Booksmith

So, if I walk North for 5 minutes and then turn West and continue for another 2 minutes, I find myself in front of Booksmith. Expressed in another way, by going up Masonic and taking a right on Haight, I find myself in front of Booksmith.

This is it

Booksmith is a bookshop. It is a bookshop of the kind I like. You can stumble around all morning sniffing and leafing through books – the staff leave you alone. You can imitate the action not of  the tiger but of the mole. Far from stiffening the sinews and summoning up the blood, you can snuffle into the corners and avoid eye contact with anyone except books.

Robert's buddy Jean-Claude Izzo has 3 novels in the front window!

What’s more they have a regular authors’ thing. 4 nights this week they have writers talking about their books. I went to listen to Joel Selvin last night. He is the legendary, so they tell me, rock correspondent for the SF Chronicle. His talk was a litany of insider scandal on how wiped everybody in music was.

I had the same lack of comfort as at Hardly Strictly Blue Grass. The speaker was 60-ish, virtually all the audience was 60-ish. Strong sentiment that Rock is an old person’s thing.

However it was thrilling to learn that Sheryl Crow may not have been very nice, that some of The Beach Boys took a lot, a lot of drugs,  and Sly Stone was er stoned.

His book is called Smartass – enough said.