Decline and Fall

Greenwood Books Balderdash Books

Twelve years ago or so, I wandered into Greenwood Books, across the street from Gary's Games. Since that time, the same location has hosted Balderdash Books. Both are now defunct. Reading the reviews of Balderdash, it seems that more than Amazon was involved. Come to think of it, I don't seem to mention the help in my review, either:

"With a window display of information books - , , and , Greenwood Books is your basic no-frills used bookstore. There is, actually, one frill. A stand just inside the door holds a bound volume of The Tacoma Daily Ledger dated 7/1/06-8/31/06. There you can read a grisly tale of the man who was “Told to Slay Holy Roller”. You can realize that the Roosevelt in “Roosevelt Does Not Seek Revenge” is Teddy. And you can wonder at the prescience of the man who wrote “Another Advance Made in Coffee.”

"Aside from that, Greenwood Books is spare and neat, tall stained bookshelves with art and history in the front, a large section on cooking, and a good reference section. There are grocery shopping baskets in which to collect your purchases. There are lots of popular and classic fiction titles; a solid biography section includes those of Ben Gurion, Peter the Great, Houdini, Sade and Shakespeare. Lovely brass antelope bookends are scattered here and there on the shelves. There are wire stands of paperbacks. Shelf labeling could be better, but the books are easy to find."

You see, short and not all that sweet. The Tacoma Daily Ledger was the most interesting piece in the place. Hope someone else has taken it up somewhere. The cat must have come along with Balderdash. Wonder why they didn't call it "Antelope Books"?

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