Wednesday, November 25, 2015 // The Statement
4B
Wednesday, November 25, 2015 // The Statement
5B
I
have bought more books in the past month than I have
time to read. They pile on my nightstand, my desk, and
the corners of my bedroom, and I tell myself I’ll read
them when I no longer have to read for my classes. But then
I find a book that I simply consume, all at once, as if time
doesn’t exist until it’s finished.
I didn’t expect my quest to visit bookstores in Ann Arbor to
land me with a bunch of new titles. Then again, try to spend
time in any local store and leave empty handed — it doesn’t
happen.
As a child I grew up next to a Borders in Ann Arbor before
the company went out of business. My mother would take me
and my brothers, and we’d each go home with new books,
excited to curl up on the couch and start reading. I’d nearly
forgotten what that felt like until now.
Borders is out of business, but local bookstores thrive in
Ann Arbor. They cater to every appetite, every niche, and I’ve
only ventured to five of them. What possibilities exist for book
lovers in this town! Endless run-ins with bookish strangers
in the coziest kinds of spaces. As winter descends upon this
city, I’ll retreat to the bookstores and their old-book smells,
clacking typewriter keys, and burning incense. Or, I’ll stay in
— make tea, curl up with a book and devour it.
Winter is coming.
I enter Dawn Treader on a Thursday. In the early evening,
it has just begun to rain, and I fear, combined with the wind,
there may be no leaves on the trees by the time I leave.
Heavily discounted book carts line the entryway, a lure
for the forlorn bibliophile. Inside, a bowl of candy sits on the
counter next to the register with no one behind it. I want a
miniature Milky Way. A woman with a sprawling, circular
metal tree necklace sits on the floor with stacks of books
around her. I can’t tell if she works here or not, but she’s lost
in thought and doesn’t look up.
As I head farther back, the smell of once-damp pages and
literary dust sets in. I breathe. It’s as though every corner I
turn may hide a some new figure — an older gentleman with
a thick green coat and a beanie, a couple that turns to one
another and remark, “books on books!”
I pace the store’s maze-like footprint a few times to get the
general layout. Up and down, down and up, there are faces
everywhere I turn; yet somehow, the quiet settles around me.
I venture deeper into the cavernous depths, past the glass
cases filled with yellowing pages. A life-size Egyptian statue
stands watch. Immensely large African masks hang through-
out, staring. Cultural artifacts fill the place — there are even
Star Trek cutouts in the Sci-Fi section.
A humming sound buzzes from above me. I look up. Glass
ceiling panes are the backdrop to Star Wars battleship repli-
cas, as if the ships were truly within the gray sky. I pause to
watch them in flight and feel lucky to have noticed. No build-
ings or birds obscure my view. It’s just me, a life-size Captain
Jean-Luc Picard, and the soaring Millennium Falcon.
The humming follows me through the store. At one point, a
section of squeaky floor groans at me. Amid the lack of voices,
I smile at this misplaced cry.
I make my way to the fiction aisle. Stools dot the floor
every few paces, like a self-service setup for the ceiling-high
shelves. I stop directly in front of the “F” section and begin
eyeing it for my writers.
A Faulkner catches my eye. Grabbing a stool to retrieve it,
I realize my backpack blocks the whole aisle. As I look down,
a young man with blond hair and a stubby ponytail momen-
tarily meets my eyes before darting behind another shelf in a
Houdini-esque vanishing act. Just as I begin to believe that
the store facilitates acts of illusion, he materializes on my
other side.
I take down the “The Sound and the Fury,” and despite its
crumpled cover, I want it. It smells that certain way: a bit like
my grandfather’s house and cool, earthy dirt.
To leave the aisle, I dance around the man with the blond
ponytail, and head to the front. A man now stands behind the
register, and he lets out a big sigh as I approach the counter.
Me too, I want to say. Winter is coming.
Before heading out the door, I turn from the counter to see
if the man with the ponytail found what he was looking for
— he’s holding a book fraying along its amber spine, and the
pages are close to his face.
I put the Faulkner in my backpack, though I worry about
the condition of the cover. The wind whips through the open
door, and leaves scatter on the welcome mat. I leave without
taking a miniature Milky Way.
With one backward glance to where the man stood before
heading out the door, I notice that he’s gone: no ponytail or
frayed edges in sight. Simply vanished.
You can lock me out, but I can’t lock you in.
Another Thursday, and old-book smell accosts me. This,
I think, is what happiness smells like. Inside Kaleidoscope
Books & Collectibles there are piles of books everywhere I
look, floor to ceiling, and the aisles are so tight that I tread
cautiously to avoid knocking down any prized items.
I say hello to the store owner in the center of the room, hid-
den by a labyrinth of books, shelves, and glass cases.
“Is there anything in particular you’re looking for?” he
asks.
“I’m just looking around,” I say, but soon realize I am so
overwhelmed by the number of books that I don’t know
where to start.
I let my hands wander over titles I have never heard of,
picking up books with embossed covers and faded pages. To
enter one aisle, I push against a door that emits a tremendous
squeak.
Almost on instinct, I search for the classics. After the
owner helps a man looking for old Spiderman comics, he once
again directs his attention at me.
I ask him if he has any poetry.
The first book he placed in my hands was a heavy edition of
a classical poet, whose name I didn’t quite catch.
“This just came in today,” he tells me.
I am reminded of medieval illuminated manuscripts with
their gold leaf and Celtic knots. The cover is green, and I am in
love. All I can muster in response to the book was, “So beauti-
ful.”
Beautiful, because I didn’t know who the poet was and I
didn’t want to admit that. He shows me a copy of “Wuthering
Heights,” to which I respond, “Beautiful, it’s beautiful.” I tell
him I have a much less beautiful copy of “Wuthering Heights.”
The book rests next to a stack of huge, elegant Bibles. While I
am tempted, it’s a bit out of a college student’s price range —
after all, it was a collectible.
I drop my backpack to slip between the set of shelves and
get a closer look. Behind one shelf, piles of posters and books
are scattered on the ground. I wonder if the owner knew, or
if he cared.
As I look — and impulsively touch every volume that
intrigues me — the owner calls me over to look at a series of
chapbooks filled with poetry. He gestures to a colorful one
with big, loopy lettering on the front and tells me how it’s his
own publication, a story he had told his son when he was four
years old that made his son want to be a writer.
“Really?” I ask.
The chapbook is called, “The Day He Refused to be Silent.”
I thumb through, and comment on how great it was that his
son had published it for him. He shows me another one, which
I flip over to see who wrote it.
“Who is Isaac?”
“That’s my son.”
He tells me this was the work that had truly made his son a
writer, and that it was about his wife. His wife had fallen and
hit her head, and she didn’t have a high chance of surviving.
He explained to me that the day she was out of the hospital,
Isaac had presented the chapbook.
He says it’s a very special thing — no matter how success-
ful he becomes as a writer. This will always be the best thing.
I buy Isaac’s chapbook. As he rings me up, my eyes continue
to wander around the shop.
“What a cool cash register,” I tell him.
It looks vintage with its large, round keys and still rang
sharply when the drawer opens.
“You know, there’s a whole basement, too,” the owner says.
“How do I get to it?”
“Downstairs. You want to go downstairs?”
“Sure.”
As we walk down the stairs together, I have second
thoughts. I ask if people actually visited the basement, and he
says they do, every day. He fiddles with a set of keys.
“It won’t lock me in here, will it?” I ask, jokingly.
“You can lock me out, but I can’t lock you in.”
We both laugh.
The door shuts behind me — the deadbolt blocking the
door from fully closing — and I stand alone in the basement.
I breathe in the musk and start exploring. In addition to
the books, there are artifacts and collectibles everywhere. I
stumble upon a stack of old Sports Illustrated Magazines and
think of my dad. In one corner, two old gumball machines rest
against each other, both full of colorful candy melted against
the glass. I find a poster that reads, “It’s difficult to soar with
eagles when you work with turkeys.” I laugh aloud and con-
sider buying it.
After a while, the air begins to taste too stale and stagnant
to continue browsing. Flipping the lights off, I head back up
the stairs. The owner is sitting outside the shop, next to a table
of books. We wish each other well and I am on my way, clutch-
ing Isaac’s chapbook at my side.
Do you know Mary, Queen of Scots?
There is no one inside except the man behind the counter
as I walk through the propped-open door of Motte & Bailey.
I offer a small hello, almost a squeak, reluctant to disturb the
quiet. I start to slowly circumnavigate the store; it seems logi-
cal, as most of the books reside along the outskirts of the store.
The walls and shelves create small nooks while the center of
the store remains open. I can see straight to the back. The cas-
cading towers of literature do not obstruct my line of sight.
Books are pulled from their shelves and stacked on the
floor in an almost deliberate fashion, placed carefully next to
an inviting chair, as if a reader had just left for tea and planned
to come back. Some of the books are gold-plated and intricate.
There are many cases of large, deeply colored volumes.
Along the ceiling, black, chalkboard-esque quotes line
the walls: Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are
undeservedly remembered. — W.H. Auden.
I can’t agree more.
Among the sections Naval History and the Civil War, I
search for titles I recognize but feel too young or unsophisti-
cated for this kind of market. Suddenly self-conscious, I feel
a little foolish for even stopping to look here, as if someone
unseen may judge me for pretending to be interested.
A man with a bulky coat — despite the sunshine and warm
breeze — comes in and asks about two books. The man behind
the counter seems flustered, and says he had meant to put the
books in sleeves before the bulky-coat man came in.
“I’ll do that right now,” he says, standing.
As he got to work, the other man grabs a seat near the front
of the store, the children’s section and loudly asks, “Do you
know about Mary, Queen of Scots?”
“I’m looking for her, but she’s not in here,” the man contin-
ues, after a pause.
He must be flipping through a book I cannot see, and based
on the volume they used in the otherwise silent store and the
manner in which they addressed each other, I begin to believe
they’ve forgotten my presence.
Unnoticed, I sit in a chair in a little nook, one of the ones
that appeared staged or recently abandoned, and gaze at the
collection. The spines read “Ancient Greece,” and though I
am not exactly interested, I appreciate the breadth of what’s
in front of me. I sit back and breathe. The two men exchange
anecdotes about Mary, Queen of Scots, and I contemplate the
muskiness and the clutter of the bookstore — I expect it from
a place that sells rare and used books. It smells as though the
books come from loving homes, placed peacefully on end
tables of rooms with fireplaces next to pipes stuffed with
tobacco.
A boxed trilogy of Lord of the Rings is within reach. I grab
for it in recognition, but it is as costly as it was lovely. Feel-
ing guilty for not having bought anything, I pick up a business
card on my way out, the smallest gesture of appreciation and
thanks I can muster.
As I leave the men laugh loudly together, and I begin to
wonder if the man in the coat frequently buys books from
Motte & Bailey. Maybe the two had known each other for
years, and I had just caught a glimpse of friendship.
LifeBetweenShelves:
Scenes from Ann Arbor bookstores
Hannah Bates, Co-Managing Copy Editor
See BETWEEN, Page 8B
SAN PHAM/ Daily
Dawn Treader Book Shop, E Liberty St.
LUNA ANNA ARCHEY/ Daily
Kaleidoscope Books & Collectibles, N 4th Ave.
SAN PHAM/ Daily
Motte & Bailey Booksellers, N 4th Ave.