Bookmill!

Today Al and I decided to finally check out the Montague Bookmill in Montague, MA. It's about a half an hour drive from our place and we'd both heard pretty good things about it from people that have lived in Massachusetts for a little long than we have. I generally enjoy used book stores as long as their filing system makes sense and i can easily walk around/find everything i want and the bookmill succeeded in this area. It's located in a building built in 1842 to be a gristmill giving it an interesting aesthetic quality including several different sized rooms, steep stairs and creaky wooden floors. The majority of books they carried were very well kept, many hardly looked like they'd been open. Probably 90 percent of their books were non fiction, mostly academic in nature topics ranging from gay and lesbian lit to graphic design. My main critique of the bookmill was the lack of books published after around 1992. This is probably something one could say about any used book store, but it seemed more prevalent than another bookstore i regularly visit.

What the bookmill reminded me of most is The Book Loft (warning: this is a poorly laid out website that includes a backing musical track that i think might be by enya that you cannot opt to turn off. actually, don't even go here, it's not worth it.) located in German Village, a subsection of Columbus, OH. This was always one of my favorite places to visit when i actually went into downtown Columbus while i was still living around there. I could literally get lost looking at all their book offerings within their maniacally laid out 32 room store. They were superior to the bookmill in many ways, but their best feature was being open until 11pm or midnight each night (as are many other things located in Columbus). Conversely, nothing in the pioneer valley is open past 9.

I don't want to dis the bookmill too much though, we didn't try out the cafe located next door that has a pretty sweet menu (yum, brie, apricot jam and marinated apple grilled sandwich!). Additionally, i did pick up two Margaret Atwood books for 3 dollars and some change. They are her first and second published works, The Edible Woman (published in 1969) and Surfacing (published in 1972). I've never actually heard anyone talk about these two books when they talk about Atwood which i guess either means they're really bad or really crazy. I have to admit though, the real reason i bought them (although at some point i will read them) was the hilarious quotes on the front cover of each.





It's kind of crazy that that kind of thing would ever make anyone want to buy a book. I really like how Surfacing is considered the most shattering novel a woman ever wrote and then touted as even better than The Bell Jar like Sylvia Plath is the only other woman author out there (maybe in the New York Times eyes she is-- all they probably recognize as literature are the Great Books anyway *puke*). Also-- was everyone afraid of flying back in the late 60s early 70s? Didn't they use to smoke on flights back then? I can only assume that flying fear had something to do with the stale, overused cigarette smoke recirculating through the air ducts on a long flight. I'm really excited to read these books to see if their cover hype lives up to whats inside. When i finish these maybe i'll have to go back to the bookmill to get some more reading...and a grilled sandwich.