(fleeting)

Another bookmark has turned up. Curiously, this bookstore has the same address as Blue Whale. Now, I’ve only been to Charlottesville once. Google Maps says Blue Whale is there now, so I must have visited when it was still Seanchai and the Blue Whale came to me later, tucked inside a used book.

Last week, I finally made it to Subtext Books in downtown St Paul for the first time. Absolutely one of the best bookstores I’ve ever been to.

(Original series here, with subsequent discoveries here.)

Another bookmark for the series.

I just found this in a book I bought during my only visit to Elliott Bay Books (and to Seattle), in 2014.

(Original series here, with subsequent discoveries here.)

Another bookmark just resurfaced, this time from Blue Whale in Charlottesville, where I spent some time in the summer of 2000.

(Original series here, with subsequent discoveries here.)

I found this in a used book I bought recently. The bookstore is still around.

(Original series here, with subsequent discoveries here.)

This just turned up in an old book.

Later replaced by Borders, which also closed (sometime in the aughts?) and Kitchen Window expanded into the space. Kitchen Window, in turn, didn’t survive the pandemic…

(Original series here, with subsequent discoveries here.)

This just turned up in an old book. Long gone. The Aster Café is there now.

(Original series here, with subsequent discoveries here.)

I found this in a book I just pulled off the shelf. The website is still live, mostly, but it doesn’t seem to be a brick & mortar shop anymore.

(Original series here, with subsequent discoveries here.)

I found this yesterday in, I’m guessing, the book that I bought there in the spring of 2001.

A little research shows it closed some time after it moved from Montague St in Brooklyn Heights to Smith St in Brooklyn.

(Original series here, with subsequent discoveries here.)

This morning, I went inside a bookstore for the first time since January 2020. I picked up part of an online order, I browsed, and I bought a few more books. It was almost normal.

And, of course, I grabbed a pinch of bookmarks.

(Original series here, with subsequent discoveries here.)

Another just surfaced.

(Original series here, with subsequent discoveries here.)

The last time I was in a bookstore was 55 weeks ago. Since then, I’ve bought every book online, most from independent bookstores or, when I could, directly from the publisher. Only one bookstore has thought to include some bookmarks.

(Original series here, with subsequent discoveries here.)

Here’s another straggler that just surfaced.

(Original series here, with subsequent discoveries here.)

Here’s another bookmark that just turned up. I remember it being cluttered and tousled, the sort of place where accident was the only real form of discovery.

(Original series here, with subsequent discoveries here.)

Another entry in the intermittently active Bookmarks series. This is actually a receipt not a bookmark, but I’ll allow it.

(Original series here, with subsequent discoveries here.)

A late entry to the Bookmark project. I pulled a book off the shelf just now and stumbled on this:

(Original series here, with subsequent discoveries here.)

So sorry that Sixth Chamber closed for good today.

Here are two bookmarks. One is from the mid 90s, the other from the late 90s. These two are from my envelope of on-deck bookmarks. Many more are scattered throughout my library, tucked in books, waiting to be rediscovered.