The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop A memoir, a History by Lewis Buzbee

I felt intrigued by The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop A memoir, a History

by Lewis Buzbee for what promised to the reader and I have been more than satisfied. The author fell in love for John Steinbeck when he was 15 years. Steinbeck is one of my most beloved authors and I think that there is not another writer in grade to filter little communities as he does; I understood the future of people, and what would have happened to some of them reading his books, because John Steinbeck is in grade to enter in the psychology of the characters with an unicity that it is simply one of his most powerful characteristics.

Being a voracious reader, Lewis found later a work in a bookstore, and later he would have become a publisher's sales rep.

This book is informative regarding the book market and how much a book means in term of money for an author, a publisher.

It is a trip in history, analyzing China, the born of modern book in western civilization thanks to Gutenberg and what it is the book market today.

Buzbee doesn't avoid of mention synthetizing very well the story of Shakespeare and Company founded by Sylvia Beach. I am also reading Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation by Fitch and maybe the unicity of that bookstore is incarnated in the way of living known by Sylvia. She wasn't born in a rich family. Her dad was a pastor, but they knew a lot of influential people, of different social classes and they would have helped the entire family of the pastor in many different ways. That was also why Sylvia travelled a lot, discovered the world. The impossibility for certain people of helping others to Sylvia Beach was unknown and strained her a lot as well; so, substantially, the beauty, special touch added by Sylvia at her beloved bookstore was part of the education she received and the example she had known thanks to her numerous connections: sharing. Sharing compassion, friendship; helping others in many different ways and with a devotion that is admirable and should be remarked and remembered all the times. That was why that store is absolutely an iconic place. Because love for authors, literature, books, was installed profoundly, from the first instant of its life. It was thanks to Sylvia Beach if many authors became who they would have become later.

Goodness brings always more goodness. It's a spiral and simply that Lost Generation was everything, but not lost; compacted, friendly, connected they tried to resolve problems, difficulties, helping each other. It's a wonderful example of positive minds.   

George Whitman, the second owner of the new Shakespare and Company is not related to Walt Whitman, the beloved poet, because temporally it couldn't be possible. There was  just as happens often, a case of homonymy; also the dad of George Whitman was a Walt Whitman, a pretty interesting man, and a writer of diversified topics.  George Whitman was born in Salem, close to Boston, Massachusetts.

To Lewis opening a bookstore in the Left Bank of Paris means a strong success, but in California it's a completely different story, adds.

The most beautiful, poetic part of this book is the description of bookstores where you can simply sat on a chair with a book for reading, or where you can get lost per hours in the store, because books needs calm, also when they are choosen, also when they want to enter in your existence. A bookstore, affirms Lewis Buzbee, and I agree, should be plenty of books. More chaotic are spaces, more plenty a bookstore is, more interesting, diversified and attractive appears to potential readers. They surely will find what they search more than not in a common bookstore, too anonymous, sad, for being taken seriously in consideration by a reader.

Who opens a bookstore, or works in a bookstore affirms Buzbee in general doesn't earn a lot of money, but he/she is inspired by knowledge. If you think that you become rich with this activity, forget it, adds.

More than mentioned also City Lights by Ferlinghetti, another important and big bookstore like Shakespeare and Company located in San Francisco, California.

This one is a wonderful reading if you love books, if you want to discover the evolution of books and bookstores during the centuries, their characteristics, the comparison with the Europen ones, alligned at the American structure, and if you want to understand the evolution of reading.

I love the cover. Books are light in the darkness of the spirit.

Highly recommended.

Anna Maria Polidori