Book Book

Now that the weather has warmed up slightly, Book Book, on Bleeker Street between Leroy and Morton Streets, throws open its windows, which gives the front of the store an accordion shape as they all stand ajar in a row. Inside, everything is clean and beige, and lit by the sun.

The literature section, in the back right corner, has a lot of depth; there isn't a wide variation of authors, but the store has the complete works of each author they carry. It appeared as though one of the owners had taken all the books by their favorite authors and piled them horizontally on top of each other instead of vertically, so that they stuck out to the eye when scanning the shelves. The selected authors vary between classics like Faulkner, Dostoyevsky, and Nabokov, and more modern writers such as J.D. Salinger, David Foster Wallace and Haruki Murakami.

The store has a prodigious children’s section, which I haven't seen much of elsewhere. The history section is large and impressive as well. And I approve of any bookstore, like this one, that classifies Hunter S. Thompson as a historian. The sale books, on a cart outside, are all new and purchased at a discount from publishers who overstocked, said co-owner Charlie Mullen.

Mullen is a blue-eyed middle-aged man, friendly and mildly sarcastic. He told me all about the complex tribulations of owning a bookstore, most of which went over my head, but I gathered that it is not exactly a lucrative business. “I won’t be buying an island anytime soon," he said. Book Book sells only new books, which was a conscious decision on the part of both owners.

“Used and rare is a totally different type of book selling," said Mullen, "but there are ways to make money in it. I heard of a guy who found a Bible on the street and sold it for 100,000 dollars. Used bookstore owners stay in the game by dreaming about stuff like that, but it's not for me."

Until this past January, Book Book was named Biography Books and was located farther west on Bleeker, by 11th St. The store’s owners, Charlie Mullen and Carolyn Epstein, opened the store at its current location in September of 2009, and the two stores coexisted for a few months. Mullen said the move took place because their landlord did not renew the lease. "Magnolia Bakery opened, and then the Marc Jacobs store, and then it was off to the races,” he said.

He explained to me that once a lease expires, a landlord can hike up the rent price as much as she wants to, in the hopes that some expensive boutique will rent out the space. “Unless I was some sort of closet Rockefeller," Mullen said, "there was no way I was going to be able to stay.”

Mullen seemed cheerfully cynical about the entire situation. "I like the new environment actually," he said, "This neighborhood is much more like the old West Village I remember." He swept his hand around, motioning towards a cheese shop across the street. "And I've gotten to know some of the owners of these little shops, which is a nice change. It's not like Marc Jacobs ever stopped by to chat."