Buzbee started off his talk by commenting on the fact that he had actually worked as an employee of the University of Washington Bookstore some 22 years prior, an interesting little piece of Northwest trivia to file away into the old memory banks. Of course, he joked, nobody working at the shop today would remember that. He recalled that time of his life as fairly turbulent, despite the fact he appreciated the job and the fact that it was his entry into the book business, where he has continued to work the greater part of his life. Most of Buzbee’s actual reading was fairly standard.
The pieces of his writing that he read were the same pieces alluded to on the jacket flap of the book – which was a bit of a let-down – but they comprised a variety of different styles and modes that kept things interesting. There were brief histories of the book trade at salient points in the past; touching on Alexandria, Shakespeare & Co., and some odd combinations of bookstores such as the tattoo parlor / bookshop in Guberville, CA. There were also discussions of the bookstores he’s found in his travels and the “bookstores that don’t exist yet but should,” a fun piece imagining all the geeky bookshops we’d like to frequent. I have some ideas in that department I may delve into in a future post as well. The book is sort of a strange amalgamation of memoir (or “meme-oir” as the author stated), history, and a little speculation to round things out.
Much of what I heard was the sound of a bibliophile in search of dialogue with his bookshop friends. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. While it’s not a book for everyone, it is indeed for those people that feel the anticipation when cracking open a new book, kill time by wandering the aisles in bookshops and libraries, or who make plans to meet friends for coffee at the local literary establishment.
