Stepping inside a good bookstore can feel like stepping outside of time.
We’re not talking about giant booksellers; we’re talking about little hole-in-the-wall shops that are steeped in character and charm. The sort of places that feel magical, as if you never know what you might find around the next corner. Author and bibliophile Melissa Caruso recently visited a shop like this, and she took us all along for the ride via her Twitter account.
Welcome to Lyrical Ballad Bookstore in Saratoga Springs, New York. Melissa herself writes fantasy novels, including a trilogy that involves a character trying to hunt down a rare book. She loves exploring new shops, so when her daughter told her about Lyrical Ballad, she couldn’t wait to check it out.
To say the store exceeded her expectations would be an understatement!
Once she stepped inside, Melissa was delighted to find a “literal maze of books.”
“You walk into the shop and at first it looks like there are just two rooms of books,” Melissa wrote. “Regular used bookstore. Cool! Also antique prints and [curios] tucked in any open space. Lovely. Warm happy feelings already. As with most magical things, wonders await those who look closer.”
Melissa loved the little details hidden in the stacks, from tiny miniature books to rare children’s books. There is even a book vault leading curious book lovers deeper into the shop with the promise of six more rooms full of books of all shapes, sizes, colors, and genres.
“This is when you realize that you are going to be here for a long, long time,” Melissa wrote.
As she wound her way through the labyrinth of rooms, Melissa marveled at the sheer volume of books housed inside the shop. She lost count of the rooms she passed through (there were definitely more than six), and she started to feel like she was inside a “Harry Potter” building where the outside doesn’t match the expansive inside.
“As you explore, you browse, of course,” she went on. “Some of the books are newer. Some are your favorite paperbacks from childhood. Others are 100 years old or more, just sitting there on the shelves. You can pick them up, handle them, breathe them in.”
Melissa was happy to report that the books at Lyrical Ballad Bookstore were organized and easy to find. She gushed over books that were more than 100 years old, drooled over a 200-year-old, 4-volume set of “The Canterbury Tales,” and finally settled on an 1883 edition of “Gray’s Elegy.”
When she discovered a secret lurking inside her selected tome, she got chills.
“Someone had put those bookmarks there 130 years ago, and there they remained, a little paused moment in time,” she described. “It was surprisingly not-expensive, so we bought it. But first, we continued on, finding what might possibly be the final room at last.”
Even as she neared the end of the stacks, she wondered if the store actually has an end. Perhaps it just goes on and on into some magical dimension? Maybe Melissa’s trip through Lyrical Ballad sparked an idea for her next fantasy novel! You just never know what magic you’ll discover when you step into a bookstore.
Share this story to thank Melissa for taking us with her on her tour!
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