In May 2023, I was in New Orleans, also called “The Big Easy,” a city which is globally renowned for its jazz and cuisine. Yet, like others before me, I had just discovered that this quaint city had many wonderful bookshops, too. But which biblioaddict can be satisfied with just one bookshop? The ones I had the pleasure of visiting, and which I detail below, sold mostly used books: Beckham’s Bookshop, Dauphine Street Books, Arcadian Books and Prints, and Crescent City Books. I found out soon enough that all of their booksellers were notoriously social media shy—and, in fact, averse to even using email, except for bare essentials.
But let’s start from the beginning. My first stop was Beckham’s Bookshop on Decatur Street. Their sign, “We allow dogs and beer,” is proudly stated on their front door. Now over half a century old, this mecca of used books started business in 1967 but moved to its current location in 1979. The owners, Carey Beckham and Alton Cook are both senior citizens and men of few words. I had a chat with Carey, though, and when I told him about how I always landed up in bookshops and bought more books than I had planned, he said wryly, “Aah, but who can explain enthusiasm?”
And so, the first book that caught my attention was “The Brendan Voyage.” The title on the spine of the book appeared in my peripheral vision as I was breezing past the wooden shelves. And with that, I was hooked! This was, after all, a book that I had been on the lookout for since 1978, when I had first read about it. In fact, I rarely buy books online; the thrill lies in the hunt in real bookstores, but that’s a subject for another day.
The classic story of Tim Severin’s trans-Atlantic voyage in a medieval-type boat (named “The Brendan”) in 1976-77 was just one of the marvels that I discovered in Beckham’s. This should not be a surprise because the ones that I picked up were from a collection of over 50,000 books spread over two floors. The subjects were wide-ranging and included adventure, anthologies, gardening, occult, old-fashioned novels, books on China, books about books (a section I failed to explore sadly), trains and more. There were Western classical CDs, too—again, an area I now wish I had ventured into. A couple of hours later, I staggered out of Beckham’s promising to return, rather like Douglas MacArthur. Unlike the courageous general, I returned, not once, but thrice over the next two days, and picked up six books in all. Had it not been for weight restrictions on aeroplanes, I would doubtless have selected another 10 or more.
My next stop was Dauphine Street Books on Chartres Street. The apparently oxymoronic name did have a logical reason. Steven Lacey, the owner, actually ran a bookshop with this name on (where else) Dauphine Street for a quarter of a century. But when he decided on a new location, he moved to Chartres and chose, wisely, to go with the old, well-known name. The books are largely, but not entirely, completely categorised, and one can see that the process of categorisation is ongoing. I was pleased to see that the wide range of books in this shop included Ramachandra Guha's “Gandhi Before India,” Deepti Kapoor's “Age of Vice” as well as “On the Map” by Simon Garfield, which I promptly picked up for myself. Throughout the hour that I spent there, Steve was classifying the books and putting them away. A couple came in and showed him some very interesting books in the hope of selling them off, but no, said Steve, those books won't sell.
But even the slight disorder of Dauphine Street Books paled into insignificance when I encountered Arcadian Books and Prints at 714 Orleans Street. What a delightful place this is! Books crammed quite literally from floor to ceiling and spilling over. This shop would serve as manna from heaven to book-obsessed people, as well as the other type (I mean the Marie Kondo types). Residents of Bengaluru will no doubt recall the similarity to the wonderful world of Mr Shanbhag's Premier Book Shop, which gave much joy and learning to its visitors from 1971 to 2009. Unlike the laconic Mr Shanbhag, the owner of Arcadian Books and Prints, Russell Desmond, is quite happy to chat with you. Ever smiling, he told me about his foray into bookselling and how he decided to get into the field. Russell, who I am convinced is a Frenchman born accidentally in disguise as an American, studied in France and established this bookshop with a focus on French books. Do remember that New Orleans has French heritage, which is in fact reflected in its name.
Vinyls were also among this bookshop’s treasures. Like much of the rest of the world, I recently rediscovered the romance of the crackle of vinyl and was particularly elated to find LPs of Neil Diamond, Rod Stewart and Herbie Mann.
Crescent City Books at 240 Chartres Street is quite the opposite of Arcadian. It is neat and tidy, prim and proper. "Crescent City" is another moniker for New Orleans, hence the bookshop’s name. I could see maps and prints, and used books as well as new books, almost all of which were in enclosed wooden bookshelves and display boxes, as indeed they should be. After all, many of the books were first editions or precious ones. You could, if you wished, purchase the entire set of Harper's Bazaar magazines from the time of the American Civil War (1861-65) for USD 8,500, or a cookbook from 1682 for USD 1,850.
Finally, there is a different kind of bookshop called Faulkner House Books in Pirates Alley (yes, you read that right). Described as the prettiest bookshop in America, it is an incredibly elegant space. The books here were mainly related to English and American literature and were, for the most part, new. This is a bookshop of historical importance because it was actually the house in which William Faulkner lived in from 1923 to 1925, and where he wrote his first novel, “Soldiers’ Pay.” The shop itself was founded in 1990 by Joseph De Salvo and his wife Rosemary, who then sold it to Garner Robinson and Devereaux Bell in 2019. As for the building itself, it was built in 1840.
Wandering through the bookshop, I was able to drool over the walls which had framed letters and autographed photographs of people such as Harper Lee, T S Eliot and Robert Frost. A most distinctive feature of the bookshop is that it allows a maximum of six customers at a time (a signboard in the window informs you), and no, this is not a remnant of COVID-19—it's always been this way. I must confess that I didn't purchase any books; they weren't used books and were mainly on literature, a subject that is too specialised for me. But I totally understood, in principle, the philosophy of J M Baldwin, whose quote is displayed on one of the walls:
“A borrowed book is but a cheap pleasure, an unappreciated and unsatisfactory tool. To know the true value of books...you must first feel the sweet delight of buying them.”