The Spine Nine: Willis Monie Books

While in Cooperstown recently, we stopped by Willis Monie Books to do some browsing and shopping. The owner of Willis Monie Books, Will Monie, was then kind enough to participate in our recurring series of Q&A with bookstore owners called "The Spine Nine."

Thanks, Mr. Monie!

Name: Will Monie
Bookstore: Willis Monie Books

1. When did you know you wanted to be a bookstore owner? Why? After 37 years, still not sure I want to be a bookstore owner. But honestly, this is what I like to do. My wife always tells people I’m “retired” because now I’m just doing what I like.

2. Do you have a book which is your white whale? If so, would you actually sell it? For years I collected John Milton—I would not sell a first edition of Paradise Lost if it ever came my way.

3. If you could assume the life of any character from a classic work of fiction, who would it be and why? Elizabeth Bennett -- she gets all the good lines.

4. What was the experience of selling your first book like? Too long ago -- sold books long before I started the book store.

5. The Kindle/Nook/etc. is ... an invention of the devil.

6. Describe your most memorable acquisition experience. The time I pulled a first edition of The Book of Mormon out of someone’s trash.

7. If classic novelists were like rock stars or athletes, which three posters would be on your walls? Jane Austen, Laurence Sterne, and, of course, James Fenimore Cooper.

8. In 25 years, used-book stores will be ... used book stores will be very scarce, but an antiquarian bookstore will still be very viable as we will have collectors for a long time.

9. If someone wrote a novel about your bookstore, what would it be called? For the Love of It

Wuthering twice

Back in April, I discovered a really interesting edition of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre with illustrations by Fritz Eichenberg. It was our first introduction to Eichenberg's wood engravings -- they are beautiful and haunting and we love them. The Jane Eyre we found was apparently part of a box set with Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, and so we've been on the lookout for Jane's companion ever since. We imagined it would be a long time before we found it to complete the set -- especially on its own.

We're in Cooperstown, NY, this week, visiting family and doing a bit of book hunting, and Tuesday we made a trip to Oneonta, NY, and stumbled upon Rose and Laurel Bookshop when we stopped on Main Street to have some lunch. When we walked in I noticed a section of large books in sleeves, and I made a beeline for them to scan for the Wuthering Heights.

On first glance it seemed they were all of the newer sort, so I moved down the shelves. For some reason my eye darted upward once more, and there, resting on its side on the top shelf, I saw that green spine with gold letters that looked so much like the Jane Eyre spine... only much thinner. I snatched it and gasped, then ran over to Kristian with it behind my back and said, "Guess what I found?!" I was practically jumping up and down. He was as shocked as I was that we actually found it -- we were both a bit open-mouthed. But as we calmed down, we realized that the front cover did not have an engraving the way the Jane Eyre did -- otherwise they seemed the same. Same size, Eichenberg illustrations all throughout. (We had previously found a mini-version of the Eichenberg-illustrated Wuthering.) Though we wondered why and if it was truly the match, there was no way we were walking out of the shop without that book. We might never come across it again... we were so excited! We did find more at the Rose and Laurel, but Kristian will tell you more about that.

With that now checked off our list, we made a quick visit to Willis Monie Books, the used bookshop in Cooperstown. Sadly on this day, our daughter was due for a nap when we had an opportunity to sneak down there, so we were sort of pushing our luck with the visit and had to rush through it.

We split up, and I was one aisle over from where Kristian was looking. We weren't there 10 minutes when I heard a groan and then Kristian called me over. He had a book behind his back and a sort of rueful grimace on his face. "What did you find?!" I asked. From behind his back he produced Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, Eichenberg illustrated, with a brooding Heathcliff engraving on the cover. Unbelievable! This was the one! For a book we thought we might never find, it took less than 24 hours to find two! We discovered that the one without a cover illustration was actually the older version, by two years, published in 1943. The one with the cover illustration, the one that also has the matching Jane Eyre, was published in 1945. Tag, you're it, 1943 version of Jane Eyre...

Book added: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (x2!)

Publisher: Random House

Years: 1945; 1943

Where obtained: Willis Monie Books; Rose and Laurel Bookshop

Price: $5.00; $6.00

There's no place like home...

Wednesday marked the first official Get a Spine visit to the local used-book store where I grew up, Willis Monie Books in Cooperstown, NY. As Deborah talks about here, we had one very interesting experience on our visit, and as she also mentions, the stop was kind of a quick one due to our daughter's need to nap. Thankfully, many more opportunities to browse at Willis Monie await us in the future.

So in addition to what Deborah discusses, we were able to quickly round up a few nice "new" works for our library in the short time we did spend there:

• a 1953 edition of Green Hills of Africa by Ernest Hemingway. I know it's nonfiction, but Hemingway is second to none for me, and good older editions of his works are pretty hard to find at reasonable prices, so getting Green Hills for $5.00 was just fine as far as I am concerned.
• an illustrated Modern Library edition (1944) of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. This one is in great shape, and appears to have been a Christmas gift from a student to a teacher in 1944.
• a 1925 copy of The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington. This is one Deborah highly recommends, and we hadn't yet owned our own copy. As an aside, this book smells great.
• lastly, an upgrade over our current copy of Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. The one we had already was a flimsy paperback, and this is a hardcover published sometime around 1950.

Like I said, it was a brief visit, but we'll have tons of opportunities to keep going back.

Books added: Green Hills of Africa by Ernest Hemingway; The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington; Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman; Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Publishers (in same order): Charles Scribner's Sons; Doubleday, Page and Company; Random House Modern Library; Harcourt, Brace and World

Years: 1953; 1925; 1944; 1950(?)

Where obtained: Willis Monie Books

Price: $18.00 for the four

Bookseller Review: Willis Monie Books

Willis Monie Books

139 Main St.

Cooperstown, NY

607.547.7128

www.wilmonie.com

Located in Cooperstown, NY for over 25 years, Willis Monie Books carries general books and ephemera, with a good selection in most all categories. They have over 80,000 books listed online, with a much greater variety offered in the store.

What we like: Since it's in Cooperstown, there's pretty much no way I am not going to like this store. But to be objective, there is a lot to like here for those seeking a book in most every area of interest.

What we don't like: We nitpick, but we always get a little bummed when bookstores don't break out the classic literature into its own section, and instead just have it scattered throughout all fiction. Like I said, it's nitpicking.  

Would we go again? Of course. Every time we visit Cooperstown. Plus, I am really holding out hope that I'll be able to complete my Mohawk Edition set of James Fenimore Cooper's works (missing The Last of the Mohicans and The Prairie) here. It would be fitting.