Last weekend I visited Selected Works Bookstore in Chicago's Fine Arts Building. It's one of the best used book stores I've ever been to. Of course, it has a great selection of fiction, literature, reference books, sheet music and all kinds of cool literary treasures. It also has a new cat, just four months old.
The Fine Arts Building is charmingly neglected, inside and out. The windows are old and dusty. The woodwork is worn and creaky. The city dust and grime on the outside of the windows softened the light and made the rooms glow.
We were about to leave when I spotted a shelf of pulp fiction and other paperback books near the window overlooking Michigan Avenue. The illustrations on the old paperbacks are so evocative and eye catching. I pulled them out one by one, looking for the coolest ones. They reminded me of Thomas Allen's work, which I love.