Films You Need to See: Hello, Bookstore
Someone tell me please...how exactly does one go about opening a bookstore?
I found this documentary on a whim from my local library, and I’ve watched the DVD twice now, before it’s due back. But I’m sure I’ll check it out again, or keep watch for my own copy. What a delight.
The doc is simply 90 minutes of a warm, kindly man named Matt Tannenbaum who owns a bookstore in Lenox Massachusetts, telling stories and reading passages of literature (some of them from memory, others directly from the book in his hands) while he sells books and greets his customers. At one point he reads from Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More To Life by Maurice Sendak, and his store also has a wine bar called GET LIT.
The film flips back and forth to footage of Tannenbaum’s store full of customers to him selling books curbside during the pandemic, just to try and stay in business. The main dramatic element of the film is when his local community repays his kindness by saving it from closure. That’s basically the whole film. It’s soothing to watch and makes me really, really want to have my own bookstore.
This simple film is not only a historical document of what life was like during the height of COVID, but it's a document of human community and people doing life together, coming together to save their favorite place.
I re-watched it because I just wanted to hang out in the store again and observe the kindness, the patience, and the generosity of Matt Tannenbaum — his spirit, his knowledge, his storytelling, his love for the written word and his love for people.
In this quote he explains his life in a nutshell, "This guy walked up to my desk, and he says to me, 'I see what you do. You sit in that chair, surrounded by the things you love most in the world....and all you do all day is talk to people about the things you love most in the world....and the only time you're interrupted is when someone wants to give you money.' That's my life." Am I a little jealous? I might be.
In many ways, that’s what I’m trying to do with this Substack newsletter. It’s one of the great joys of my life to talk or write about not only the books I love, but movies and music: the three great obsessions of my life. I write about them here (and elsewhere on the inter-webs) in the hopes that someone else may be led to discover them and love them as much as I do. O to have a life where my livelihood is to be a seeker and evangelist for lost gems!
If I owned my own bookstore it would also have a TV in the corner playing films nobody has heard of, and music nobody listens to. And I’d just be there waiting for someone to ask “what is this?” Well, let me tell you…
If you are reading these posts and enjoying them, send me a message and let me know what you’ve fallen in love with.
And watch this film while you’re at it.
Hi Ken! I really appreciate what you share in your posts. The ones that stand out in my memory are: Speilberg and Sendak, your monthly posts on children's books, the Secret of NIMH, and one with the movie "The Goonies". I loved both those movies when they came out. I have recently rewatched "The Goonies", and I think I may have enjoyed it more this time. I watched it with my sister while staying in Astoria. We didn't look for the house in the movie while we were there, but we did visit Cannon Beach and a tiny movie museum where I bought a Goonie t-shirt. I hope you keep posting. Your posts are thoughtful and fun to read. Your posts make me think of things from a different perspective and I am grateful.