Santa Rosa has its fair share of bookstores, and each has a different personality. Treehorn suits me best. Rarely do I pass by the downtown storefront and not peek my head in to see what’s either new, rare or on sale. Sometimes I just sit and absorb the smell. The smell of old books. It’s primarily a used book store, and each volume lining the towering shelves has soaked up the smell of a different home. Put together, they create a wonderful aroma of other people’s houses embedded into book paper. I always check to see if any Black Sparrow Press printings have arrived in the poetry section, and drool over first-edition copies of classic novels. Their calendar sale can’t be beat, and it goes on usually through January—I’m hoping to replace my antique food advertisement calendar with something more modern this year.
—Nicolas Grizzle
