Ann Arbor has a network of booksellers, some who sell used books, others, new books. Being a part of that network for the past 14 years revealed an interesting fact to me. A good number of well known current and past shops, even Borders, started in the mid - late 1960s and 1970s, alongside a number of earlier bookselling stalwarts.

It seemed to me an unusual hotbed of bookshop activity, and with a number of long-lived participants.

Such bookshop activity was not limited to Ann Arbor. Other renowned shops around the country started at that time as well: Tattered Cover in Denver (1971), Powells in Chicago (1970) and in Portland (1971), Second Story in DC (1971), John King in Detroit (1965), and Serendipity Books in Berkeley (1967).

Ann Arbor, for its size and location, was right in the middle of this explosion, with nearly 20 bookshops around the university. For all the activity, however, it seems only bits and pieces of the history of these shops are still around - a picture here or there or an old sign, but no source to put it all together.

As I was learning this, there has been a slow decline of bookshops in our city, with a number of notable losses as we all know. Afterwords, Wooden Spoon, and Shaman Drum have all closed in the last four years. Before that, Little Professor on Plymouth Road and the Community News Centers went away as well. Dawn Treader slimmed down to one location and other shops are feeling pressure from the state of the bookselling industry and the economy.

So, a few months ago, I started collecting tidbits of information about the origin of shops in our area, especially about their origins and relationships to each other. I am about to embark on a number of interviews with owners and originators of those shops.

I hope to learn a great deal more about the book culture in Ann Arbor and perhaps why so many shops started in those few years. I also hope to find out more about the successes these shops had and why we have lost some of our more beloved places.

Remember when David's was on the ground floor of Liberty Street? Pre-Borders Centicore Books? How about the last day of Wahr's on State? Or the short lived Cloak & Rocket Sci Fi bookshop? How about Logos on Church Street? Bob Marshall's on State? The very first Borders shop? The opening day of West Side Books on West Liberty? The upstairs Paideia bookshop before it was Shaman Drum?

There is no history of these places right now. Without such a history, there is a large part of the story of Ann Arbor left blank. I hope to fill in that blank by my research, with the help of other booklovers.

If you do remember, or if you worked at these shops, owned one, or have a good tale to tell, post here or contact me at Motte & Bailey Booksellers. And look for bookshop bios in the coming months.

Oh, and if you have old Ann Arbor bookshop memorabilia, send me an image or bring it by my shop and I'll take a photo. Letterhead, signage, photos, etc. I'll share the info with everyone here as well.