It was time for my bi-annual trip with my college friends and this time we headed to Atlanta! I can’t understand why we get two Southern states in a row (it was New Orleans in 2017) because August is NOT the best time to travel in the Southern US. But we get Cleveland in 2021 so I’ll look forward to that.
Atlanta is not known for being a book-centric city like some of the places I’ve been visiting so I went in with no expectations. I found a lot of book stores but many of them were far away from the downtown area we are staying and over an hour on a bus to get there. I opted for three that were moderately walkable from my hotel.
The first one I tried was For Keeps Bookstore. This was poor planning on my behalf because it was closed when I got there! I tried opening the door about 10:40 and they opened at 11:00. I decided not to wait because I was on a tight time schedule so I, unfortunately, do not have anything good or bad to say about this place. I had a great walk through the Georgia State campus to get there, though!
Next, I jumped on the train and wandered into A Capella Books. This was listed on two different ‘Best of’ lists that I looked into. I have to be honest, it wasn’t what I was expecting. I guess I had some ideas of amazing small Indy bookstores and this was just physically smaller than I’d hoped for. It was two rooms and to get to the second you had to walk behind the register. There was a mix of new and used books and most books only had one copy. There were a few that were outward-facing with multiple copies and I looked at those options more extensively. What eventually drew me in was their book club display. There seem to be at least fifteen book clubs that meet at the store and their current and past selections were on display. I grabbed one of these, The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai, which is part of their Best Lit Book Club. The cashier said she’d heard great things about it.
The second backroom held mostly poetry and some second-hand fiction. There was a group of three employees (I’m assuming) talking about books and I believe they were picking new orders. I poked around and was excited to find a signed first edition of Gone With the Wind! It was a ‘look but don’t touch’ situation, but it was still really cool to see.
I took a long walk along the Beltway to the next store, stopping for lunch along the way. It was HOT! I got a bit lost, too. I was heading to Posman Books which is located in Ponce City Market. This is an outdoor mall setting with multiple levels and access points. When I eventually made it, I was unfortunately short on time! This store was more what I was looking for. There are five locations for Posman, two in New York, one in Boston, and another in an Atlanta suburb. It was a good-sized store with good fiction selection and some kids interactive toys as well. There was a really friendly employee who was walking around and answering questions. I found a small foreign language section and was BEYOND EXCITED to find the Spanish translation of John Green’s Turtles All The Way Down, Mil veces hasta siempre. YA is a great reading level for me in Spanish and after the success of Will Grayson, Will Grayson earlier this year, I’m excited to have another translated Green for future Spanish reading. I grabbed an Atlanta postcard to go with my purchase and had to rush to catch a bus back to the hotel. I got to my meeting with one minute to spare! Go me.
I’m not sure when I’ll be traveling again but I’ll be sure to take tons of pictures and let you all know what I find. Until next time, write on.
Until next time, write on.
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Taking On a World of Words 