Customer Reviews

Art of the Bookstore, The: The Bookstore Paintings of Gibbs M Smith

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I bought this book for a gift for a friend who loves bookstores and travels a great deal. Now she can copy down the names of bookstores to visit when she's in a particular city. It looks very nice on her coffee table as well. Guests to her home often pick it up to look at and comment on how interesting it looks. It's too bulky to pack on a trip but I think it makes a perfect gift for the person who has "everything."

This is a beautiful book that profiles many of the well-known independent bookstores in the United States. Sadly, some of the stores have closed. I have been in many of the stores and it was lovely to relive the experience through this book. The paintings of the bookstores are wonderful. The commentary about each store is quite interesting. The book itself is presented in a slipcase. This book will remain in my library for a very long time!

There have always only been less than fifty really good independent bookstores in the U.S. Those of us lucky enough to be sales reps for publishers in the 1970s got to visit most, if not all, of them and luxuriate in the stacks of fine titles, meet the incredible people who managed them, and savor their existence. It was a golden age. Who knew which author would walk in or what unknown masterpiece would seize your attention? I usually bought more than I sold. Alas, they waned in the age of B. Daltons and Waldenbooks and have been replaced by the Borders and Barnes & Nobles of today. But, once upon a time, in a land not far away, there were literary treasure troves on the streets of New York and Chicago and San Francisco and they have all been captured here. That this book is now available in a Kindle® edition says it all.