For me relationships are the most rewarding aspect of bookselling. A bookseller develops relationships with their books and their readers; both are rewarding. Perhaps the most special relationship is one of bookseller with author. The author writes and loves the books they share with their readers. Also, the author reads the books that enhance her life and work.
However, more importantly, the author chooses their bookstore to browse. They buy books and share reading experiences with their booksellers, creating a relationship built around reading and sharing the joy of experiencing the physical book.
Without question, of all the authors that have shared their gifts of reading and writing, the foremost friend of Lemuria and its booksellers was Jackson’s wonderful Eudora Welty.
As a young bookseller, I had no clue how special a reading/writing relationship could be. I could not have anticipated what a deep friendship could be developed over the sharing of books. Miss Welty taught me this specialness.
As her bookstore, I was in a rare place to get to know Miss Welty. She loved to browse Lemuria and listen to reading suggestions, especially from a young Lemurian bookseller, Valerie Walley. Valerie had studied literature at Belhaven College. Belhaven was across the street from Welty’s writing windows.
Miss Welty loved mysteries and shared her love of reading Ross MacDonald with me. She pegged me instantly and I read all his books. I even visited Ross’s hometown, Santa Barbara, and stayed at the motel she stayed when visiting Ross. I read Ross’s books overlooking the ocean he tried to keep clean and the land he loved. I visited Ross’s bookseller Ralph Sipper of Joseph the Provider Books, and we became bookselling pals of sort. Ralph was a specialist and I, well you know, just a Lemurian. When Ralph eventually visited Lemuria, he shared as a gift a remarkable photo of Eudora on her last trip to see Ross. (see above photo)
My love for Miss Welty and the grace she shared with Lemuria can never be expressed in words. I just smile when she comes to mind.
As a last word, in 37 years of bookselling, my relationship with Miss Welty has given me the meaningful and complete experience a bookseller can hope to have with the books she read, the books she wrote and the readers that loved her and her work.
Left: Miss Welty at Lemuria in the old Highland Village location.
This was her first public signing for the publication of The Collected Stories, November 7, 1980.
With this blog I celebrate my remembrance of this special lady and her beautiful soul.
We’ll be sharing more stories of Eudora Welty in honor of Carolyn Brown’s new biography, A Daring Life, from University Press of Mississippi.
wwwwww
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