I’d had it with myself. I spent Sunday whimpering in the heat of the un-air-conditioned store with temperatures over 90. It was hot, hot, hot, so of course I was cranky. (I’m the person who keeps her thermostat at 57 on winter nights.) But compounding my irritation was the sense that everywhere I looked, there …
One day of the new year is done, and we’re into the second. How’s it going so far? Did you make any reading resolutions for 2015? Here are some we’ve considered: Read more local authors’ books, purchased from local stores. Read more classics. Actually read the book before the book club discussion. Then, actually discuss …
People bring my husband gifts. He’s a mechanic who for decades has run a little garage in Port Townsend, and his customers love him. No, I mean they really love him, in the way mothers indulge sons and spinster ladies used to dote on their young pastors. They bake pies, drop off vegetables from their …
A consequence of working at Annie Bloom’s is that I’ve developed two personalities. BookLover Jeff is gregarious, always happy to start open-ended conversations with customers, and sometimes has trouble knowing when it’s time to shut up. BookSeller Jeff is pragmatic, maintains an awareness of what’s happening in every aisle, and is always careful not to …
It’s autumn, and students are returning to the store in droves, like swallows to Capistrano. The scene brings to mind the famous opening of Don DeLillo’s White Noise—“The station wagons arrived at noon, a long shining line that coursed through the west campus”—although our students are arriving in hybrid SUVs in search of books for the …
