#55: Three Lives & Company
The bookshop around the corner
The Shop: Three Lives & Company
Greenwich Village, Manhattan: 154 W 10th Street
Close your eyes and imagine…
You are in your 40s. You can afford to live in the west village. You have at least one child. You have at least two New Yorker tote bags. You have opinions on fair trade coffee and NPR’s Scott Detrow. You work your way through Obama’s summer reading list with your spouse before bed. Life is good. Books are good. Think Coffee is good. Scott Detrow is mostly good. Open your eyes: you’re at Three Lives Bookstore.
Three Lives & Company is a charming little shop around the corner type bookstore that feels perfectly curated for the character sketched above. It’s got the New Yorkiness without the grime, funk, or clutter of its East village rivals. It feels like a spot where you might touch the same Dave Eggers book as a cute person and fall in love with them in a movie. If your life doesn’t feel particularly cute or movie-y, you could come to this bookstore and feel that way for twenty mins or so. You could also buy a book– they have some pretty good ones here.
What I got:
Mrs. Dalloway/ The Hours
My purchase of gorgeous looking edish of Mrs. Dalloway was inspired by a recent convo with my friend and sketch comedy legend Dylan Fugel, who told me he rereads Virginia Woolf every year on his birthday. I haven’t read Woolf since late college (Orlando was a banger) so I have many birthdays to catch up on. This book is a two-in-one– flip it over for Michael Cunningham’s The Hours! Who doesn’t love a bonus book??
"You are in your 40s. You can afford to live in the west village." A lot of people under 40 or 30 can afford it but don't because it's a bunch of egg freezing stroller pushers and fart smellers like author here. No discussion of the actual book selection, because they don't give a rat's about that, but you could have a MEET-CUTE waow!