Bookstore Musings tales from a small suburban bookstore.

“You can have absolutely nothing in common with someone, but if you have read the same books, you have something to talk about. Strangers strike up conversations on planes, in the crowded aisles of bookstores, and even online when they see someone reading a book they have read. They recognize a fellow traveler. They have a place to start. And that’s why I think we should have a universal required reading list, a Required Reading for Humanity project. We need a place to start. If we could construct for ourselves a list of books that are remarkable not for the statements they make but for the questions they ask and the modes of thought and inquiry they suggest, perhaps we could begin finding something like a common language. Perhaps we could begin answering the big questions together. Think of it as diplomacy by literature, global unity via the Socratic seminar.”

“I believe in the magic of books. I believe that during certain periods in our lives we are drawn to particular books—whether it’s strolling down the aisles of a bookshop with no idea whatsoever of what it is that we want to read and suddenly finding the most perfect, most wonderfully suitable book staring us right in the face. Unblinking. Or a chance meeting with a stranger or friend who recommends a book we would never ordinarily reach for. Books have the ability to find their own way into our lives.”

“If you put ice on your skin, your skin turns pink. Your body sends blood there. If you think about that in terms of writing, cool writing draws us, draws our heat.”