That Coveted Window Spot
Craig Mod is currently on a book tour for his new walking memoir, Things Become Other Things. While in NYC, he stopped by one of his favorite bookstores in the world, Three Lives & Company, located on the corner of W 10th and Waverly Place in the West Village, to sign some copies of his book. He wrote about Three Lives and what it means to see his book in the window of the shop:
I know of no other store (book or otherwise) with nicer, more knowledgable people working there. It’s uncanny, the amount of unharried, chill, giving-a-shitness you feel as soon as you walk in. The space is small, sure, but every millimeter is covered in arguably one of the best curated selections of books in the world. I dare you to visit and not buy something (I bought Eliza Barry Callahan’s The Hearing Test today). The taste is unparalleled. I’ve been to enough bookstores in the world now to say this with some confidence. No, they don’t have every book. But we don’t want every book. We want great books chosen by people whose adoration of books stems from a life committed to books.
Like Craig, I’ve been visiting Three Lives for probably 20 years, first as my neighborhood bookstore and now as one of the NYC touchstones I visit every time I’m in town (even when they moved several blocks west a few years ago during the renovation of their building). It’s my favorite bookstore and the place against which I mentally compare every other bookstore I’ve ever been to — my personal mètre étalon for booksellers.
If I ever write a book, the only place I really care about seeing it is in the window or on the front table at Three Lives. When I visit, I always daydream a little about that, my book in that window. Like Craig said: “It’s not about seeing it in every window, just the windows of places I respect the most.”
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