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By Tony Weller
One of the pleasures of working in a bookstore is the marvelous and unusual persons I have known here. It is good fortune to have worked, and work with such driven readers. I like our staff a lot. Besides Catherine and me, we employ 14 booksellers. Since I started working in 1972, I have seen hundreds of booksellers come and go. The ones who stayed for decades became components of our atmosphere like our books and building. It once seemed like Sam Weller and Wilf Clark would be eternally in charge of rare books. Later Richard Lafon, Bruce Christensen and Jean McGean and Joan Nay seemed like permanent fixtures. Child of my parents, I mostly felt like a bit player but eventually realized that I too had become part of our bookstore’s atmosphere. My mother Lila worked here from 1950 until 2020. No one ever had a longer presence here than Lila. But she was quiet and preferred private work. Many of our customers did not meet her. Catherine G. Weller began working here in 1994. Frank Pester arrived in June 1996. Stephanie Leitch joined the staff in 2001. When we opened in Trolley Square our old-timers were Bruce, Joan, Frank, Stephanie, Catherine and me. Lila Weller tended Sam between the years 1997 and 2009. She returned to work 2010 – 2020, retiring at the age of 104. Within the last decade, Joan was hired as a buyer for the LDS Church History Library and Bruce retired. Frank has been a vigorous and intuitive buyer of used and rare books since about 1999. He also began working in conservation at the University of Utah’s Marriott Library. For the last several years, Frank and I have been the sole buyers.
Frank Pester retired last month on the 30th anniversary of his first day of work here. We will fill many of his duties well enough, but I will especially miss his intuition about the physicality and significance of books. A bookseller’s knowledge is never complete and when difficult investigations occurred, Frank and I together were a powerful combo, with some 80 years of experience between us.
When we resume buying in July, I will be our only buyer for used and rare books. It may be harder to accommodate sellers but we will not suffer for supply. If you have books to offer, please call and if I am unavailable, a message will be delivered to me. I will schedule appointments as often as time and workflow permit. Younger staff will be immersed in used and rare book processing and the inculcation of a new generation of booksellers into the customs, dilemmas and vagaries of the book trade will begin again. Our bookstore is 97 years old but alas, no one here has 97 years of experience.
Many wonderful persons have helped run this bookstore. We hire persons who love to read and train them in our standards of communication and service. Every experienced bookseller was once naĂŻve and had to gain knowledge and intuition, by exposure, wiles and observation. I have tried to triangulate facets of my own perception into serviceable navigational advice. I try to impart these sensibilities to others who will work in the universe of books.
We will miss Frank Pester but I suspect we will see him regularly. His appetite for books seems insatiable. That’s what made him a great bookseller. Maybe he finally has time to read.
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RECEIVE 20% OFF WHEN YOU PURCHASE TS
THROUGH JULY AND AUGUST
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By Manuel Marsol
Transit Children's Editions
Paperback $21.95
Best Wellers Price $17.56
Reviewed by Stephanie Leitch
In the realm of contemporary Children’s Picture Books, it takes an exceptional work of gestalt to catch my eye let alone win me over. Spanish author and illustrator Manuel Marsol constructed the exquisite world and wove the poignant message we find in Astro over the span of 11 years. It is intricately surreal and engrossingly believable. It feels like hundreds of years span in both real and no time as we pour over the book's enthralling 64 pages. The microcosm and macrocosm is held in balance within its detail and spaciousness. There is room to explore, play, grieve, and reflect.
The illustrations are a combination of pen and ink, thick acrylic, and collage, imbuing the world we visit with so much life and texture. Sometimes collage elements in books can serve to flatten and abstract, but these hints just add real-world tactility even in an otherworldly place. Elegant, original, unexpected, unprecious, playful, rich and meditative.
The book takes place on another planet somewhere in the universe and shows us the facets and lifespan of friendship between a gentle explorer and the creature he encounters. Together they explore the world’s multifarious landscapes and inhabitants with relatable moments of closeness and distance. When Astro loses his friend, he is ultimately comforted by the emptiness yet wholeness of space.
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By Zach Weinersmith
Farrar, Straus, and Giroux
Hardcover $18.99
Reviewed by Claire Corwin
Sawyer Lee proudly has zero ambitions in life. His only goal (if you can call it that) is to chill on his best friend Gary's couch– and even that is asking a lot. Although he comes from a long lineage of go-getters: astronauts, world leaders, spies, champions, experts, he did not get that particular gene. In fact, he might have genes that reject action and ambition. So, when it falls to him to save the annual Gourd Thump in town, he’s not thrilled. At all.
Every year the folks in Ovelaville seem to lose their minds over the Gourd Spirit Display Contest. Their delight is contagious to everybody but Sawyer. Until today, he has successfully avoided having anything to do with the Thump. But all that is shattered when his friend Angela demands help with her gourd display. Trapped in an unwanted assignment, Sawyer is forced to undergo injustices like “cooperation” and “participation.” To make matters worse, a scandal is sweeping through the town. Participants of the contest are being caught with contraband like fertilizer and gourd enhancing products. Is this a conspiracy, or is there a mastermind behind these incidents?
As an out and proud couch potato, this book really resonated with me. Sawyer’s dedication to doing nothing is truly inspirational, and it was nice to see my lifestyle represented in a novel. It’s hard for us lazybones to catch a break in this hustle culture.
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By Fernando Pessoa
New Directions
Paperback $19.95
Reviewed by Dylan Parry
Fernando Pessoa, arguably Portugal’s greatest Modernist poet of the 20th Century, truly
lived up to the ideal that people contain multitudes. In his latest book to be published by New Directions, we are gifted with a deeper understanding of why. Ricardo Reis, whose works are collected here for the first time in a bilingual Portuguese-English format, was not a real person, but when you read his poems, they will come off as if he was, having lived a rich but
melancholic life, all of which was contained and created in Pessoa himself.
Already you might have met other heteronyms of Pessoa’s, such as Alberto Caeiro the shepard, Alvaro de Campos the futurist, and Bernardo Soares the office clerk. Each are already published by New Directions, and they are certainly worth reading to get a rich and fully fleshed understanding of Pessoa’s inner world, and those who populated it.
Reis was Pessoa’s unabashed monarchist and Hellenist heteronym. Having exiled himself to Brazil after the republican revolution of 1910, the melancholic doctor’s lines are filled with odes to Apollo, Artemis, and other figures of Greek myth, as well as ancient Roman poets such as Horace, whose surviving odes certainly inspired Reis/Pessoa in many of these poems.
The imagery in Reis’s poems are both different and familiar to Pessoa’s other
heteronyms, as if each took little pieces from the others and made it their own. And that might be because that’s just what Pessoa did. While Reis’s pastoral poems of nymphs, satyrs and gods reminds us of Caeiro’s own, the melancholy in which some of these poems are injected, the wine soaked revelry of a bacchanal, certainly reminds us of poems published under Pessoa’s own name, and those of de Campos.
To anyone familiar with Pessoa, this will come as no surprise, because while Reis and the others all existed within the imaginative mind of one man, they corresponded in real periodicals, most of which were printed by Pessoa and his other artist friends, such as his short lived magazine, Athena.
As an example, Reis considered Caeiro his “Master,” and in this beautiful collection, you will find many of the introductions Reis wrote for Caeiro’s own published works. In these you will see Reis almost exasperated, calling for a new Hellenistic Renaissance and for Caeiro to be its leading figure, turning away from the increased industrialization of the world. But those familiar with Caeiro will also see how the pupil, in his eagerness to impress his master, almost loses sight of his master’s vision of relating to the world as it is, and enjoying the slowness of
life, not harking back to a “Golden Age” that’s more myth than history.
Such details are fun little nuggets for those, like me, who are almost enraptured with
Pessoa’s genius, but you’re not missing out if you don’t pick them up immediately, or are unfamiliar with Pessoa’s oeuvres. These collected works of Reis can be appreciated just as they are by anyone who wants a modern and rich Horace for these melancholic times, or just another beautiful collection of poetry.
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By Jeyamohan
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Paperback $19.00
Reviewed by Dylan Parry
Stories of the True is the recent collection of short stories by the Tamil author, Jeyamohan, whom I discovered on a whim — the best way I like to find a new author. Being unfamiliar with an author, I usually tend towards short story collections if available or if they even exist, to get a feel for how a new author thinks and writes.
Luckily, Jeyamohan delivers.
In this collection of stories, Jeyamohan from the jump gives us insight into the overall theme of the book, with his first story titled “Aram,” the Tamil equivalent of the Sanskrit word, Dharma. While these stories are tinged with consequences, self doubt, challenges, idealism and more, Jeyamohan isn’t interested in giving us a lecture on moral righteousness. Instead we are taken along for a ride in stories from Jeyamohan’s own life, and those he met along the way — some of whom were and are, real life figures.
No two stories here are the same, but as I said, do contend with the same theme of Aram. This choice on Jeyamohan’s part creates a book full of struggling humanity, and looks to show our ability to push forward, even in the face of defeat or heartbreak. But it also shows the shortcomings and failings of society overall, and while we may desire to be seen by others for our own humanity, we don’t always receive or give it. Being set in 1980s/90s India, Jeyamohan shows Indian society caught between this tension, and how it plays out from a diverse cast of characters.
Many of these characters are from the Indian literary scene, whether it be small publishers, established authors or aspiring ones, Jeyamohan also introduces us to the humanity found within the famed Indian caste system. In one story, we are introduced to a Dalit farmhand whose desire for genuine dignity after witnessing the abuse of his father, has him running away to the big city and refusing to deny himself the dignity he desires, even when others refuse. In another story we are introduced to the famed experiment known as Auroville, an ongoing intentional community to this day, and one of its more eccentric and exciting characters, a former WW2 bomber pilot who became a conscientious objector to the violence tearing the world apart and created, after the war, the now equally eccentric World Passport.
All of these characters and others, both real and imagined, bring to the forefront something that we all share within ourselves, no matter how young or old we are, no matter what corner of the world we find ourselves in, Jeyamohan reveals the shared humanity and desires within all of us, and that if we pay attention and refuse to let the darker side of humanity overtake us, we can hopefully make the world a better place.
Jeyamohan is after all, in his own unique way, an idealist, and I like to think that this collection of short stories is his way of refusing to submit to the darkness, and bring a little more light into the world.
| | Claire's Summer Kid Picks | |
By Lucy Kinsley
Penguin Random House
Hardcover $18.99

We all know this kid or have been them. As a wock hound, myself, I adored this book. It's one of my favorites of the season with its charming illustrations about a day at the park with one VERY enthusiastic wock-lover. What was your childhood obsession?
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By Bonsoir Lune
Translated by Frances Cha
Penguin Random House
Hardcover $19.99

Dive into the perfect summer read. These juicy illustrations will cool you off on even the hottest summer day. When the watermelon pool opens up, the whole village comes out to play (just avoid the seeds)!
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By Niki Smith
Scholastic
Parperback $14.99
Kenzie and Quinn aren’t just stepsisters — they’re best friends. This summer is a little different since they're spending it with their grandmother in a coastal town. However, even blue skies and sandy beaches can’t distract from what’s going on back home.
Things between their parents aren’t the way they used to be, and the constant fights have left Kenzie and Quinn anxious and confused. They can’t remember a time when they weren’t a family. If their parents divorce and Quinn and her mom move away, will they even still be sisters . . . or will they be nothing?
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By Alfredo Cáceres
Simon & Schuster
Parperback $14.99
A tale of grief and longing, but with a light touch. I loved this book. It's clever and sweet, as well as funny and bright. Irene and Francis are wonderful characters and their relationship is so delightful to watch grow as they traverse a mysterious and mournful world in search of those they lost.
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By Jose Antonio Emmanuel
Triangle Square
Parperback $17.95
Brief, friendly, and illuminating, this book sheds light on a misunderstood system. Perfect for parents and educators interested in sharing with a young reader the ideals of liberatory education, in which extremism and oppression are banished, and values of mutual support, equality between individuals, universal love and human solidarity are promoted
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By Sarah Lariviere
Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers
Parperback $12.99
In an alternate 1991, the authoritarian US government censors which books can be read, what music can be listened to, and which plays can be performed. When her best friend is killed by the authorities and her theater teacher disappears without a trace, Gigi decides to organize her fellow Champaign High School thespians to put on a production of Henry VI. But at what cost?
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By Shannon Lee and Fonda Lee
Wednesday Books
Parperback $21.00
Martial Arts! Action! YEAH! Shannon Lee (speaker, educator, and daughter of THE Bruce Lee) teams up with sci-fi great, Fonda Lee, for a complex, hard hitting thrill ride with unpredictable twists and turns.
|   | A nearly perfect copy of the 1957 Denison book, Spaghetti Eddie by Mary Jackson Ellis, with brilliant illustrations by Sylvia Myers. You gotta love it! $125 | | |
North American Mammals by Sean Landers. A very unusual art book depicting these mammals with plaid skins and furs. Cool, fun and silly. $90
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Click here for our July events newsletter
As always, view our events calendar to see all of our upcoming events.
We host both virtual and in-person events, and we look forward to seeing you soon.
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Come visit us!
SUNDAY 12-5
MONDAY-THURSDAY 10-8
FRIDAY & SATURDAY 10-9
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Can’t make it to the store?
Support your local indie from home!
Order by phone or online, then pick up at the store! We also ship!
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Give us a call at 801-328-2586.
Shop new books on our website.
Browse our entire inventory of new, used and rare books on Biblio.com.
Listen to audiobooks from Libro.fm.
| | This issue of Textblock is edited by Liam Harrison-Stewart | | | | |
