A friend of mine commissioned me to draw Brookline Booksmith in Brookline, Mass. The drawing went on a stack of greeting cards gifted to her friends. This store isn’t in a charming historic building, but rather a concrete shopping center. However, I think the brightly colored window trim and glowing signs made for a cool night scene. Drawing tiny book covers on all these blue shelves would have been tedious, so I simply shrunk down a photo to fit inside the book outlines.
Oblong Books & Music has a store in the towns of Millerton and Rhinebeck, NY. This drawing is the Millerton location. I’m afraid I haven’t visited myself, but the manager, Suzanna, was nice enough to send me a photo. It’s a charming building. I like the decorative corner molding.
I’m starting to run out of local indie book stores to draw, so my sister sent me a photo of one of her favorites. Tegan often stops in at Brooklyn’s Book Court, which is within walking distance from her apartment. I like how the store spans two old buildings. The brick building and the wood siding building are easily unified by the same colored trim. Here’s Tegan’s report:
“It was quite popular on the day I last went. Book Court is nestled in a cute part of Brooklyn that has lots of little shops, boutiques, beautiful old brick and brownstone homes, as well as tons of trendy restaurants. The store has pews and other sorts of creative seating. They have a good amount of art books, current fiction, and a childrens section. They have local interest books about Brooklyn and books by Brooklyn residents. I got The Brooklyn Cookbook which has recipes from restaurants and such in Brooklyn. The book has great graphics and a nice cover as well as a map of the contributing restaurants.”
—Andrew, AJB Design
P.S. Whenever I read the word “Book Court” the theme song to the TV show Night Court pops in my head.
P.P.S. That dude on the bench was actually smoking and checking his phone. I forced him to read a book and put him in a button-down.
The Boulder Book Store
I recently read that mid-century book designer Alvin Lustig got his start in publishing by doing design work for his local bookshop (greeting cards mostly). I already design for publishers, but I’m intrigued at the idea of extending my work to the book-selling arm of the industry.
My kids and I visited The Boulder Book Store a couple weekends ago. I got Martin’s A Game of Thrones. I haven’t seen the HBO series yet, I’d like to finish the book first. How about this book cover? Meh. I think this is the only instance where I actually prefer the movie tie-in cover (the one with badass actor Sean Bean on the throne).
—Andrew, AJB Design
On Saturday July 9th I visited The Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver, CO. I was there to meet a 94-years-old WWII veteran Cliff Van Doren. He was in my grandfather’s battalion in Normandy. With Cliff were members of his family and the son and the daughter of two other GIs. It was sort of like a miniature book signing. Last year I published a history of their battalion, which is carried by The Tattered Cover. The store has a very nice local author program, so self-published books like mine can appear on their shelves.
After our meeting I went book shopping. I got The Perfect Scoop for my wife, and up in the fantasy shelves I found Thud!. This is a good example of buying a book based on its cover design (well, it also helped that it was on a staff’s recommendation shelf). I had never heard of the author, but I’m glad I picked it up. I just finished reading Thud! which I describe as a humourous Medieval fantasy world cop drama (and I do mean “humourous” with an extra British “u”).
—Andrew, AJB Design
P.S. The owner of the Tattered Cover was recently on NPR discussing independent bookstores.
On June 14th I had an unexpected trip to Glens Falls, NY. My dad had emergency surgery. He didn’t come home until last Friday, four weeks later. It was scary stuff. Between visits my sisters and I walked from the hospital to get lunch or dinner. As we headed down the street my youngest sister mentioned that there was a nice little bookshop there. I remembered that I followed a Glens Falls independent bookstore on Twitter and had to go in. Red Fox Books is a tiny shop in a historic building. They have brick walls, parquet floors, and a pressed tin ceiling. The exterior is just how you would picture an independent book store. All very cute.
Despite the shop’s small size, they had a ton of books that I’ve been meaning to read. I settled on Life in Year One: What Life Was Like in First-Century Palestine. I read the whole thing on my day-long plane trip home to Colorado. I have several more scholarly books on the Holy Land in the first-century. I found the light tone of Life in Year One to be a refreshing read.
—Andrew, AJB Design
UPDATE: Oh, no! Red Fox is closing on Septmeber 15th
Over 4th of July weekend my kids and I went on a used book hunt. Lucky for us Boulder, Colorado has the largest number of used book stores per capita in the US. My first stop was the Used Book Emporium in Longmont just outside Boulder (check out that Hobo signage!). I immediately found the book at the top of my list, which was a mixed blessing—the mission kind of ended once I had the book I most wanted. I’m not used to having such success at a used book store. I guess the history books I usually buy aren’t common enough to be found so easily.
I picked up The Sleeping Dragon at the low, low price $1.50. I’ve been reading Lord of the Rings to my kids, which got me thinking I should look into other fantasy fiction for myself. I’ll read this 1983 book right after I finish The Dwarves. HBO’s Game of Thrones got me interested in that series, so that’ll come next. It’ll be a summer of fantasy fun.
—Andrew, AJB Design
P.S. The inspiration for this series of book store drawings come from comic book artist Julia Wertz. This past spring she posted some of sketches of her neighborhood.
