I’ve actually never been to the Mysterious Bookshop in New York City. I haven’t been to NYC in more than 30 years.
But I’ve ordered a few things from them online. I’m not a steady customer, but I do like them. I also like Otto Penzler. I’ve never met him, but I hope to one of these days (assuming we’re not all dead by then).
The Mysterious Bookshop has always struck me as being kind the kind of place that just barely hangs on. I don’t mean that in a pejorative sense: pretty much any bookshop exists on the edge, doubly so if it is a specialty shop, and triply so if it is a specialty shop in NYC.
As you might guess, they’ve been hit pretty hard by recent events, and could use a little help. Why not go pick up something from them? I have (or else I wouldn’t be asking you). If you’re not a mystery fan, maybe you know someone who is. If you can’t think of anything you’d like to pick up right now, they sell gift cards (for you, or that other person who is a mystery fan).
I’d hate to see them close for good behind this thing. If you’ve still got a job, and have a little money that you’re not spending at bars or eating out or on gas for your car, how about throwing them a few dollars?
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Based on the recommendation of FOTB (and official firearms trainer for WCD) Karl Rehn, I ordered a copy of FBI Miami Firefight: Five Minutes that Changed the Bureau from Ed Mireles’s website.
I ordered it on Friday, because it isn’t like I don’t have enough books to read while I’m under confinement. (I’d actually been meaning to order it for a while: I didn’t want it to disappear on me.) It was in the mailbox on Tuesday. Which I personally think is pretty darn impressive, under the current circumstances.
I flipped through it some last night, and, while I haven’t read all of it, my first impression is: I’m liking it more than I am the other true crime book I’m reading at the moment (which deals with another famous shootout: I may write more about that one after I finish it.) I do want to throw an endorsement Mr. Mireles’s way, though, just based on him getting the book out the door that fast.