My Favorite Bookstores

After telling Ann about world's largest bookstore
Barnes & Noble, learned from her email on
world's oldest bookstore Livraria Bertrand
and bookstores on Shanghai's Fuzhou Road.

She asked what are my favorite bookstores.
Shakespeare and Company came to mind—
I bought Jorge Luis Borges' Labyrinths
there, summer 1979 when living in Paris.

Spent much time at American Brahman Bookstore
(1968-1970) where I met my first spiritual mentor
Anthony Damiani, who introduced me to wisdom
of sages Ramana Maharshi and Paul Brunton.

Love shopping at Strand and bookstores
lining 4th Ave Manhattan where I bought
complete works of Oscar Wilde, poetry of
Swineburne, and Balzac's Louis Lambert.

Bought French & German Chemist Dictionaries
at Cornell Store, helping me to pass graduate
school language exams, six volumes of plays
by Schiller and Emerson's One First Love.

At Harvard Bookstore bought Wei Wu Wei's
Ask the Awakened; at Sphinx Bookshop met
Buckminster Fuller talking, signing his photo
"The brain is temporal, but the Mind is eternal."

At Pangloss Bookshop, bought A Concordance
to the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri for $15,
and Thomas Taylor's Plotinus Enneads for 25¢
owned by Harvard President Nathan Pusey.

Went to Kepler's Books for Gary Snyder's
poetry reading of Left Out in the Rain (1985)
and Frank Wilczek's talk "Lightness of Being"
learning we went to the same NYC schools.

Faith Bell picked me up hitchhiking at Stanford,
her bookcases touch the ceiling at Bell's Books
where I bought books on Dante while taking
Frecerro's class on Dante's Divine Comedy.

At Books Inc. Shirley Temple signed her
Child Star: An Autobiography for Dad,
chatted about their times at United Nations;
Stephen Mitchell signed Parables & Portraits.

Had hundred of dollars credit at Book Buyers
exchanging retired professor's books for their's
on poetry, metaphysics, & issues of Parabola
magazines featuring folklore and mythology.

Went to Tower Records for their annual 30%
discount sale; bought books, books, books,
to read and couldn't go to bed, could have
read all night and still have begged for more.

        — Peter Y. Chou
            Mountain View, 11-17-2021