A Sad Day

My favorite bookstore is closing, boo hoo. Candida's World of Books was the best thing that ever happened to my neighborhood in Washington, DC. The shop opened right when I moved here and was only two blocks from my house. Candida herself loves travel, books, and languages, and her bookstore offered up dazzling quantities of each. Her bookshelves represent the entire globe divided by country, continent and isle. Instead of just carrying travel guides, she carries everything for any particular place: language guides, maps, literature that takes place in the country, literature in the original language, and top notch travel writing. For instance, I know no other bookshop in America that carries a Marshallese dictionary. It was the ultimate browsing bookstore and the place where I started planning all my trips.

In the 4 years that Candida's was open, she hosted two of my book signings. She was set to host another for Iceland and was always so encouraging to all the authors that came into her shop. I know I am not alone in regretting the end of such a perfect little store. Kinda makes me wonder about the state of independent bookstores everywhere, as well as the priority of travel.

So to all Washingtonians out there, get ye down to 14th & Q Streets, NW post-haste. Candida's selling off all of her fabulous merchandise; all things you'll be hard pressed to find elsewhere.

Here's a list of things that I bought yesterday:

- The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain
- The Global Soul by Pico Iyer
- A Zoo in My Luggage by Gerald Durrell
- 501 Russian Verbs
- Eyewitness guide to French Cheese
- Map of Djibouti
- Map of Peru
- Map of Central Asia
- Learn to Speak Basque book & audio
- Chinese character-a-day calendar
- Spanish Dictionary