We arrived in Cincinnati prepared with a long list of book stores to check out, and since we were already in the car for the day, we figured we'd first hit the ones that were not central to the downtown area.
The first stop, Smith & Hannon Bookstore, was an ominous start. Located north and east of downtown Cincy, it's a small, three-story house with the book store on the ground floor. Smith & Hannon was open ... but locked when we arrived. After commiserating with the DHL delivery guy about this oddity, we then heard a voice from upstairs telling us to just knock on the door and someone would answer.
Not that same guy, though, right? The logic being that if he was the one to come down and open up, why would he tell us to knock first, rather than just coming down to open the door himself? You know, since he already knew we were there...
We knocked... and sure enough, there that same guy was to greet us. Sadly for the DHL delivery guy, our greeter wasn't able to sign for the package being delivered, but soon enough the owner of Smith & Hannon appeared, making the delivery guy happy, and giving me an opportunity to enter the store.
Now, in those few minutes of waiting outside, I could tell that this was not likely to be the kind of store we were going to have any luck in. It was very small, and the editions looked newer and mostly nonfiction.
Once inside, I found that to be the case. Much of the store's fiction was more current. The one bookcase that had older books on it had a handwritten sign on it that said "These books are not for sale." Oh well.
But the five minutes in the store weren't without value. I had an opportunity to speak with Smith & Hannon's owner, and our brief conversation was an example of a familiar and troubling topic we'll end up talking a lot about on Get a Spine, and that's the often-troubling present and questionable future of used-book stores.
One of the motivations we had in starting this project was our love of used-book stores, and the desire to play some small part in not only getting the personal experiences of visiting them, but also doing what we can to A) promote the bookstores we visit, so others will visit them also, and B) promoting the broad idea that used-book stores are important cultural, social and intellectual institutions that need to exist in our society.
And we're motivated by those two final reasons exactly because of the kinds of things I was told at Smith & Hannon today, which is something we hear often.
The owner was an older woman -- the age of used-book store owners will also be a common theme in this space -- and I asked her how long she'd been in business, and she said it had been about seven years. I asked her where she gets her stock, and she said it was a combination of her own collection, visiting library sales, and donations. I asked her how it was going, and her reply was, "Oh, it's not."
There was a lot of sadness in her voice when she said this, and I can't say what she was most sad about. Maybe it was feeling sad about people and where books and book stores fit in society. Maybe it was sadness about a struggling business and the need to make ends meet and pay the bills. Maybe it was neither, or both, or more.
Whatever the case may be, even if Smith & Hannon wasn't the book store for us, we sincerely hope that it's still around if we ever pass through Cincinnati again. That would be a welcome sign to us.
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