(fleeting)


#

Another bookmark has turned up. Curiously, this bookstore has the same address as Blue Whale. Now, I’ve only been to Charlottesville once. Google Maps says Blue Whale is there now, so I must have visited when it was still Seanchai and the Blue Whale came to me later, tucked inside a used book.

A bookmark from Seanchai Books in Charlottesville VA. The text reads, Selling new, used, and rare books of and about Ireland. We Buy Books.
#

Last week, I finally made it to Subtext Books in downtown St Paul for the first time. Absolutely one of the best bookstores I’ve ever been to.

Two bookmarks from Subtext Books, one side showing a splattering of black ink, the other side largely blank but labelled Notes; in the center of both, a faint round stamp that reads: Subtext Books Downtown St Paul MN Established 2012

(Original series here, with subsequent discoveries here.)

#

Another bookmark for the series.

I just found this in a book I bought during my only visit to Elliott Bay Books (and to Seattle), in 2014.

A bookmark with a drawing of an old three-mast schooner at the top. Below, a quote from Andre Maurois: In literature, as in love, we are astonished at what is chosen by others.

(Original series here, with subsequent discoveries here.)

#

Another bookmark just resurfaced, this time from Blue Whale in Charlottesville, where I spent some time in the summer of 2000.

bookmark for Blue Whale Book in Charlottesville VA

(Original series here, with subsequent discoveries here.)

#

I found this in a used book I bought recently. The bookstore is still around.

Bookmark for Lake Country Booksellers in White Bear Lake Minnesota

(Original series here, with subsequent discoveries here.)

#

This just turned up in an old book.

Bookmark for Odegard Books in Minneapolis showing an O atop an open book and the phrase A Real Bookstore at the bottom

Later replaced by Borders, which also closed (sometime in the aughts?) and Kitchen Window expanded into the space. Kitchen Window, in turn, didn’t survive the pandemic

(Original series here, with subsequent discoveries here.)

#

This just turned up in an old book. Long gone. The Aster Café is there now.

bookmark with a cartoon of a man reading by candles that are on the top of his bald head, wax slowly melting down his forehead

(Original series here, with subsequent discoveries here.)

#

I found this in a book I just pulled off the shelf. The website is still live, mostly, but it doesn’t seem to be a brick & mortar shop anymore.

bookmark for a travel store in San Francisco

(Original series here, with subsequent discoveries here.)

#

I found this yesterday in, I’m guessing, the book that I bought there in the spring of 2001.

A little research shows it closed some time after it moved from Montague St in Brooklyn Heights to Smith St in Brooklyn.

bookmark with a line drawing of the building with the Brooklyn Bridge in the background and another drawing of a stack of books

(Original series here, with subsequent discoveries here.)

#

This morning, I went inside a bookstore for the first time since January 2020. I picked up part of an online order, I browsed, and I bought a few more books. It was almost normal.

Bookmark with a drawing of a stack of books whose titles spell the word tsundoku the flipside of the bookmark showing the definition of the word tsundoku: acquiring reading materials and letting them pile up in one's home. See also smartpiling

And, of course, I grabbed a pinch of bookmarks.

a pile of bookmarks

(Original series here, with subsequent discoveries here.)

#

Another just surfaced.

bookmark with an image of F. Scott Fitzgerald, commemorating his 100th birthday in September 1996

(Original series here, with subsequent discoveries here.)

#

The last time I was in a bookstore was 55 weeks ago. Since then, I’ve bought every book online, most from independent bookstores or, when I could, directly from the publisher. Only one bookstore has thought to include some bookmarks.

two bookmarks from Brookline Booksmith

(Original series here, with subsequent discoveries here.)

#

Here’s another straggler that just surfaced.

small bookmark from Hungry Mind showing a small señora lifting her long frilled skirt and holding a fan which is an opened book

(Original series here, with subsequent discoveries here.)

#

Here’s another bookmark that just turned up. I remember it being cluttered and tousled, the sort of place where accident was the only real form of discovery.

Bookdales

(Original series here, with subsequent discoveries here.)

#

Another entry in the intermittently active Bookmarks series. This is actually a receipt not a bookmark, but I’ll allow it.

receipt as bookmark

(Original series here, with subsequent discoveries here.)

#

A late entry to the Bookmark project. I pulled a book off the shelf just now and stumbled on this:

Central Park Bookstore Espresso in San Mateo CA

(Original series here, with subsequent discoveries here.)

#

So sorry that Sixth Chamber closed for good today.

Here are two bookmarks. One is from the mid 90s, the other from the late 90s. These two are from my envelope of on-deck bookmarks. Many more are scattered throughout my library, tucked in books, waiting to be rediscovered.

two bookmarks from Sixth Chamber Used Books in St Paul MN