If It Gets Quiet Later On, I Will Make a Display

Book excerpt: Essays, stories and poems on the interior lives of bookstores. Nick Thran’s volume of essays, stories and poems is a quietly powerful meditation on a life of reading, writing and bookselling. Thran, who returned to bookselling when he moved with his family to Fredericton, NB, captures the rare magic of reading communities. Here, the bookstore itself sits in the middle of an expanding root system, connecting lives, nurturing interests and stoking passions. It is a place for both private daydreaming and the small talk that staves off loneliness. And it is the fertile ground on which so many authors—including Thran—find the courage to write.