Cappuccino Thoughts 85: On Visiting Every Bookstore in Manhattan!
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Cappuccino Thoughts is a weekly newsletter about culture and creativity in New York.
Longtime readers will remember my quest to visit every bookstore in Manhattan. Well Joe, we did it!
Let’s rewind. According to the official list provided by New York City, there are nearly 100 bookstores in Manhattan. I eliminated Barnes & Nobles because that didn’t feel specific to New York (although the remodeled one on the UWS is actually pretty nice and the Union Square location has great author events). I also skipped two comic book stores because—and you’re welcome to debate me on this—that felt more like games and entertainment than a classic bookstore. My own bias, for sure, but my challenge, my rules!
My final tally was 51 bookstores. Very sadly, a large quantity of bookstores I checked out were either a) long since closed, or b) shops, restaurants, or even an art gallery that happened to have a couple books.
Through this challenge, I realized I had to come up with my own definition of what a bookstore really is. To me, a bookstore is a location whose primary purpose is to sell books. It might also sell ancillary products like merchandise, coffee, and even food (hey, we all have to make a buck), but there are more books than quantity of any other item. I think that literature and reading are very “in.” It’s sexy to be well-read! That’s led to a number of places to use books as decor while they sell the kinds of products or food that actually make money. Like the new spot Sullaluna, which claims to be a bookstore, but is fully just a sit-down restaurant.
Bibliotheque, on the border of bookstore and cafe
In the year and a half I have been on this quest, one bookstore has opened, Bibliotheque, It’s definitely on the border between cafe that happens to have books and actual bookstore, but I chatted briefly with the owner and he seemed committed to being a bookseller, while also understanding that with Soho real estate, you need to sell more than just books to make the rent. Although it was striking just how many bookstores have closed in the last few years, with only one new opening, I think the future of bookstores in New York is bright!
So, will I be attempting to visit every bookstore in Brooklyn next? In a word, no. One of my favorite parts about walking around a city is turning the corner and happening upon something wonderful, very often a bookstore. By intentionally seeking out bookstores and planning my days around them, this challenge did rob me of that delight to a certain degree. I want to leave myself some of that magic and mystery in the wilds of Brooklyn. I’m thinking instead maybe I’ll try to visit every museum in Manhattan? I’ve been to all the biggies, but there are some strange ones out there that beckon.
With that, here are my top five bookstores in Manhattan and, as a bonus, the five weirdest bookstores I visited.
-Yu & Me Books: My all-time fav! I just love how cozy the shop is. Everyone who works there is incredibly kind and they display books I don’t see on the front tables of many other stores. It specializes in books from Asia and the Asian diaspora, but it also has books from around the world. So glad it was able to rebuild after the fire!
-The Strand: Sorry, but it’s iconic for a reason! Nowhere else do you get both the newest buzzy book and get to trawl through the used shelves looking for something unique. It also gets the best authors for events (I am buzzing to see one of my favorite authors, Elizabeth Strout, there next month).
-The Corner Bookstore: This place is so cute and feels like it’s straight out of a Nancy Meyers movie. It has a great collection of high-quality books.
-Argosy: This rare books store symbolizes New York to me. Only here could you support a family business of rare booksellers. It was featured in the documentary The Booksellers and the business has been passed down from father to three daughters. When Cappuccino Thoughts makes me a bajillionaire one day, I plan to spend a pretty big chunk of change here.
-Printed Matter: This was one of the only bookstores that made my jaw drop to the floor. It has the largest collection of art books! Over ten thousand of them! It has everything from rare lithographs to a couple copies of one-off art zines. I feel like I could spend days here reading . There’s also a nice variety in price point, from a couple bucks to a couple thousand.
The Drama Book Store and Mysterious Book Store weren’t bookstores I would necessarily return to again and again, so they’re not in my top five, but they get special honors as two standout bookstores that were both absolutely gorgeous and sold an impressive selection of books in their respective genres.
And the strangest bookstores, because it wouldn’t be New York without some characters:
-Pillow-Cat: There is just no way that this place can afford to stay in business. It only sells books featuring cats in some way and everything is used/vintage. It is a tiny hole in the wall, but even still, there are very few products for sale. I don’t get it, but I love it. Bonus points for the cute shop cat.
-Sweet Pickle Books. I’m over this place. its whole shtick is it sells books and pickles, and if you bring in books, you can get a jar of pickles. I know that doesn’t sound dissimilar from the cat place, but the cat place is run by a wonderful cat lady (that’s a compliment, JD) who fits right in with the vintage sellers on Saint Marks Place, while Sweet Pickle attracts the kind of crowd that cosplays as artistic types in random “ironic” t-shirts while their trust funds pay for their apartments. I’m over it!
-Kitchen Arts & Letters: This bookstore only sells cookbooks and books about food. This isn’t a genre that speaks to me, but if it speaks to you, you will have a ball here.
-La Libraire des Enfants: This is a French language bookstore specializing in children’s books. It also offers French language classes. What’s weird about it is it’s been under construction forever—I actually had to explain to the owner what I was doing to be let in because she wasn’t supposed to allow entry during construction. And the owner’s dogs have been the subject of scrutiny by the New York Times! [Note: in researching this piece, the NY Post reports that the Upper East Side store is permanently closing and moving to the West Village. I am a little skeptical it will ever open, so we may be down to 50 bookstores.]
-Chartwell: It only sells books by or about Winston Churchill. Know your niche, I guess! The shop is actually stunning and worth a trip for the Churchill-head in your life. Beyond the genre, it was a bit strange because the atrium that it’s in is undergoing construction, and it’s another one that’s not supposed to be open right now. But, if you ask very nicely, they will let you in through the active construction site!
-Rudolf Steiner Bookstore: Odd in a very classic way. It sold books about spirituality, which is fine, but more specifically about its cultish leader, which is slightly less fine.
-Revolution Books: My very last bookstore! I visited last weekend. This gets the crowning spot as the 51st and final bookstore and Most Peculiar. It only sells books about revolutions, and specifically about its also very cultish founder Bob Avakian. There were hand-painted signs around the store saying that we shouldn’t vote for either side, because what we really need is to tear the whole system down and start a revolution! Not my brand of politics (I actually do think we should all vote in this election. I am training to be a poll worker in Manhattan, so maybe I’ll see you on Election Day!), but go off, I guess.
I also really wanted to go to the Bookstore of the Department of City Planning, because what the heck is that? But after two trips downtown and speaking with a number of City Hall employees, this bookstore mysteriously vanished? It seems like it moved buildings at some point, shifted to appointment-only at another point, and ultimately closed and is somewhat (barely) accessible online. Disappointing!
Substack is telling me this email is too long already, so if you want to see the full list and try this challenge for yourself, you can find my final bookstore tally here.
Cappuccino Classified
Save the date for a bag pop-up!
I will be popping up at Rue Saint Paul in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn on September 14th and 15th. On offer: exclusive bags (including a restock of the sold-out pencil cases), free drinks, and on-site embroidery.
Course on Culture and Creativity
I am also at work on a very exciting new venture for Cap Thoughts! I have heard from *so many* of you that you love reading these dispatches and want to integrate more culture into your life, but you don’t know where to start. I will be running a five day email course to find more culture in your life. Each day for a week you will get an email condensing all of the tips and tricks that I have learned and shared in the last 85 issues of Cap Thoughts—and many I haven’t shared before. It will be free and opt-in, so you won’t be bombarded with emails if you don’t want them. Stay tuned for more information next week.
Updates On the Bag Brand
“It looks like FedEx opened a new location in our neighborhood,” F. said to me.
“Oh yeah, where?” I replied
“Our apartment,” he said with a grin.
Fair enough, honestly. My apartment is currently filled with packing materials and bags. And anyone who has seen me this week has had to hear about the troubles with the Big Box.
I found an amazing artisan in Turkey to help me make my bags. He has the right skill set that is very difficult to find in the US. But it has been eminently challenging to get materials back and forth. Until now, either a trusted family member or I have transported the bags. But with no plans (or time) to go to Turkey anytime soon, I had to look at other options.
It turns out to be brutally challenging to ship to Turkey. Most shipping companies I looked at wouldn’t ship there at all, or else were charging $3,000 (looking at you, DHL). I could fly myself there and back three times! I have my hypotheses as to why—it’s outside of Europe and it’s considered a “volatile” country due to the currency fluctuations.
It was a stressful few days of false starts as I tried to figure out how to get 22 pounds of materials out of my apartment and to Turkey. Every time a shipping service looked like it would work, something got in the way. This culminated in a cloud of anxiety at 4am one morning where I was so caught up running through different scenarios that it kept me up all night. I feel a massive responsibility to my customers to get everything right for them.
I finally found a service that was a reasonable price and, with a prayer and an AirTag, sent off the box. I have been obsessively tracking the Big Box and it does seem to be well on its way.
If the goals for the summer were retail and marketing, the goal for the fall is supply chain. As the brand continues to grow, I’ll need to figure out a more consistent way to get materials back and forth.
Look of the week
Honestly, I love it. I love anyone who commits fully to a look. This fellow has refitted a yellow puffer with a metallic harness. It seems like the stuffed animals were sewn on. This outfit might look chaotic at first, but I think there was a lot of intention. Notice how the stuffies around the knees are perfectly level with each other. It looks like they’re holding hands and running around his legs! The childish saccharine nature of the animals is counterbalanced with the chunky white sneakers, spikes on his wrists, and somewhat frightening animal mask on his head. I would very much like to know where he is going in this outfit.
What’s on the bedside table
I have to admit that I’ve been in the tiniest bit of a reading rut. I’ve picked up five books, read the first twenty-five pages, and not been engaged enough to continue. I thought the antidote would be a light summer read. Ruth Reichl’s Paris Novel is exactly what you would expect of the “an American goes to Paris, falls in love with the city and it changes her in ways she never could have imagined” trope. This book also throws in a dash of Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris with a magical dress plot line. Reichl is known as a food author and her vivid descriptions of meals were luscious. The protagonist becomes a “tumbleweed” at Shakespeare & Co., one of the writers who spends the night in the bookstore (this has been a personal goal of mine since I was 13) and also searches for the missing paintings of the woman who modeled for Manet’s Olympia. Between Paris, literary characters (some of my favorite writers like John Ashbery and James Baldwin make appearances), and an art mystery, this book checked a lot of boxes for me. But I found the pacing uneven and the plot a little too neat. (The protagonist is offered multiple free Paris apartments. I mean, that’s a dream, but really?!)
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This week I am…headed to LA to see some dear friends. And finally try that Erewhon smoothie!
Catch up on recent issues:
Love the bookstore reviews! I hope you also got to check out Logo bookstore, another one with cats (and it’s where they’ve been filming You)
Fun post! So curious about the economics of the cat bookstore. And I’m for sure going to check out that Churchill-themed shop.