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| Lawrence Ferlinghetti | |
Currently on display at the Logan Gallery in San Francisco's Legion of Honor museum is "Ferlinghetti for San Francisco," exploring the artistic practice of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the poet, activist, publisher, and co-founder of City Lights. During a recent preview visit, Alta Journal was guided by Natalia Lauricella, curator of prints and drawings for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco's Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, and Paul Yamazaki, City Lights' longtime book buyer and Ferlinghetti's colleague for more than 50 years.
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| Paul Yamazaki | |
When asked what Ferlinghetti was like to work with for so many years, Yamazaki replied, "I don't know if Lawrence would agree with this, but I always thought of him as being a very shy person. As somebody who worked with him, he was incredibly--the word that I used is trust. Once he knew that we were all working in the same direction, he let us do our jobs. I think you see all these things tied together in his visual work."
I love that, and I realized that lately I've been collecting some insightful quotations (a micro Bartlett's) from booksellers that might be worth sharing. For example, Books+Publishing asked Gavin Williams, co-owner of Matilda Bookshop in Stirling, Australia, what advice he would give to anyone thinking about bookselling as a profession. "The best way to become a successful bookseller is to cancel your streaming subscriptions and just read, then keep on reading some more," he said, "To own a bookshop is to do the above and add in a whole lot of heavy box lugging! Make your lovely staff excellent coffees each and every day and find them jobs that they enjoy and that will inspire them."
Karam Youssef, owner of publishing house and bookstore Al Kotob Khan in Cairo, Egypt, told OkayAfrica: "It's an insane moment and a very depressing time in the world, which of course reflects on my work. Sometimes I ask myself, 'What can a book do while there's a genocide on our borders? What book of poetry should I publish while they're attacking a Christian teacher because she was doing her job, preventing students from cheating in exams?' But I tell myself that I have to continue. One book cannot change the world; however, the accumulation of books and reading, alongside good education and quality journalism, can influence the way parents raise their children. If those books are not well-read at the moment, there will be some people who will read them in 10 years or 20 years."
Emma Whitehall, a children's bookseller at British bookshop the bound in Whitley Bay, wrote in the Bookseller: "I'm finding that intimidation is a huge factor that turns children off from reading.... Both independent readers and those still reading with an adult are looking for shorter fare that could potentially be read in a sitting or two. It would be easy to pin the blame for this on social media and those ever-waning attention span statistics, but I would argue that it's also the result of a lack of confidence. Kids get a kick out of finishing books; they lose faith in themselves if they have to slog through chapter after chapter to get to the exciting bits. Publishing needs to focus on shorter, self-contained stories that give the dopamine hit of completion sooner rather than later."
Michael Robb, author of Shelf Life: A Journey Through the Past, Present & Future of Bookselling and Publishing in Britain (the History Press, August 5), spoke with Great British Life about his experiences at Robbs Bookshop in Chelmsford, which he ran with his father during the 1980s and '90s, as well as his hope for bookselling's future: "Bookshops are unique. They provide access to adventure and ideas, transport us away from daily life and help us transform. It's no wonder booklovers value their local bookshops dearly and hold a high regard for the vital role they play. In today's increasingly online and digital world, more individuals recognize the importance of the warmth, personality and social interaction bookshops can provide."
The Canadian Independent Booksellers Association asked Anthony Randall and Robyn York, proprietors of Beach Reads Bookshop, Port Dover, Ont., what they love most about being independent booksellers. "We love connecting with people in our community and offering a local hub for readers of all ages and interests. We know so many of our customers on a first name basis and have formed some lasting friendships since opening the shop.... Port Dover is a friendly town, and it's lovely to have spontaneous conversations with people we know while bringing our A-frame sign out to Main Street and shopping in other businesses in town. To quote the author Kurt Vonnegut, 'if this isn't nice, what is?' "
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| Nadia Wassef | |
During the RISE Booksellers Conference last spring, Nadia Wassef, author of Shelf Life: Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller (Picador), delivered a keynote that concluded with her recalling "it wasn't until last month that I gave my first talk about my book in Cairo. Standing inside the walls of Diwan in Zamalek, where it all started 23 years ago, I found it difficult to call myself a writer. I still felt, at my core, like a bookseller. But then, I thought of The Arabian Nights--and its most compelling figure, Scheherazade. Every bookseller is a Scheherazade of sorts, sustaining not only themselves but their entire community and cohort through the power of storytelling. With each recommendation, each conversation, and each reinvention, we prolong the life of bookselling--for one more day, for one more story."