I have been trying to find local bookstores in my area to support, which has ultimately become quite a challenge. Besides the one bookshop downtown, I hadn’t found another place that I had enjoyed. That was until I stumbled upon Titcomb’s Bookshop in East Sandwich, MA.
I am in love with this place. I mean, who wouldn’t be? Books AND Cape Cod? Count me in!
I wanted to write a little bit about my experience here today, because let me tell you: it was incredible. I will definitely be going back. The two women working there today were some of the kindest people I have ever met. I was staring at everything and they offered help, and I told them it was my first time at the shop. They welcomed me with open arms – step one in making my day.
They are in contact with a lot of bookstores in the Massachusetts area, and I actually found out that they are connected via meetings with Trident Booksellers and Cafe – another one of my favorite places!
And the interior was to die for! There are three floors in the shop: the lower level is all toys, the main floor is new fiction, non-fiction, children’s books, as well as historical books. The second floor follows a similar theme, but also includes notebooks, pens/pencils, blankets, pillows, and a slew of other trinkets.
These pictures don’t do the store justice. I wish I wasn’t in a rush so I could have taken pictures myself. But for now, this will give you a taste of what it was like!
Now, onto the haul!
The Library Book by Susan Orlean
“On the morning of April 29, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. As the moments passed, the patrons and staff who had been cleared out of the building realized this was not the usual fire alarm. As one fireman recounted, “Once that first stack got going, it was ‘Goodbye, Charlie.’” The fire was disastrous: it reached 2000 degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more. Investigators descended on the scene, but more than thirty years later, the mystery remains: Did someone purposefully set fire to the library—and if so, who?
Weaving her lifelong love of books and reading into an investigation of the fire, award-winning New Yorker reporter and New York Times bestselling author Susan Orlean delivers a mesmerizing and uniquely compelling book that manages to tell the broader story of libraries and librarians in a way that has never been done before.”
White Fragility: Why It’s so Hard for White People to Talk about Racism by Robin Diangelo
“In this “vital, necessary, and beautiful book” (Michael Eric Dyson), antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility and “allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to ‘bad people’ (Claudia Rankine). Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.”
The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman
“In Berlin, at the time when the world changed, Hanni Kohn knows she must send her twelve-year-old daughter away to save her from the Nazi regime. She finds her way to a renowned rabbi, but it’s his daughter, Ettie, who offers hope of salvation when she creates a mystical Jewish creature, a rare and unusual golem, who is sworn to protect Lea. Once Ava is brought to life, she and Lea and Ettie become eternally entwined, their paths fated to cross, their fortunes linked.
Lea and Ava travel from Paris, where Lea meets her soulmate, to a convent in western France known for its silver roses; from a school in a mountaintop village where three thousand Jews were saved. Meanwhile, Ettie is in hiding, waiting to become the fighter she’s destined to be.
What does it mean to lose your mother? How much can one person sacrifice for love? In a world where evil can be found at every turn, we meet remarkable characters that take us on a stunning journey of loss and resistance, the fantastical and the mortal, in a place where all roads lead past the Angel of Death and love is never ending.”
American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins
“Lydia Quixano Pérez lives in the Mexican city of Acapulco. She runs a bookstore. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. And while there are cracks beginning to show in Acapulco because of the drug cartels, her life is, by and large, fairly comfortable.
Even though she knows they’ll never sell, Lydia stocks some of her all-time favorite books in her store. And then one day a man enters the shop to browse and comes up to the register with a few books he would like to buy―two of them her favorites. Javier is erudite. He is charming. And, unbeknownst to Lydia, he is the jefe of the newest drug cartel that has gruesomely taken over the city. When Lydia’s husband’s tell-all profile of Javier is published, none of their lives will ever be the same.
Forced to flee, Lydia and eight-year-old Luca soon find themselves miles and worlds away from their comfortable middle-class existence. Instantly transformed into migrants, Lydia and Luca ride la bestia―trains that make their way north toward the United States, which is the only place Javier’s reach doesn’t extend. As they join the countless people trying to reach el norte, Lydia soon sees that everyone is running from something. But what exactly are they running to?”
Hummingbird Bookmark and Bibliophile Keychain
If you have the chance too, please check out Titcomb’s Bookshop! It is an incredible experience and I highly recommend buying some books there. Be sure to support your local independent bookstores!
readplaywright 