Joe’s office, aka the Water Closet, aka Bachelard’s Cabinet, aka the Weeping Room. Smells of espresso, newspaper, and bagels. Physically cramped, intellectually palatial. Guarded by a white stag. Speak, Friend, and Enter.

Cairns is a bookseller’s journal—an ode to language and a manual for survival. Here you will find essays and choruses to keep you company on the way.

Paid subscribers help me do this old school job in a brave new world, and help sustain a one-of-a-kind residency program—I am truly grateful for your support.

In the words of Annie Dillard: “a life spent reading—that is a good life.”1

1

The Writing Life (1989)

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A portrait of the bookseller as a young prayer

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Joe is the principal buyer at Perelandra Bookshop in Fort Collins, Colorado.