Shelf Life

Where do books come from? These days, the stork brings them via the Internet, apparently. But the depersonalized mode of literary browsing only makes the human world of real bookstores, especially independent, family-owned shops, more precious. And it's that atmosphere that Suzanne Strempek Shea sought out. A novelist who'd lived through cancer and written a book about her travails, she went to work at Edwards Books, where she found a world of engagement in the community of readers, the knowledgeable and eccentric hangers-on (one guy loved to read titles out loud and thrilled her by reading one of hers) and in the owner, Janet Edwards.

Shea's love of Brookline Booksmith spilled over to her cozy vocation at Edwards. At this literary watering hole, says the owner, "It really is a world begging for connection." Shea describes authors' readings--including her own--that, even with somtimes squirmingly small audiences were exhausting, gratifying, quirky fun. With one foot in book-writing and the other in book-selling, Shea champions authors, especially local ones and celebrates the excitement that radiates through the stores as flesh and book make contact.