I am SUCH a loser. How is it possible than in 13 years of living in Los Angeles, I had never been to Book Soup until Thursday night?! Sure, I’ve known about it, known that it was the greatest bookstore in town, but I’ve become too acquainted with my Kindle, stayed in my little “buy it on Amazon” cocoon, forgetting that there is something inspiring about going into a bookstore that has been so fabulously curated, feeling a book with your hands and knowing you will be forever changed by words on a page. I’ll admit, I had a reason to go. It was the book launch party for my client Marisa Lynch’s book New Dress a Day, and how exciting to witness a first time author discover her book on a shelf for the first time!
I was first to arrive, so I had a little time to kill before the party. I mosied over to the travel section by chance and the first thing that jumped out was Paris in Color by Nichole Robertson. I have loved her work for years and actually just purchased this print for my gallery wall.
This book has been on my Amazon wish list for a while. I’ve been saving it for when I finish up the many books I need to finish. Seeing this book singled out in a prime spot made me think they must have taken all my favorite books and put them on display before I arrived!
Love those Luxe Guides!
Of course I was tempted by J.K.Rowling, but the one next to it caught by eye more. It was number one on the Staff Pick list for fiction and that is really what makes this book store so great and so unique. Little notes are scattered throughout the store with thoughtful reveiws, almost as if your friend left you a book with a post it telling you why you will love it.
Once Marisa arrived, we couldn’t resisit snanpping a few photos with her poster. Then, it was on to sipping wine and mingling with fans. If you aren’t familiar, check out her blog here. She is a DIY goddess and can turn the most hideous dress into something chic. Congratulations, Marisa!
As for me, I’m currently cozied inside for the weekend, ready to dive into my new books and Domino magazine. The weather has cooled, it’s drizzly and overcast, the perfect backdrop for the best book I have read in a long time…The Mystery Guest by Grégoire Bouillier. It’s not new, but wow—soulful and emotionally charged. It’s a memoir about when the author receives a phone call out of the blue from the woman who left him without so much as a goodbye five years earlier. She isn’t calling with an explanation or apology, but rather to invite him to be the mystergy guest at a birthday party for a woman he has never met. I could tell you more, but then I’d have to kill you.
Oh, how we are all connected, clinging to necessary hope that this life isn’t all for nothing and that our past—those we’ve loved and devastatingly lost has meaning. I can’t really say it any better than GQ did—”Read it, then set it on your desk. Pick it up again. Gaze into it. Be startled. By your own scaled-down reflection most of all.”
Book Soup. 8818 West Sunset Boulevard. Los Angeles, CA 90069. 310-659-3110
