Emptiness defines our world at the moment--empty roads and streets, empty shelves in supermarkets, empty schools, businesses, factories, malls, airplanes. Bookstores, however, are still an exception to the rule for me. I was a bookseller for many years and recall what it felt like to be the only person in the shop sometimes when opening or closing, that precious moment of illusory silence, just me and the books. Did I hear voices? Maybe I did.
Javier Marías once wrote that his apartment's walls "need to be totally covered so that the books can speak to me through their closed mouths, their motley, multicolored, and very silent spines."
I feel that way about my personal library as well, but it also holds true for bookshops, which are never really empty or silent. There are plenty of days when bookselling is cacophony, when books speak the language of inventory turn and payroll, invoices and ROI. Perhaps this is especially so now, with the future of, well, everything in the balance.
But when I was the only person in the bookshop, the books inhabited it, too. Sometimes I thought it would be nice to have the place to myself. An illusion, of course, for more than just financial reasons, though I'm not alone in this fantasy. Reads & Company, Phoenixville, Pa., observed recently: "If you're like us, you probably dreamed of having a bookstore all to yourself, with all the time in the world to browse and shop, alone and undisturbed. If you're like us, you probably thought this would be heavenly. We're here to tell you: it is not. Not at all."
Practically speaking, most indie bookstores are pretty empty right now, and I've become a reluctant collector of haunting photos depicting uninhabited, pristine sales floors, like Main Street Books, Mansfield, Ohio ("Visited the bookstore today--everyone says hello!") and Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, Wash. ("just isn't the same without all of you in it!"). Or Greedy Reads, Baltimore, Md.: "Missing lots of things these days--the shops; beautiful tables filled with books; Audie snoozing in her sunpatch in the Remington window; but mostly I miss seeing all of you fill the stores with curiosity and smiles and warmth and joy. I can't wait to see you all again!!"
Canadian bookseller Munro's Books, Victoria, B.C., explored the "bittersweet task of putting new stock onto a sales floor closed to foot traffic for the foreseeable future. Now, as we spend our days filling web and phone orders, we find ourselves unlearning old habits.... We've shifted to a warehouse model: efficiency is key. Even the most eye-catching covers remain spined in as we pack as many books onto the shelves in as rigid an order as possible. No more display boxes to push books forward for better visibility; no more themed assortments or beloved titles spread across the Staff Picks wall. Dissembling these standbys of daily life at Munro's can be painful. But when we look up at the tapestries on the wall, the stained glass windows and intricately painted ceiling that remains unchanged through all the recent tumult, we think to ourselves: 'Aren't we lucky to get to work in the world's most beautiful warehouse?' "
Other booksellers have shared similar visuals, including The Book Tavern, Augusta, Ga., which expressed appreciation for customer response to its Surprise Care Packages: "We have so many in the queue it's a bit hard to keep up but we're hard at work filling the table and clearing it off (rinse and repeat)."
In an update on the recent and inspiring GoFundMe campaign for City Lights, San Francisco, Calif., CEO and publisher Elaine Katzenberger wrote that after paying a visit to legendary poet and co-founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti, she "went over to check on the bookstore. I've been going by the shop every few days, ever since we had to close the doors. When I get there I flip on all the lights and greet the stacks. I walk through the three floors of that sweet space and I speak to it like an old friend. Ostensibly, I'm there to make sure that nothing is amiss--what about that leak in the basement, it's been raining again--but really I just want to drink in as much as I can, to breathe that air and take it home with me."
New Zealand poet Sam Hunt's "Only You" is about a friend, but also seems to speak to the moment we're in now:
When the house is
warm, when there's peace,
the old spirits
while you're sleeping, return.
In the morning
you notice a difference:
it feels like it's a full house.
With only you in it.
Listen to the voices on the shelves. A bookshop is never empty, even when the people are gone for a while. It would be nice, however, to have the people come back inside again.