Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Beacon Press (2004), Hardcover, 223 pages
Description
Suzanne Shea has always loved a good book-and she's written five of them, all acclaimed. In the course of her ten-year career, she's done a good bit of touring, including readings and drop-ins at literally hundreds of bookstores. She never visited one that wasn't memorable. Two years ago, while recovering from radiation therapy, Shea heard from a friend who was looking for help at her bookstore. Shea volunteered, seeing it as nothing more than a way to get out of her pajamas and back into the world. But over next twelve months, from St. Patrick's Day through Poetry Month, graduation/Father's Day/summer reading/Christmas and back again to those shamrock displays, Shea lived and breathed books in a place she says sells'ideas, stories, encouragement, answers, solace, validation, the basic ammunition for daily life.' Her work was briefly interrupted by an author tour that took her to other great bookstores. Descriptions of these and her memories of book-lined rooms reaching all the way back to childhood visits to the Bookmobile are scattered throughout this charming, humorous, and engrossing account of reading and rejuvenation. For anyone who loves books, and especially for anyone who has fallen under the spell of a special bookstore, Shelf Life will be required reading.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member joanneb
"Page-Turning Adventures" and "from a Year in a Bookstore" is a combination you don't normally see. But who would expect bookstores to be particularly exciting places, except booklovers? With humour and seriousness, Suzanne Strempek Shea takes us through the seasonal cycle of the book merchandising
Two things I particularly enjoyed - her tale of growing up with books, and her affectionate and often amusing account of the customers and their expectations. This was an easy and informative read.
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business. Along the way, she tells us about her book tour experiences, explains a few facts about the greeting-card industry, and gives us the run-down on several notable independent bookstores in the U.S, and what to expect there. For that I am grateful, for If I should get to any of those cities, I will make a point of visiting. Two things I particularly enjoyed - her tale of growing up with books, and her affectionate and often amusing account of the customers and their expectations. This was an easy and informative read.
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LibraryThing member kittyjay
Author Suzanne Shea, shortly after battling cancer, is at a loss for what to do when her friend, a proprietress of a bookstore, calls her up needing help - Shea jumps at the opportunity and begins working at the bookstore, collecting a year's worth of reminiscences in this story.
I initially was
Unfortunately, this book wasn't really that. The bookstores Shea loves and lovingly details are the brand new, glossy kinds where, as she mentions, the furniture has a price tag and there are more candles, tarot cards, and wind chimes for sale than there are books. While I'm no bookshop snob and have been known to while away the hours at Barnes & Noble, it does put a hamper on the more esoteric stories waiting to be told; this read more like working in retail than working in a bookstore, specifically. (And if you think they're the same, allow me to assure you that they are not - no customer of Macy's comes in later because they wanted to tell you how much they loved their blouse, or spends hours sitting on the floor, staring at the latest pair of shoes).
Additionally, Shea often goes for pages on things only tangentially related. There are two pages filled with a list of all the magazines carried, with little else. There are pieces of history that, while I'm sure were interesting to somebody, bored me to tears. And Shea's own experiences book touring were interesting, they weren't why I picked up the book.
Occasionally she did have the kind of anecdotes I was expecting - a pilot who wanders in looking for a book on rekindling love, a man who forgets his dentures at the counter, but they were few and far between.
I'm glad that Shea found something at the bookstore that gave her guidance, particularly after facing cancer. I can't even imagine and I wish her the best of luck. However, I just can't say this book lived up to the title or my expectations.
I initially was
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intrigued as a book-lover myself. I work at a library, and one of the high points of my day is when the holds appear. After working there for nearly two years, I'm able to guess which book is whose even before I scan it and find out definitively. Then, of course, is the joy of finding a new book someone brings to the counter, or fielding the questions, "I'm looking for a book. It has a blue cover, I think? I don't know the title. Can you find it?". And, of course, there is my own love of bookstores - mostly independently-owned used bookshops half-hidden away with reader prodigy owners who can tell you exactly what you'd like.Unfortunately, this book wasn't really that. The bookstores Shea loves and lovingly details are the brand new, glossy kinds where, as she mentions, the furniture has a price tag and there are more candles, tarot cards, and wind chimes for sale than there are books. While I'm no bookshop snob and have been known to while away the hours at Barnes & Noble, it does put a hamper on the more esoteric stories waiting to be told; this read more like working in retail than working in a bookstore, specifically. (And if you think they're the same, allow me to assure you that they are not - no customer of Macy's comes in later because they wanted to tell you how much they loved their blouse, or spends hours sitting on the floor, staring at the latest pair of shoes).
Additionally, Shea often goes for pages on things only tangentially related. There are two pages filled with a list of all the magazines carried, with little else. There are pieces of history that, while I'm sure were interesting to somebody, bored me to tears. And Shea's own experiences book touring were interesting, they weren't why I picked up the book.
Occasionally she did have the kind of anecdotes I was expecting - a pilot who wanders in looking for a book on rekindling love, a man who forgets his dentures at the counter, but they were few and far between.
I'm glad that Shea found something at the bookstore that gave her guidance, particularly after facing cancer. I can't even imagine and I wish her the best of luck. However, I just can't say this book lived up to the title or my expectations.
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LibraryThing member Sarahsponda
Very readable, humorous, account of an an author’s time working at a bookstore.
LibraryThing member Meggo
The author's glimpses of life in a bookstore are accurate, but superficial. I got the feeling after reading this book that she was only playing at being a bookseller, as a means to an end (as another way of gathering material to tell a story). That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I had hoped for
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more from this book. A very light read. Show Less
LibraryThing member Ruggerwoman
Should be required reading for every bookstore employee in America!
LibraryThing member kingcvcnc
Recovering from cancer, the author works part-time in a New England book store and finds fun and life again. Not to be missed.
LibraryThing member coolmama
Sweet book. Read it in one sitting. An author takes some time off from life after recovering from breast cancer and works in a local bookstore. Sweet book. Not much insight gained. I like her writing style, she is sitting in your kitchen having coffee with you, discussing why you should support
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local independent bookstores. Show Less
LibraryThing member bowiephile
What happens when an author decides to work in bookstore? Especially one who is battling cancer? She ends up writing a charming book about a year out of her life. Popular author Suzanne Strempek Shea decides to work in an independent bookstore in a Massachusetts mall. You get drawn into the
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workings of the family owned/family run bookstore right down to the nature of how the book selling business has changed. A wonderful read for those in the book business and the civilian population! Show Less
LibraryThing member bell7
While recovering from cancer, author Suzanne Strempek Shea worked at a book store in Springfield, Massachusetts. I particularly enjoyed her description of the customers who came in looking for "that book...I can't remember its name...but it had a green cover." I can relate to both sides of the
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conversation! Show Less
LibraryThing member Lindsayg
I'm alway interested in books about books, libraries and book stores. This one chronicles a year the author spends working in a small independent book store. Lots of funny anecdotes and interesting descriptions of the shop. It took me a little while to get in to it, but once I did I finished it
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very quickly. Show Less
LibraryThing member Cecilturtle
A light account of the author's experience in a bookstore, both as a learning experience of the book selling industry and as a healing experience as she found friends and support to overcome her cancer. Unpretentious and light-hearted, the reader gets to know Strempek Shea, a whimsical, friendly,
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open-hearted soul with a streak of mischievousness. Show Less
LibraryThing member debnance
Who here wouldn't want to work around books all day?! As for me, I'm headed to a library, about as close as you can get to a bookstore without opening your purse. Shelf Life is a perfect book forall of us book-crazed people...helping people find books...meetingauthors..."hafta" reads for kids in
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school....Recommended. Show Less
LibraryThing member clothingoptional
While Sixpence House made me want to open a bookstore, Shelf Life reminded me that I wanted to sell books because my name was on the cover, not because I was standing behind the counter. Still, this is a wonderful book for anyone who loves bookstores and wonders what it would be like to work in
------------
Over the years, we've spent a ridiculous amount of time toying with the idea of opening a bookstore. In fact, we're hardly able to pass an empty storefront without suffering visions of empire, culminating in the Palazzo dei Libri - a shrine to the printed word and to all those who have toiled in its service.
There are any number of reasons against handing us the reins to a commercial enterprise, but the best by far is the fact that we are writers. Yes, we realize that many of our fellows have run businesses with some measure of success. James Joyce comes to mind. At one point, he ran an Aran sweater distributorship on the continent. Goody for him. The official portrait is nice, but we suspect Mr. Joyce ranted as much as we do about going to work when he'd rather be off scribbling.
In the thrust to make use of all possible resources, both merchant and banker have consistently been misled by the capabilities of the literary class. So adept at telling lies {and a bit soft when it comes to flattery}, we quickly fool ourselves into a lifetime of wayward jobbery. How clever we are! Oh how our cups runneth over and dribble down our bibs with the limitless potential inherent in our marrow!
Often we've heard the refrain, "They're so smart. They could do anything they put their mind to." This usually comes on the heels of some stupid declaration on our part, an oath to uphold the virtue of art, of authorship, of sitting still for long periods of time and appearing to concentrate while we are actually playing solitaire. The observer, pained by our wanton act of sloth, must extoll us to do anything, anything except become writers.
One can only listen to this kind of thing so long before one needs perking up...
In an act not dissimilar from loitering, we spend an inordinate amount of time searching for our next read. We might as well admit it, we spend so much time in bookstores that others become uncomfortable when we suggest passing yet another lunch hour wandering the stacks. Maybe we like the quiet, the sense of kinship. After alll, books are our children. And though there are ugly babies to be found, we love them all... {Except for an explicit group of writers we cannot stand. But every family has a few like that don't they? And they still get invited to holiday suppers, even though everyone hopes they won't attend. Of course, they always do, and usually appear with an even more ragged friend in tow.}
One might be within their rights to suggest that our time would be better spent in front of a typewriter, banging out prose or at least making enough noise to justify our constant whining. They might be right. After hours of staring at books we have not written, we find ourselves rescued by a disembodied voice notifying us of the eminent closure of the shop and we make our way to the front with out selections. Perhaps we do spend too much time in bookstores, but rationally we used mild addiction as justification to pursue our own shop.
Only a writer would begin a business plan by listing all the bookstores they've been to over the course of a lifetime. Only a writer would bother to spend hours trying to devise a scheme by which a dull shopfront in a strip of dull shopfronts might evoke a feeling like Orell Füssli in Zürich. How does one capture a morning's walk along the Limmat, the lake of Zürich at one's back and beyond the mountains, then crossing into the old part of the city, passing the Fraumünster with its Chagall stained glass windows, finally entering the bustling Bahnhofstrasse and laying eyes on the bright blue storefront that is the English bookstore? {The German store, all four stories of it, is undeniably grand, if frustrating to those whose German only goes as far as Max ist überall dabei.}
We did this, and then we spent the better part of a year trying to figure out how to make it work. Ultimately, we failed, not for want of money, but because we tired of the role. We have a deep respect for those who manage to forge such dreams into retail reality. It isn't easy. The work is hard, and there is always the question of dreck that must be sold to keep the lights on. We find it astonishing that anyone can do it.
Along the way, we found Ms. Strempek Shea playing at being a bookseller. She is not engaged in the crushing back office work, nor does she appear to be financially dependent on the shop. We don't fault her for this. She is a writer, which means she can only play at being something she is not. From the book, we believe she's brought the role off quite well. We admire her effort, and take pleasure in the little theater she shares. Yet, she also knows that she cannot hide behind the curtain forever; she must return to her nature.
Show More
one.------------
Over the years, we've spent a ridiculous amount of time toying with the idea of opening a bookstore. In fact, we're hardly able to pass an empty storefront without suffering visions of empire, culminating in the Palazzo dei Libri - a shrine to the printed word and to all those who have toiled in its service.
There are any number of reasons against handing us the reins to a commercial enterprise, but the best by far is the fact that we are writers. Yes, we realize that many of our fellows have run businesses with some measure of success. James Joyce comes to mind. At one point, he ran an Aran sweater distributorship on the continent. Goody for him. The official portrait is nice, but we suspect Mr. Joyce ranted as much as we do about going to work when he'd rather be off scribbling.
In the thrust to make use of all possible resources, both merchant and banker have consistently been misled by the capabilities of the literary class. So adept at telling lies {and a bit soft when it comes to flattery}, we quickly fool ourselves into a lifetime of wayward jobbery. How clever we are! Oh how our cups runneth over and dribble down our bibs with the limitless potential inherent in our marrow!
Often we've heard the refrain, "They're so smart. They could do anything they put their mind to." This usually comes on the heels of some stupid declaration on our part, an oath to uphold the virtue of art, of authorship, of sitting still for long periods of time and appearing to concentrate while we are actually playing solitaire. The observer, pained by our wanton act of sloth, must extoll us to do anything, anything except become writers.
One can only listen to this kind of thing so long before one needs perking up...
In an act not dissimilar from loitering, we spend an inordinate amount of time searching for our next read. We might as well admit it, we spend so much time in bookstores that others become uncomfortable when we suggest passing yet another lunch hour wandering the stacks. Maybe we like the quiet, the sense of kinship. After alll, books are our children. And though there are ugly babies to be found, we love them all... {Except for an explicit group of writers we cannot stand. But every family has a few like that don't they? And they still get invited to holiday suppers, even though everyone hopes they won't attend. Of course, they always do, and usually appear with an even more ragged friend in tow.}
One might be within their rights to suggest that our time would be better spent in front of a typewriter, banging out prose or at least making enough noise to justify our constant whining. They might be right. After hours of staring at books we have not written, we find ourselves rescued by a disembodied voice notifying us of the eminent closure of the shop and we make our way to the front with out selections. Perhaps we do spend too much time in bookstores, but rationally we used mild addiction as justification to pursue our own shop.
Only a writer would begin a business plan by listing all the bookstores they've been to over the course of a lifetime. Only a writer would bother to spend hours trying to devise a scheme by which a dull shopfront in a strip of dull shopfronts might evoke a feeling like Orell Füssli in Zürich. How does one capture a morning's walk along the Limmat, the lake of Zürich at one's back and beyond the mountains, then crossing into the old part of the city, passing the Fraumünster with its Chagall stained glass windows, finally entering the bustling Bahnhofstrasse and laying eyes on the bright blue storefront that is the English bookstore? {The German store, all four stories of it, is undeniably grand, if frustrating to those whose German only goes as far as Max ist überall dabei.}
We did this, and then we spent the better part of a year trying to figure out how to make it work. Ultimately, we failed, not for want of money, but because we tired of the role. We have a deep respect for those who manage to forge such dreams into retail reality. It isn't easy. The work is hard, and there is always the question of dreck that must be sold to keep the lights on. We find it astonishing that anyone can do it.
Along the way, we found Ms. Strempek Shea playing at being a bookseller. She is not engaged in the crushing back office work, nor does she appear to be financially dependent on the shop. We don't fault her for this. She is a writer, which means she can only play at being something she is not. From the book, we believe she's brought the role off quite well. We admire her effort, and take pleasure in the little theater she shares. Yet, she also knows that she cannot hide behind the curtain forever; she must return to her nature.
Show Less
LibraryThing member CarrieWuj
3.5 trending toward 4. What happens when an author goes to work in a bookstore? She makes a beautiful, noticeable display of her own books, to start with. Suzanne Shea's nonfiction account of a year at Edwards Bookstore, an indie mecca in Springfield, MA is both touching and interesting and speaks
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to the power of a bookstore to both bolster a community and foster community. She calls a bookstore a place that sells "ideas, stories, encouragement, answers, solace, validation, the basic ammunition for daily life." Suzanne has her own personal reasons to take off a year of writing -- she is recovering from cancer -- and when her friend, Janet, Edwards proprietor, calls with a job offer this seems like another angle on healing. The year's passing is indicated through store displays that highlight the holidays and also measure Suzanne's growth and progress. Reclusive at first, she soon embraces the bookstore "family" of employees and regular shoppers -- some who come in daily for their newspapers and other simple pleasures that emphasize how vital a good bookstore can be in a neighborhood. Suzanne brings some innovative ideas that help boost sales -- she is kind of a guru, having been in hundreds of bookstores for signings and readings(shout out to Women and Children First in Chicago, and Barbara's Bookstore in Oak Park) -- and the place is transformed, and so reciprocally is she. This happens to be 2001, so the 9/11 attacks are particularly poignant with the heavy death toll intersecting with her own recovery arc. "....change is the only guaranteed story element." (220) she acknowledges. Because Shea is a thorough writer, there is some extraneous detail here about how to conduct inventory, order books, unpack them, etc which feels like minutiae better left to the actual worker than just the wanna-be reader -- like learning how sausage gets made-- better to not know. An entertaining read about a mutually beneficial relationship. Show Less
Subjects
Original publication date
2004
Physical description
223 p.; 8.43 inches
ISBN
0807072583 / 9780807072585
Local notes
BOOKCASE: K
SHELF: 5
SHELF: 5
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