There are just certain things that I believe to be true
and one of them is that Books are Magic.
I’m Emma Straub, novelist, bookseller.
Welcome to Books Are Magic.
Maybe it's that I don't have enough hobbies or play sports of any kind
but on like a Saturday afternoon - afternoon meaning like 9:00 a.m.
because my children wake up very early -
I need a place to go and for me the place I always want to go
is an independent bookstore.
The name Books Are Magic is somewhat whimsical
there will be those who pooh-pooh our whimsy but I don’t know,
we've named two children. The only thing that really works
the only system that works is to find something that makes you happy
every time you say it.
Here we are in the children's room at Books Are Magic.
Won't you come this way?
This is all picture books
Down behind this secret corner, parenting books
early readers, step into reading books, chapter books.
It works like this. You read a book.
Dragon books, food books, New York City books, art books.
Sorry, there's a lot happening.
This is a book that my friend Tyler wrote all about broccoli
I'm also excited about the lemons. Look at that.
Couch that I stole from my father.
Travel, business, sports. Sports.
So our plan is to open on May 1st.
I guess it feels sort of like having a newborn baby
where like you know you're not sleeping enough hours
and you know you're not eating enough vegetables
but you know that someday you will
so you're not really worried about it too much.
In the last couple of weeks we've just been starting to
get all of the boxes, the books.
We had hundreds and hundreds of hundreds of
you know, novels by women and like four books in the history section
so, the last couple of weeks for me have been all about making sure
that that balance Is much more even.
It feels kind of like Christmas for like a really really really
really really big family where I'm like Oh my God, I forgot Uncle John
only there are like seven hundred Uncle John's
and only one of them is interested in World War II and the other one
is interested in self-help and the other one is interested in like, you know,
short stories.
Independent bookstores can make books fly off the shelves.
I mean it really is magic to watch a good bookseller hand sell something
that they believe in. It is the thing that I liked most
about working at BookCourt
when there was something that I loved that I got to tell people about.
So BookCourt was our local independent bookstore
here in Cobble Hill for 35 years
so I knew that when they announced they were going to close
that everyone was going to be as heartbroken as I was.
We very much hope that Books Are Magic will have the feeling of BookCourt.
I want it to be friendly and welcoming and necessary.
It's warm and homey and bright.
If I'm going to read, I want to read something in book form.
I live in the neighborhood and I was sad when BookCourt closed.
When you spend money at a community bookstore
you are spending money on your community.
You are investing in people that live and work in the area.
There are a lot of young families here which is kind of wonderful
to be able to sort of instill that love of reading from a young age.
Simon, what's your favorite thing to read about?
Dinosaur.
Look look, there’s its tail.
I think books really are magic. This glitter here on the cover -- Glitter, magic.
I think that books are magic for small children who are learning to read
who can recognize things on the page like, it's magic.
It is magic when I am reading a book with my three-and-a-half year old
and he looks at a word and he says each letter and then he says
"Dragon," or whatever it is, because he's putting it together.
It's magic when you're in a terrible mood and you're so depressed
and you pick something off a shelf and it fixes it or it lets you dive deeper
because it's Tolstoy or whatever.
You know, it's magic to read something funny
that actually makes you weep with laughter.
There are so many ways to better understand yourself through books
and to better understand other people through books.
You know, if you're a kid, if you're an adult, it doesn’t matter.
Books are Magic.