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What is a book?

Published March 20, 2009 Bookselling in the 21st century , Bookstore Lore , Poetry Leave a Comment

A book is not a flower press.
A book is not a coaster.
A book is not a foot stool.
Nor a flotation device. Although sometimes.
A book is not a hat in the rain.
That’s what newspapers are for, if you can find one.
A book is not an electronic object.
A book is not your best friend.
Though you may sleep with a book, do not write on its skin.
Take your book to lunch, but do not share your spaghetti with a book.
Do not banish a book to the basement,
Nor hide onein an attic. Read a book  in broad daylight.
Take one to the beach, but not for a swim.

Remember your first book? A love like no other.

Audacious Hope!

Published November 6, 2008 Bookselling in the 21st century , Uncategorized Leave a Comment
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A truly transcendent moment in American history…a President-elect who reads history, who learns from history; who makes history! President-elect Barack Obama will not only be bringing cases of good books to the White House come January, he’ll be uniting our country and our world, we hope, in a new spirit of community-building and cooperation. Jon Meacham’s essay in the New York Times Sunday Book Review, 2 November 2008, listed some of Mr. Obama’s most treasured reads: “The Federalist, Jefferson, Emerson, Lincoln, Twain” were first among them. His list continues: “W.E.B. Du Bois’s Souls of Black Folk, Dr. King’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail”, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon.   Take the Barack test.  How many of these have you read? And how about the following? Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory, and The Quiet American, Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook and Solzhenitsyn’s Cancer Ward as well as Gandhi’s autogiography.  Factor in Nietzsche, Niebuhr and Tillich plus John Steinbeck’s In Dubious Battle, Robert Caro’s Power Broker,  Studs Terkel’s Working, and Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and Theory of Moral Sentiments. How did you fare?  Most of us have a little catching up to do!

More importantly, we are grateful the country has elected a president of such learning, intellect, and grace. We’ve been wandering in the desert too long!  Think of what new reading groups may form around these titles, how many new voters could also be turned on to some new reading inspired by President Obama.  We welcome the return of literacy and decency to the country.   Mr. Obama is a bookseller’s president! His own  two books: Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope have earned much acclaim. We hope the country will keep on voting, continue reading and will fully realize the transformative power of this extraordinary moment in history.

Through the big blue door

Published July 19, 2008 Bookselling in the 21st century , Bookstore Lore , Uncategorized Leave a Comment
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We’ve been visited by old-timers who remember the place that in the late ’30s sold penny candy and sodas at the corner of Glover and Main where our bookshop has made its home since 1980. We’ve heard from others about the back room where teenagers came to watch t.v. in the ’50s and maybe drink some beer. Some variety of religious thrift shop sold old clothes and odds and ends here. Then Canio Pavone transformed the space into the literary gathering place and the eclectic shop Canio’s Books is today. We’ve heard rumors the huge basement was once a speak-easy during Prohibition, but then, it’s likely most any large underground rooms served a similar purpose in this port town. Access to Sag Harbor Cove through the trees out back may even have provided a clandestine route to transport the rum. In the mid to late 1850s, the building was once owned by a certain Reverend William Musgrave, minister at Christ Episcopal Church in Sag Harbor village. And the wide floorboards in back are said to be part of the original structure which dates from the late 1790s. We have yet to hear from any ghosts. But the voices of so many writers, poets, novelists and playwrights who have read at the shop have now seeped into the walls that the stories they could tell would likely continue for a long long while.

Canio’s Books is located at 290 Main Street, Sag Harbor, NY 11963, 631.725.4926. Call or email us, caniosbooks@verizon.net. While we love you to SEE you, you can also order new titles at our online storefront or some of our second hand inventory HERE. Thanks for visiting!