3. Revolution Books // 146 West 26th Street
On their complimentary bookmarks this bookstore talks about the “new winds of global resistance.” That’s pretty intense for a bookmark. I went here to pick up an expensive stack of books for a class on African literature about women. All the books were incredibly depressing and typically ended with the female protagonist being crushed to death by patriarchy, colonialism, and natural birthing methods. I still enjoyed the books, though I gave them to my cousin, who wanted something to read while she was in Madagascar. I think she liked them too, as she called me, crying, telling me how much she hated the Dutch Empire.
2. Bluestockings // 172 Allen Street
I suppose this is best known as a feminist bookstore, though they have other activist-related books as well and a pretty good fiction section. I went here for a reading about a book on feminism written for men. There weren’t many men in the audience. During the Q&A session, someone told the author that her friend’s boyfriend wouldn’t allow her friend to give him a blow job because it was “anti-feminist.” I forgot what the author’s reply was, but I remember the oh, please look on the author’s teenage son’s face, who was in the audience. You could tell that he would grow up to be an extremely progressive gynecologist or something.
1. Argosy // 116 East 59th Street
I ended up here for the same reason I end up in a lot of bookstores: looking for old Penguin paperbacks. I also had time to kill before Scrabble club. This is a very beautiful store with antique books and old maps. It almost reminded me of a dusty version of the Morgan Library. The only disconcerting thing was that there was an ancient elevator that could only fit two people — and one of those people was a very bored, obviously cramped elevator guy. He had to stay in what amounted to an ill-lit, moving broom closet for hours upon hours, shuttling people between the basement and third floors. He barely had enough light to fill out his Sudoku.
