Moon Palace Books, Minneapolis, Minn., is the latest subject of Bookselling This Week's "What's in a Name?" series, highlighting some of the bookselling world's most unusual, original and coolest store names.
Co-owners Angela and Jamie Schwesnedl named their shop after Paul Auster's 1989 novel. "It's the story of a young man in New York who inherits hundreds of boxes of books from his uncle, and then when times get tough, he reads them all and sells them off one by one," said Angela Schwesnedl. "We tossed around a lot of names for the store, but this one had a backstory that we liked at the time."
Schwesnedl added that they frequently are asked about the store's name, so she keeps a copy of Moon Palace on display on the counter: "Every once in a while, I'll definitely get someone who knows the book, and that pleases them. I often tell people that Moon Palace was the book that turned me into a reader. When I read it, I was just figuring out what kind of reader I was."