The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop: A Memoir, a History Book

Every time I read about an author's account of books & reading, I now compare them with Anne Fadiman's book Ex Libris and they simply never live up to her work, an unfair assessment perhaps since I love Fadiman's book so much.

However, this is a special book too. It's a seemingly effortless mesh of autobiography and biography and history of bookstores. He might not write the soaringly beautiful prose of Fadiman but he writes well and his focus is narrower and just as interesting; this is mostly about bookstores, in the present and their history. It was a cozy read.

Not for the first time this book showed me that I missed my calling: working in a bookstore, or owning a bookstore and working in it. Seriously.

I also now have an urge (despite the lack of disposable income I once enjoyed) to go and spend a larger hunk of my free time in bookstores and to find bookstores new to me, preferably in far flung areas when possible.

The author is based in San Francisco, the city where I live, so I know virtually all of the local stores he mentions. I, now, even more, want to visit certain worldwide bookstores, especially the village of Hay-on-Wye in Wales, Powell's in Portland, Orgeon , the Strand in NYC and the Tattered Cover in Denver, the latter three being more reasonable goals, although if I ever get to take my England and Scotland dream trip, I'm determined to get to Hay-on-Wye on the same jaunt. Luckily, many of my dream vacation spots would allow me to include bookstore visits along with my some of my other passions of finding good vegan & vegetarian restaurants, visiting museums of all types, attending plays (something I rarely do at home,) and appreciating both the natural beauty and the history of a place.

As with almost every treasured book I read (from children's picture books to text books and every book in-between) in its pages I found more books I want to read, including If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino.

I love that the author is entranced with children's literature as well as books written for adults.

Bookstores are the only stores I truly enjoy; I need to spend more time in them, and I really need to try to do some traveling, and include bookstore stops wherever I am.

The author relates how big box warehouse stores, more than internet or chain bookstores, have competed to the detriment of independent bookstores. So, maybe I shouldn't feel as guilty about doing the vast majority of my book shopping on the internet? Nah, I should still feel guilty. Although most of my books now are borrowed library books, I resolve to purchase more of those I do buy at independent bookstores, my favorite stores.

This small (but not slight) book with the lovely cover gets at least 4 ½ stars from me, and it was just the respite that I needed at this time. Also, I'd love to run into the author in his neighborhood bookstore, a neighborhood that's just across Golden Gate Park from mine.