Phantom Bookstores.

My client Roxana Robinson has a wonderful, must-read post on the New Yorker’s book blog about being haunted by NYC bookstores that are no longer there. You can read it here.

This piece brings up a ton of memories — I’m thinking now of my college friend Jay Pearsall’s bookstores, Murder Ink and Ivy’s (named after his grandmother) on the Upper West Side that aren’t there anymore. When Jay was closing his shops, people would adamantly suggest he focus on selling books online – but Jay said he became a bookseller because he liked talking to people about books. He didn’t want to just stuff books into envelopes and mail them out.

You can read Jay’s piece that ran in the NY Times back in December 2006 when he closed his stores here. It’s sad thinking about these closed up bookstores – I’m glad Roxana’s post reminds us to remember them.

By the way there is a happy ending: Jay became an English teacher after he shut his bookstores.

And! It goes without saying, but: support your locally owned independent bookstore!