posted on 25 Jun 2019

A stroll down Hendersonville main street

On one of our reasonably regular visits to North Carolina, USA, this year, we had the chance to stop off at the entirely affable and rather pleasant little town of Hendersonville. It’s chief feature is a lengthy main street packed with shops which are largely calculated to tempt visitors to stay a while and spend a bit of money – so there were quirky little independent stores, antique shops and, yes, a couple of book  stores too.

The first one we stumbled across was a new outstation of the Malaprop’s Pop-Up bookstore that has its main base in Asheville – and which we reviewed here back in 2015. To be fair, it was only just open and still in the very early stages of getting used to sharing some space with its host organisation called The Centre For Art and Inspiration and when it’s settled it plans to offer booky events as well as sell stuff.

One of the larger antique stores also hosts a separately managed but substantial Book Attic  - which according to a notice at the top of the stairs was, in fact, up for sale. Fortunately, it was still open and welcoming customers and there was a substantial labyrinth of shelving to navigate your way around. The shelves were packed and it’s certainly one of those places where you feel you might just find something unusual. I didn’t but I’m quite sure others with different interests might want to spend some time here.

The third shop we had time to visit was Joy of Books which is probably the most immediately recognisable used book frontage in town. It is smaller than I’d anticipated and the stock is a slightly odd mix of used and new titles which again I personally found a little disappointing – there were no obviously collectable things for me to look at but in terms of providing a good diverse selection of reading on a range of subjects, it’s perfectly serviceable and well worth a visit.

It’s unlikely that Hendersonville is going to provide the dedicated book collector with rich pickings – slip down the highway to Asheville for that – but it makes for a very pleasant afternoon’s browsing in a lovely setting.

 

Terry Potter

June 2019

 

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