While recently in NYC I had the chance to visit 192 Books in Chelsea, a new bookstore that can't be any larger than Main Street's front room. What impressed me most about my visit was that every single book in the store seemed to have been chosen by someone with taste. There were no NASCAR cookbooks, no soap opera biographies, no books about UFO abductees or terrible Da Vinci Code knockoffs in sight. The history shelf only consisted of 100 titles or so, but every book on it looked interesting and worth reading.
Buoyed by my visit to this bonsai bookstore -- like Powell's, only smaller! -- the staff and I have decided to devote just as much of our attention to new books as to used ones. Our new book selection has doubled in the last two months, and, over the next four to six months, we'll expand it again, until we have most major new releases in house, plus a selected backlist of books we're always asked for, but seldom see second hand. All new books will still 20% off Canadian list price, as will special orders. We can now order any book currently in print in North America, and hope to add one or two UK-based distributors in the near future, for hard-to-find British mysteries and science fiction.
As always, if you have comments or queries, please get in touch; we are always happy to hear from you.
