Museum Bookshops and Why I Don’t Need Another Shirt
Oct 5th 2007
Claudia DainOn Writing!
I love museums. I love historic sites. I love bookstores. Combine these and you have the museum bookstore at the historical site. These are, without question, the very best places to buy unusual books, those books that you never see hanging around on the sale table at Borders.
So there I was, at West Point Military Academy just a few days ago. I was enthralled by the physical presence of the place. West Point on the Hudson River in New York is narrowly poised between the river and the mountains, granite buildings clinging to any flat stretch of ground. The place just shouts Important Things Happen Here.
I took the guided tour. The tour guide had lots of information about West Point during the American Revolution, Benedict Arnold, General Washington, General Howe. I hung onto her every word. I took notes.
And then I do what I always do: I practically sprinted into the museum bookstore to find those rare and highly specific books about a place that you only find at that place. It’s in museum bookshops that you normally find architectural drawings of the first structure built, or the history of the first inhabitants, or the battles that took place right over there. In the West Point museum shop, they had…tee shirts.
Oh, they had a few books. A few, shoved over into a corner, almost hidden by roughly 13 racks of tee shirts and sweat shirts. After the shock wore off, I sniffed back a few tears and looked the books over carefully. There was one, all photos, about the seasons at West Point Military Academy. There was one about restaurants in the area. There were a few assorted books by military personnel covering wars from the Revolution to Bosnia, but nothing I couldn’t find in my local Borders.
Okay, I’ll admit it. I sobbed.
Books are the way I get information. They feed me. They fire my imagination. Historical facts fuel story ideas. Not only that, they are the way I remember. Without a book to anchor my memory, that trip to West Point will fade. Even photos don’t fire my memory the way a book will. I live on books.
What do you look for in a shop on vacation? What will keep the trip alive for you? What unusual, amazing book did you buy (besides The Courtesan’s Daughter) that made your day?
44 Comments »
44 Responses to “Museum Bookshops and Why I Don’t Need Another Shirt”
Meg on 05 Oct 2007 at 8:40 am #
I am all about taking pictures. And when I go into shops I look for the unique, something that would identify the moment. I love going into the stores that are ONLY at the places I go on vacation; stores that I can’t find when I come home. Other than buying those “signature” items, as noted, it’s all about the pictures. I take LOTS of pictures. I used to bug the people I was with by taking so many but in the end they loved all the pics I had! Good question, too. I leave on vacation in just seven days!! I am soooo ready.
Caren Crane on 05 Oct 2007 at 8:40 am #
Claudia, I love the books in the museum shop, too! I took my Girl Scout troop to Fort Fisher this spring and they had these amazing books at the battlefield museum. Books that contained letters written by soldiers on both sides of the Civil War. Amazing books! I wish, now, that I had bought at least two of them. There is no better way to get a feel for what really happened, what daily life was like and how people spoke and communicated in a historical period. I was trying to cut costs, though, so I didn’t buy them. Now I really regret it!
Karen Rose on 05 Oct 2007 at 8:52 am #
Claudia - I don’t normally buy books in museum gift shops. I look for weird things I can put on the wall or display. I was NYC last summer and my hotel was fifteen feet from the JP Morgan museum. DH is a history teacher and I thought I could find something fun for him. I did - little magnets with all of Shakespeare’s insults.
He teaches at a school for the performing arts. His kids will love it!
Julia London on 05 Oct 2007 at 8:56 am #
Claudia I do the same thing. I scarf up all the books in musuem shops, especially those of the big grand houses. Its so much easier to describe a room with visual aids. Plus, it helps take me to that “place” inside my head.
cookeemama on 05 Oct 2007 at 8:59 am #
I love the museum bookshops also. Haven’t been to one in awhile tho. I need to fix that. One of my favorite finds of this sort was the gift shop at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater house in Western PA. The house is pretty amazing and so is the gift/bookshop. Naturally, the books were all about the building of Fallingwater and bios of Wright. I got one of each. I don’t know where the bio is these days. Buried under the book mass that threatens to topple over and kill me any minute, I’m sure. What I got from the book was that Wright was a gifted architect and a fairly lousy husband/father.
The Philadelphia Art Museum (think Rocky) has a fabulous gift shop/book store. I feel like I’ve stepped into church when I go there.
I think I need a road trip!
Claudia Dain on 05 Oct 2007 at 9:22 am #
Road Trip!!! I’m there! LOL Just back from mine and, now that the laundry’s done, ready to go again.
Karen R, I’m laughing *at* you that you don’t buy books in museum shops. How can you resist? I simply can’t. More books, all the time, that’s my sad mantra. Little things to display? Dust catchers. Can’t get into that at all. Though I have to admit that Shakespeare’s insults sound cool. When I was in Stratford-upon-Avon last spring (dear Will’s home town) I bought a dictionary of idioms and their origins. Naturally. Is this surprising?
DK (that’s Dear Kid) just explained to me that the reason the West Point shop had all those dumb tee shirts was that it was the school store. Uh, the students apparently want to buy clothes with the school name. Ooooookay.
Claudia Dain on 05 Oct 2007 at 9:25 am #
Caren, whenever I want to buy something and don’t, especially a book, I regret it for the rest of my life. I dream about the book that got away. I mourn the loss of the great relationship I would surely have had with that book.
When you see something, buy it.
Which would explain my credit card bill.
SuzyQ on 05 Oct 2007 at 9:29 am #
I normally don’t buy books on a vacation spot unless it’s something really interesting about the place. The way I remember places is by keeping a travel journal. At the end of the day I jot down the things we’ve done and the places we’ve eaten. This really comes in handy if you visit the same place again. You’ll know what restaurants were good and the ones to avoid if they weren’t.
I also always pick up a tack pin that has the name of the location we are visiting. I have piece of felt with all the pins on it and it’s fun to see all the different places we’ve been to. I have started this for my kids and now they like to pick out their own pins.
Claudia Dain on 05 Oct 2007 at 9:33 am #
I wish I were organized enough to keep a travel journal. I’m not. I’m living in the moment on every trip I take. It’s all I can do to remember to take photos! I’m very bad at taking photos. Though the ones above are on the bluff of West Point, facing north, the Hudson River in full view.
I’m so impressed with myself. I remembered to pull out the camera!
Claudia Dain on 05 Oct 2007 at 9:35 am #
SuzyQ, does every spot sell tack pins? I can’t remember seeing any at West Point, though i was looking for books and only books so can’t be counted on for a very accurate description of the museum shop. I was crying, remember, puffy eyes and all that.
cail on 05 Oct 2007 at 9:41 am #
i’m a picture taker. thats how i remember my vacations. that and i write down the entire story of my trip in a journal, and do sketches. i tend to get one or two real souveniers from gift shops or something i collect in nature. Often its a cute t-shirt. :-).
elsiehogarth on 05 Oct 2007 at 9:43 am #
Ohhh, I’m definitely a t-shirt person but I must have a plate also. Be it small or big from wherever I am. I also love Museum Shops, they have the best stuff. Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art is were I’ve left most of my money.
RachelG on 05 Oct 2007 at 9:48 am #
I love museums. I love being surrounded by history . . . but when I’m on vacation, I buy shoes and hand bags. I LOVE the feel and smell of Italian leather.
An amazing book “besides the Courtesan’s Daughter?” Is there such a book?
rachelg
Claudia Dain on 05 Oct 2007 at 9:57 am #
Why, no, Rachel, I don’t believe there is. *G*
Okay, Cail, you not only keep a vacation journal, but you do SKETCHES!? I’m gasping and green with envy. I can barely pull out the camera and you’re doing a sketch. I would give anything to be able to draw. In fact, I made each of my kids take art lessons for roughly 5 years and said when they grumbled, “You’ll thank me later.”
They’re thanking me. Who wouldn’t love to be able to draw?
And, truth time, since the museum shop was offering shirts, I bought some for the kids. What’s a mother to do? I had to get them *something*.
SuzyQ on 05 Oct 2007 at 10:12 am #
Claudia - most places do have pins. I like them because they don’t take up much space. If I can’t find one I’ll ususally get a pen which I can use for the journal or something else that’s small. I normally don’t buy t-shirts because I never wear them. It has to be a reeeeallllly nice shirt or sweatshirt in order for me to buy it.
Claudia Dain on 05 Oct 2007 at 10:24 am #
Something else I like to buy to remember the trip is a postcard. Postcard photos, especially taken from an angle I can’t get with my camera, like from the air, are compact, cheap, and I use them as bookmarks. Practical! You’re not going to believe this, but the West Point museum shop didn’t even have good postcards!
The more I talk about this, the more I see a fabulous job opportunity for someone to manage that shop. It’s just not living up to its full potential.
Georgie Lee on 05 Oct 2007 at 10:52 am #
I can sympathize with you. I was at Berkeley Plantation and Shirley Plantation in Virginia last week and neither bookstore had any books on the actual plantations or the families who owned them. The interpretive guides were excellent sources of information and provided great details. However, I wanted books to take home, books that provided more information about the families and the history and books with great pictures. I was devestated when I reached the gift shops. Had I wanted a tea set or a cookbook I’d have been in luck but there were no books to be found.
On a side note, I brought back so many books from Europe that my suitcase was slapped with a “Heavy” labele on the way home.
doglady on 05 Oct 2007 at 11:12 am #
I LOVE museum book shops! I could spend hours and large sums of money in any of them. I am also a big postcard collector. I have these great postcard albums I got in Germany and I love to sit and cruise through my memories. Some of my museum books are almost 40 years old. When I watched Pride and Prejudice, the latest version, I kept thinking “Boy, this looks familiar.” when Elizabeth was wandering thru Darcy’s house. A few months later I was organizing my research materials and incorporating a huge box of books I had retrieved from my mother’s house into my collection when I found a book on Chatsworth (from 1969. I have this thing about putting the date in books when I buy them.) I realize the reason those scenes looked familiar was because I had been there at age 9! I never leave a museum book shop without at least one book and an armload of postcards. I was lucky enough to be in Amsterdam on the 100th or so anniversary of Van Gogh’s birth. The Van Gogh museum had called all of
doglady on 05 Oct 2007 at 11:14 am #
his paintings home. I have a lovely book of the entire exhibit, including a large collection of letters between him and his brother, Theo. I also have a gorgeous framed poster of the exhibit featuring his Irises on it. I hauled that poster around in a poster tube for two years before I returned to the States and had it framed.
Meg on 05 Oct 2007 at 11:34 am #
Every year when I go to Kissimmee I always go to Downtown Disney. They have a store there called Pin Traders. Over the years I have bought so many of their pins that last year I decided to turn them into Christmas tree orniments. It turned out great!! Every time I look at my tree I see the different years of vacation. But what exactly is a tack pin?
cail on 05 Oct 2007 at 11:45 am #
it is rather nice to have sketches. my living room has pen and ink drawings and pastels from my trip to Umbria, Italy about 8 years ago.
college stores rarely have the kind of souveniers that you’d be looking for. Usually it’s catered to the college students, with their required reading and clothes.
i also tend to bring home rocks or shells to make into jewelry.
SuzyQ on 05 Oct 2007 at 11:47 am #
Meg - a tack pin (or is it tac?) are the same ones you probably buy. They are pins that look like a push pin with a round backing that holds it in place rather than the pins that have a hook closure.
Cookiedough on 05 Oct 2007 at 1:05 pm #
Pictures pictures and more pictures! It’s what I do during a trip. Even if it’s just a 2 hr road trip to a country market. I don’t have the time to sketch or paint on the trip, so I use the photos and make one or two. I like to do landscapes or seascapes in watercolours and acryllics.
I go into giftshops and get a tote bag with a funky logo from the town I’m in. Friends bring me totes from their trips too. My old boss just brought me back this wonderfully tacky tote from Onion Jack’s Trading Post in Bermuda- complete with an eye patched onion pirate. I love it!
Doglady- I am so jealous you got to see that beautiful house, Chatsworth. It’s been on my to visit list for years!
Karen Hawkins on 05 Oct 2007 at 1:14 pm #
I ADORE museum gift shops! I have lotsa books, replication antique jewelry, little painted boxes and tons of stuff. I love kitch and if you add some history, I love it even more.
One of my most prized research books is a children’s book that I bought in the gift shop in the Pump Room in Bath. It has a complete layout of the Roman Bath and then a ‘look through the ages’ at the various buildings they thought had been built on that site, all the way to the present one, which was a very prominent place during Regency times. I looove that book. It’s just gorgeous.
Claudia, you’d make a great shop proprietor! With your love of history and your organizational skills, it’s be a smash.
Claudia Dain on 05 Oct 2007 at 1:19 pm #
I’m so glad that I’m not the only one who overloads on books when I travel. Whew. I hate to think I’m weird.
Cail, you are so creative! It would never even cross my mind to try and make jewelry. I leave that for the professionals. *G* What great mementos you’re creating, which has to add to the delight of the trip.
Doglady, your book on Chatsworth sounds wonderful! Your experience with the book, the visit, the movie of P&P is exactly what I’m talking about. The book takes me back to that place. I don’t know why a book does it better for me than a photo; certainly a photo would take less room, but there’s just so much meat in a book.
I really have an addiction, don’t I? Admitting it is the first step, I guess.
Kay on 05 Oct 2007 at 1:25 pm #
I ALWAYS come home from a trip with new book. Dh & the kids, too. Sooooooo, I usually buy a new canvas tote bag on every big trip–to carry the heavy books. LOL
I can’t go to a museum show w/o buying the book. While on a field trip with oldest child’s class to Fort Snelling, I found a wonderful book BUDDIES. GUYS, DOG AND WWII. DH got it for his birthday. It shows all of these very young soldiers with the dogs (and occasional cat, monkey & snake) they found and loved while far away from home and in the middle of a war. I have heard that the Army now prohibits this practice, but some of our smart guys and gals in uniform have found a way around it–they train these strays, then get them assigned to their unit as a guard dog! It’s hard to get between a dog-lover and dog.
I also look for the most tacky Christmas ornament to remind us of each family trip. we have so many now that they have their own little tree. LOL
I get postcards, too. They make great book markers.
Claudia Dain on 05 Oct 2007 at 1:26 pm #
Karen, I *know* I could turn that West Point museum shop around, but the hitch is that I’d have to live in New York, in the wilderness, in the mountains. Brrrr.
Caren Crane on 05 Oct 2007 at 1:26 pm #
Doglady, your Van Gogh book sounds divine! I never thought to date when I bought the books. Another great idea! Too funny about recognizing Chatsworth. I am envious of your extensive travel. Can I tag along in your trunk? *g*
Claudia, I’m with you on the no-sketching thing. My oldest sister is a very talented artist. I have little to no artistic skill at all, sadly. I never forced my kids to take art lessons, but now I’m finding the idea has merit. I’ll bet I could work on the youngest and get her trained up. Heck, she has 5 more years until she graduates. There is still time!
Claudia Dain on 05 Oct 2007 at 1:28 pm #
Kay, that book about soldiers and dogs sounds wonderful! Just the sort of book I’d buy on vacation. Not at all the sort of book that I found anywhere on this vacation. Sigh.
Claudia Dain on 05 Oct 2007 at 1:30 pm #
Caren Crane, it is my Goddess Opinion that it is never too late to beat your kids into art class.
Don’t quote me. Your kids may find out where I live when I’m not on Mt. Olympus and take out some sort of watercolor revenge on me.
Suzanne Enoch on 05 Oct 2007 at 1:31 pm #
I have a photo my sis took of me in our hotel in London. I had stacked up all the books I bought at Bath, Blenheim, Hampton Court, Stowe Gardens, Chiswick House, Windsor, the Tower, the V & A, The British Museum, etc. It was nearly 4 feet tall. And every time I open one of them, I’m back there again, remembering the experience I had that inspired me to buy it. And the extra suitcase I had to purchase to get them home. *g*
Kay on 05 Oct 2007 at 1:36 pm #
Claudia, it was by a local author. The gift shops at Fort Snelling, and at the MN History Museum have lots of small press, local books. They have local pottery, too. I bought two great mugs w/ loons on them–the design is flat & worked into the gray pottery w/ black and white so it looks like a charcoal drawing, amazing. I went back to get two more, and they were out. Can’t find any more. The artist doesn’t work with the gift shop anymore and they don’t have her/his name on file
It is cool to have things that everyone else doesn’t have. I just have to be VERY careful with those mugs. LOL
Claudia Dain on 05 Oct 2007 at 1:42 pm #
Kay, that’s exactly the appeal of the museum shops: they have those rare and unusual items that my local stores don’t have, particularly books. It’s why I drool just thinking about museum shops. It’s why I sobbed at West Point.
Suzanne, my sister goddess! Exactly!! Your pile of “I Went To England” books sounds suspiciously like mine, though I think you have some I missed. Covet, covet.
doglady on 05 Oct 2007 at 1:45 pm #
Ah, Caren, at this point my traveling days are over. I have high hopes that this writing gig might make it possible for me to take up my wandering ways again. When that happens you are welcome to come along for the ride! I love road trips with friends!! I owe my fabulous travels to the men in my life. My father was in the Air Force and of all the places we were stationed, the three years we spent in England were the best. My opera career took me all over the world, mostly Europe, thanks to a supportive and understanding DH and a pushy, dictatorial Austrian opera coach. I am just glad I succumbed to Claudia’s addiction and filled every spare inch of my luggage with books, postcards and yes, Karen Hawkins, bits and pieces of kitch as well! I think Suzanne should post that photo of the tower of books! Amazing!
Tracy Grant on 05 Oct 2007 at 3:44 pm #
I too love museum gift shops–for the books and also for scarves (the Met has fabulous ones) and the jewelry. I love to buy jewelry on trips–fun to wear on the trip, great for evoking memories ( particularly if there’ s a connection to my books). I have peridot earrings (based on a Monet painting) from the Met gfit shop, a bracelet of Perthshire agate from Scotland, a silver bracelet with pink tourmaline by a young British jewelry designer from a shop near by London hotel, an Oregon moonstone pendant from Ashland, OR, a cameo from an antique store in New Orleans, a silver and freshwater pearl bracelet from Santa FE, and just recently a pendant with a griffin taken from a 19th century wax seal that I bought at Downtown Disney in Anaheim (there’ s a griffin in the family crest in my series, so I couldn’t pass it up :-).
Claudia Dain on 05 Oct 2007 at 4:52 pm #
Tracy! I see a new addiction coming my way! Jewelry as trip mementos. I wouldn’t give up books and postcards, of course, just add jewelry to the mix.
I can see that travel is going to get more and more expensive for me.
Your jewelry sounds amazing!
Dot C on 05 Oct 2007 at 6:14 pm #
I went to Scotland to visit my bro the summer after I graduated High School. He was stationed in Dunoon, so staying with his family made it a very cost effective trip, leaving me some funds for….stuff. I had a few prizes that made it back from Scotland with me….hair from a sheep I’d shorn myself at the Highland Games during a workshop, supposed to cure ear infections and calloused feet. A piece of brick from Toward Castle (I didn’t know about the no relic things back then, and wasn’t thinking about all the castle being gone if everyone took a piece). I had very visceral experiences while I was there…standing in the main hearth of the castle’s big room, visiting the dungeons at Stirling, and walking the Royal Mile (its all UPHILL FOR GODS SAKE). I didn’t know so much about Scottish history back then…Diana G hadn’t written her novels yet to make us all experts on it (LOL), but while I was in Edinburgh Castle, I acquired some books about all kinds of things Scottish….cont.
Dot C on 05 Oct 2007 at 6:21 pm #
one on Mary Queen of Scots, another on the battle of Bannockburn and Robert the Bruce. These books were soft cover, with beautiful illustrations, and somewhat like the books one finds in children’s spinner racks at the book store (Thank you Claudia for the Borders plug, we love you btw). Anywho, they don’t even have an ISBN, so they aren’t, well, gettable anywhere else. I think I’ll go pull them out now. I so understand how you feel Claudia, I forget to take pictures, and if I take them, take years to develop them, don’t document what they are, and forget where they were taken. LOL. A little TOO in the moment, aye! I won’t forget sitting on the Isle of Skye though, and looking at the mainland, while restoration forces worked on repairs on one of the many castles dotting the land. My brother thought I was crazy at the time for just wanting to sit, and soak. But years later, the memories are crystal clear. I think I’ll go get those books right now!
Dot
Sabrina Jeffries on 05 Oct 2007 at 6:23 pm #
Karen R and I are alike (once again). I tend to buy stuff I’m sure I can’t get anywhere else. I only buy books about a place if I intend to include it in a book, which isn’t that common, since I mostly go places in America (I’m hoping to remedy that soon). But I do love the unusual items you can find in gift shops–things like puzzles of the place or other items.
Dot C on 05 Oct 2007 at 6:24 pm #
I regret not buying a kilt. At the time they were about 60.00 for a full 8 yrds. Nowadays, they are over 200.00! Blast that hindsight. I should have bought an arisaid too!
Dot
Claudia Dain on 05 Oct 2007 at 7:25 pm #
Oh, Dot, I’m the same way. If I just sit and let it all sink in, I keep it. The memory of that moment stays with me always. It’s just so hard to find the time to stop and let it in! Hurry, hurry is the rule for most vacations to exotic or unusual places. It’s great, you get to see a lot, but the sense of place can go missing.
Julia London on 05 Oct 2007 at 7:33 pm #
Books from Europe — I ship them home so I don’t get the heavy sticker or have to buy another suitcase. Once, in Paris, I found this collectible books–antique books or whatever you call them. I found this wonderful costume book that covered the Georgian and regency eras that was published in the early 1900s in English. It is a prize. I paid something like four million francs (before euros). I still don’t know how much I spent on it, but who cares? Its all monopoly money when you’re there, right?
Claudia Dain on 05 Oct 2007 at 8:39 pm #
ROFL, Julia. That’s how I look at foreign money. It’s not real so why not spend it? I know I’d pay four million francs for that costume book. Heck, I might even pay eight million. Who cares? It’s French money and I’m not French!
Karen Hawkins on 06 Oct 2007 at 12:11 am #
Dot and Claudia, I’m a soaker, too. (Gee, that sounds bad, doesn’t it? Teehee!) But I have found that a picture, either in a book or a real one, can make me remember little details that I don’t when I think of the whole trip. Like you call, I never take pictures, or not enough pictures, so those museum books hold a special place in my heart. I just LOVE them!
Oh I’m so with you all on the monopoly money. I can NOT take currency seriously if it has a lot of colors on it. It’s just too froofy and bright to be real. Plus, once I decide I want something, I may bargain, but I don’t mean it. I’ll pay ANYTHING and people can see it in my eyes.