{"id":230,"date":"2008-09-22T08:10:00","date_gmt":"2008-09-22T08:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbicmsblog.reedbusiness.com\/elogic_660000266\/2008\/09\/22\/a-photo-tour-of-the-montague-bookmill\/"},"modified":"2008-09-22T08:10:00","modified_gmt":"2008-09-22T08:10:00","slug":"a-photo-tour-of-the-montague-bookmill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=230","title":{"rendered":"A Photo Tour of the Montague Bookmill"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Montague Bookmill<\/a> in Montague, Massachusetts, is easily one of the prettiest, most peaceful places I’ve ever purchased a book or spent an afternoon. A used bookstore housed in an 1842 gristmill overlooking the Sawmill River, it’s a little over half an hour’s drive from the town of Northampton, where I\u00a0attended Smith College as an undergrad.
\nWhen Gareth and I attended\u00a0a wedding in Western Mass. a few weeks ago I insisted on taking him to the Bookmill, to revisit the place that became one of my favorite studying haunts during my senior year.\u00a0Who wouldn’t love a\u00a0bookstore with the slogan\u00a0“Books You Don’t Need in a Place You Can’t Find”? Especially when\u00a0it’s in a spot that’s perfectly picturesque during every season of the year AND it now shares the\u00a0mill with a caf\u00e9, a restaurant, an artist’s studio, and an antiques store!
\nBecause I’m such a huge fan of this place, it gets such PERFECT light, and I wanted to be sure to share it with you in grand style, I took a ton of photographs during our Sunday afternoon visit. Most of them, though, are focused on the architecture and comfortable stylings of this place, rather than on its book selection. You’ll just have to trust me when I tell you that the selection is just as appealing as the space itself.
\nHere’s how the Bookmill looks when you first see it, from the rise of the road above.
\n\"\"
\nAnd here’s how it looks if you cross that road and step onto the bridge that\u00a0beats an elevated path to the bookstore’s second floor.
\n\"\"
\nCross that bridge\u00a0and you’re greeted by the welcome sight of books, big windows, and\u00a0comfortable chairs. Heaven!\u00a0This how the second floor looks when you enter and turn to your right.
\n\"\"
\nIf you’d entered and turned to your left, you’d have been greeted by the sight of more rooms, filled with more books.
\n\"\"
\nStraight ahead of you (photos above and below) are the art books.
\n\"\"
\nThe the left are the stairs that lead down to the 1st floor, flanked by a display of old typewriters.
\n\"\"
\nTo the right\u00a0is\u00a0a room that houses\u00a0a\u00a0number of non-fiction subjects…
\n\"\"
\nand\u00a0the perfect\u00a0little reading alcove…
\n\"\"
\nwith THIS view of the Sawmill River below.
\n\"\"
\nNow on to the first floor, which looks like this as you leave the stairwell. That’s Susan Shilliday, the owner of the Bookmill, walking directly in front of me toward the point of sale counter (on the left). The doorway directly in front of her leads to the fiction and poetry room — more on that shortly.
\n\"\"
\nHere’s how the counter (and main entrance) looks if you enter\u00a0from the ground floor:
\n\"\"
\nAnd here’s the fabulous display of Bookmill swag on the left side of said counter. (I confess I had to own a t-shirt myself and went with the purple one.)
\n\"\"
\nIf you walk around to right side of said counter you’ll see this lovely sight: the children’s section — picture books on the left, middle grade and YA novels on the right.
\n\"\"
\nAt the back of that corner sits the most inviting pair of threadbare chairs you’ve ever seen.
\n\"\"
\nAnd the view from that window? The Sawmill, of course.
\n\"\"
\nLest you think these the only comfy chairs on the bookmill’s first floor, allow me to point out to you the green velvet couch that sits to the left of them, with its back to the river.
\n\"\"
\n\"\"
\nAnd to the left of that couch?\u00a0This alcove with windows overlooking the river on one side and windows overlooking the caf\u00e9 on the other.
\n\"\"
\nBack now to that doorway I pointed out above — the one that leads to the fiction and poetry room. Here’s that room.
\n\"\"
\nWalk through the fiction and poetry room and straight out the door at the opposite end. Walk about ten paces then turn around. Here’s how the bookmill looks from that vantage point.
\n\"\"
\nNow step about ten paces to your left and take another, wide-angle look. That’s the antiques store on your left, with the art gallery above it. See the bridge crossing the “alley” in front of you? That’s the one we crossed from the road above, to enter the Bookmill on the second floor. If you continue under it you’ll reach the entrance to the caf\u00e9.
\n\"\"
\nBut what about the restaurant? Did you notice the white tent in the two photos above? It’s sitting on the restaurant’s patio, clearly in anticipation of some summer event happening out there. A wedding perhaps? Let’s walk down the ramp and check it out.
\n\"\"
\nThe\u00a0carved wooden sign featuring a crescent moon tells you you’ve reached The Night Kitchen. And see that guy in the window just behind and above that sign? He’s a customer browsing the middle grade novels in the children’s section. Seems fitting that the children’s section should look out over the The Night Kitchen, doesn’t it? You could sit on\u00a0a bench and read In the Night Kitchen<\/a><\/em>, periodically glancing out the windows that overlook The Night Kitchen. Perfect!
\n\"\"
\nHere’s my reflection in the restaurant’s door.
\n\"\"
\nFrom the patio outside said door (the\u00a0one sporting a tent on the day we were there) you can take in this view of the Bookmill and the Sawmill River… beautiful!!
\n\"\"
\nNow let’s go back up to that “alley” I showed you above, and walk up it, passing the store’s ground floor entrance on our right, and passing under the bridge we walked across earlier. Just pass the Bookmill’s entrance is the entrance to The Lady Killigrew<\/a>, the aforementioned caf\u00e9.
\n\"\"
\nHere’s how it looks as you enter. You can sidle up to the bar and order a cold one, or try one of the many tasty items on the Lady Killgrew’s menu.
\n\"\"
\nCarry your tasty treats down the steps and\u00a0take a seat in my old\u00a0studying space, where you can stare down at the Sawmill.
\n\"\"
\nNow go back to the beginning and do it all over again!! (But be sure to buy lots of books this next time through.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Montague Bookmill in Montague, Massachusetts, is easily one of the prettiest, most peaceful places I’ve ever purchased a book or spent an afternoon. A used bookstore housed in an 1842 gristmill overlooking the Sawmill River, it’s a little over half an hour’s drive from the town of Northampton, where I attended Smith College as an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}