Bird & Beckett

If you ever need to get to Chenery Street in San Francisco from 280, don't exit at Alemany Boulevard like Yahoo! Maps recommends. If you do, you will have to negotiate a confusing series of forks in the road that will leave you lost, miserable, and wishing whoever had designed those forks had been beaten senseless with a spoon. The experience will also leave you in tears. And while there's no shame in crying, AAA road maps aren't waterproof (at least mine aren't).

Instead of Alemany, exit at Monterey Boulevard and conserve some time, gas, and patience. With the holiday shopping season upon us, you're going to need that patience; unless you've already completed your shopping, in which case, there's a spoon I'd like you to meet.

Chenery Street is home to a cluster of coffee shops, restaurants, salons, and boutiques. It's also home to Bird & Beckett Books & Records (technically on Diamond Street, but close enough). Unable to resist the temptation of an independent bookstore, I had to stop in.

When I entered, only a few incandescent lamps were lit, giving the tiny place a dark, mysterious atmosphere. Books were everywhere. They filled every shelf of every bookcase. They sat in stacks on top of the bookcases and in piles on the floor in front of them. The store didn't have the sterile, organized feeling of a Barnes & Noble. New books mingled with used books, old editions with revised editions. It felt like a place where books were read, not merely sold.

As I perused, I was struck by the romantic notion that I might stumble upon a rare or forgotten book. I might come across a title I had been wanting for ages and then find a better one next to it. I was immediately overcome with the feeling that I had to leave with something.

I had no idea what that something was at first, but then I remembered my previous visit to a bookstore (Borders Express, I believe). I had been looking for books by P.G. Wodehouse and hadn't been able to find a single title. So, I went hunting for Wodehouse.

What followed was a brief but invigorating search. In the end, I came across two titles. Not wanting to be greedy, I flipped a mental coin and chose a used copy of Mike and Psmith (the P is silent).

It wasn't exactly a rare or forgotten book, but it was good enough to brighten my day, bolster my belief in independent bookstores like Bird & Beckett, and make the earlier driving confusion seem entirely worthwhile.