Strand Books
After a brief break from New York City bookstores, I’m back on the hunt for my literary home base with a visit to Strand Books, a shop which I and many others, for reasons unknown, have dubbed ‘The Strand.’
The Strand is a literary juggernaut that includes not only a massive flagship in Greenwich Village, but also an outpost at Club Monaco and kiosks in Central Park, Times Square, and the Union Square Holiday Market. It sells two and a half million books a year, boasts of having 18 miles of books in stock, and was recently declared the “undisputed king of New York City’s independent bookstores” by the New York Times. Beyond books, it’s also a merch machine; its tote bags are nearly as ubiquitous as those New Yorker ones everyone on the subway carries. Hell, Patti Smith even worked there once. Bottom line – nobody needs to be convinced of The Strand’s bona fides.
Even under normal circumstances, The Strand is an exhilarating place to be. During the holidays, it’s doubly so. A stream of people pour through the store’s doors, balancing books in the crooks of their arms and queueing impatiently in lines that triple back upon themselves. It’s a swirling hub of activity: a place where task-oriented buyers bang up against absorbed readers and dallying daydreamers.
It’s also a great place to discover something new. The Strand, more than any other bookstore I’ve been to, has mastered the art of making a very big and intimidating selection feel surmountable. The store does this in the simplest and smartest way: with red signs atop tables. Many stores have signs like these, but what makes The Strand different is that it doesn’t stop at ‘Bestsellers,’ or ‘Staff Picks’ but instead extends its categorization system in all sorts of evocative, witty, and highly specific directions. I flipped through Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit at the ‘Unleash Your Inner Artist’ table, perused stacks of Stephen King on the ‘I Read Dead People’ table, and picked up the intriguingly-titled Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore from the ‘Books to Help You Escape the Madness’ table. Even the kid’s section gets its own red toppers, like the one titled ‘Tackling Complex Topics’ that has children’s books about racism, war, divorce, and other topics that are, indeed, complex. After a blissful hour of browsing, I plucked Footsteps – a book about “literary pilgrimages around the world” – off a travel-themed table deep in the basement. There may be no book more perfect for this site’s prose-and-place focus, and I may not have been able to find it anywhere but The Strand.
So what’s not to love? Well, I’m nitpicking, but here’s the sick truth about The Strand. It isn’t hard to love because the selection is lacking (it’s famously fantastic), because it’s a trek (it’s a mere ten-minute walk from my office), or because the vibe isn’t right (it screams bookish sincerity). It’s hard to love because everyone else already does. The Strand was my first New York bookstore, but it’s also everyone else’s first New York bookstore. It’s the platonic ideal of a thriving independent bookseller, but it’s missing a certain romance – lacking that under-the-radar, undiscovered, my-little-secret feeling that it turns out I love so much.
The Strand belongs to the world, not just to me. So while it’s wonderful, I can’t imagine awarding it top spot in my city.
Book in hand, the search continues.
