EXPERIENCE
Eighteen miles of books
SAMANTH SUBRAMANIAN
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At first encounter, The Strand sounds like the bibliophile's ultimate walking tour, but it is, in fact, the ultimate coming-of-age.
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A TREASURE TROVE: Literacy riches within The Strand.
I'VE never been daunted by a bookstore before. I've slavered in lust, and I've stalked out in disgust. I've browsed and browsed, and at prices I've groused. I've lingered for many hours, I've waited out sharp showers, I've read most of The Two Towers, and I've learned to mix whisky sours. But I've never been daunted by a bookstore before.
Perhaps, though, there hasn't been a bookstore like The Strand before. What other purveyor of reading material advertises itself on dimensions — "18 miles of books," more than the length of Manhattan itself? It sounds, at first encounter, like the bibliophile's ultimate walking tour, slightly over a half-marathon's worth of running fingers over spines, reading blurbs, and ferreting out long-lost loves. Do not be fooled. It is, in fact, the bibliophile's ultimate coming-of-age, the crushing realisation that the number of books out there that you want to own will always, always exceed the number of books that you can reasonably own.
There is no equivocation about The Strand. It does not attempt to look like a hot-dog vendor or a florists', just so that it can lure unsuspecting passers-by into its inescapable innards.
Liberally strewn
Instead, as a premonition of what is to come, even the intersection of Broadway and 12th Street is liberally strewn with metal carts of $1- and 50-cent books. No beady-eyed staffers loiter about to make sure you don't nip off with a crumbling paperback, so the conviction in individual honesty seems touching. On the other hand, if I had 18 miles of books, I'd probably have to lodge some of them on the street too.
Apart from its metal carts, The Strand is not a used bookstore in the strictest sense of the term. There are many used books, admittedly, but they all look suspiciously glossy and new. There are also many more new books that have been ingeniously sourced — from publishers' warehouses, from titles sent out to newspaper reviewers — and marked down by anything from a couple of dollars to 50 per cent. And finally, there are many new books that are priced like other new books in the outside world, and many old books that are priced like a solitaire from Tiffany's or a ransom of a lesser king. Last year, a William Shakespeare Second Folio, published in 1632, made its way out of The Strand's heavy gold safe in its rare books room and was sold for $1,00,000.
The Strand opened in 1927, taking its name from one of London's premier literary magazines. It remains an affirmed family affair — its current manager and owner, Nancy Bass, is the granddaughter of Benjamin Bass, who started the store. It has made a few concessions to the times since 1927 — a coldly efficient information system, and a web site that is not as noteworthy for its utility as for its delicious conception of "books by the foot". "For the interior decorator or set designer, we suggest buying or renting books by the foot," it advises. "Give us your specifications and we'll select just the right thing to fill your shelf, all priced by the linear foot."
The Strand's literary riches are all compactly stored over three-and-a-half floors, and there is no hope of properly taking in even a single floor in an entire afternoon. This is particularly true of the basement — much less favourably lit than its above-ground brethren, and housing not only some of the finest genres but also curious little annexes that lead further into curiouser littler annexes, like an MC Escher diagram of Alice's Wonderland.
Process of contemplation
But every towering shelf on every floor involves identical processes of contemplation — of squatting uncomfortably to examine the lowest row, of straightening slowly, of craning the neck for the row just out of eyeshot, of dragging over stepladders to reach up to the highest level, of scratching the head in sheer astonishment at the number of writers you've never heard of, and of morosely re-surveying the contents of your wallet, before moving onto the next shelf.
Many hours later, you will emerge, with perhaps a hundredth of the books that you actually wanted. You will step across the street to restore your tissues at Max Brenner's Bald Man chocolaterie. You will sip thoughtfully at your hot chocolate, look across at The Strand, and idly mull over how it might be technically possible to pull off the mother of all heists — knocking off a bookstore with 18 miles of books inside it.
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