How Rick Hertzberg is wrong about Square Books.

via newyorker.com

Rick Hertzberg went to the Conference for the Book in Oxford, MS, last week and yesterday he posted about his trip. It's all beautifully observed and deftly spun together, as usual, but Hertzberg missteps on one key point.

"Square Books," he writes, "is the best independent bookstore in Mississippi and probably the whole of the South."

OK, I know this is standard invocation one hears whenever Square Books is mentioned, especially in the accounts of how-do-you-say outside observers who have just dipped in and out of Oxford to sample its resurgent glamour.

But trust me on this: Lemuria Books in Jackson is the equal of Square Books in every way, and people should know that. Plus it's four years older than Square, so there.

I will admit to bias, of course, being a Jackson boy and all. I've been hanging out at Lemuria ever since John Evans opened it in 1975. I was a senior in high school and happily spent hours rifling its shelves. It may or may not be true that Geronimo Rex was the first book I bought there, but that's that story I tell.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Square Books. It is indeed a great independent book store. Same as Lemuria.

Which, if you're scoring at home, is two more than Manhattan has.

Really, it's two-and-a-half more than Manhattan, since I should include TurnRow Books in Greenwood, a sort of Lemuria-Square love child that opened a few years back.

Hetrzberg says Square Books is "what puts Oxford over the line." That may well be the case, but it does suggest one way Lemuria may be the better store, or at least more important. Lemuria is what keeps Jackson from sinking beneath the waves.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/hendrikhertzberg/2010/03/missive-from-o...

http://www.lemuriabooks.com/

http://www.turnrowbooks.com/

http://www.squarebooks.com/

1 response

Well, I'm more than an outsider just dropping in-- I've been going to Lemuria since the early 80s, and to Square Books since day one (I've a signed copy of Ellen Douglas's The Rock Cried Out from the first signing at Square Books, and a signed copy of Styron's Sophie's Choice from shortly thereafter-- a signed book I'd not have from Lemuria...). You'll probably dismiss this as talk from an Oxonian, but Square Books really outdoes Lemuria in the size and breadth of what it offers, whether measured by number of titles of otherwise. I love Lemuria, and have spent a lot of time there because seeing what another bookseller has on offer has always been important to me.

Many of the "outsiders dropping in," oddly enough, hit both stores-- writers on a tour through the area hit a circuit that has both stores, a fact that has increased the profile of both in getting readings. Writers are perpetually surprised by the size of the audiences they get at Square Books, an audience the store has spent years cultivating (when it started, you'd see like 10-15 people turn out for the likes of Ann Beattie or Tobias Wolfe. Fiction writers are forever startled to see large crowds in this store).

Maybe Hertzberg didn't see Lemuria, but that alone (that he's seen this one twice and not Lemuria) says something.

Square Books has a large part in altering its environment in a way that Lemuria has not-- Oxford is a book and writers town, with a community that makes writers central in an important part of the town's life. I've not heard a hint that there has been anything like that happen in Jackson.

Oh, and you're factually wrong about Turnrow Books in Greenwood-- it's owner, Jamie Kornegay, was an employee at Square Books for years, and left there to found Turnrow. If it's anyone's child, its the child of Square Books.

— NMissC