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The Great Literary Trip: Day 8

 I'm back! Welcome to the day 8 recap. 



Day 8

CITIES

Today was our last day in NYC. We took it slow today, as the past two days have been hard on our feet.

MUSEUMS

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
While I have been to the MET before, I am always blown away by the juxtaposition between the scale and magnitude of the museum and how significant just one canvas or one ceramic bowl can be to me. The MET has been the setting of many a children's/young adult book. One particularly great one is From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. 

Aside from being an important setting in books and movies, literature inspires art, and art inspires literature. I saw hundreds of paintings and sculptures today of biblical figures. Religion in general as well as the Holy Bible has inspired many of the greatest works of art. Other notable pieces of literature that have inspired the creation of major works of art are Invisible Man, Ophelia, The Lady of Shalott, Dubling, and Don Quixote. Vice versa, a few pieces of literature that were created because of artistic influence are A Picture of Dorian Gray, Girl with the Pearl Earring, and The Goldfinch. 


BOOKSTORES

Strand Bookstore

The Strand was opened in 1927 on what was then called "Book Row." Book Row was made up of 48 bookstores along 4th Avenue. Ben Bass was 25 when he opened the Strand with only $600, half of it was his, and the other half was loaned to him from a friend. Bass named his bookstore after a London street where prolific writers like Dickens (boy is he showing up a lot on this journey!) and Mill often dwelled. Today, the Strand is still in the Bass family, where it has remained for the past 90 years. The Strand is the sole survivor of the nearly 50 original bookstores on Book Row. 

I have been waiting my whole life to see this bookstore. Well, folks, today was the day. After eating the most delicious chocolate whoopie pie I have ever had (the look the poor girl behind the register gave me after I asked for a whoopee pYE in my southern accent was truly priceless), we forged into the pilgrimage site for all booklovers. Upon entering the store, however, I was completely overwhelmed. 

The fact that it was just a busy day for the store certainly played into the madness, but I could not find a thing. In the Strand, there are table displays set up everywhere. From hot fiction, to the Strand's 90 classics, to BookTok, to Blind Date with a Book, it was too much for me. I felt my skin flush with effort as I told at least 28 of the angriest New Yorkers "excuse me" (again, cue the drawl), moving my huge red basket to the only open place in the store: above my head. There are three floors in this place, and I couldn't find a place in my current plane for my basket; I had to move vertically. 

I found myself just staring at times: at the floor, the back of a book without the reading the summary or the title for that matter, and the map where I read the words "self-help" over and over. I passed by certain tables 10 or 20 times picking up the same books over and over. (Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting: A Novel caught my eye every time I passed by the "new new new fiction" table, and I can still hear the description opening in my head. "Every day Iona, a larger-than-life magazine..." yada yada...) Honestly, it feels like a dream. A good one, don't get me wrong. Being surrounded by books on literally all sides is always great. However, my poor mother did in fact ask me if I was crying multiple times (I was not.). 

My final assessment: going to the Strand is great if you don't know what you want. If you vaguely know the genre you are interested in, but not the exact title or author you want: go. If you want a really popular book, go. If you are interested in "hot" books and authors, go. If you want a pencil pouch for your senior year and a tote bag to carry to a coffee shop even though you hate coffee: go. However, if you know a certain author you like or the title of a specific book, I'm sorry; you're out of luck. You won't be able to find it. Although there are literally no more than four people in the following picture that I don’t remember taking, I promise at one point there were 700 people in that store. I'm surprised I left with all four of my limbs and the members of my family much less the items I purchased. 




I took 14,654 steps today. Check back in tomorrow for another recap!

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