It had been six years since I'd been in a bookstore, but lately I have been in three, two in Fargo and one in West Fargo. As soon as I saw the spiffy appearance of the West Fargo one, and all the more when I smelled aromatic coffee, I doubted that it would be very interesting, and it wasn't. Not very many used books so far as I noticed. One of the Fargo ones was intriguingly titled Books at a Fifth -- the books are 1/5 of cover price. It seemed to be well organized, but was very small. I had only a few minutes to get an impression. But BDS (owner's initials) books near downtown: my kind of place. This sizeable store has high, packed shelves -- in some places with double-shelved books -- and the aisles are crowded with boxes of books. Books! Books! Many of them far past their first youth. I didn't attempt to do more than check two or three areas. I selected one book and my wife, who never buys books, chose two. I handed our finds to the proprietor and the following dialogue (not word for word) ensued:
Prop. What do you know about Zager and Evans?
Me: "In the Year 2525."
Prop. That's what you'll pay. Well, $25 will do.
I handed him a $20 bill and three $2 bills and he didn't blanch.
(For non-U.S. folk: The $2 bill is genuine, but you never see them. Cash register trays have no place for them. I get them from the bank and enjoy passing them into circulation.)
I could probably spend hours there.
By the way, not really relevant to any of the stores I just mentioned, but I thought a few weeks ago that, for a certain personality type, if he or she were looking through the classified section of the phone book and saw a listing for Tenement Used Books -- he or she would be drawn to the place!