The Spine Nine: Gabriel Books

While in Northampton last month, we stopped at Gabriel Books, where we picked up one book and got a very nice parting gift from Gabriel Books' owner, John Riley.

John was also kind enough to participate in our Spine Nine series of Q&A with bookstore owners, which we post below here.

Thanks, John!

Name: John Riley
Bookstore: Gabriel Books

1. When did you know you wanted to be a bookstore owner? Why? I practically grew up in used-book stores. My mother, Edna Riley,  was a devoted fan of the two used-book stores in Santa Rosa, California, where I grew up. (The Book and Bible, a combination used-book store and religious artifact shop run by a minister; and Cipriano’s, run by a husband and wife). Nearly every Saturday morning we made the rounds. She was usually looking for Sonoma County History books and I was let loose to look at everything else. When I got older I became friends with the owners. When I went to college at UCSB I had a collection of nearly 3,000 books, so what was I to do, but open a used-book store. I opened my first bookstore while still a senior, closing shop or having a friend take over while I went to classes. To save on rent I lived in the back. At night I pulled the curtains over the front windows and had a great private library in which to entertain friends.

2. Do you have a book which is your white whale? If so, would you actually sell it? Probably the first edition of Finnegan’s Wake signed by Joyce, bound in full red Morocco. I spied it once in a shop in Charleston, W.Va. It cost $2,000 and I couldn’t afford it. I’ve never seen one since, but it must cost much more now. I wish I had bought it in installments. I wouldn’t sell it.

3. If you could assume the life of any character from a classic work of fiction, who would it be and why? Don Quixote. He loved books and travel and adventure. Unfortunately, he wasn’t a fan of wind power.

4. What was the experience of selling your first book like? “I might actually be able to pay the rent on this place.”

5. The Kindle/Nook/etc. is ... A pain in the butt to read on, but a brilliant distribution device.

6. Describe your most memorable acquisition experience. I was reading through the want ads after returning from vacation and was plowing through nearly two weeks of papers when I saw a little ad for “Books for sale. Best bid takes them all.” I went with my wife Patty not expecting much, but it was a beautiful library that sat intact from the early 1900s. The grandparents had passed and the grandson was anxious to clean out the house. What we found were amazing complete sets of Thoreau, Emerson, Twain, Hawthorne, Dickens , etc. all bound in full leather,  all signed and containing many holograph manuscript pages, many unpublished. It was like entering King Tut’s tomb. We maxed out all our credit cards and won the bid. We spent months cataloging and relishing this extraordinary find.

James Joyce

7. If classic novelists were like rock stars or athletes, which three posters would be on your walls? Jorge Luis Borges, James Joyce, and Samuel Beckett (with trading cards of Marcel Proust, Gustave Flaubert, Jack Kerouac, Woody Allen, Charles Baudelaire, Edgar Poe, Henry Miller, Dino Buzzatti, and Roald Dahl)

8. In 25 years, used-book stores will be ... Specialty shops, much like vinyl record stores are now. In the meantime used-book stores will be the only bookstores around, as new-book stores close or morph into gift shops.

9. If someone wrote a novel about your bookstore, what would it be called? The Perpetual Orgy  (actually the title of a book-length essay by Mario Vargas Llosa about Flaubert and Madame Bovary. Since you can’t copyright titles of books, it could be appropriated in honor of Flaubert.)

The longest novel and other finds

While visiting family in Western Massachusetts a couple of weeks ago, we couldn't resist paying a visit to our old recycling center in Northampton for its fantastic book shed. We lived there for the 2010/11 school year and were regular visitors of the shed -- this was all pre-"Get a Spine" so we don't have a log of what we found then, but suffice it to say that our current library would be much smaller if not for the book shed.

As is the nature of these "take some, leave some" free book exchanges, it is hit or miss depending on who has dropped off recently and who has been by to browse. If you're looking for classics and you see our car, best come by another day!

That day we walked away with two paperback copies of Pride and Prejudice, because you can never have enough of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. One is a Signet Classic edition with a rather uncharacteristically dispassionate drawing of whom I can only assume is Elizabeth Bennet; a peacock -- whose reference is beyond me; and a lock -- equally enigmatic. I'll ponder over these awhile. (If you have any insight, leave a comment!) The other copy we found is nothing fancy but the cover has a subtle prettiness to it that I like: a matte grey cover with purple text and a little etching of a gentleman bowing to a seated lady.

We also found another Riverside Edition to add to our growing collection. We're going to need another bookshelf just for all of our Riversides soon! This one is Clarissa by Samual Richardson -- another title we're not familiar with, but happy to discover. Interesting fact about this book: it is the longest novel in the English language based on word count, beat only by Marcel Proust's epic In Search of Lost Time (originally published in French). Who knew?

We also added Spoon River Anthology to our collection. We already had The New Spoon River (also acquired at the DPW Book Shack, oddly enough). It is a neat collection of short free-form poems that collectively describe the life of the fictional small town of Spoon River as described by its deceased former residents. Originally published in 1915, we snagged a paperback edition printed in 1969. For free, it works.

All in all, a worthwhile trip to our old book shed.

Books added: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (x2!); Clarissa by Samuel Richardson; Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters

Publishers (in same order): Signet; Washington Square Press; Houghton Mifflin Co. Riverside Editions; Collier Books

Years: 1961; 1961; 1962; 1969

Where obtained: Northampton DPW Book Shack

Price: Free!

Bookseller Review: Northampton DPW Book Shed

Northampton DPW Book Shed

125 Locust St.

Northampton, MA

413.587.1570

http://www.northamptonma.gov/dpw/

Pretty much just what the name says. It's a book shed at the local "dump." But it can be truly awesome. It is organized, believe it or not.

What we like: The randomness, the tight squeeze, the always-good selection of classic fiction, the fact that it's all free.

What we don't like: Unless you know how to get around it, you have to have a sticker to visit the premises, and thereby gain access to the book shed. It is possible to do it without the sticker...

Would we go again? Without a doubt. This little shed (without us realizing it at the time) helped propel us down the road toward "Get a Spine," so we will always stop by when we have the chance.

Not likely to be the 'Last' for us

Third on our stop in Northampton during our 48-hour stay was Gabriel Books, on Market St. Tucked among various antique shops, Gabriel had been recommended on our visit to Old Book Store on the other end of downtown.

We've already posted perhaps our best find at Gabriel Books on this visit, this sweet bumper sticker. It's not that we didn't find books to add to our collection. But whether it was because of spending fatigue after visiting Old Book Store and Raven Used Books, or if it was just plain old physical fatigue after carting around a bag full of books from those two stores, we only left Gabriel Books with one new item. Yet another copy of James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans, our second on that day alone!

Much like Deborah with Pride and Prejudice, I often can't resist picking up a new copy of a "Leatherstocking Tale" whenever I find one. But sometimes I can resist. Perhaps the most enjoyable part of the visit to Gabriel Books on this day was getting a chance to check out an N.C. Wyeth-illustrated edition of Cooper's The Deerslayer. Very cool, and in really good condition for being such an early copy of this particular edition (not a 1925 first edition, I don't think, but not far off). But at $150, it was too rich for our blood.

Still worth getting a look at, all the same.

Book added: The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper

Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap

Years: 1940

Where obtained: Gabriel Books

Price: $4.00

Bookseller Review: Gabriel Books

Gabriel Books

21 Market St.

Northampton, MA

413.586.5596

www.abebooks.com/gabriel-books-northampton-ma-u.s.a/182084/sf

Books of all types bought, sold, and appraised. The book buyer is in the store on Fridays and Saturdays. Housecalls can be made for larger collections. The bookshop was started as The Madeleine in Isla Vista, California in 1972 by John and Patty Riley. It continued as The Globe in Northampton, Massachusetts, and now is named Gabriel Books after the owners' son, Gabe.

What we like: Cozy space, books everywhere, a healthy section of classics, friendly owner who gave us a great bumper sticker.

What we don't like: No real complaints other than some of the things we really liked were out of our price range.   

Would we go again? Absolutely. Given a bit more time, I am sure we'd walk out of there with more than we did our first trip.

Not bad for being lazy

After a successful visit to Old Book Store, we made our way next to Raven Used Books in downtown Northampton. We had already made a long drive that morning and eaten a yummy lunch at one of our old favorites, Bueno y Sano, so by the time we made it to Raven, I was feeling a bit tired and ready to be done. I did a lazy scan of the fiction section -- so lazy in fact that Kristian picked out a Riverside -- a good one, The Mill on the Floss by George Elliot -- on his way through that I had missed. He playfully chided me for my laziness and I defended myself by producing a nice hardcover edition of Collected Stories of William Faulkner, published in 1950. We both enjoy a good collection of short stories, so I was pardoned.

As he continued to retrace my steps along the fiction shelf, he mentioned that he had noticed a smaller shelf of old hardcovers behind the cashier's desk, so I wandered over to check it out. When they keep books behind the counter it usually means they are out of our price range, but it is always fun to see what they may have hiding there. My eyes fell immediately on a very interesting old spine for Bleak House. Now, Bleak House is one of my favorite books -- the story is amazing, with so many layers. I highly recommend it. Dickens was genius, a magician with a pen. But back to this book. I asked to take a look at it and was delighted to find that not only was it in great shape, but it was printed in 1883, and it was $15, which is absolutely in our price range. So that rounded out a nice little purchase at Raven Books -- not bad for being lazy.

Books added: Bleak House by Charles Dickens; The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot; Collected Stories of William Faulkner by William Faulkner

Publishers (in same order): Estes and Lauriat; Houghton Mifflin Co. Riverside Editions; Random House

Years: 1883; 1961; 1950

Where obtained: Raven Used Books

Prices: $15.00; $5.50; $6.00

Bookseller Review: Raven Used Books

Raven Used Books

4 Old South St.

Northampton, MA

413.584.9868

www.ravenusedbooks.com/raven_site_002.htm

Raven specializes in academic and scholarly titles, and offers a wide variety of children's books, poetry, fiction, gardening, philosophy, cultural studies, cookbooks, eastern and western religions, fantasy and science fiction, mystery, Native American studies, women's studies, African American studies, Greek and Roman classics, linguistics, history, science and nature, and much, much more.

What we like: Raven is the quintessential college-town used-book store. A solid wall of fiction, always-changing inventory, good people-watching, good deals, and -- last, but certainly not least -- a location next door to one of the best ice cream shops on the planet.

What we don't like: On occassion, the collection can be a bit too "college course newer used book" and therefore lacking in older editions, but this is picking nits (specific to our goals) about a really good used-book store.  

Would we go again? Of course. Raven was a must-visit while we lived in Northampton, and it'll continue to be any time we are passing through.

Northampton, where Old is new to us

Our three-week trip concluded, we returned home to host some guests from Spain for a few days, and now we've had some time to breathe and get caught up to date on our bookstore travels in the Northeast. Up first, our trip to Old Book Store in Northampton, Massachusetts.

We'd been to Old Book Store before. Maybe a few times in the 10 months we lived in Northampton. I remember being disappointed on a Monday or two (yes, more than once -- silly, I know) when I would take a walk from my terrible job and head toward Old Book Store, only to be disappointed to find it closed.

As we made our way to Old Book Store on our first stop in Northampton on this trip -- our first time in Northampton as "Get a Spine" -- I had a good feeling about what we might find.

After three minutes inside, my feelings were justified, 10 times over.

As we have mentioned time and time again, we collect a certain style of Riverside Editions from Houghton Mifflin. We collect them both for their look and the quality of the intros and other materials they include with each work. We've had a hard time determining exactly how many and what novels were published in this style, but using the various lists in the back of each one we add, we at least knew a The Last of the Mohicans was out there somewhere. We figured it would be hard to find, especially since we were looking for it...

Yet there it was at Old Book Store, right before my eyes. I couldn't believe it, I told Deborah she wouldn't believe it... yet it was true. And in probably the best condition of any Riverside we have collected. It's practically new. Just awesome.

After that, anything else we left with was gravy, and we found some pretty good gravy at that, including two more Riversides, a Modern Library Grapes of Wrath and one of Deborah's favorites, Love in the Time of Cholera, published in the year it first appeared in print in English by the original English-language publisher (we think it's not a first edition, but a later run that year).

As we checked out, we introduced ourselves to the store's owner (as we normally do), and proceeded to have a very nice conversation with Grant Walz about his bookstore, and the future of used-book collecting and used-book store owners. We can't say it was an optimistic conversation about the future, but we can say that it was a really enjoyable meeting, and we were glad to meet Mr. Walz, and at the very least, maybe give him a little more hope about the future than he may have started the day with.

Books added: The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper; The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck; Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez; The Ordeal of Richard Feverel by George Meredith; Six Eighteenth-Century Plays

Publishers (in same order): Houghton Mifflin Co. Riverside Editions; Random House Modern Library; Alfred A. Knopf; Houghton Mifflin Co. Riverside Editions; Houghton Mifflin Co. Riverside Editions

Years: 1958; 1943; 1988; 1971; 1963

Where obtained: Old Book Store

Price: $12.00 total

Bookseller Review: Old Book Store

Old Book Store

32 Masonic St.

Northampton, MA

413.586.0576

plus.google.com/111715472117967144975

Old Book Store is in the basement of a red-brick building off Northampton's main drag. The family-owned-and-operated store has been in business for decades, and many different genres are represented in its collection, all at fair prices.

What we like: We did very well here, so that's one thing we like very much. We also had a very nice conversation with the owner. And you'll find that you get good bang for your buck here.

What we don't like: In our conversation, it sounded like once the current owner, Grant Walz, decides to pack it up, that'll be the end of Old Book Store. 

Would we go again? Absolutely. Even though we took home a good haul, we have faith that when we return, we'll find plenty more.

Why indeed...

Still out on the road, and lots more to write about our travels, but for now we couldn't resist putting up this bumper sticker we were given Tuesday at Gabriel Books in Northampton, Ma.

It's always been the best of times...

It wasn't until after nearly a full year of having lived together that our respective book collections finally met. And from that moment, the shelf space just hasn't been able to keep up with the additions.

We've certainly done our best to keep pace, though. Whether it was buying two bookcases out of the the storage locker of a former-professor-turned-fringe-Massachusetts-congressional-candidate, or re-purposing an old hardware-store paint-display shelf to accommodate our growing collection, we've made sure our books have a home.

That home has been in Massachusetts -- where we did some serious damage via the Northampton DPW's book shack -- and is now in Charlottesville, Va., where, due to the great number of quality booksellers dealing in used books, it is very easy for one to always be in "add mode."

The "Get A Spine" blog chronicles our search for used classic literature (novels, mostly) -- as well as the places we go in our search -- to add to our personal library.

Everyone's definition of "classic" differs, and so we won't presume that ours is the definition. For us, both born after 1975, it almost always (but not exclusively) means anything written pre-1960, and our search generally limits our scope to any edition of a work published before 1970 ... and we really love finding anything published before 1930. And love even more pre-1900, and so on, and so on. We're not after first editions, but we certainly don't ignore them if they're attainable, but our goal is to build our library economically.

We believe foremost that great works of literature are a supreme form of art, but we also strongly believe that a book, in its physical form, can often be a work of art. Of course, the degree to which it is considered "art" is subjective. For us, if something grabs us visually, we're likely to add it to our collection ... even if we have several other editions of the same work. We definitely have our repeats, as this blog will prove.

This blog is intended to be as much about the adventure as it is the acquisition. It is the moments of discovery, of surprise, and of joy that often accompany an outing in search of used classics that create a full story, and give the book a life of its own -- by the memories associated with it -- once it's in our house. And we view our collection as something to one day be passed along to our daughter, who we hope will have the same love of books and literature that we do.

Last, but certainly not least, while "the look" of a book is important to us, we believe the books we collect should be read. Our library is not a museum, and we don't want to live in a world where actual books are only display pieces.