The Fire Next Time
Most booksellers would say their favorite part of the job is recommending their favorite books unsuspecting customers, but I would argue it’s even better when customers recommend something to you. I first heard of James Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time” from a theater professor at the University of Edinburgh who had stumbled into our bookshop and was looking for a replacement copy. We spent a good thirty minutes looking for it (it’s a veeeery slim book and this was a big bookshop) and by the time we found it I couldn’t help wishing we had a second copy I could take home. A week later I bought my own copy at Libreria in London, and read the whole thing over a very noisy pub dinner in Shoreditch. Since then I must have pushed it into the hands of dozens of customers. My bookshop, like so many others, is closed, and I can’t give you a physical copy. But I can point you to a place where you can sit down, close your eyes, and listen, thanks to the magic of YouTube. I hope you do.