You must be supportive. And of course, I have to like your writing. Two hanging plants, their leafy tendrils coiled neatly around white-painted water pipes suspended from the ceiling, soften the haphazard, dusty atmosphere and add to the little shop s air of informality. Books are arranged by poets countries of origin, and piles of them are heaped on the three hollowed-out kitchen tables that have been combined to create the shop s one display table in the middle of the store. Aisle space is so congested with unpacked or half-opened cartons of books, aluminum step ladders and Jessica s water dishes that it seems impossible for more than two dozen people to fit into the shop at the same time.
Good books are always what the store has been about.
It was first opened as a first-edition and fine print store in January 1927 by Gordon Cairnie, a bibliomaniac from Quebec, in partnership with Adrian Gambet, the wealthy scion of a family with a Harvard background. Almost thirty years later, when she was a high school sophomore interning in the children s department at the public library in 1956, Solano first started going to the shop. My godmother ran the international copyright section at MacMillan and used to send me cartons of books. So when a friend said to me, I know just the place you d love, I had to check Grolier out for myself. In those days the shop was already known as a casual meeting place for literary and artistic types.