Shameless Shelf Promotion
9 Books That Feature the Strand Bookstore
From what started as a small, used book shop in 1927, the Strand is now proud to be a place of not only books, but also community, culture, and conversation. During the past 90 years, Strand has been home to more than 2.5 million books, ranging from classics like Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird to Chris Kraus’s I Love Dick, and everything in between. It has been an honor to be visited by some our favorite authors like Patti Smith and Colson Whitehead, but even more of an honor to appear in the pages of their works. Below are 9 books from different genres that star or shout-out the Strand Bookstore.
“The Strand is a monument to the immortality of the written word and hence beloved writers.” — Fran Lebowitz
1. Color This Book: New York City by Abbi Jacobson
This coloring book, illustrated by Abbi Jacobson of Broad City, is a spunky and adorable compilation of the cultural attractions in New York City. Our favorite part? Her spot-on illustration of the dollar carts outside at the Strand, complete with tote bags hanging from the windows outside. Whether you’ve been to New York or not, you can have your way, color-wise, with this delightfully drawn book.
2. Footnotes from the World’s Greatest Bookstores by Bob Eckstein
New Yorker cartoonist Bob Eckstein brings bookstore lovers a collection of paintings and stories of the world’s greatest bookstores. Filled with quirky anecdotes from people who care most about these important establishments, including authors and store owners, this book is both charming and colorful. Of course the collection wouldn’t be complete without a blurb from a former Strand employee turned television producer, who says his “first job after college was at the Strand.”
3. Just Kids by Patti Smith
Patti Smith moved to New York in 1967 with no friends and no job. Not long after, she got a job, for a short time, at the Strand Bookstore and befriended Robert Mapplethorpe, someone as eccentric and creative as she was. Smith’s nostalgic memoir is primarily about her relationship with Mapplethorpe in the city when they were just kids, just unknowns, just aimless artists. Patti explains, “My sister Linda got me a part-time job at the Strand Book Store. I bought stacks of books, but I didn’t read them.” While at the time it wasn’t her favorite job, she was able to make “pocket money” to get by.
4. Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn
Co-written by Rachel Cohn and David Levitham, this YA novel is about young love, but without all of the clichés. Dash happens upon a red notebook during Christmastime while he “was spending time in the Strand, that bastion of titillating erudition, not so much a bookstore as the collision of a hundred different bookstores, with literary wreckage strewn over eighteen miles of shelves.” Inside, he finds a dare written out and feels compelled to complete it. Then, he decides to write his own dare for the original author, a 16-year-old girl named Lily. The two exchange more than just dares in what follows as a scavenger hunt love story around NYC.
5. Upstairs at the Strand: Writers in Conversation at the Legendary Bookstore by Jessica Strand
Upstairs at the Strand is a must-read for fans of the Strand. This incredible collection compiled by a former Strand employee, Jessica Strand (no relation to the store), focuses on the behind-the-scenes conversations of authors who have visited the store over the years. From Junot Díaz to Alison Bechdel, the book is filled with important perspectives on writing from novelists, poets, playwrights, memoirists, and more who frequent our iconic bookstore. Strand explains, “ It was this feeling — the serendipity, the variety, the happy collision of books, ideas, and people — that we tried to capture in our reading series up in the Rare Book Room,” which is the backdrop for these intimate interviews.
“ [The Strand is] an institution…as mixed, as diverse, as democratic, as intellectual, as high and low as the city itself…The Strand is [New York’s] great meeting corner.” — Pete Hamill
6. Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
Lauren Groff’s captivating novel explores two perspectives on one marriage that lasts over 20 years. Lott, an actor turned playwright, and Mathilde, his wife are the central forces in this vibrant story. Combining elements of Greek tragedy into a drama about a seemingly well-matched couple, Groff reveals that there are many sides to a story, and makes us question whether or not we can truly know someone. The Strand is mentioned “when [some] books were delivered to the apartment… [and]she took them to the Strand, and with what she earned, she bought Lotto a watch that would stay watertight to four hundred feet deep.” Sounds like a good trade to us.
7. Book Row by Marvin Moudlin & Roy Meador
In this revealing history of Book Row, a famous seven blocks of bookstores in Lower Manthattan from the 1890s to the 1960s, the author discusses how the area developed and nearly disappeared. Based on interview questions with book buyers and sellers, the passages are abundant with anecdotes. The additional photographs paint a vivid picture of the legendary place, a haven for readers of the past. With the rise of the world wide web, older bookstores began to close their doors until only the Strand was left. While many have never even heard of Book Row, Mondlin and Meador assert that “Book Row is not gone, not completely, because the Strand carries on.. The Strand, praise be, still lives. And how it lives!”
8. John Henry Days by Colson Whitehead
Journalist and junkateer J. Sutter heads to West Virginia to cover the unveiling of a postage stamp at the first John Henry Days festival. The author juxtaposes J. Sutter’s life at odds with the digital age with John Henry, a folk hero who died during the industrial age after successfully competing against a steam drill. While this novel isn’t primarily about the Strand Bookstore, we do get a shout out partway through the plot when some of the characters discuss how they “all ran into each other at the Strand bookstore…as they sold review copies for cash.”
9. New and Used by Marc Joseph
A beautiful collision of photography, poetry, and prose, New and Used dazzles readers with colorful and intimate scenes inside stores. The collection, by photographer Marc Joseph, highlights the display of objects at bookstores and record stores. Included in the selection of photos are several snaps of the vibrant shelves in the Strand Bookstore. Richly creative and historical, the book contains essays, stories, and poems by contributors like Eileen Myles and Jonathan Letham.
Honorable Mentions: The Interesting by Meg Wolitzer; Bad Behavior by Mary Gaitskill; I Am No One You Know: And Other Stories (Short Story: Three Girls) by Joyce Carol Oates
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