In the United States, I also particularly like to visit second-hand bookstores. Almost every city, even some remote towns, many will also have a second-hand bookstore, not customers, on the contrary, it is generally in front of the door to snub the traffic, there are few people in the house, not even a person, quiet as entering the deep mountains and old forests. The atmosphere of emptiness and somewhat mysterious suddenly cut off the hustle and bustle of the city, as if suddenly entering a treasure cave in a fairy tale. The old books that fill the house are the treasures hidden there, waiting for you to find them, to take them openly, and in a few moments, when the time comes, the door of the treasure cave will be closed suddenly. That scene makes you happy, excited, and eager to try.
The Woman and the Snake: The Fold of America, Shaw Revival
Every time I go to an unfamiliar town, I look for such a second-hand bookstore. Every time I enter such a second-hand bookstore, I feel this way. I remember the first time in a second-hand bookstore in Chicago, I forgot the name of the bookstore, it was a sunken house, it was dark inside, the lights were dim, it was more like entering a deep mountain treasure cave, the darkness seemed to be hiding everywhere, but also buried treasures everywhere, you need to have a spirit of adventure. Those old books exude a tidal smell, like the weeds and mushrooms on the ground that have lived in the forest for a long time, and the smell of the tide in the forest is permeated. At some point, seven dwarfs or Snow White will jump out of the tide pages and surprise you unexpectedly.
To be honest, I basically couldn't read the books there, so I went there a lot, but I never bought a book. I loved the atmosphere there, it filled me with imagination and memories. I remember when I was in middle school, the teacher of the library made an exception to allow me to go inside to pick out books, there was a large room locked, the teacher made an exception for me to open the door lock, a room full of old books, because the room was dark and damp, those old books also emitted a damp smell of earth. Since our school is a century-old school, the books in it are the old books before liberation, and I really have a feeling of seeing treasure in the mountains, because I have never seen so many books at that time. Think of the scene at that time, just like an old saying in the past, saying that you can find your comrades when you hear the "Internationale", and now that you smell this familiar smell of the tide, you will think of the scene of finding books and reading books when you were a teenager, and the intimacy of books will arise with the memories of youth.
Later, in New Jersey, I used to go to two used bookstores, one called "Bookworm Bookstore" and the other called "Nightingale Second-hand Bookstore". They are all in humble towns, like hermits who are far away from the hustle and bustle. Like many second-hand bookstores, there are few people there, but they take up a lot of space. "Bookworm Bookstore" is a three-story small building, more than a hundred years old, so that the building and the old books match and complement each other, very much some of the ancient road west wind thin horse feeling. The "Nightingale Second-Hand Bookstore" is a flat-level building with a wide reading area in front of it, with sofas, tables and chairs, facing a glass window; behind it are several rooms, the bookshelves stand on the top of the sky, all filled with old books, which also sell old CDs, so it is also crowded with various CDs with envelopes. Compared with the old "Bookworm Bookhouse", it is not old enough, the room looks a little new, and the books are not as many as the "Bookworm Bookhouse", but one thing, it is very special, there are sofas in every room, you can sit there and read books casually. There's a room with a huge picture of the writer Steinbeck hanging on the wall opposite the couch (presumably the boss's favorite) that gives you the feeling of talking face-to-face with your predecessors. This reading atmosphere echoes the reading area in the front hall, as if it is not for selling books, but rather like a reading room. The boss sat there, Jiang Taigong fished like a fisherman, just wishers took the bait. The owner's cash desk, which also sells coffee, if you buy a cup of coffee, sit there and drink a warm afternoon, a window of new green birds calling each other, the breeze and the sound of reading, is a very pleasant choice.
"Bookworm Bookstore" seems to be more worth talking about. The first thing that attracted me was the name "Bookworm Bookstore", which was a really good name. I don't know if there are other places in the world, and there are bookstores that are also called such names, in Beijing, there is none. Beijing is now willing to make the name of the bookstore more elegant, Sanwei Bookstore, Wind into Pine, Guolin Wind, All Saints... Although the reading atmosphere is declining, but the donkey does not fall, the name of the bookstore still has to have a taste of "the book has its own golden house, and the book has its own beauty". In fact, reading is not so elegant, there is not so much practical value, gold and beauty, the past readers may have such a blessing, now can have these two treasures, is the power and relationship, they have long defeated the book. Reading is the most simple thing, and using a bookworm as a metaphor for a real reader is such a simple expression. I like it. Being a bookworm is no longer as easy as being a broker.
The "Bookworm Bookstore" is younger than the town, and it was built in the 1970s. It is a detached villa (in the town, almost all buildings are single-family villas), two floors, two rooms on the left and right of the entrance, and two more inside; directly opposite the door is a narrow wooden staircase, walking upstairs, the pattern is the same, it is also symmetrical four, typical American old-fashioned houses. The bookshelves are high on the roof, and the ground and underground are piled with books, making it almost difficult to get off the feet. On each door there are signs that say the types of books: history, novels, poems, picture books... Easy to find.
The room on the left side of the first floor sells children's books, and I saw a lot of children's books from the 1950s and 1960s or even the 1920s, and some of the title pages were written with the words left by parents who gave their children that year, which made me feel particularly warm. Those special words, after years of fermentation, emit a moving aroma like aged old wine, so that those yellowed pages have feelings and life.
On the right side of the first floor is the office of the bookstore, surrounded by books, and there are computers and computers on the desk for checkout. On the pillar opposite the desk was an old newspaper with a half-page report on the bookstore, and a photograph of a chubby old man sitting at the desk, the proprietor of the bookstore, which I could see every time I came. No matter who didn't buy a book, he sat there, sometimes flipping through a book, sometimes sitting in meditation, not knowing what mind would fly out of the window and wander around the town.
From the newspaper reports, it is known that some of the books here are old books purchased by the owner, and some of them are donated to the bookstore by the residents of the town. There are more and more books in the bookstore, once, I did not play from the place of residence but from other places, I turned a corner to get here, the car went to its back door, only to find that the back door under the eaves and the lawn are also full of books, I don't know until the night after the bookstore closes, so many books, how to put it in the house, or just put it outside to see the stars?
It's just that every time I come to the bookstore, I see that the readers are sparse and scattered, and I think, so deserted, how to make money, how to maintain it? Many such self-employed bookstores in Beijing have closed down one after another. The owner of the reading house has a calm and relaxed look, regardless of the ebb and flow of the tide, let the clouds roll in and out, as if the picture is a pleasure of love and books together, as if the books are like his lovers and children, or like the grains of wheat and cattle and sheep in the farmer's field. Anyway, the house is its own, the operating cost is not high, the fragrance of books is pervasive every day, self-enjoyment, self-sufficiency, this side shows the true color of the bookworm.
What impressed me the most was that I sold a "Illustrated Collection of 500 Years of World Literature Books" for $10 and bought a copy of Van Gogh's Sketches for $20, which are rare and good books, very cheap. There is also a seven-volume complete set of O'Neill's Plays, hardcover on dark green cloth, an old version of O'Neill's death in the 1960s. Each book ranges from $78 to $112. The title page of the first episode also features signatures and messages from book buyers. Every time I went to see it, I wanted to buy it, but because the English level was too poor to understand, I had to reluctantly put it back on the bookshelf.
Opposite the "Bookworm Bookstore" is a small French restaurant called "Blue Rooster", which sells a two-pound apricot bread, which is particularly delicious. Every time I go to the "Bookworm Bookstore", buy one or two old books, and then buy an apricot bread, spiritual food and material food, I have it, and I really have the greatest satisfaction.
I've always had a dream of opening a small bookstore called "Revival Bookstore," even though it just stopped in my mind and didn't do anything about it. Every time I return to the "Bookworm Bookstore", this dream is stirred in my heart, thinking that if I can really have this "Revival Bookstore", what kind of scene will it be? Secretly, this should be the case, right? Even if it is not as big as its two-story building, even if it is just a narrow hut, but the kind of leisurely tranquility, the kind of strength that only asks about the cultivation and does not ask about the harvest, the kind of taste of carefully examining insects and fish, harvesting grass and trees in the book to entertain themselves, the kind of shelf inserted Wei Jin, the table set Tang Song in the book to be satisfied, should be similar. I really envy this old man, envy this "bookworm bookstore".
The other day, I went to Cincinnati and saw a second-hand bookstore on Ninth Street called "Ohio Bookstore." The name is a bit big, not as playful as "Bookworm Bookstore", not as poetic as "Nightingale Second-hand Bookstore". But not far in front of it is indeed the Ohio River, and there is an old iron bridge on the river, which is also worthy of the name. Its façade is very much like a regular bookstore selling new books, and the two large glass windows on both sides of the gate are displayed with books, and the two generals of hum and ha are generally facing each other, and there is a sun canopy on the gate, on which the name of the store is neatly written. Compared with the second-hand bookstores that usually use old houses to open shops, it seems to be somewhat grand, if the former is simple like a village girl, it looks like a half-old Xu Niang after dressing up. Inside the door, in addition to the boss, only I am alone, the room is very deep, twenty meters, there is a floor upstairs, four bookshelves, the middle bookshelf, three-dimensional multi-dimensional, book heaven and book, but also piled up posters from the past years, similar to the monthly cards of the Republic of China beauties we sell here. From the time I walked in the door to the time I spun around and went out, the boss just looked down at his newspaper and looked up at me without a glance. I thought, bookstores are so miserable, where should the boss make money to maintain such a bookstore that is not small in scale and style? If you change to us, located not far from the downtown, two beautiful small buildings up and down, the bookstore has long changed the courtyard, do restaurants, do clothing stores, even if it is an intermediary store that does house sales, it is far more profitable than a bookstore.
The most interesting thing is that when I went out of the bookstore, I found that the shop next to it was a coffin shop. The Cincinnati street market store arrangement is really interesting, and it even combines the bookstore and the coffin shop arrangement. Perhaps, Americans do not pay attention to this, just as some of their houses and cemeteries will be intimately next to each other. Life and death are linked together, and between life and death is inseparable from reading.
In Bloomington, no second-hand bookstores were seen. In Indianapolis, I heard that there were second-hand bookstores, but I didn't find them, only one second-hand camera shop. However, as long as there is, there is a thought for the next time. How can a city not have one or two second-hand bookstores? It would be like a beautiful seven-colored flower, missing one color.
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