Hello from us:
Something huge is coming, and we’re both included—
A little love letter from the book shop, then. It’s June, we’ve been blessed by the sun, the parrots are making their summer transit back and forth across the sky. The roses in the shop garden are sprawled out like drunks, big sweeps of foamy color.
San Francisco in June fizzes with the electricity of a party about to happen. Everyone flirts a little harder, tries out new outfits, compliments strangers in the street, gets a little—you know. It’s intoxicating: Pride. People flock into town from all over the world for a glimpse of a brighter future. For a queer-owned, queer-run shop, Pride in our corner of the world feels like a slightly louder, slightly extra version of what we do every day. We’re here to invite you to our party. Crank it up.
Out there in the world it’s hard not to feel like something’s closing in right now. The jaws of totalitarianism are coming for a lot of us, one way or another. Books are being banned, bricks are getting thrown, bodies and pleasure are being policed. But something big is happening too: people are out in the world, building something more beautiful. It’s in the air.
Part of what we do, what all bookstores do, is to throw a crowbar in the machinery and open life up a little. We make the world bigger, not smaller. Even when it feels like we’re working in the dark, we work in service of imagination, the ability to live a freer life. We’re a place where people are afforded the fullest expression of themselves. And because of the community where we live and work, we have the incredible good fortune to be and read and dress and talk and fall in love exactly how we want, without fear, without censure. That is incredibly, vanishingly rare in bookstores and libraries around the country right now.
So if there’s a message we have this month, it’s that we invite you to be your beautiful, various selves. And wherever you are, whatever you want, however you love, find your local bookseller and thank them, for all of us.
love,
Camden & the Booksmith