Susan Palmer's Exquisite Now

The book was waiting for me. It was a moment when you can’t help believing in fate.

I’ve been compiling a list of books to discuss with fellow writers at a workshop I’m giving in June. I want a range of voices and genres, and woke up one morning in early January thinking to include Leslie Marmon Silko and her book Ceremony. Jumped up, went to the bookshelf where she lives at my house. She wasn’t there. I went to all my shelves. Not there. Not there. Not there.

Damn. Maybe in a burst of purging, I let her go? Or loaned her out? Days passed. I forgot about it, pulled some other book from the shelf.

Then we headed to San Francisco for a week of gawking around the big city, and I can’t visit without dropping into City Lights Bookstore, among my favorite of the independent shops (in Salt Lake City, it’s The King’s English, in Denver The Tattered Cover, in Seattle Elliott Bay Book Company). It’s as though someone is personally curating for me at City Lights.. Not huge like Portland’s Powells,which is lovable in its sprawling “we have everything!” way. City Lights is more “don’t worry, we got you.”

I had no thought that morning for exactly what I wanted when we entered. So. Step in, turn right, pass some shelves, turn right again, all random, just saying hello to the bookstore, blink, and what is here in front of me? At eye level, Silko’s Ceremony. It’s as though City Lights is saying “welcome back, Susan.”

A good hour browsing in the store that was founded in 1953 by poet, artist, activist, essayist Lawrence Ferlinghetti, reminded me how a well-curated bookstore can bring me to places I am surprised to learn that I want to go.

Some unknown impulse drew me to the shelves of European authors. Once there, the book titled The Moon and the Bonfires by Cesare Pavese, an Italian novelist, caught my eye. I know nothing of Italian authors. But I will know a something or two shortly.

Ferlinghetti, who also founded a publishing company, was charged in 1956 with publishing an obscene work: poet Allen GInsberg’s Howl. He was acquitted in that land-mark first-amendment case. It was sweet to be in his store, especially in this current period of American history. I loved a hand-scribbled sign above the shelves: “Free speech zone.” Was glad we wandered in on Thursday because Friday (Jan. 30), they shut their doors in solidarity with the anti-ICE shutdown.