I love stepping into a bookstore that overflows with local character. An intoxicating example is Driftless Books, also known as the Forgotten Works Warehouse, which is owned by a true book fanatic (and, I should mention, my mom’s roommate), Eddy Nix.
Driftless Books sprawls within an old tobacco warehouse in Viroqua, Wisconsin. Outside, friends of Robert Horwich, a local outsider artist and biologist who died in 2017, moved a collection of his sculptures into a permanent open-air exhibit. Inside, I’ve found hardcover first editions in translation of Kobo Abe and Kenzaburo Oe novels. Bizarrely, I never leave without an immaculate copy of William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi’s The Book of Tofu or The Book of Miso, as though they regenerate from the kuraguse of the old bricks themselves. (Kuraguse means the patina of healthy bacteria and mold that accumulates in the walls, beams, and floorboards of old miso shops. Of course, storied bookstores nourish their own communities of living cultures).
Driftless Books and Music
518 Walnut St, Viroqua, WI 54665
I fell in love with indie bookstores as a kid. My dad is a rabid bibliophile and often took me to indies around Portland, from Annie Blooms to Powell’s to his friend Phil’s dusty towering space called Great Northwest Books (RIP). He chose books to read to me based on what his friends—the bookstore owners and employees—recommended. At night at the Holman House, our home, he’d often read me to sleep as I rested my head on his lap, sometimes not even noticing if I’d drifted off because he was so engrossed in the book himself. The next day, I’d have to make him reread whole sections.
All these years later, I realize that people working in bookstores fed my childhood imagination with their own fascinations and delights. What a gift! Independent bookstores are among our culture’s most potent sites of magic. They capture the boundlessness of imagination. We need as many places like this as possible. Happy indie bookstore day!
Slowly but surely, my book tour is coming into focus. Some dates and sites are still hazy but we’ve confirmed events in August in Portland, OR; Seattle, WA; Port Townsend, WA; and Sisters, OR; and on September 20 at Driftless Books in Viroqua, WI! I’d love to see any and all of you at one of the events—I’ll send along details when they’re crisp. That said…
If you can’t make it to a reading—because you live elsewhere—I’d love for you to order Group Living and Other Recipes in advance! Bookshop.org is an amazing site that sends money from each online order to independent bookstores (you can even select the bookstore you’d like to support).
At this moment in time, students around the nation are protesting the genocide in Gaza, and I stand with them. Here’s to putting our energy toward a more boundlessly humane future!
Lola - I’m so happy to think of you in Viroqua, WI at one time 1961-63, I had a friend from that small town - made famous for its’ ski jump… in that flat country. Congratulations on this book‼️