STILLWATER & TWIN CITIES
MINNESOTA, USA
Minneapolis has topped the country’s annual Most Literate City survey, based partly on numbers of local bookshops.
When does a book town cease to be a book town? There is a large grey area between a thriving bookselling community and the departure of the final business – but where there’s a bookshop or two left standing, there’s still hope.
Stillwater is an attractive river town in Minnesota and a popular historic destination for tourists, close to the Twin Cities Minneapolis and Saint Paul. It was also the first book town in the USA, officially recognised by Richard Booth in a visit in 1994 following an invitation from its two leading bookmen, Gary Goodman (of St. Croix Antiquarian Booksellers with its international reputation for maps and prints, as well as military and natural history titles), and Thomas Loome (of the eponymous Loome Theological Booksellers).
Around that time it had two dozen independent rare and used bookshops, its own publication, the Stillwater Booktown Times, a summer book festival and various other activities including seminars on book collecting and dealing. But hit by the rise in internet selling in particular, they have almost all closed down, including St. Croix Antiquarian Booksellers in the summer of 2017.
In the historic downtown area there is Black Letter Books, ‘a real, honest-to-goodness brick and mortar bookstore,’ Valley Bookseller (which only sells new books) and Loome (all on Main Street).
Thomas Loome opened Loome Theological Booksellers in the 100-year-old, abandoned former Old Swedish Covenant Church in Stillwater in 1983. It claims to be the largest secondhand dealer of theological books in the world, based around a stock built up from the dispersed libraries of Catholic seminaries, monasteries, convents, and other institutions which have closed down over recent decades. Among the collections it has handled are those of historian and former Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, Sir Henry Chadwick, and part of JRR Tolkien’s working library.
Stillwater riverside in the early evening sunshine.
Garrison Keillor opened Common Good Books under Nina’s Coffee Café on the corner of Selby and Western, Saint Paul.
The famous Amazon Bookstore Cooperative.
Inside Loome Theological Booksellers.
Loome is now run by Christopher Hagen, who started working at the bookshop in 2001 and then bought it in 2008 when Thomas Loome retired. It has since moved out to a farm location in Stillwater and then, because of rising rents, back into the main downtown area in July 2017. Despite the moves, the mission remains the same, with a stock concentrating on Catholic material but also anything scholarly that touches on Christianity. Christopher and his staff also advise other libraries around the world on building up their stock.
Twin Cities
Half an hour from Stillwater is the Twin Cities area, a national haven for bibliophiles. Minneapolis has topped the country’s annual Most Literate City survey, based partly on numbers of bookshops, and Saint Paul regularly features in the top ten.
One of the most famous bookshops was the Amazon Bookstore Cooperative in Minneapolis. Established in 1970, it was the first lesbian/feminist bookshop in the country, later changing its name to the True Colors Bookstore. It was involved in a complicated trademark suit when Amazon.com was setting itself up, before eventually closing in 2012. The town still boasts a radical bookshop in the form of Boneshaker Books (23rd Avenue S), which runs the Women’s Prison Book Project. The largest secondhand bookshop in Minneapolis is Magers & Quinn (Hennepin Avenue). Elsewhere is the Paperback Exchange (W 50th Street); James and Mary Laurie Booksellers (3rd Avenue N), which also sells prints and vinyl records; the labyrinthine and marvellously-titled The Bookhouse in Dinkytown (SE 4th Street); and Eat My Words (13th Avenue NE), which supports local authors. Specialists in new titles include:
– Wild Rumpus (W 43rd Street) – children’s
– Birchbark Books (W 43rd Street) – native American writers and literature
– Uncle Hugo’s Science Fiction Bookstore and Uncle Edgar’s Mystery Bookstore (Chicago Avenue)
– Once Upon A Crime (W 26th Street) – mystery
– Present Moment (Grand Ave S) – alternative subjects plus herbal medicines
– DreamHaven (E 38th Street) – science fiction and graphic novels
And lastly Open Book, a remarkable cultural centre with classes in book production, and the home of major publisher Milkweed Editions.
In Saint Paul, Midway Books (University Avenue W) is the leading antiquarian seller, but Sixth Chamber (Grand Avenue) has an excellent general stock. Among the sellers of new books is Common Good Books (Snelling Avenue S), owned by writer Garrison Keillor who created the famous fictional Minnesota town of Lake Wobegon. Red Balloon (Grand Avenue) and Addendum (S Cleveland Avenue) are especially strong on titles for young people.
A readers ‘book construction’ corner in Wild Rumpus Childrens Bookstore, Minneapolis.