Booking It- New Orleans

Two very tired, overworked nurses went to New Orleans this Sunday. I had to find something to wear to a wedding and wanted a bit more varied shopping and boyfriend wanted to drink margaritas at Superior Grill on St. Charles. Both of these things were agreeable to me.

Boyfriend is not a reader. In fact he admits he goes to "The Derek Zoolander Center For Kids Who Can't Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too," but he's really very supportive about the book blogging thing. He never minds when I blog at odd hours and cheers me on when I say "Baby, I got this many visits on my blog today!" Anyway, I'm gushing. But I asked him if he'd take me to Octavia and of course he says no, because that's what he always says- I know he's saying yes. He just grabs the GPS, sighs and programs.

I got to thinking the Saturday morning before about how I wanted to go and visit Octavia Books. I didn't get to go for the Carrie Ryan book signing there last weekend but I thought that maybe, just maybe she'd still be there in spirit.

It's in an area called The Garden District and the name totally fits. The houses range from giant sprawling mansions to whimsical multicolored eclectic houses built out of every material imaginable. Wrought iron fences and flowers and odd little spits of green yard caked with fountains, birdcages, stones, statues. The streets are very narrow. There's no parking and driving is almost impossible. So we parallel parked (-I- personally did not perform this feat) and walked. We found Octavia and I just adored it on sight. It's this nothing little store, would have missed it if I wasn't looking for it but it has the most amazing window and the books are all stacked in nice shiny neat piles. Made my OCD happy. They had a decent selection and it wasn't overrun with local authors and coffee table books- which in my experience you have to be wary of in small stores.

Next we went down the street to The Garden District Book Shop which is upstairs in an odd little mall of sorts. It's different. It didn't have a ceiling, just walled off from the rest of the shops and it was PACKED with stacks and stacks of books. They had hundreds of signed copies. How does that happen? It's a book hunting bookstore in that you have to dig to find anything but I was pleased with some of the titles I ran across.

I'd been to the Borders on St. Charles on a previous trip and while it's aesthetically gorgeous it's still a chain store and what you find in one you'll find in another. I wanted to visit little shops. They feel different when you walk into them, the air is different, like it's been shipped in from some place else.

So it was a great trip. I found a dress and drank margaritas.

I was bummed about missing meeting Carrie Ryan at Octavia the week before, but visiting the store yielded a treasure and answered my question. Yes, she was still there in spirit: