Bad news this week, bibliophiles (at least, those of you in Northern California). A paltry week or so after adding the link for Woodland's Next Chapter bookshop over there to your left, comes the news that the shop is to close. Read all (or rather, in internet friendly newschunk format) about it here, thanks to the Sacramento Bee:
http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/775661.html
All right - but we'll still be able to go to Bogey's Books in nearby Davis for second hand literary goodies, yes? Well, no:
http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/487057.html
Thanks again Sacramento Bee, bringer of depressing news, although it's also nice to see that this counts as news, rather than the minutiae of football that constitutes important information over here. I suppose the BBC might have covered this, but only if they had a programme about it to publicise. And I thought the licence fee was there for a reason, i.e. to avoid incessant corporate advertising and rip-offs of ITV talent shows. Ah well.
But this is beside the immediate point. Naturally (since I wouldn't be writing about it otherwise), these closures are saddening, since these two shops in particular formed a large part of my time in Yolo county (also: apricot pie from Raley's, though not their fried chicken, which is of British standards; cobbler from the Memorial Union at UC Davis; and In-n-Out. Honestly, I'm only overweight by the smallest medically defined amount). The Next Chapter in particular will be missed, since my wife and I lived a few blocks away from it, and it contributed a good many of my memories of Northern California. For instance, finally finding a copy of Georges Perec's A Void (all right Oulipo purists, La Disparition) there. Or just English amazement at being able to go second hand book shopping at eight in the evening (once you get back here, opening hours seem somehow prudish, and late night opening once a week before Christmas is no longer the glimpse of stocking it once might have been). And the smell of the place, a combination of books, coffee and, just to stop that being a hackneyed combination, American wood. It did, after all, use to be a hardware store. And yes, American wood smells different, as does the slightly differently sized paper. Hell, the whole country has a hint of cinnamon about it, especially the airports. As for the bookshop, I always intended to pop back once I'd got a proper academic job and pick up that set of E. W. Hornung they had ($15 a volume is pretty good, but not quite on a graduate student salary). For now I'll just have to get round to reading the copy of Roy Vickers' The Department of Dead Ends I got for $2.50.
Bogey's wasn't quite so central to my Californian life, but still pretty important (and useful for picking up some John Dickson Carr as well).For some reason, the memory of walking there one evening after a day spent in the library at UC Davis in December 2005 has particularly stuck in my mind, like a Wordsworthian 'spot of time' but with slightly better weather. I even sold them a few books as well, but not very good ones (I suspect my copy of Mick Jackson's Five Boys was still there at the end), so maybe I should feel a little complicit in the closure. Or we could just blame Borders around the corner. Yeah, let's.
http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/775661.html
All right - but we'll still be able to go to Bogey's Books in nearby Davis for second hand literary goodies, yes? Well, no:
http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/487057.html
Thanks again Sacramento Bee, bringer of depressing news, although it's also nice to see that this counts as news, rather than the minutiae of football that constitutes important information over here. I suppose the BBC might have covered this, but only if they had a programme about it to publicise. And I thought the licence fee was there for a reason, i.e. to avoid incessant corporate advertising and rip-offs of ITV talent shows. Ah well.
But this is beside the immediate point. Naturally (since I wouldn't be writing about it otherwise), these closures are saddening, since these two shops in particular formed a large part of my time in Yolo county (also: apricot pie from Raley's, though not their fried chicken, which is of British standards; cobbler from the Memorial Union at UC Davis; and In-n-Out. Honestly, I'm only overweight by the smallest medically defined amount). The Next Chapter in particular will be missed, since my wife and I lived a few blocks away from it, and it contributed a good many of my memories of Northern California. For instance, finally finding a copy of Georges Perec's A Void (all right Oulipo purists, La Disparition) there. Or just English amazement at being able to go second hand book shopping at eight in the evening (once you get back here, opening hours seem somehow prudish, and late night opening once a week before Christmas is no longer the glimpse of stocking it once might have been). And the smell of the place, a combination of books, coffee and, just to stop that being a hackneyed combination, American wood. It did, after all, use to be a hardware store. And yes, American wood smells different, as does the slightly differently sized paper. Hell, the whole country has a hint of cinnamon about it, especially the airports. As for the bookshop, I always intended to pop back once I'd got a proper academic job and pick up that set of E. W. Hornung they had ($15 a volume is pretty good, but not quite on a graduate student salary). For now I'll just have to get round to reading the copy of Roy Vickers' The Department of Dead Ends I got for $2.50.
Bogey's wasn't quite so central to my Californian life, but still pretty important (and useful for picking up some John Dickson Carr as well).For some reason, the memory of walking there one evening after a day spent in the library at UC Davis in December 2005 has particularly stuck in my mind, like a Wordsworthian 'spot of time' but with slightly better weather. I even sold them a few books as well, but not very good ones (I suspect my copy of Mick Jackson's Five Boys was still there at the end), so maybe I should feel a little complicit in the closure. Or we could just blame Borders around the corner. Yeah, let's.
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