SOME INDEPENDENT NEW YORK BOOKSTORES

Imagine an ecosystem of ideas. Like any ecosystem, the smaller the number of life forms in the system, the more vulnerable it is. One would want to commit to making the ecosystem as diverse and dense as possible, a climax community, to insure its maximum stability.

This is what we do when we support independent bookshops.

In the event that any of you will be visiting New York City soon, I thought I’d log in re: my favorite independent bookshops in lower and central Manhattan.

Downtown:

McNally Robinson at 52 Prince Street has one of the best locations for a bookshop that I could possibly imagine, and owner Sarah McNally has taken full advantage of this opportunity by creating a beautiful space filled with very interesting books. I purchased What We Should Have Known: Two Discussions, an n+1 Research Branch Pamphlet, although it’s probably much too late to be of help to me.

There are three areas in the St. Mark’s Bookshop (31 Third Ave in the East Village) that I always review carefully: the table surrounding the pillar near the entrance of the store, the front desk, and the poetry section. The selection of books and magazines here is edgy, hip, and always smart. Bob Contant, one of the owners of St. Marks, is a legendary bookseller. I bought a recent issue of The New York Review of Science Fiction here today.

Three Lives & Company Booksellers in the West Village (154 West 10th St) is an intimate shopping experience. I have the feeling that every book in the store has been carefully selected by someone with an impeccable literary sensibility. A few days ago Gary Snyder told me he thought The People’s Act of Love, by James Meek, was very interesting. I picked it up here.

192 Books, at 192 10th Ave and 21st St in the Chelsea neighborhood, feels like an art gallery for books. They carry art show catalogs and many interesting books from small presses. I bought a set of postcards of photographs from Chris Marker’s collection Staring Back.

I love to graze the tables in the Strand Bookshop because I find things there that I’ve never seen anywhere else and the price is usually right. This certainly was the case today when I found a DVD of The Sixth Side of the Pentagon and The Embassy, two Chris Marker films, in a bin in the basement. The DVD retails for $100. The Strand price was $24.95.

And Nikos Magazine Shop at 462 6th Ave (on the northeast corner of 6th Ave & 11th St) has the best collection of literary journals that I’ve seen in any of the magazine shops in the city. I picked up issue #68 of the Kyoto Review.

Midtown:

Most of the books, magazines, and manga in the Kinokuniya Bookstore (1071 Avenue of the Americas, facing Bryant Park) are in Japanese, but there is a fine collection of Asian fiction and nonfiction titles available in English. Gary Snyder mentioned that he’d been interviewed recently for a documentary on D.T. Suzuki, A Zen Life, and the DVD was faced out on the second floor of the store.

Posman Books in Grand Central Station is the ideal train station or airport bookshop. The lighting is great and the face-out displays are always interesting. It’s a general interest bookshop that hasn’t been dumbed down.

I’ve probably missed some fine bookstores and I invite readers to add to this list with your own favorites.