interview with the douche-pire

I attend a school overseen by a stupid prick: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/magazine/27fob-q4-t.html?_r=2

used bookstores in DC

Claiming to have surveyed all the good places in a large city would be bullshit.  And yeah, yeah, no used bookstore is ever going to top Powell’s or The Strand, although that’s not saying much–it’s not like the Red Sox would lose to a college team.  But going to the famous hubs is sort of cheating, because you know they’re probably going to have whatever you’re looking for, even if it’s something weird like a monograph on Moroccan drama.

I was in DC a couple weeks ago and visited two fantastic shops near Capitol Hill.  These would be Riverby Books and the inventively named Capitol Hill Books, both of which are close to the Eastern Market stop on the Metro.

Riverby is a tidy place on the first floor of what used to be (still is?) a townhouse.  They might force tea on you if you show up at the wrong time of day, but don’t let that affectation throw you off: they have a smallish but very well-chosen selection of stuff which is almost all extremely cheap.  I left with the Selected Gwendolyn Brooks, Les Murray’s “Subterranean Redneck Poems,” Vikram Seth’s “Three Chinese Poets,” and a Denis Johnson novella after shelling out less than $17.

Capitol Hill Books is bigger, less organized, and pricier, though not more so than most stores in cities.  It takes up a full rowhouse, and going there is kind of like visiting an old shut-in’s home, except the house is full of twisty conduits of books on uneven shelves instead of piss-stained newspapers.  They were asking $6-7 bucks for old Penguin classics–seriously? $6.50 for a dogeared copy of “Brighton Rock”?–but if this bothers you, you will forgive them when you see their Poetry and Essay sections, assuming that kind of thing appeals to you.  The other divisions, novels etc., are also great.

I bought a copy of Donald Justice’s New and Selected.  You might know him as the guy who is way better at the whole post-Wallace Stevens quasi-surreal American nightmare mini-narrative thing than Charles Simic or James Tate but doesn’t have their name-recognition for some reason.  I also saw copies of books, like Leo Marx’s “The Machine in the Garden” and Virginia Woolf’s journals, which don’t usually turn up in used stores, or any bookstores.  A little overpriced, maybe, as I doubt people are at the doors clamoring for Leo Marx every morning, but still.  Great place.  Go there and give the gorgeous proprietor your business.  She won’t even seem to mind if you politely lech on her while pretending to look at Salman Rushdie novels.

See?  Even a boring rich ‘hood has its diversions.

Paperback Alley

Next time you’re wasting money at Alpha Thrift, go by Paperback Alley on Hollister in Old Town(e) Goleta.  I found a beautiful copy of the amazing Australian poet Les Murray‘s Selected Poems for eight dollars.  Go all the way to the back: that’s where the sweet poetry section is.   An honest to God, store-run-by-someone-who-doesn’t-just-read-novels Poetry section.   Thank me with a 60-minute.