There's a Road to Everywhere, Except Where You Came From

I must have been feeling a little self-indulgent tonight, because I visited what has to be one of the world's greatest bookstores and walked out with a memoir about moving from the Rust Belt to New York City. I'm maybe 65 pages in and already the author has twice referenced going to the store where I bought the book.

The store in question is St. Mark's Bookshop. I gather it is something of a famous landmark, but I had never heard of it or been to it before today. While my beloved Greenlight specializes in what I would call mainstream literary fiction, St. Mark's devotes a lot more shelf space to academic disciplines, art, architecture, and design. They also have a lot of cool magazines. Like Greenlight, it's a great place to walk in not looking for anything in particular and walk out with a book by an author you had never heard of. After my visit, I walked to Tompkins Square Park and called my uncle, who is a librarian and former bookseller. "There's an art criticism SECTION!" I said.