week: Magers & Quinn in Uptown and Amazing Alonzo Paperback Exchange in Duluth. Before the holidays I made a trip to a retail behemoth that shall remain unnamed. As I searched in vain for something lovely, I shuddered as I walked through the children’s section: toys as far as the eye could see. Miles away from such aberrations, Magers & Quinn and Amazing Alonzo offer a respite from retail stores masquerading as booksellers to the masses.

Magers & Quinn is the largest independent bookseller in Minneapolis (as per their blog) and sell mostly used texts and new releases. Their staff is knowledgeable, unobtrusive, and congenial. The location is in trendy Uptown but don’t let this deter you: it is a space of genuine value to the community. The atmosphere within is one that could easily accommodate any bibliophile or promiscuous reader: good lighting, high shelves, narrow passages, and ample poetry and children’s sections (among others, these happen to be of particular interest to your author).

Last week my mother and I visited with no real aim but to find a treasure. I wanted something used, something carefully worn, something classic. I found Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese. The edition is thin and not altogether pretty, but the sonnets are punctuated with letters between Elizabeth and her husband, poet Robert Browning. When I finish reading Emily Dickinson’s collected works I’ll start this. It’s nice to be reading poetry alongside whatever else I am reading; plus poetry looks so lovely on a nightstand.

The other text I found was a true treasure: a copy of Longfellow’s collected works including “Paul Revere’s Ride” which sparked an intense love of history in my ten-year-old soul many years ago. The book is hardcover with sparse illustrations and has a little open-sided box to protect it (which itself is rather worse for the wear). Inside the front cover is scripted: June 1946 Happy Birthday Harley Love Aunt Flora. This was an intensely satisfying find and I would have bought it for that inscription alone had I not also wanted the book for my own shelf. (Detour: I encourage readers to explore the Forgotten Bookmarks blog.)

The next day I had the great joy of traveling to Duluth for a weekend with friends. This is an annual trip to our old college haunt and for the past couple years has been the only trip to Duluth that we make. I make a point of always stopping at Amazing Alonzo Paperback Exchange. This gem is on 19^th and Superior Street and is run by Barb Plumb who always remembers my name and asks after my family. Barb offers all her used books at 90% of their cover price with the exception of hardcovers which all sell for $3. Exchanged books gain you credit for 90% of their worth, which can be used toward 60% of any books you purchase. If it sounds complicated (or if I have it wrong) don’t worry about it, Barb will handle the arithmetic and you’ll get quality used books at a fantastic price.

Alonzo’s is deceptively delightful. It is a sunny cavern that meanders from the front room full of novels, biographies, westerns and classics, through a narrow hall lined with comedic and political texts, around a literarily congested corner full of how-to insights and spiritually inclined authors, into the back room, its shelves positively bursting with romance novels that sell by the grocery bag ($5). I found Louise Erdrich’s Antelope Wife and Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s Of Love and Other Demons. I haven’t read either but I plan to try loving them both. (Who couldn’t try to love anything written by the authors of The Master Butchers Singing Club and One Hundred Years of Solitude after all?)

The lesson is this: find yourself an independent bookseller or two and support them. Go to their events, exchange your books with them, buy your books from them, and treasure them as you would a dear friend. They do great service to the communities they inhabit simply by existing. Some are highly motivated and involved like Magers & Quinn, supporting book clubs, hosting speakers and events, and have an intense internet presence; others like Amazing Alonzo Paperback Exchange are hidden, belonging to their community alone, loved by as many people as their proprietor can accommodate, not inclined to stretch because they don’t need to, but comforting and sunny.

Supporting your local independent bookseller ensures that your community will maintain a house of value for bibliophiles and promiscuous readers. They tend to nurture well-informed and unabashedly open-minded folks who treasure even the worst sort of writing (thank you for that!) and the least important text with unadulterated joy. There is no pretense or judgment, read what you like and cherish it. Lest the behemoth bookstores squeeze out classic booksellers, save yourself and find a literary home in your community. Then tell me about it.