I am just back from a week’s travel in New England. While it was fantastic to be back at Harvard Square again (one of my favorite places in the world), the happiness was considerably marred by the discovery that my favorite bookstore, WordsWorth, had closed just a month before.
WordsWorth was fantastic – you could spend hours in its rather small, but extremely well-stocked (100.000 titles) store. I have never gone in there without coming out again with something – often more than my budget and luggage allowance really would allow. And the service – I once asked for three different books: One technical book, a novel, and an (at least to me) relatively obscure book on history of economic theory – and the guy behind the counter not only knew where they were, but also that one was on order (the economic history) and would be there in a week. Without consulting the computer. Wow.
Oh well, I suppose one reason for the demise was that the Harvard COOP bookstore finally provided some serious competition when Barnes and Noble took over its management. Still, a sad story.
Luckily, there is the Harvard Bookstore, with its knowledgable staff and well-stocked used book cellar. And in Amherst, I found the Jeffery Amherst Bookshop, which has much more than their Emily Dickinson collection.
So there is still hope in variety. Harvard COOP isn’t too bad (though the web site doesn’t do it justice). But I’ll miss WordsWorth.