Central Casting: I Need A Bookstore Owner

When we were in Ortigia this summer, we laughed that the fishmonger we met during our cooking class had to have been sent over by central casting.

Blustery, effusive, friendly; he looked and sounded exactly like you would expect an Italian fishmonger to look and sound.

The cheese shop was also European stage set ideal.

Today, we had a similar experience here at home. There’s a used bookstore a couple blocks away that we had yet to explore. On this perfect Fall afternoon, we stepped through its front door and found ourselves in the magical world of books.

Floor to ceiling, and often laid-on-the-floor to ceiling, thousands of books welcomed us into their fold. Loosely organized in alphabetical order, we wandered stack to stack, aisle to aisle.

That musty, not unpleasant smell of old books rose up as I crouched to see lower shelves. Author Louise Penny eluded me, and there were no Agatha Christies, but Atul Gawande and George Orwell and Jennifer Chiaverini all came home with us.

Books hold magic in a way nothing else does. When I went in search of Buds to see if he was ready to leave, and realized he had discovered a portal to another whole section of the store, I gave a deep sigh. There’s more to explore next visit.

This goes on the list for visitors who come to see us in the future. It’s exactly what a used bookstore should be, right down to the tattered fleece wearing owner who wrote our charges on a piece of paper and gave us a handwritten receipt.

“Do you know all the books you have in the store?” I asked as we paid.

“Pretty much,” he replied as he settled back into his wooden desk chair with his book.

An unlit pipe dangling from his lips and a glass of cognac by his elbow might have been the only things missing.

And a bookstore cat. That would have made it perfect.