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Curbside only.
If you know what you're looking for, we can provide.
It's just the way it works for me.
- But you're not open. - Not for browsing, no.
Just for curbside.
You really don't want to do that, huh?
I don't want people in here.
- Okay. - It's a place
where the virus can catch.
Not for coming in. Just for curbside.
If you know what you're looking for, we might have it.
If you wanna look on the website,
we have lots of pictures of the books.
But we're not letting anyone in.
Even you. Man is not alone.
I thought you said "Nan."
I thought it was like... a teenager book.
It's called, "The Pull of the Stars."
- All right. - And then some other stuff.
Uh, Judaica?
Can I recommend something there?
- All right. - Okay, hold on.
'Cause I got somebody at the door.
Let me ask him what he wants, and I'll be right back.
- Hi. - Hi.
So you're not letting folks in...
- No, no browsing inside. - Oh, that's a shame.
I know. I know. I apologize.
No, that's all right. Are you Matt?
- Yeah. - Well I'm glad
- The Bookstore's healthy. - Thank you. Thank you.
I... yeah, so, is there a place online...
The Bookstore... The Bookstore website,
you can browse. And we have pictures
of a lot of the books on the website.
So you can't order on the website,
but you can call me or email me.
Okay, perfect, thank you very much.
- What's your name? - I'm Alex.
I'm a TV writer from LA.
And a couple of my friends are like,
if you go out there you have to go this bookstore.
Right. Yeah, yeah.
Glad to see you're open a little bit.
- Right. - But thank you...
How long are you here for?
About another week and a half.
- Okay, so we'll see you again. - A hundred percent.
Good, thanks, man.
Okay, so... um...
[distant voice on phone]
New nonfiction?
Okay...
Right.
Okay, hold on one second, 'cause I'm... getting
a delivery, and I've got to get him in and out.
I've got one more for you, sir.
Thank you, man.
It's just really hard.
People go through hard times.
It's just, it's like... it's so boring.
It's so different.
From everything.
[phone ringing]
[laughing]
[phone ringing]
Hello, Bookstore.
[soft guitar]
[chuckling] Okay, whatcha lookin' for?
The first line is, "I love autumn.
That time of year agrees well with memories."
Somebody's gotta put them away.
And when... you do this,
When you're the one whose putting the books away,
you see... everything.
You see... what you have room for.
Then...
sometimes, then somebody comes in
later that day, and you have something
very, you know...
recent in your memory of a book.
"Oh, I have just the one for you."
It's so much fun to do that.
[chuckling]
The whole thing is, it's so much fun.
Hello. Help with anything?
[woman] Just looking. It's-- you know,
- it's like a candy store. - It is a candy store.
Just, you know... are your hands clean?
[chuckling]
The wine bar is open.
And our motto is, you can't drink all day
unless you start in the morning.
- So... - I'm too old for that.
- [chuckling] Oh. - I remember doing that.
- All right then. - A long time ago.
- I-- now I remember you. - It's always like,
if you start, you gotta keep going.
Otherwise you'll fall asleep.
Died in 1988.
I remember her stuff though.
A biography of Mary Cassatt, right.
And a diary. She did a diary.
Two memoirs.
People walk in, and they have, you know...
all the various aspects of their lives.
And... And there's a book for everyone.
- [laughing] - True.
I got a book for you.
[woman] How about this one? This one was really good.
- You loved this one. - Yeah, I did love
- that one. - This is great.
A woman came in the store, and she said,
"Do you have 'The Secret Life of Trees'?"
And I do, it's down here
in the nature section, so I said,
did you read "The Overstory"?
And she said, "Oh, I thought it was contrived."
Fine, you know, that's, everybody, you can...
- Right. - ...have your own opinion.
- Right. Right. - So... I get down here,
and I get her book. And I have to get down
on my knee to get the book.
And I get it, and I hand it to her,
and she says, "Thank you."
And then I held out my hand like this,
- and I said... - Help me up.
- Are you gonna help me up? - Oh, I thought you were
- gonna propose. - Just, are you gonna
help me up? And she says, "That's your problem."
Oh! She... Okay!
And it started to rain.
And she knew that she probably should seek shelter.
- Yeah. - But she didn't wanna leave.
The forest was just so beautiful in the rain.
- Yeah. - And then she...
hunkered down under a...
the trunk of a tree that had fallen.
And underneath the tree...
underneath, in that little hollow,
I saw the moss growing.
[woman] Wow...
[man] Okay, thank you, okay.
- Hello there, Matthew. - No, no, no...
Sneaking behind the desk where I'm never ever supposed to go.
Oh, my goodness-- oh.
"Why do I remember you as a singing bird?
[laughter]
"My heart is warm with the friends I make.
And better friends I'll not be knowing.
But there isn't a train I wouldn't take.
No matter where it's going."
"Travel," by Edna St. Vincent Millay.
I should be able to do better than this.
I should be able to... let's say switch,
um, the Coates and the Zadie Smith.
Although, I don't want that green one over here
because there's a green one over here.
So I'll move this green one over here a little bit,
just like so.
And everything is better.
"Topeka School" is larger, and I don't-- I want
only small books in the front here.
So, like the Edna O'Brien maybe.
But what you lose there is that it's not face out
as soon as you walk in. Here's the Crowley.
I'll put the Crowley over here.
Because I can tell people about the Crowley.
Oh, this came in today, oh, good.
And we got the "Charlie the... Tramp."
And "Harvey's Hideout."
So, would you-- will you call her
and tell her we got this one in?
- Yeah, absolutely. - And does she know
that there's a new one coming also?
Yes.
First American publication.
A young woman. A married man.
A searing love story. A masterpiece.
"By Grand Central Station, I sat down and wept."
I found a copy of this book in a secondhand store
in Tangiers.
It looked terrific, but I didn't buy it.
I found another secondhand copy
in... a bookshop in Paris
when I was traveling in Africa and Europe.
And, uh, didn't buy it.
And always regretted not having bought it.
And finally when I bought The Bookstore in 1976,
this edition was available.
It's a used bookstore with new books.
That is, the value of an older book
is... still appreciated.
After college, when I was in the Navy,
is when I met a guy.
And he turned me on to Henry Miller.
Yeah, Miller. Mailer. Kerouac.
Fred Exley.
And I fell in love with writing.
That's what happened. I fell in love with writing.
So I understood somehow
that this world of books
was...
fascinating, it was... just...
it was completely different from my life.
The world of the stories that I found in books
was so far away from mine, it was like,
[whispering] nobody else knew.
I was the only one who knew what these stories were.
Let me know if we can help with anything.
The town has changed.
It is. I mean, it changes all the time.
I think the social aspect of it has... weakened.
I miss a lot of the old people.
Like Tony Bar Tony would have one cast of characters.
You would have your...
- Crowd, yeah. - ...more of the literary type.
There were a lot of characters in our town.
"'Well,' said Grandfather,
'Charlie's getting to be a big boy.'
'Yes.' Grandfather took a quarter out of his pocket.
'What are you gonna be when you grow up?' said Grandfather.
'I'm going to be a tramp.'
Grandfather put the quarter back into his pocket."
[laughing]
- I want to be a tramp. - You would love this book.
- Are you a secret agent? - A what?
A secret agent. No, he is.
- He is. - Okay.
- No comment. - [laughter]
Together, we'll take good pictures,
and we'll get them published.
But we gotta come up with a... pen name.
You know, a new name for the both of our work.
And the name they came up with was Robert Capa.
So Gerda Taro
and André Friedman were Robert Capa.
Huh.
You know Russell Hoban because he wrote
all of the "Bread and Jam for Frances."
Oh yeah, totally.
Hi.
So, you know, this is... a book about sibling rivalry.
Oh, perfect.
She comes to her...
to her memory through literature.
Through the poems.
Through poets.
Through the filter of the life
- that she lives. - Okay, okay.
You wanna know how it ends?
[laughing]
I'll just go with this one, I guess.
- Okay. Great. - Just get that.
[whistling]
- Hello. - Well, good afternoon.
Is it afternoon?
- How are you? - I don't recognize you.
You've got so many mittens and... scarves and...
- [laughter] - It's cold.
You're free to the air. How are you?
[woman] Something that has been weighing
on my moral conscience is the number of books
that I order through Amazon for convenience sake.
And it has occurred to me-- I know, I know.
I said it. I said it out loud.
It has occurred to me that not only is this, like,
an environmental catastrophe,
but that, you know,
I could do better in terms of supporting bookstores.
And I was wondering, I don't want to be
a pain in the neck either, but I was wondering
if I let you know in advance
the books that I need, could I procure them
- from you? - Absolutely.
So you're deep... into "Harry Potter"?
Deep.
I think I... have a gift for you.
We missed the "Harry Potter" Halloween.
Can I... find something for you
- from that event? - [laughing]
- Is it a magic wand? - Uh-huh.
[soft guitar]
I couldn't button my pants today.
[laughing]
So, do you have to go out and buy all these new clothes?
Not yet.
I'm just gonna put tank tops over.
This is...
Speaking of "nourishing the new mother."
Are you-- so you're eating more?
- Yeah. - Wow.
- Is this your fork? - It is.
- I'm sorry it's not washed. - It's fine.
- [laughing] - I was missing it.
- You want a bag? - No.
- Okay. - All right.
- I'll see you tomorrow. - All right, so,
what's happening is, so you'll come in tomorrow
and help me out a little bit-- Sunday,
since I haven't had a day off in a while,
I'm taking the day off.
- Yeah. - Cool, all right.
- You go home. - Okay.
- Say hi to Michael. - I will. Love you.
Love you too.
"At seven, I was a soldier.
At nine, a prince.
But now, I'm mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then, it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my treehouse.
It seems only yesterday,
I used to believe there was nothing
underneath my skin but light.
If you cut me, I could shine."
But it was... after Sheila died that I was...
that whatever it was that happened to me
as the survivor, as the spouse, as the...
whatever guilt you have as a survivor.
You know, whatever things you want to do, raising--
realizing that I'm raising this family,
these children...
just like I was raised by a single parent
after my-- after I was orphaned.
So I understood that my kids were orphaned.
They had me, but they were orphaned.
And... it was just a combination
of that knowledge, and that wisdom, and that...
visceral sense of the...
of our lifespan.
[somber piano]
Actually, can we get a bag?
- Of course. - [chatter]
I'll give you some bookmarks.
Awesome, thank you.
I don't think people should ask you
- if you're gonna have kids. - [laughing]
It's such an intensely personal question and topic.
Yeah.
The doctor was like...
she couldn't find the heartbeat at first.
And then she was like, "Wait-- is it that low?"
She was like, "Oh, my God, you poor thing.
It's still sitting this low?
Are you peeing all the time?"
Whatever.
So, yes, I am.
"A man was cleaning the attic
of an old house in New England,
and he found a box which was full
of tiny pieces of string.
On the lid of the box, there was
an inscription in an old hand:
'string too short to be saved.'"
[soft guitar]
"While the moon smoothly shifted
the shadows from one side of Edgewood to the other,
Daily Alice dreamed that she stood
in a flower starred field,
where on a hill there grew an oak tree
and a thorn in deep embrace,
their branches intertwined like fingers.
Far down the hall, Sophie dreamed there was
a tiny door in her elbow,
open a crack, through which the wind blew,
blowing on her heart."
"Doctor Drinkwater dreamed he sat before his typewriter
and wrote this:
'There is an aged, aged insect
who lives in a hole in the ground.
One June, he puts on his summer straw
and takes his pipe and staff
and his lamp in half his hands,
and follows the worm in the root
to the stair that leads up to the door
into blue summer.'
This seemed immensely significant to him,
but when he awoke, he wouldn't be able
to remember a word of it, try hard as he might.
Mother beside him dreamed her husband wasn't
in his study at all, but with her in the kitchen,
where she drew tin cookie sheets
endlessly out of the oven.
The baked things on them were brown and round,
and when he asked her what they were,
she said, 'Years.'"
[soft guitar]
"King Richard II." "King Richard III."
"Love's Labour's Lost." "Macbeth."
"Anthony and Cleo..." "All's Well that Ends Well."
"Anthony and Cleopatra." "As You Like It."
"Hamlet." "Julius Caesar."
"Timon of Athens." "Titus Andronicus."
"Two Gentlemen in Verona."
"Two Noble Kinsmen." "Winter's Tale."
- Hi. - Hi, "28 Summers."
"28 Summers."
Okay, why don't you back up a little bit,
and I'm going to put it on that stool right there.
- Okay. - That's our protocol.
- Thanks. - Thank you. Okay.
- Enjoy it. - Thank you.
All right.
- Hi. - Hey, how are ya?
Listen, do you have any Elizabeth Taylor in there?
Elizabeth Taylor? Maybe.
Let's see what we have.
Am I on the phone? No...
Nope. No Elizabeth Taylor.
- Hi. - Hi.
No, I don't have anything in stock.
Can I get something for you?
No, I didn't realize we couldn't browse.
- Yeah, sorry. - Judy.
I put aside "Girl, Woman, Other."
- I just called you. - Judy, okay, hold on.
Do you want me to get you a copy of the Jane Austen?
No, because I won't be here.
That would be great.
Monica.
Oh, Monica...
And...
[humming softly]
- [beep] - That's it.
Expiration?
What's the secret number?
Four digits.
And the billing zip code?
The billing zip code.
Okay, Judy, I'm gonna ask you
to step on the sidewalk while I put it on the stool.
That way we don't inadvertently dance with each other.
- Thank you so much. - Okay, thank you.
Would you like a bag for that?
- It's a nice procedure. - Thank you.
- Mike! - Yes.
Hi. [laughing]
I need some... legal pads.
Legal pads. The yellow pad.
Yep, 8 1/2 by 11?
- Yeah. - Or long...
- No, yeah. - Eight and a half by 11.
Like three of them. Thank you.
You know, if I stop to think about...
uh... finances...
or the future, when we're not gonna
want to have the door open, when it's gonna--
when it's gonna be dark at 4:00 in the afternoon,
I... my mind stops.
I can't, um... can't imagine.
[soft guitar]
- Hi. - Hi.
Give me a... mystery,
some light reading for the summer.
Even in a paperback, that's okay with me.
How about you?
Uh, I came up with my books, thank you.
- Oh! - I did.
A lot you care about me.
Actually, I do.
[man] Something, I don't care if it was
on the bestseller list. Something you like.
Let's see.
What can we get this guy?
"The Black-Eyed Blonde."
Oh, I think I used to date her.
Okay, how much?
It's credit card only, I'll tell you in a minute.
- Credit card only. - Credit card only.
No, no, no, no.
I need you to read it to me.
I'm taking my mask off,
but the glass should be good protection.
[reciting digits]
Get outta here. Back up.
[muffled chatter]
Ah... no, no, no.
I'm going to put it on that stool over there.
- And Norman? - Yes.
- I want you to tie your shoe. - Good idea.
Yeah, well, I just stepped on a lace now.
Matt, The Bookloft in Great Barrington closed?
- It closed? - Yeah, oh, you didn't know?
No, no, they moved.
- Oh, where did they move to? - They're on State Road.
I'm on credit hold with Simon & Schuster
because I owe 'em too much money.
I don't have enough money to pay 'em
right now.
Peter, this is Matt. Peter, I just sent an order
into Taylor & Francis yesterday,
but I have an old-- I have four old invoices
that I wanted to pay.
And I wanted to make sure that...
that you would let the order go through.
I'm going to send you a check for...
I have it right here on the other desk.
So, I'm up a tree?
Do I... sacrifice everything
and... pay Simon & Schuster $3600
so I can buy one book for this person?
I'm going to hold off on that.
Just because I need to pay other people too.
"All the Colors."
Two copies. "All the Colors We Are."
How-- whoa!
"Union." Two copies at $28.
What is "Union?" A democrat and republican
search for common ground.
[phone ringing]
Hello, Bookstore. There you are.
It's... this all melds into psychology.
Or does it?
Another one.
"I am discontented.
I want something I do not have.
There must be more to life than having everything.
In the middle of the night, she packed everything
into a black leather bag with gold buckles
and looked out of her favorite window
for the last time. 'You have everything,'
said the potted plant that happened to be
looking out of the same window.
'If you do,' said the small pig,
'don't call us, we'll call you.'
And he vanished so quickly, Jenny just had time
to snatch the last sandwich.
It was salami, her favorite."
[soft guitar]
I hope your day is as awesome as you look.
- Ah... - [laughing]
Then she said, "Wait a minute. I got it."
It's... a cross
between Jimmy Buffett and Willie Nelson.
[laughing]
- And there it is. - There it is.
I don't want to turn your attention,
but there's a beautiful woman standing at the door.
Ah, Tamara.
- Okay, see you later. - Tamara?
I'll see you... Tamara.
[laughing]
One of the pleasures of my life
is to turn around and see a woman
hold something up and have her put
her thumb up and say yes.
- [laughing] - You know,
- if this was my life? - Yeah, simple pleasures.
[laughing]
"My heart being hungry feeds on food,
the fat of... heart despised.
Beauty where beauty never stood.
And sweet where no sweet lies.
- I gather to my..." - [phone ringing]
"...querulous needs, having a growing heart to feed."
[phone ringing]
Hello, Bookstore.
Can't come in. Can't come in.
I'm not-- I'm not letting browsers in.
You can browse through the window
or on... the website and choose a book.
Or, if you know a book...
Okay, Suzanne. I will wrap up the other one
and send it to Cheryl...
- Perfect. - ...tomorrow, it will go out
maybe tomorrow or the next day.
- Okay, that's fine. - Okay?
That's fine, okay.
So you know what I always do?
I go in... because I park
in the Loeb's parking lot...
You feel like you have to go to Loeb's, right?
So I bought coleslaw. Would you like it?
- Oh... - There's a little container
- of coleslaw for you. - Oh... [laughing]
So I go in there first and come out.
- You're sweet. - Okay.
- Thank you. - So...
So, should I take that?
Because don't I already have it?
I'll run it through right now.
Yeah
Suzanne.
Sixteen-ninety-five...
$17, okay.
Oh, God, Matt. If it ain't one thing,
- it's another, huh? - It's-- yeah, yeah.
- Yeah. - So, Saturday.
Saturday, I was here.
Eight customers, you said?
Eight customers. I told you already.
- [laughing] - Yeah.
That's a record, isn't it?
- For July, yeah. - For July.
You know, we had-- the total take of the day
was approximately
what one good customer would have done.
[laughing]
- Ay-yi-yi. - So, I assume
that's for all of the stores around?
Well, I don't know.
- Because I'm not open. - Yeah.
And I'm the only store that's not open.
- Really? - I think everybody else
is open.
"I was entirely happy.
Perhaps we feel like that when we die...
and become a part of something entire.
Whether it is the sun and air,
or goodness and knowledge.
At any rate, that is happiness.
That is happiness. To be dissolved
into something complete and great."
Carol's idea was-- is that-- is that
you would be doing the introductions,
but I would introduce the program.
I mean, I would introduce:
"Here's what we have, and now here's Colin,
who's gonna introduce Sarah Chase."
- Yes. - Something like that.
Does Carol know how to do this?
- Carol knows how to do this. - Well, then,
she can show me how to do it, right?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah... - Okay, if somebody shows me,
it's probably quite simple, right?
So, um... so... then what you can do.
One of the first steps for you to do,
is to get back in touch with all of our authors
that we... postponed all this... past year,
and say, "Would you be interested
in-- in doing a Zoom talk?"
There's a thing in the light of this.
Yeah.
All right, I got it now, yeah.
So put that in.
So, where is this? Where am I right now?
What is that thing that you just put a name in?
This is... the Bookshop...
- Zoom? - No, this is Bookshop.org.
- All right. - So this is Bookshop.org.
I just need to have somebody...
I don't know anything about the technology.
- Right, right. - I absolutely need somebody
who's, like, done it before
and at least knows everything about how to do it.
And as long as I'm instructed on it...
- Right, yeah. - ...I'll do it.
- Thank you, man. - Okay, see you later.
Hello, Bookstore.
On a blind date, I was driving to her house.
And I was reading...
I was listening to Siobhán McKenna
recite Molly's... Molly Bloom's soliloquy
from James Joyce's "Ulysses."
And I got almost to the woman's house,
and I wasn't quite finished with Molly Bloom.
And I thought, Molly Bloom is
much better than this date is going to be.
[laughing]
"Brown Girl Dreaming," we should always have.
"The Underground Railroad," we have.
"The Rules of Civility," we have one,
we should get another one of that.
And it says the came in?
Do you have... the invoice information?
Isn't there some way to just download all of your invoices?
There is conceivably a much better way
to run a business
than the way I do. [laughing]
That's not necessarily what I was suggesting.
No, I understand.
Isn't there a better way to...
[laughing] ...to do what you're doing?
You know, who is a bookseller?
I'm not an antiquarian bookseller.
I am not... an independent bookseller.
I'm not, like, an independent--
like-- like the independent bookstores that you see.
And this independent bookstore is doing well,
and they have...
watered-down inventory.
And it's... a community...
thank you...
notecards and-- and coffee...
or you know... and I...
I'm just some sort of hybrid
that I don't-- I don't know that
because I am not a businessman.
Because I was...
I've always been doing it by-- by the seat of my pants,
that, um...
so I'm-- I'm like the old guy...
the old guy shuffling along.
"Oh, I have this Schopenhauer for you.
I've been waiting 12 years for you to walk in."
Uh, I'm... half that guy
and, um...
um...
and half a contemporary bookseller.
- People might like that. - All right.
Oh, whoops. Not anymore.
William Shirer's... "Berlin Diaries."
Oh, wow.
Inscribed to his wife.
"To Tess. Endlich.
off..." something-- I can't read the German.
"It brings back our golden days.
Love, Bill. December, 1951."
Wow, you have a bunch of...
of German books by...
Anais Nin.
- Anais Nin, yeah. - Anais Nin.
Yeah, I got those from her agent.
Oh, yeah?
- Yeah. - Whoops.
Um, sorry about all that.
So-- So here are a lot of the... psychology.
- Yeah. - Yeah, and these I got,
"The Psychoanalytical Studies of a Child."
I got these from somebody who must have been so...
cackling to himself.
Why would I want to buy these shit--
And I thought they were cool.
And I've never even put them out for sale.
I just-- I just was buying, buying, buying.
Here's "The Summer Game" by Roger Angell.
A guy named Charles McCarry.
- Espionage. - Oh, okay.
He wrote these espionage novels.
Just terrific. They're just terrific.
I have a dream.
That I'm reading a review
of McCarry's new book.
So I wake up in the morning, and I write him a letter.
I don't hear anything.
Six months later, I get a postcard.
Typed.
"Dear Mr. Tannenbaum, I never complain
when a bookseller dreams of my work."
These are some of my favorite books.
- "Lucky Bastard." - And page 71.
- Got it, page 71. - Good.
- Have you read John Fowles? - No.
"The Collector" and, uh, "The Magus."
- Oh, really? - Yeah.
"The Magus," especially.
All right, want a bag for that?
Um, no, I think we're good.
You're good. Thank you, okay.
Uh-uh-uh-uh, oh, no-- I blew it. I blew it.
- [woman] I'm sorry, what? - [Matt] Four?
Oh, it's 4179...
Come on, 4179... there we are.
On a good day in the summer, that would be my day.
This is my week.
Are the bookshops open in the city?
- [man] Hello, Bookstore. - [woman] They just reopened,
- I would say... - This is.
...a couple of weeks...
- Uh-huh. - Very recently they opened.
- Are you in Manhattan? - Yeah, Upper West.
Upper West. So, Book Culture...
They closed, they closed...
I-- They're open, right?
No, they shut-- the store shut.
[overlapping chatter]
...there was a dispute... between the two partners.
- It was my favorite bookstore. - No kidding.
Yes, and the Strand just opened
an outpost in that location.
- Oh, boy... - Yeah.
Phew-- you ever go to Three Lives?
- Of course! - Okay.
When I went to law school that's where I would go.
Right, yeah... that's just the best bookstore in the city.
- It is. It absolutely is. - You know...
you didn't know the Gotham Book Mart, did you?
- I didn't. - Okay, I used to work there
back in the '70s.
- Okay. - So that was, you know...
a highlight. That was a great old bookstore.
[soft guitar]
"First light. I was set down
from the carrier's cart at the age of three.
And there, with a sense of bewilderment and terror,
my life in the village began."
You know, the reason I got to the Gotham Book Mart
was because of Anais Nin.
Somebody said, "If you like Henry Miller--"
a friend of mine said,
"If you like Henry Miller, you should read
his friend, Lawrence Durell.
And their friend, Anais Nin.
And the only place that has them
in the country is the Gotham Book Mart."
So I walked into the Gotham Book Mart.
I was not a bookseller. I was just fresh
out of the United States Navy,
um, and looking for direction in my life.
And so I walked into the Gotham Book Mart.
And I think it was the smell of the wooden floor.
And the smell of the books...
um, that just-- that just-- hi.
That just did me in. Welcome.
When I think of the Gotham...
I think that's how it was a...
among all the other things that it is and was,
it was a, um...
the last of... the old-time bookstores.
The Gotham Book Mart was started by Frances Steloff.
A woman in...
she opened it on January 1st, 1920.
And she... had been working in books
and department stores before that.
She was an orphan girl from Saratoga
and had made her way to New York.
And now in the late '60s,
early '70s, by the time I got there,
she was the most famous bookseller in America.
And she had sold her shop,
but she-- but she still owned the building.
And she lived upstairs.
And she still came into work every day.
And I would sit literally at her knee.
She had a little alcove.
And... so outside was all of this literature.
Fiction. All this poetry.
Great poetry. Film. Theater.
Great stuff, 'cause, the reason she started
on 52nd Street was... it was the theater district.
Martha Graham used to come in and hold her finger,
so Frances could tie the bow on a gift,
on, you know, a book that they were gift-wrapping
like... the early, you know, Christmas days.
Anyway, Frances is, like, this famous person.
And-- but she didn't read books.
She had her finger on the pulse,
but she didn't read books, and her alcove,
which was probably about the size of this area here,
where it was just all the...
um, philosophy and religion books.
And she was greatly interested in Eastern religion.
So this was the '60s, this was the early '70s.
And I'm, like, the hippie on the staff.
Right? I got... glazy eyes and, um...
I handled the stock. So I really learned,
like a young child...
learns through his or her limbs,
I learned my trade viscerally.
And the shelves in the back
were so deep that books were double-shelved.
I had to really get the alphabet down.
You know, somewhere between,
after G-H-I-J-K-M-Mc-Mac...
um, it got confusing to a-- to a young stoner.
I had to deliver a manuscript
to the people at Scribner's.
And I walked up those stairs to the Scribner's publishers,
thinking, you know, Fitzgerald walked up these stairs.
Hemingway walked up these stairs.
One of my later favorite writers,
Marjorie Rawlings, walked up these stairs.
Thomas Wolfe walked up these stairs.
Edith Wharton, eh...
she probably sat outside in the car,
and her chauffeur walked up the stairs.
I don't know... that's what I want to think.
[soft guitar]
Look at the smile on that guy's face, he found a book.
First page.
It's as if someone had discovered a new manuscript
- by the fourth Bronte. - Mmm.
- Sophie got mad at me. - Sophie got mad at you?
She was like, "Stop telling people you're grumpy."
- I'm like, "Well, I am!" - [laughing]
They keep asking how I am, I'm grumpy or cranky.
- Cranky. - Yeah, grumpy,
cranky, this is-- this is, like,
uh, standard operating procedure.
- I know. - I'm thinking,
we should get some of Alice's stuff up.
That we still have.
Um, Alice Brock. From "Alice's Restaurant."
Alice had-- had this small, little café.
Like three tables and a counter.
This guy, David, David Silverstein,
was a guy from the Bronx who had friends
who... he had friends who invited him up.
They ran a café at the Berkshire Theatre Festival.
And Alice was hiring.
And they became friends.
He started The Bookstore.
He, like Alice... were not appreciated
by the town fathers of Stockbridge.
Right? So Alice moved up to Housatonic.
And David moved to Lenox.
And first he went to a place on Franklin Street.
And then he went to the corner where Shots Café is now.
- Okay. - And then he came here.
Around early '70s.
'73, '74 or so.
And then, in '76, he sold it to me.
I bought The Bookstore ten days before I turned 30.
And then-- and I've had it ever since.
And-- but it started with Alice.
And Arlo. We never see Arlo.
So Arlo and Alice got together
for the first time ever since those days,
since... the days of the record.
When Alice had a book called, "How to Massage Your Cat."
- Do you have cats? - No.
Do you hate cats?
Alice wrote a book called "How to Massage Your Cat."
And here's a poster
that her dad made from her illustrations.
How did you just happen to have that right there?
[laughing] This is so strange.
Why did you just...
what, did you know I was going to come in,
and you were gonna be telling me this story today?
This is...
this is my little play area right here.
And these are my props.
Walking in the door, you automatically...
Yes, yeah... okay, so you got some
little, you know,
- holiday stories. - Exactly.
- Local lore.
You better take your vitamins.
[laughing] Thank you.
Do you want anything gift-wrapped?
No, thank you. I don't need a receipt.
- Thank you very much. - Yeah, yeah.
- Happy New Year. - There will be a new baby
- in The Bookstore. - That'll be fabulous.
- Fab-u-lous. - All right, tell Charlie.
- Yup. - Okay, thanks, Barbara.
Root for the good guys.
I said they're... you know...
they're doing a children's book.
She said, "Oh, I just wrote a children's book."
So I thought to myself, oh, that's how I know her.
I must have just met her at that book fair
last week in Providence.
So I leaned over and I said, "What's your name?"
And she said, "Carly Simon."
[laughter]
I think there's a special visitor coming.
And it's you.
- I brought you a salad. - Oh, sweet.
It's not Italian dressing. I'm so sorry.
I didn't have time to make it.
Go, go, go. Go, go, go.
- All right, take that. - Okay, let's go
heat up some... some brisket.
Oh, Paddington has to eat
- all by himself. - [laughing]
That is...
just the sweetest thing.
And you can get it?
I'll try.
All right. And the other one?
- Is that-- - I'll try.
Okay, great.
[laughing]
- All right. - Okay.
You've made my day by buying this book.
Oh, I'm so excited.
I'm going to read it to my daughter.
- You read it to her. - And we'll come in
- and tell you. - Okay, okay.
[whistle blowing]
RX, $29.75.
And wrap it?
Lewis. Lewis, who?
- We come up every year. - Yeah, yeah.
You're a rare breed.
You ought to be stuffed and mounted.
- I think it's wonderful. - And--
I love this kind of shop.
And I thought to myself...
suddenly, I had this image
of Len Riggio,
who owned Barnes & Noble at the time,
and his study, where he has the heads
of all the independent booksellers,
stuffed and mounted on his trophy wall.
[laughing]
And what are you reading now?
Uh, the one I'm reading now is...
let's see if I have another copy somewhere.
It's called "The Girl with a Leica."
- "The Girl with a Leica." - "Girl with a Leica."
And it's a great story.
Let's go down here
- to the fiction section. - Okay.
- How have you been? - I'm good, thank you.
I'm very good, thank you.
I... I'm going to be a grandpa.
- You're gonna be a grandpa! - I'm gonna be a grandpa.
Oh, that's the best. That's the best.
My kids are coming today,
- and I'm so excited. - For a young person...
for a young person like us...
Like us, it's hard to believe.
So, so... this is one of the best-written books
- I've ever read. - All right, so maybe
- I'd better buy this one. - You should buy it.
It took me three days
- to read this book. - Oh, my God.
My bookmark never had a chance.
- [laughing] - I would close it,
and I would open it right back up.
You could sell me on anything.
These are-- These are...
so well-drawn...
portraits of a Midwestern family.
He's a great Midwestern writer.
I have to find-- all right, I'm going to read these.
- No-no-no, you don't-- - No, I need to.
- It sounds delightful. - They're so... delicious.
That sounds fabulous. Okay, this.
And I have to read this. Thank you so much.
Happy, healthy. Great to see you.
- Mmm. - Take care.
- See you again. - I'll be back
- to discuss these. - And send me emails also.
My email address is
- on the bookmark. - Okay.
"And I'd grown from solitude, blushed when I stumbled,
loved strangers and bread and butter,
and made long trips through the rain on my bicycle,
stared wretchedly through lighted windows,
grinned wryly to think how little I was understood,
and lived in a state of raging excitement."
She was 21 years old.
- He was 31. - Ooh.
He came to this country illegally,
because by the time the rest of his family
had emigrated from Poland and...
What are we looking for?
It's okay.
- Oh, uh... - I'll take this.
And by the time he tried to get here,
because he was out wandering with the Socialists,
and he came back to the house, and there was a note
on the door that said, "Gone to America."
So he tried to come to America,
and-- but the quota was in effect,
and so he signed on with the Canadians.
- Oh. - And-- for free passage
from Hamburg to Montreal.
Oh, wow. Oh, my God.
So he gets to Montreal,
and he jumps off the ship.
He's not going to Saskatchewan.
Oh, he does? He swims to shore?
Yeah, and he-- and he finds his cousin,
who lives in Montreal.
And they-- they stole a rowboat or something.
And they rode across the St. Lawrence,
and he came down to New York, and he moved in
with his parents, who were already in Brooklyn.
- Wow, great. - He met my mother
at a high school dance.
He went there, and she had a date.
And he said, "I'll take you home."
- He swept her... - He swept her off her feet.
There are two types of... of novels.
One that you sit at home and write.
And one that you tell other people about
- sitting at a bar. - Just-- right.
And this is... I'm just sitting at a bar.
I've been sitting at a bar for 43 years.
[soft piano]
So, so the other thing he said was,
if you have two different editions
of a book...
Like "Joy of Cooking" was out in a little
mass market paperback, and then it was out
- in a larger spiral bound. - That's the one I have.
They had an edition with spiral bound for a while.
So he said, you know, "Always get the more expensive one.
You make more money off that."
- Mm-hmm. - And Rita,
who worked here. Remember Rita?
- No, I don't remember Rita. - No, she was
one of my first employees.
She stood up,
stamped her feet, and she said,
"If Francine Derry comes in here
looking for 'The Joy of Cooking,'
I don't want to have to sell her
- a more expensive one." - A more expensive one.
"She's the one I buy my underwear from,
and I'm not gonna try
to make any extra money off her."
And I'll always remember that that's--
that you don't just try to make money.
- Yes, yeah. - And-- And look at me.
I've been a poor bookseller
all my life. [laughing]
I tried not to make any money.
[laughing]
But you'll make some right now because...
- Oh, yeah? - ...you've got a customer.
Oh, somebody's right there.
- To give you money. - Okay.
So were the kids all here this Christmas?
- My kids? - Yeah.
Yeah, but I'm furious at my daughter.
- You're furious? - Yeah.
Don't forget your bag this time.
- Okay, I won't. - Okay.
But if I make something nice,
'cause Sam's gonna come tomorrow,
do you like scallops?
Uh, I do.
- Okay. - All right.
We'll make some for you too.
All right.
Jim!
I have books here.
- Oh! - That I...
- [dinging bell] - ...got a call for
about two months ago.
Maybe I don't.
I remember you ordering a couple of books.
[man] Do you want me to pick you up three?
It was a Steve Hamilton book.
And a...
Yes, it was Steve Hamilton.
And Eisler.
- Barry Eisler. - Barry Eisler?
Maybe like the pharmaceuticals,
you know, CVS.
You don't pick it up in two weeks,
they put it back on the shelf.
I'm gonna look on my shelf at home.
And see if-- maybe I picked it up.
- I think you might have. - Bye, Jim.
- I think you might have. - You think so?
I don't know. It's all a blur.
Another successful transaction.
[laughing]
He came in, and he bought it on the 10th.
He must have really enjoyed the books.
[soft guitar]
"Over the snow, my creaking feet,
"disturbed the slumbering village street.
"By profanation by your leave,
at 10 o'clock of a winter eve."
I mean, it's fine, just like...
- Yeah, right. - But now she has to...
Both places, right.
Pretty-- Pretty cool.
All over-- All over town.
The word is-- the word's getting out.
So-- So, Tom Stoppard comes in,
and... and he--
he compliments me on the shop because--
because he found a book that he didn't think he'd find.
He said, "I like the fact that you have your...
your biographies next to your authors."
So there's a biography of Hemingway
- next to Hemingway's work. - Oh, really?
So, I said-- I said, well, I learned...
I learned my trade at the Gotham Book Mart.
And he said, "Oh...
we shall never see the likes of that again."
In his deep, sonorous voice.
Which was my cue to give him
my copy... a copy of my book,
"My Life at the Gotham Book Mart."
- Yes, yeah. - And he looked at it,
and he said, "May I purchase this?"
I said, certainly. But you know what,
last night I found a book for you.
- Yeah? - On my shelf
that I'm gonna give to you for your birthday.
- Okay. - The truth is,
whatever I've learned in my life...
comes mostly from...
the characters who I've read,
who I've absorbed, who I relate to,
are the fictional characters.
Fiction is the filter through which
I see the world.
So, um...
So, I don't... run away from the world...
Um...
How do you get outta here?
[laughing]
Don't drink that.
Here, let me have some of that.
It's very... jelly.
Really?
I think you're gonna like what I have better.
- [phone ringing] - Hello, Bookstore.
Hi, this is the Carol Robbins auxiliary department.
How can we... help you, sir? Ma'am?
Hello. Hello?
Is there anyone there? Is there anyone there?
Carol, are you there?
[laughing]
Carol?
Mrs. Antrobus.
Becky Thatcher.
[woman] Matt, can we add two things?
- Sure. - Okay.
Can we add a manly bread book?
- The-- which one? - A breadmaking book
that a guy who's just getting into making bread
- is gonna like. - Huh. Okay.
"In main lesson today, we learned
of the mighty conquest of the great greenness,
lord of all living things.
How all things come and go.
How love shines from our brow
if we have died at least once.
And are courageous as dragonflies.
And that is the only solution to a world gone mad."
[whispering] One-three-nine-two...
six-four-three-two... seven-six-nine-one.
Um... I want the Mary Trump book.
- Uh-huh. - But I wanted to look
and see what else you had, so...
I should have brought the paper with me.
- What? - The Times.
- The bestsellers. - Oh.
Let me go get you a Times from last week.
Okay, okay.
[sighing]
"In science, extra main lesson today,
we learned how vivid, abundant,
and wild blossoming is in the highest places.
How we sit around a pond of knowledge,
how we notice at the edge of that pond,
a shimmering chrysalis.
How slowly, steadily, the chrysalis molts,
unfolds to recognition.
How the young dragonfly emerges,
teeters on a blade of grass testing its wings.
How bravely, clumsily, it tries to lift off.
Often falling back, but finally,
finally, finally into the meadow."
- Hi. - Hi.
The world's oldest and newest bookseller.
Two weeks ago, I looked at my bank statement.
I looked at... what I have, what the registers says
that I have, and what...
bills were coming due at the end of the month.
That was two weeks ago.
I'm aware of... of the...
the place that The Bookstore and I are in.
It's a big love.
Well...
everything is informed by...
kindness, patience, generosity.
I mean, he's got time for it all.
He's got time for everyone.
Like, truly.
That's been my experience.
And it's been-- my favorite thing to do is
to come in here very anonymously
and just walk in the front door
and sit in one of the pink chairs
and watch his interaction with people
here at the front desk.
Because he knows what the right thing to do is
for The Bookstore. It's always... it's in him.
Because I... sort of delude myself,
and I'm like... everything's great.
Um... when I realized that he was serious about this,
I asked him, "Is this... this is it?"
Because I didn't know that-- that it was gonna be,
"Save The Bookstore."
I didn't-- maybe I didn't realize,
maybe I've been so preoccupied with my own stuff,
but, I said, like,
"That's... that's what this is?"
And he was kind of like, "You know, yeah."
"Let him receive the season's increment into his mind.
Let him work it into the soil.
The finest growth that farmland can produce
is a careful farmer.
Make the race a better head.
Make the world a better piece of ground."
- Save The Bookstore. - Save the--
That's what I meant, oldest and newest.
Okay. Save The Bookstore.
Save our ship.
Save our-- save our bookstore.
- S.O.B. - S.O.B.
[Matt laughing]
Let's try this.
"Hello, Bookstore fans and friends.
Hello, Bookstore friends, near and far.
Wondering how things are going
at The Bookstore during the pandemic?
They're not going well, my friends.
Business is down.
Sales each week are what they used to be each day.
The book you may not have known but fell in love with.
The glass of wine at Get Lit.
The poetry reading or book signing event
that reminds you of the large presence
in your life that is this small shop
on Housatonic Street.
In the old days, I might have sold books
to your parents or grandparents.
Today, I'm selling them curbside to you,
to your children, and your grandchildren,
until we can safely open our doors again,
and I just don't know when that will be.
I most humbly ask you to help me get through.
It's yours as much as it is mine.
None of us would even want to imagine it
no longer being here.
When I think of the many roads
I took to become your bookseller here in Lenox,
I cannot imagine who or what else
I might have become.
It has always felt to me a perfect fit,
and to judge from the loyalty you have shown
through the years, you think so too.
With that in mind, I am appealing today
for your help.
Thanks for reading.
Be well. Be safe.
Matt Tannenbaum."
[Matt] Did you hear my knock-knock joke?
The guy who invented the knock-knock joke
won the "No-Bell."
[laughter]
All right. Merry Christmas.
Happy New Year. Happy Chanukah.
Happy, whatever, Kwanzaa.
And it really-- it goes down.
You can feel it going...
- duh-duh-duh... - [laughter]
Go down quicker. Go down quicker!
- Oh, is it stuck? - No, it's not stuck,
- it's just... - It's so lovely.
It's warming. I love this stuff.
Yes-- that's what I mean, yeah...
It tastes like...
Why, did you decide not to like it?
- Like mulled cider. - Like mulled cider.
- All right, fine. - Oh, you didn't--
[hiccup]
- [hiccupping] - Charlie wanted some.
[hiccupping] "Charlie the Tramp."
- "Incroyable." - "Incroyable."
- [laughter] - Sophie's--
- Sophie's new favorite word. - Oh, is it?
I've been refusing to say it correctly.
[laughing]
Go ahead, how did you used to say it?
- I'll tell you later. - "Incroyable."
- "Incroyable."
"Incroyable." L'chaim.
- L'chaim. - L'chaim. L'chaim.
[Matt] L'chaim. "Incroyable."
Ah, that goes down really hard.
He said to me, he said, "I want to tell you a story."
He said, "When I was a little boy,
I grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
And my dad, one day, when I was a little kid,
says, 'Otto, there's somebody I'd like you to meet.
It's time you should meet this guy.'
And he took me to the old part of town,
and there's an old, wooden sidewalk,
and there's an old man leaning a chair up
against the... wall.
And-- And my father introduced me.
He said, 'Otto, I want you to meet Sheriff Pat Garrett.'"
And as he said this to me, he held out his hand,
as if to say, "Shake the hand
that shook the hand of the man who shot Billy the Kid."
Pat Garrett died years before Otto was born.
[laughing]
What was-- what was that about?
[soft guitar]
[soft guitar continues]
I wish that I'd grown up in this town.
And then I became the guy that, um,
other people see when they grow up.
[sighing] Hmm.
[soft guitar]
[soft guitar continues]
[reporter] The pandemic is taking a toll on many
local business owners,
and Matt Tannenbaum is no exception.
When I looked at the bank account, I said,
"Oh, oh, we're not gonna make it."
And once I realized we're not gonna make it,
I thought, "Well, that's...
I can't imagine not making it."
[reporter] The owner of The Bookstore in Lenox
started a GoFundMe to save his store earlier this week,
and in just a couple of days,
it's already raised more than $60,000.
I kid around. I always wanted to be a writer.
But I guess thank you notes are what I'm gonna be writing.
August-- well, August 12th,
it says 550 donors have answered the call.
- Is that still true? - Let's look.
You were on a death watch here.
- Weren't you? - Yeah.
Look what they do for me.
They-- immediately.
Within 23 hours, we met that goal.
And then it just kept climbing.
And then when people said, "Well, you know...
raise your goal. Keep going."
You-- as I said in my latest Instagram,
uh, that they helped me produce,
the wolf is... no longer at the door.
- Yeah. - But he's still in the woods.
- Right. - And, you know, this way,
I'm gonna be able to get out of debt.
- Right. - I'm gonna be able
to get out of debt, and I'll be able...
to say to the publisher, I'll say, listen,
I'm sending you that money that I owe you, on time.
Sure, there's this image, and then there's reality.
And I'm wondering how the image and the reality
are the same,
and how they're completely different?
- I think they're the same. - You do?
- I absolutely... - So I have this image
of this guy who's in love with literature
and can talk to customers about Shakespeare
and, you know, William Shirer,
- is that right? - Yeah.
And for me to have the...
the good fortune
to spend my life with these things.
- [camera snap] - You're living the dream.
I'm living the dream. I have a country bookstore.
My-- My wife...
passed away after 11 years.
Uh, and then I had... part of the dream.
- After 11 years of marriage? - After 11 years of marriage.
- So I was-- my-- - Did she enjoy running
- The Bookstore? - Ah, no.
- [laughing] - No... that was not her.
- That was not her - That was your thing.
That was my thing. Absolutely.
But then I was-- I had two little children,
seven and three years old to raise.
And then that's when this woman, Jo Baldwin,
who had worked for me for years before,
was... most important to me.
So I could go home every day at 2:00, 2:30,
to meet the kids after school.
Take the kids home. Bring them to school in the morning.
And became the mom.
And that was... just the most incredible thing.
That was... wild.
But then...
and then they grew up in the store.
And they grew up knowing about books.
And... that's why
Shawnee, you know, wants...
knows how important the store is to me
and wants it to continue.
- Mm-hmm. - So, you know, 'cause,
when you think about it, who do we sell it to?
Do we sell it to anybody? Who would... who...
First of all, off the record now.
- Yeah. - Who--
I'm gonna go over everything with you.
Who would...
spend all of the hours
that I spend
for the little pay that I get?
Why would that be off the record?
Okay, fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- I mean... - Well, because my...
the off the record part would be, when my accountant--
when I said to my accountant, I said,
if I want to sell the store, what's it worth?
He said, nothing. Because-- Because--
Because he was not a reader.
I am going to recite to you the last paragraph
on page 96, which is how I sell this book.
"While the moon smoothly shifted the shadows
from one side of Edgewood to the other,
Daily Alice dreamed she stood in a flower starred field,
where there grew an oak tree and thorn
in deep embrace, their branches intertwined
- like fingers." - Oh, my God.
"Far down the hall, Sophie dreamed"--
And this is how Sophie got named-- my daughter
- Sophie got named. - Really?
"Far down the hall, Sophie dreamed there was
a tiny door in her elbow, open a crack
through which the wind blew,
- blowing on her heart..." - Oh, my God.
- So... - Let me take--
I'm gonna take a picture of that 'cause I wanna
- recite it... - [Matt laughing]
- Patrick Leigh Fermor. - Oh, really?
Travel writer, 18 years old.
Walked between... 18 years old,
December, 1934,
took a ferry from London to Rotterdam
and then walked to Constantinople.
- Is that right? - He didn't quite make it
because, you know, halfway across,
he fell in love, like you would have too,
with a Romanian princess
and lived with her for the next six years.
Books on Buddhism.
On religion in general. Islam.
There's the Classical, Ancient World.
In the days of the Gotham,
there was a young woman who used to come visit me--
not me-- but would come visit the bookstore.
And we would hang out and talk about Arthur Rimbaud.
- Oh. - She loved Arthur Rimbaud.
And one day she gave me three copies
of this broadside that she wrote.
Do you know who wrote-- you know who this is?
- Is it Einstein? - No, this is...
a drawing of the French poet Rimbaud by Patti Smith.
- Oh, really? - This-- Patti Smith
- gave me this. - Holy shit.
See the flying books?
Oh, Jesus. What is that?
A book comes flying out the window.
The second-floor window-- it lands in the street.
I jump in the street like this.
I'm a professional bookman. I'll handle this.
- [laughing] - I kick it over.
And the title is...
as I say to the crowd that assembles,
"Just as I assumed, a self-help book."
[laughing]
Six pairs of pants? No Jew.
One pair of pants.
Six pairs of-- two pairs of boots?
Listen, little Jew. You won't have time
to wear out one.
And Jan Wiener says to himself,
"I'll come back after this is over,
and I'll kill this man." He gets to Yugoslavia.
He and his father apply for... a visa to England.
Nothing happens. The Germans invade Yugoslavia
in April of 1940.
They start going-- running from village to village.
One night, his father says--
They had dinner. He was dressed for dinner.
You would dress for dinner.
But they played chess before dinner.
He sits down with his father, his father takes a pawn
and knocks it over.
And Jan looks at him and says, "What?"
He says, "Tonight, I kill myself
because they come for us soon,
and this is my only freedom."
My-- He was a medical importer.
He had-- "I have poison.
My wife took hers already.
I have mine, I have for you too."
- Oh, my God. - Jan says--
He's 20 years old now, Jan says...
he looks out the window. He tells me this.
He says it was a beautiful spring day.
He says, "Father, I choose to live."
He escaped. He got to Italy.
He got under the belly...
underneath the train to ride from Trieste
to... he was trying to get to France,
and he was captured in Genoa.
Thrown in a prisoner of war camp. Escaped twice.
Eventually the Allies came up the boot, he was freed,
and he joined the British wing of--
the Czech wing of the RAF.
And he ended the war as a bombardier over...
over Hamburg.
- Wow. - [laughter]
He was a rascal, just a great guy.
So now he's in Prague.
It's 2009, and he has a stroke.
And he's 89 years old.
And I know he's not coming home.
So I go to visit him.
And then we'd stop at a café
to have a drink before we'd go home.
And so I came back and I said,
I'm going to make a wine bar for Jan Wiener.
And that's why we're sitting here today.
[laughing]
I feel pressure to do this place justice.
[soft guitar]
[soft chatter]
[sighing]
Did you know everybody loves you?
- Yeah. - That was pretty awesome.
- Very, very. - Not even 24 hours.
No, yeah, yeah, I mean... I mean,
- why wait a whole 24 hours? - Right?
You know, who... has the time to wait 24 hours?
Do you want me to pay for my books?
Yeah, you want... your books?
Okay.
I want to dance.
There's an envelope on the register there
for Bob Romeo, for the... rent.
- Oh, I saw his email. - Yeah, okay, right.
So I wrote him back, I said, "It's right there.
Waiting for you.
And I'll have more for you soon.
- Because of GoFundMe." - Yeah.
And, um, so finally about a week ago,
he knocked on the door and says,
"What's a fellow got to do to get a check around here?"
[laughter]
My name is George Bailey.
- Is it? - Yes.
And he has rose petals right in here.
Zuzu's petals.
You know who George Bailey was?
- Yeah. - Richest man in town.
- He was a movie star. - That's right.
Did I think we would make it in one day?
No. But I wasn't surprised when it did.
In less than 24 hours.
Yeah, it's just wild.
People can accomplish-- people can--
can make a difference in... in a horrible time.
And that's-- I didn't count on that
being so... so big for... everybody.
Every day's like Christmas.
And so, you know, it's just pure gratitude.
And what a run on GoFundMe.
- What a run, huh? - Well, you do know
how to sing this song correctly?
- "Take me out to the..." - ♪ Take me out
♪ To the ball game, let me follow ♪
♪ The crowd by me
♪ Some peanuts and crackerjacks ♪
♪ I don't care if I never get back ♪
♪ For it's root, root, root for the home team ♪
♪ If they don't win, it's a shame ♪
♪ For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out ♪
- ♪ At the old ball game - Oh.
"God is alive. Magic is afoot.
God is alive. Magic is afoot. God is afoot.
Magic is alive. Alive is afoot.
Magic never died..."
We reached it in just about 23 hours.
That's astonishing, Matt.
So this is what we'll be able to have me survive.
Get a little bit out of debt.
"For he today who sheds his blood with me
shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now abed
Shall think themselves
accursed and hold their manhoods cheap
while any speaks with us
who fought... with us on Saint Crispin's Day."
[laughing]
[woman] I thank you for being
- such a kind human being. - Thank you.
And for giving us all faith in this world
in little ways.
My dad died when I was very young.
But when I was three years old,
I was... marching through the living room one day.
And my dad said to me, "Where are you going?"
And I said,
"I'm gonna go outside, and I'm gonna smile at people,
and they're gonna be my friends."
And I've been doing that... [laughing]
Mm-hmm, exactly.
It's like... the poem about music
that I've been learning lately.
"Music. You know what music is?
It's everywhere. It's in the air.
We, and everything else, are instruments."
Is that your grandpa?
Want to go see him?
Want to go see Grandpa?
Come here, you. [gasping]
Hi.
- [babbling] - Yah!
Yah! Yah!
I got ya! [laughing]
Are you-- are you a southpaw?
Are you-- Are you trying to throw for the third base side?
No, the first base side.
- You have a customer. - Okay.
You come over here with me,
and we'll greet the customers together.
You can have anything in the store except for the baby.
I have to go write some gift certificates now.
But I think I'll wait.
I think... it's more fun to hang out with you.
Have you been reading any new books?
Or do you keep reading the same old book?
You know-- You know who was...
also a little baby when-- when she came in this store?
Your mama.
She was this age too when she came in the store.
And your Aunt Sophie.
Yeah, they were all--
They were both really little,
just like you are now.
Yes. Yes.
[voice] To place an order, please call.
Or ask me!
Or walk away from me.
Hi, you know anything you'd like?
Yes. She'd like "The Vanishing Half."
Okay.
- One. - One copy.
We're gonna sell a book now!
[soft guitar]
The result for me is that I'm going to be able
to stay in business.
And the result for the customers who gave
and the friends and the... clients
and the...
community... who gave is that
they get to be a part of saving what they love.
How often do you get a chance to do that?
- Thank you so much. - From the second we donated,
and we've been checking all the time.
- Thank you, thank you. - We're just so heartened
- for you. - Okay, I appreciate it.
- Thank you, thank you. - It's going to allow you
- to last. - Yeah, I'm gonna...
now I have to stay here.
Thanks a lot. Now I gotta keep working.
- [laughing] - I-- I--
- Well, we're happy. - Okay, thank you.
- Blessings. - Thank you.
- Hi, hi, honey. - Hi, I'll see you soon.
Marian, yeah.
You don't have a copy of Muriel Barbery,
"The Elegance of a Hedgehog," do you?
Maybe. Maybe.
Pull up and... or circle around again,
- I'll see if I can get one. - Okay, I'll circle.
- Okay. - Thanks.
[phone ringing]
Hello, Bookstore.
No, you can't come in.
Not even you. Not even you.
Thank you, okay, bye.
Before there were books...
there was the oral tradition of stories.
"The ceaseless perishing.
What an idea. What maniac conceived it?
And yet, what a lovely day it is today.
A gift of a day.
A perfect day, lacking nothing."
[laughing]
And that's what a...
So I'm... just the place
where that... can happen for people.
I'm just that place, and...
and it's a... pleasure.
And a privilege.
It was a busy Saturday afternoon
late in August.
And a guy who I don't know...
walks up, and he stands in front of the desk.
And he says... "I see what you do."
And he stops. "I see what you do."
He says, "You sit in that chair all day long,
surrounded by the things you love most in the world.
And all you do, all day long,
is talk to people
about the things you love most in the world.
And the only time you get interrupted
is when someone wants to give you money."
That's my life.
[soft guitar]
"Leaving any bookstore is hard,
especially on a day in August"--
Huh.
"--when the street outside burns and glares,
and the books inside are cool and crisp to the touch;
especially on a day in January, when the wind is blowing,
the ice is treacherous,
and the books inside seem to gather together
in colorful warmth.
It's hard to leave a bookstore any day of the year, though,
because a bookstore is one of the few places
where all the cantankerous, conflicting, alluring
voices of the world
co-exist in peace and order,
and the avid reader is as free as a person
can possibly be, because she is free
to choose among them."
[phone ringing]
Hello, Bookstore.
[soft guitar]
And as I was running back, I remember, I saw a moose.
The first time I ever saw a moose,
just standing there, like, you know,
lie, 50 yards away from me.
Just standing majestically...
- ["phone off hook" beeping] - Shit, did I have
somebody on the phone?
- I guess I did. - You did?
Maybe I just didn't hang it up, um...
I saw a moose, and... [laughing]
...and my first thought was,
and you can edit this out:
do moose eat Jews?
[laughing] That just came out of me.
that was just... [laughing]
[soft guitar]
W-R-I-T-E-R.
Writer.
[laughing]
So, this... you know what this is?
This is a writer's block.
[soft guitar]