英语书籍：The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop（1）ZT
英语书籍：The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop（1）简介
November, a dark, rainy Tuesday, late afternoon. This is
my ideal time to be in a bookstore. The shortened light
of the afternoon and the idleness and hush of the hour
gather everything close, the shelves and the books and
the few other customers who graze head-bent in the
narrow aisles.
In "The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop," Buzbee, a former
bookseller and sales representative, celebrates the
unique experience of the bookstore--the smell and
touch of books, the joy of getting lost in the deep
canyons of shelves, and the silent community of readers.
He shares his passion for books, which began with ordering
through the "Weekly Reader" in grade school. Woven
throughout is a fascinating historical account of the
bookseller trade--from the great Alexandria library
with an estimated one million papyrus scrolls to
Sylvia Beach's famous Paris bookstore, Shakespeare &
Co., that led to the extraordinary effort to publish
and sell James Joyce's "Ulysses."
Rich with anecdotes, "The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop" is
the perfect choice for those who relish the enduring
pleasures of spending an afternoon finding just the
right book.
=====TODAY'S BOOK=====================
THE YELLOW-LIGHTED BOOKSHOP
A Memoir, A History
by Lewis Buzbee (nonfiction)
Published by Graywolf Press
ISBN: 9781555975104
Copyright (c) 2006 by Lewis Buzbee
YELLOW (Part 1 of 5)
======================================
"I think that I still have it in my heart someday to paint a
bookshop with the front yellow and pink in the evening...like a
light in the midst of the darkness."--Vincent van Gogh
CHAPTER ONE
Alone among Others
When I walk into a bookstore, any bookstore, first thing in the
morning, I'm flooded with a sense of hushed excitement. I shouldn't
feel this way. I've spent most of my adult life working in
bookstores, either as a bookseller or a publisher's sales rep, and
even though I no longer work in the business, as an incurable reader
I find myself in a bookstore at least five times a week. Shouldn't I
be blase about it all by now? In the quiet of such a morning,
however, the store's displays stacked squarely and its shelves tidy
and promising, I know that this is no mere shop. When a bookstore
opens its doors, the rest of the world enters, too, the day's
weather and the day's news, the streams of customers, and of course
the boxes of books and the many other worlds they contain--books of
facts and truths, books newly written and those first read centuries
before, books of great relevance and of absolute banality. Standing
in the middle of this confluence, I can't help but feel the
possibility of the universe unfolding a little, "once upon a time."
I'm not here just to buy a new book, though. Much of my excitement
at being in a bookstore comes from the place itself, the
understanding that I can stay here for as long as need be. The
unspoken rules we've developed for the bookstore are quite different
from the rules that govern other retail enterprises. While the
bookstore is most often privately held, it honors a public claim on
its time and space. It is not a big-box store where one buys closets
of toilet paper or enough Tabasco sauce for the apocalypse; nor is
it a tony boutique that sells prestige in the shape of sequined
dresses or rare gems; and it's no convenience store either, raided
for a six-pack, cigarettes, and a Nutty Buddy on the way home from a
hard day at work. The cash register's chime does not define how long
we can linger. A bookstore is for hanging out. Often for hours.
Perhaps I've come to crib a recipe from a cookbook or hunt down the
name of that Art Deco hotel in San Antonio or even reread one of my
favorite short stories. I might browse covers awhile after meeting
up with a friend, the two of us chatting about our lives. Or I can
sit down in History and read the first chapter of a charming
treatise on the complex language of hand gestures in high
Renaissance Naples. As you might be reading right now, taking your
own sweet time. If there's a cafe, all the better; a piece of cake
and a cup of coffee, and time can run loose all over the place. I
might even buy a book.
Imagine going into a department store, trying on a new jacket and
walking around in it for half an hour, maybe coming back the
following Wednesday to try it on again, with no real intention of
buying it. Go into a pizzeria and see if you might sample a slice;
you're pretty hungry, so you taste a bit of the pepperoni, the
sausage, the artichoke and pineapple, and they're delicious but not
quite what you're looking for that day. In other retail shops, the
clerks and management are much less forgiving of those customers who
would consume without paying.
Part of the allowable leisure in a bookstore comes from the product
it sells. Books are slow. They require time; they are written
slowly, published slowly, and read slowly. A four-hundred-page novel
might take years to write, longer to publish, and even after the
novel is purchased, the reader can expect to spend hours with it at
one sitting over a number of days, weeks, sometimes months.
But it's not just the nature of the book that determines the
bookstore's permissiveness. The modern bookstore has long been
associated with the coffeehouse and the cafe. In eighteenth-century
Europe, when coffee and tobacco conquered the continent, the
coffeehouse provided a public gathering place for writers, editors,
and publishers. The stimulant coffee and the sedative tobacco, in
combination, made sitting at a table all day a pleasant equilibrium,
perfect for writing, reading, long conversations, or staring out the
window. This was the Age of Enlightenment: literacy was on the rise,
books were cheaper and more abundant, and bookstores were often
adjacent to coffeehouses, the customers of one were the customers of
the other, with plenty of time in both for conversation and thought.
Even today, the largest corporate chain stores, always mindful of
the bottom line, build spaces friendly to the savor of time, with
cafes and couches and study tables.
Books connect us with others, but that connection is created in
solitude, one reader in one chair hearing one writer, what John
Irving refers to as one genius speaking to another. It's simple to
order books online, over the phone, or via catalogue and wait for
the delivery man to scurry away before we open the door. But 90
percent of us who buy books still get out of the house and go to the
bookstore, to be among the books, yes, but also to be among other
book buyers, the like-minded, even if we might never say a word to
them. Elias Canetti has described cafes as places we go to be "alone
among others," and I've always felt this was true of the bookstore,
too. It's a lovely combination, this solitude and gathering, almost
as if the bookstore were the antidote for what it sold.
(continued on Tuesday)
英语书籍：The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop（1）简介
November, a dark, rainy Tuesday, late afternoon. This is
my ideal time to be in a bookstore. The shortened light
of the afternoon and the idleness and hush of the hour
gather everything close, the shelves and the books and
the few other customers who graze head-bent in the
narrow aisles.
In "The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop," Buzbee, a former
bookseller and sales representative, celebrates the
unique experience of the bookstore--the smell and
touch of books, the joy of getting lost in the deep
canyons of shelves, and the silent community of readers.
He shares his passion for books, which began with ordering
through the "Weekly Reader" in grade school. Woven
throughout is a fascinating historical account of the
bookseller trade--from the great Alexandria library
with an estimated one million papyrus scrolls to
Sylvia Beach's famous Paris bookstore, Shakespeare &
Co., that led to the extraordinary effort to publish
and sell James Joyce's "Ulysses."
Rich with anecdotes, "The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop" is
the perfect choice for those who relish the enduring
pleasures of spending an afternoon finding just the
right book.
=====TODAY'S BOOK=====================
THE YELLOW-LIGHTED BOOKSHOP
A Memoir, A History
by Lewis Buzbee (nonfiction)
Published by Graywolf Press
ISBN: 9781555975104
Copyright (c) 2006 by Lewis Buzbee
YELLOW (Part 1 of 5)
======================================
"I think that I still have it in my heart someday to paint a
bookshop with the front yellow and pink in the evening...like a
light in the midst of the darkness."--Vincent van Gogh
CHAPTER ONE
Alone among Others
When I walk into a bookstore, any bookstore, first thing in the
morning, I'm flooded with a sense of hushed excitement. I shouldn't
feel this way. I've spent most of my adult life working in
bookstores, either as a bookseller or a publisher's sales rep, and
even though I no longer work in the business, as an incurable reader
I find myself in a bookstore at least five times a week. Shouldn't I
be blase about it all by now? In the quiet of such a morning,
however, the store's displays stacked squarely and its shelves tidy
and promising, I know that this is no mere shop. When a bookstore
opens its doors, the rest of the world enters, too, the day's
weather and the day's news, the streams of customers, and of course
the boxes of books and the many other worlds they contain--books of
facts and truths, books newly written and those first read centuries
before, books of great relevance and of absolute banality. Standing
in the middle of this confluence, I can't help but feel the
possibility of the universe unfolding a little, "once upon a time."
I'm not here just to buy a new book, though. Much of my excitement
at being in a bookstore comes from the place itself, the
understanding that I can stay here for as long as need be. The
unspoken rules we've developed for the bookstore are quite different
from the rules that govern other retail enterprises. While the
bookstore is most often privately held, it honors a public claim on
its time and space. It is not a big-box store where one buys closets
of toilet paper or enough Tabasco sauce for the apocalypse; nor is
it a tony boutique that sells prestige in the shape of sequined
dresses or rare gems; and it's no convenience store either, raided
for a six-pack, cigarettes, and a Nutty Buddy on the way home from a
hard day at work. The cash register's chime does not define how long
we can linger. A bookstore is for hanging out. Often for hours.
Perhaps I've come to crib a recipe from a cookbook or hunt down the
name of that Art Deco hotel in San Antonio or even reread one of my
favorite short stories. I might browse covers awhile after meeting
up with a friend, the two of us chatting about our lives. Or I can
sit down in History and read the first chapter of a charming
treatise on the complex language of hand gestures in high
Renaissance Naples. As you might be reading right now, taking your
own sweet time. If there's a cafe, all the better; a piece of cake
and a cup of coffee, and time can run loose all over the place. I
might even buy a book.
Imagine going into a department store, trying on a new jacket and
walking around in it for half an hour, maybe coming back the
following Wednesday to try it on again, with no real intention of
buying it. Go into a pizzeria and see if you might sample a slice;
you're pretty hungry, so you taste a bit of the pepperoni, the
sausage, the artichoke and pineapple, and they're delicious but not
quite what you're looking for that day. In other retail shops, the
clerks and management are much less forgiving of those customers who
would consume without paying.
Part of the allowable leisure in a bookstore comes from the product
it sells. Books are slow. They require time; they are written
slowly, published slowly, and read slowly. A four-hundred-page novel
might take years to write, longer to publish, and even after the
novel is purchased, the reader can expect to spend hours with it at
one sitting over a number of days, weeks, sometimes months.
But it's not just the nature of the book that determines the
bookstore's permissiveness. The modern bookstore has long been
associated with the coffeehouse and the cafe. In eighteenth-century
Europe, when coffee and tobacco conquered the continent, the
coffeehouse provided a public gathering place for writers, editors,
and publishers. The stimulant coffee and the sedative tobacco, in
combination, made sitting at a table all day a pleasant equilibrium,
perfect for writing, reading, long conversations, or staring out the
window. This was the Age of Enlightenment: literacy was on the rise,
books were cheaper and more abundant, and bookstores were often
adjacent to coffeehouses, the customers of one were the customers of
the other, with plenty of time in both for conversation and thought.
Even today, the largest corporate chain stores, always mindful of
the bottom line, build spaces friendly to the savor of time, with
cafes and couches and study tables.
Books connect us with others, but that connection is created in
solitude, one reader in one chair hearing one writer, what John
Irving refers to as one genius speaking to another. It's simple to
order books online, over the phone, or via catalogue and wait for
the delivery man to scurry away before we open the door. But 90
percent of us who buy books still get out of the house and go to the
bookstore, to be among the books, yes, but also to be among other
book buyers, the like-minded, even if we might never say a word to
them. Elias Canetti has described cafes as places we go to be "alone
among others," and I've always felt this was true of the bookstore,
too. It's a lovely combination, this solitude and gathering, almost
as if the bookstore were the antidote for what it sold.
(continued on Tuesday)
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