At the Old Florida Bookshop the other day I learned that I had just missed the former owner of Gene’s Books on Sanibel Island. Before it was destroyed by hurricane Ian in 2022, Gene’s was probably the best bookstore in the state, housing its extensive collection in a series of small cottages. One was devoted entirely to mysteries, and had them shelved geographically: English, Scandinavian, etc. The literature section was just as impressive. I would have liked to have told Gene how much I enjoyed his bookstore, and asked him what he was up to now. Clearly, he is still buying books, even if he’s no longer selling them.
Before leaving, I took a picture of the store cat, a lovely tabby, who had made himself comfortable on one of the shelves next to a copy of the Vladimir Nabokov-Edmund Wilson letters.
My friend from St. Pete had a couple free hours yesterday afternoon so I showed him around Fort Lauderdale. Our first stop was the Old Florida Bookshop on Griffin Road. Dave is also a writer, and I knew he’d enjoy seeing the store’s high, book-lined walls inside a nondescript strip mall. William the owner told me that business was booming; apparently, someone had posted about the store on Instagram and people were now flocking to it. (My article about his shop a few years ago didn’t have quite the same effect.) And, to William’s surprise, the majority of new customers were young women. I mentioned that the majority of readers were women, but he said that, traditionally, they were not frequenters of used bookstores. As someone who is, I knew exactly what he meant. Years ago, visiting Larry McMurtry’s used bookstore in Archer City, Texas, I had noted the “asocial, middle-aged men on a mission,” adding that “you find few giggly girls in the stacks of secondhand bookstores.”
I bought a slim volume of poems by Edgar Lee Masters and we got in the car and drove to Holiday Park, as I wanted to show Dave the new Iceplex. Quite a few cars sat in the parking lot, which surprised me, as I had checked the website and seen that no Panthers practice was scheduled. Entering the chill, we saw a handful of young women practicing figure skating on the first rink, one of them tethered to a kind a harness that connected to a short pole that her coach held to keep her from falling during jumps. We walked upstairs and found the second rink filled with children while sweatered mothers sat chatting in the stands. The sight of South Florida kids ice skating on their day off from school for a hurricane was as rich as the thought of young women haunting secondhand bookstores.
Our friends from St. Pete arrived in Fort Lauderdale Beach yesterday afternoon with their two teenage sons and their German short-haired pointer. We met them for happy hour at their hotel, the Shorebreak, which accepts dogs. (It's part of the Kimpton group.) In fact, a sign in the lobby, above two water bowls, reads: “Dogs welcome. People tolerated.”
In the bar, we found a beautiful German shepherd-and-chow mix and a gorgeous Newfoundland, both evacuees from the west coast of Florida. We learned that the Newfie had not made it to the room yet because he was scared to walk down the corridor.
Shortly our friends arrived, with their pointer on a leash. Taking him in, the Newfie’s master said, “It’s like the Westminster Dog Show in here.”
New Rule for Real Time with Bill Maher: When they run the same show two consecutive weeks perhaps they can call it a “repeat” instead of an "encore presentation.”
September 1, 1939 – December 7, 1941 – September 11, 2001 – February 24, 2022 – October 7, 2023.
I’ve spent much of the week happily engrossed in a novel written by a friend. Brave in Season, by Jon Volkmer, tells the story of a group of Black railroad workers in the 1950s who spend part of a summer in a small Nebraska town, where interactions between the “gandy dancers” (as the railroad men are called) and the townspeople are mostly cordial but reach a climax in an exhibition baseball game. Described as “a novel of race, railroads, and baseball,” Brave in Season is that and more: It is a beautiful evocation of small-town America and a touching coming-of-age story (the title is taken from a poem by A.E. Housman). It has memorable characters, emotional scenes, and occasional drama. In fact, it would make an excellent movie – a better one, I suspect, than the fantastical Field of Dreams. And Nebraska’s most famous director – Alexander Payne – would be the perfect person to make it.