Second Story

Last weekend I drove up to the boondocks of Rockville, MD for a dinner party. I drove up early to avoid the traffic, thinking I would find a coffee shop to study in. Of course, all of the coffee shops that I found (okay, it was just one) were packed: not a single seat for me! So I found my old fallback: McDonald's with free Wi-fi. I sat near a table packed with old men who were talking about social security.

Serendipitously, I was gchatting one of my friends, who mentioned that he had been up to Rockville that very day to visit Second Story Books, which has a bookstore in Dupont and a warehouse in Rockville. I'd never heard of this place, but decided to spend the rest of the time I had to kill there--it is enormous--I had to speed-browse my way through my sections, and didn't touch 75 percent of the store. They have a great selection of books, and they're reasonably priced! I found quite a random assortment: Eliade on myths, dreams and mysteries, The Cloud of Unknowing (sigh, which it turns out I already had), St. Theresa of Avila's Interior Castle, and a Graham Greene spy novel.