Comments on: Things that Don’t Go Away – Death of a Bookstore by Sarah Zettel

By: Jamie Agnew

Jamie Agnew — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:58:19 +0000

And what is Aunt Agatha’s, chopped liver????

By: Sarah Zettel

Sarah Zettel — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:53:54 +0000

Nicola! Good to see you here!

I didn’t mean to imply you retired into obscurity. You’ve got a great store. And I certainly didn’t intend to say you overlapped Shaman Drum, or that I think you should have. They were in a separate niche, one that ultimately, unfortunately, proved too small.

By: Nicola Rooney

Nicola Rooney — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:57:54 +0000

Just a couple of corrections to Sarah Zettel’s elegy for a deceased bookstore. Nicola’s Books has always been located in the Westgate Shopping Center, and took over the Little Professor Book Company store in that location in 1995. Little Professor had existed there or very near there since the early 70′s. We did try to open a second outlet, taking over the last 2 years in the lease of Websters Books, (owned by the same company that was Community News), in the Traver Village Mall, but closed it down at the end of the lease. It is inaccurate to imply that having failed to expand, we retired to the outskrts to live in obscurity – perhaps I am being too sensitive, but there we are. We have never carried the same inventory as Shaman Drum did, but then to carry the same types of titles in two stores would undermine diversity. We too are sad to see other local bookstores fail to thrive, but economic pressures affect us all.

By: Sarah Zettel

Sarah Zettel — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:50:13 +0000

Did what will probably be my last run on Sunday. The first run I went for histories and biographies. This time I went for the novels, and got stuck on themes of China and the Chinese in America, including:

Brothers, by Yu Hua
The Moon Opera by Bi Feiyu
Water Ghosts by Shawna Yang Ryan
China Men by Maxine Hong Kingston

But also picked up the US historical Blindspot by Jill LeFore, the Victorian mystery The glass of Time by Michael Cox, and also one of the few modern books I’ve ever seen that competes in length with the classic Russian novelists: Hunge’s Brides by Paul Anderson (no relation to the classic SF author Poul Anderson)

Am going through the stages of grief on the replacement issue. I think I’ll stay here in denial as long as possible.

By: Gwendolyn McIntyre

Gwendolyn McIntyre — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:40:47 +0000

To be replaced by an … ewww! I can’t even say the word…

It’s sad to see ‘special places’ like this disappear. I’ve seen ‘the end’ of three of them in the past two years… and like you, I was there as one of the ‘vultures,’ waiting to swoop down upon the carcass and scavenge whatever I might find useful for my research and reference shelves in my own writers den.

Still, it is the loss of an old friend that hurts the most.

By: Sarah Zettel

Sarah Zettel — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:38:19 +0000

It’s turning into a _drug store_?! That gorgeous space of wood and light and ideas is being turned into a DRUG STORE?!!!

I have no words, none whatsoever.

I may need to go lie down for awhile.

By: Andy Piper

Andy Piper — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 11:49:52 +0000

Thanks for the nice write up. I am not a book nut, but I know a good store when I see one and Shaman Drum was it! You can tell from the outside and and when you walk in that it was a special unique place – a true specialty store. I hope they can recreate themselves in a different format that is profitable, In the mean time, we are losing Shaman Drum and getting a CVS drugstore in downtown Ann Arbor on State Street.