Remembering Canterbury Booksellers

Although I live in the city of Madison and I work and go to school here, I don't always keep up with the local updates. On this Sunday afternoon, much to my surprise, I was on the Gorham block where Canterbury Booksellers keeps its shop and inn and came upon Avol's Books. I do a double-take as I'm sure this store, filled with books, is suppose to be the one I came to in my younger years. Apparently, Canterbury Booksellers closed its doors in the opening months of this year. Although the downstairs bookstore is now Avol's Books, the upstairs Canterbury Inn will stay open.

This is quite a loss to the city of Madison because of all the people that won't get a chance to experience what it's like to step into a classic Madison book store. Sure nowadays it's hip to sip coffee from a Starbucks at a Barnes & Noble or a Victor Allen's inside the Border's bookstore or even stay at home and buy your books from an online retailer like Amazon.com, but in my experience, none of those come close to my first visit to Canterbury's.



When I attended Georgia O'Keeffe Middle School, my cousin and I had won some academics award from the Urban League of Greater Madison and given gift certificates for Canterbury Booksellers. My dad took me to the store after some driving around as even then we were not so familiar with downtown Madison. When I first stepped in, I was quite in awe of the warm atmosphere. It was quite bustling in some areas and grew more rustic as you journeyed into the different parts of the bookstore. I must've spent more than an hour deciding the book that my academics had awarded me. There was just so much to choose from but I found what I had wanted and even today, I still own that first book. In the years to come, throughout High School and my college days, I would stop in for a cup of coffee and a book here and there but I was eventually drawn into submission by the .com business and Amazon.com. And it wasn't until tonight when I realized that a part of my childhood had finally closed its doors. It's like that saying that goes "You won't know how good something is until you lose it."

Albeit a bit late, here's to you Canterbury Booksellers!
Thanks to the owners and the employees that gave their time there.
You have given me and the people of Madison memories we'll cherish forever.