silly and literary pt. 2
featuring previously overlooked upper east side locations!
My wonderful readers!
It’s been a summer full of activity and excitement, and I’m so thankful for those of you who’ve taken the time to read my posts about it.
But summer is gone. It’s time to swap shorts for scarves and sandals for boots. Everyone’s making vague plans to go apple-picking and sorting out Halloween costumes. Now that there’s a nip in the air,1 the time has arrived for curling up with a pumpkin spice candle and cracking open a book.
Thus, I thought I’d offer some analysis on where to go to buy that brand-new book to celebrate the season.
Without further ado…
More Personalities of New York City Bookstores
And if you’re a new reader, you can find the original “silly and literary” here!
Shakespeare & Co.
The official bookstore of Hunter College, Shakespeare & Co. on Lexington Ave. will bring you back to your days in academia.
Shakespeare & Co. is the kind of guy or girl you meet at your first Introduction to Philosophy lecture, who seems like a real deep thinker. She has gorgeous aesthetic book displays and a cafe where you two can sit and talk about the state of modern media for hours. He’s a bookstore with everything you want - or so you thought.
Once you look closer at this bookstore’s favorite titles, you realize… she’s kind of like everyone else. There are a few rare finds in there, but she’s mostly taking her favorite books from TikTok. He’s dependable and sweet, but the infatuation doesn’t last. Manic pixie dream boys and girls simply don’t exist. You’ll stay in touch as friends after college, but the thought of sex with him won’t keep you up at night.
This bookstore is your short-lived college fling, turned friend.
The Last Thing(s) I Bought There: A pocket-sized copy of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens and Slow Days, Fast Company by Eve Babitz (a book I’ve already read but wanted to own a copy of).
The Last Time I Visited: Two or three weeks ago.
Logos Bookstore
Logos Bookstore has been in my life for as long as I can remember. A staple of York Avenue, this bookstore specializes in religious literature.
I LOVED routine trips to Logos as a kid until I reached a phase where I didn’t understand why anyone would shelve more books on Jesus than YA fantasy romances. Although I strayed, this bookstore has a unique nostalgic hold on my heart. She’s begun showing signs of age, and I wouldn’t recommend visiting if you have a cat allergy, as the feline residents take up a little more space each time I visit.
Logos is the kind of quirky institution you either embrace or you don’t. If you ask for help, the store will open itself up to you and even offer you something out of stock. Most importantly, it’s the only place in New York where you can find a proper, non-chocolate advent calendar.
This bookstore is my favorite pre-K teacher from Catholic school.
The Last Thing(s) I Bought There: Three Advent Calendars.
The Last Time I Visited: Two weeks ago, I stopped in to check out their Charles Dickens editions.
The Drama Bookstore
Located just outside of Times Square, the Drama Bookstore is a New York theater institution. And they won’t hesitate to remind you of this - loudly and in song!
This bookstore holds an unparalleled collection of plays, musical books, and show business texts and is always going on and on about “their craft.” They’ll complain they need more hours in the day for vocal training or if they just locked themselves away in an upstate cabin, they’d finally be able to finish that play. They love telling you Lin Manuel Miranda wrote In the Heights in the original Drama Bookstore,2 but they never stop talking long enough to actually get some writing done in the new store’s cafe. They’re queer3 and constantly dragging you to whatever new, experimental off-off-off Broadway play they’ve recently had some involvement in. Do you know the words to the Kimberly Akimbo soundtrack? Don’t worry, they’ll teach you.
This bookstore is your former theater kid friend who still works in the arts.
I know I AM this bookstore for some people!
The Last Thing(s) I Bought There: Love, Loss, and What I Wore by Nora and Delia Ephron.
The Last Time I Visited: Mid-summer with my mom ahead of seeing a play at the Signature Theater.
The Upper East Side Barnes & Noble
SHE IS BACK! SOUND THE TRUMPETS! THANK THE HEAVENS! SHE IS BACK!
The original Upper East Side Barnes & Noble was once my most cherished bookstore. I spent my childhood descending those escalators on 86th St. in search of my next great read, the secrets of screenwriting, last-minute gifts, and so much more. I spent countless hours poring over the store’s selection and loitering in between the stacks. I knew immediately whenever they changed their layout. We were as close as any reader and bookstore could be. I depended on the fact they would always be there.
When the 86th St store closed I was heartbroken. A staple of my youth was gone forever.
I moved on and found other places to shop but none could replace that connection. Then, a miracle occurred. Barnes & Noble made a glorious return to my neighborhood a block down on 3rd Avenue. She doesn’t look the same. The store is smaller with fewer places to loiter, but everything is glossy, new, and glowing in the natural light. Ultimately, the differences don’t matter. I’m just happy to have her back in my life!
This bookstore is a childhood best friend you reconnect with after years apart.
The Last Thing(s) I Bought There: Beach Read by Emily Henry and Wahala by Nikki May.
The Last Time I Visited: Two months ago, on a lazy Sunday.
Three Lives Company
Three Lives Company was included in my last “silly and literary” post, but now that I’ve set foot in the store, I feel it deserves a second write-up!
The last time I personified Three Lives Company, I described it as the intentionally mysterious guy you hit it off with at a party who doesn’t call. Guess, what? After months of ghosting, Three Lives did call and took me out for a date! Once I showed up, I realized all those overly pretentious, intimidating book recommendations are alluring and exciting. Maybe I was the problem the last time we met. Now I’m older and wiser and ready to read niche international titles. I can be an intellectual on his level. He’s so sophisticated. You leave the store on a high. It’s your best date in years!
But once you get home and read what he recommended, he starts to feel distant again. Did you really need to own this $20 “dark comedy of errors” that seemed so life-changing when you were caught up in the romance? Probably not, but he’s so much fun you know you’ll fall down the rabbit hole again next time he calls.
Three Lives Company is the former hook-up that pops up in your life as soon as you’re starting to get over him.
The Last Thing(s) I Bought There: Black Swans by Eve Babitz, The Idiot by Elif Batuman, A Fairly Honorable Defeat by Iris Murdoch
On the same visit, a friend bought me The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton.4
The Last Time I Visited: A month ago with a dear friend from out of town.
Outdoor Book Tables
These tables pop up all around the city. The best-known ones are seasonally stationed along Central Park and affiliated with the Strand, but an outdoor book table will find you anywhere a middle-aged man can set up a folding table. You don’t set out to browse at these tables. They find you. Sometimes things don’t work out - their selection is lacking or you’re in too much of a rush to dig through. But when the timing is right, your other plans for the day fade away. You feel like the main character in a rom-com, stumbling onto the perfect book at half price. It’s fate. It’s serendipity. You may never find that exact table again, but for one summer purchase, it is magic.
Outdoor book tables are impromptu connections. They’re the people you chat with while they help you move something heavy across the street, the strangers you bond with in the women’s bathroom, someone you meet smoking a cigarette outside the bar, or a great one-night stand.
The Last Thing I Bought There: A signed copy of My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem
The Last Time I Visited: Early July on my way to the Moma.
Which NYC bookstores should I personify next?
Let me know in the comments below!
Outfit of This Era:
Recommendations for This Era:
Guts by Olivia Rodrigo.
Salt lamps.
Sex Education Season 4.
Green tea with pomegranate flavor.
Going to see Janelle Monae live - if it’s not too late to catch the Age of Pleasure tour in your area I cannot recommend it highly enough!!!
Purlie Victorious on Broadway.
The Roxy Cinema.
The movie They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969) - If you have the stomach for it.
Or more accurately, torrential rain if you were in New York this weekend.
The store was founded in 1917 but reopened in a new location in 2020.
Obviously.
Grace, I adore you!
Perhaps this needs to expand to personifying bookstores of the USA and/ or around the world! 😃