Novel Ideas

The first thing that struck me about Novel Ideas is its location in downtown Decatur, Illinois. When looking for the bookstore in my car, heading east on E. Main Street, I noticed that I was leaving Decatur's downtown area, and after Decatur's modern-looking library there seemed to be not much left. But, lo and behold, there it was - Novel Ideas - a big island surrounded by an even bigger parking lot sea. After finding the store, I then realized that its location is actually pretty good. Right next to the public library, just a short walk from the downtown, Novel Ideas is the only bookstore in the downtown area. The downtown was impressive for this laid-back small town. Like so many small town main streets, it surely has gone through decline and is now on the rebound. The only missing link is the throngs of people who are currently congregating in the Wal-Marts and Best Buys of the corporate strip mall dystopia.

I took some pictures from the outside before entering the store and then entered from the side. Just like other stores in the area, Novel Ideas has a collection of antiques and memorabilia that fill the side entrance and a good part of that southern side of the store. I noticed some really cool-looking canes, which I could've used for my serious back issues a few months ago, and an entire Green Bay Packers section that would certainly please my many Wisconsin friends.

As soon as the owner working behind the desk saw me, she nicely asked me why I was taking pictures of her store, which I have to admit does seem strange. I told her of my indie bookstore travelogue and its reviews of independent bookstore, which I immediately realized seems even stranger. We talked a little bit about independent bookstores, and she mentioned Babbitt's and About Books in my homebase of Bloomington-Normal. I have to say that I was little embarrassed about having to admit that I hadn't visited Bloomington's About Books yet. I thought it sold antiques exclusively, and as I mentioned in previous posts, the antiques intimidate me. Well, one more indie bookstore in my town to support over the anti-union Double B Bookstore empire. (In my idiolect, the Double Bs = Borders and Barnes & Noble). The owner was very friendly and also knowledgeable on the indie bookstore world. It was worth the embarrassment of getting caught taking pictures of her building.

In size, Novel Ideas is relatively small, but the store holds a fairly big used book collection. I browsed for over a half-hour, attracted mostly to the sections that covered the local history of Macon County, of which Decatur is the county seat. I looked for more recent history of the Staley strike, and other working class histories, but without luck. Of course I should've asked the owner but I'm a little shy! There was a very cute section in the center of the store devoted to local books and writers, and I ended up buying a pictorial history of Macon County for about 20 bucks. There was another section of Illinois history that was pretty good. Overall, the bookstore seems to have a gigantic collection of war histories and testimonials, as well as devotional literature, which just happened to stand out in the assortment. Given my interests, I wasn't too interested in some of these areas and just noticed the titles in passing.

When checking out at the end of my visit, the friendly owner gave me a restaurant recommendation - Pastabilities - a local Italian joint just up the street, and we chatted a little about indie bookstores. I found it interesting that, despite the general decline in indie bookstores, which we both agreed has happened, this owner thought that the Internet wasn't as negative as a factor as I did. She pointed out that many independent stores are selling books online and are able to stay afloat because of the Internet. She mentioned Biblio and ABE Books as the two online vendors used by many. I can't remember if we talked about Double Bs, but my suspicion is that the Double Bs, in combination with the equally anti-union Amazon and its dominance, couldn't have been good for the indie world. Nonetheless, she made me realize that the Internet per se is not the problem; it is the continuing dominance of the Double Bs and Amazon.

Novel Ideas
480 E. Main Street
Decatur, Illinois 62523
(217) 429-1995

Cheryl's Old Book Barn

On Saturday, June 20, I took a Saturday afternoon trip to Decatur, a small town about 40 miles south of where I live in Bloomington-Normal. Decatur is a special place for me, because a few times in 1994 I came here with SLAC (Student Labor Action Coalition - we called ourselves SLACkers) down from Madison, Wisconsin to support the workers in their strike against the A.E. Staley company. For this trip I was simply visiting some indie booksellers, but I thought I'd swing over to see the Staley area as well.

On my way into Decatur, my first stop was Cheryl's Old Book Barn, located in the small town of Forsyth, population 3284. At first I thought Forsyth was a suburb of Decatur, but because I got lost finding the store, I could easily see that I was wrong. I passed the store coming south and knew I must've missed it when I saw the big box sprawl that extends north of Decatur on the highway. Turning around and heading north again, I noticed that this sprawl has come up right against Forsyth. But the small town environment is still unscathed by Decatur's advance. I ventured inside the town off the highway when I was lost and got to see the town off the highway. Turns out, though, that the Old Book Barn is on the east side of US Highway 51, next to an Indian-owned Phillips 66 convenience store, the Forsyth Convenience Center, which I should say provided me with a Decatur map (my wife took the GPS to Chicago), soda and a restroom for my bookstore visit.

Entering the store, I realized right away that this visit was going to be a new sort of experience. In the front foyer of the store, old knick-knacks and memorabilia were on display for sale, including old furniture and old stuff of all kinds - Campbell soup cans and memorabilia, old Illinois license plates going back to the early 20th century, old cassette tapes and LPs, and much more than I can comment on here. Some people might be tempted to call this junk, but its presence gives the store an old-time charm. Inside there was more memorabilia and old stuff, which I looked at briefly. The memorabilia is found all over the store, organized according to the theme of the type of books sold in an area, scattered in small rooms and disjointed hallways that form a confusing maze of books.

I started browsing the philosophy books and ancient literature books, near the front part of the store, and ended up buying in the end some ancient plays by Aeschylus and Euripedes. After leaving what was a comfortable area for me, I started looking at the extended selection of the maze. The Old Book Barn has quite an extensive selection of used books, and the bookstore itself is extremely large. If I lived a little close, and certainly if I lived in Decatur, I would definitely check here first to see if I could buy it used and support my local bookstore. Besides a good selection of used fiction and ancient texts, the store has complete series of books and magazines. For instance, one area has hundreds of National Geographic magazines. I noticed that it has loads of travel books, all used, and all the Chicken Soup for the Soul books. I'm really understating their collection here by picking out what I happened to see.... their selections in detective novels, spy genre, New Age, and women's contemporary are just some of the categories that I noticed having huge selections. There are also rooms that have very old texts, many of which are very obscure, giving you the sense of just how many books have been published through the decades. Some sections qualify as antique collections. For example, I saw some old Princeton University school yearbooks from around 1910, items I happened to pick out in a sea of old texts. I loved the New Age room, a tiny room located somewhere in the back of the maze, in which you could read on an old chair under a fake cobwebbed portrait of man whose eyes had been cut out. Next to the portrait was a warning that the store was watching you in case you had any inkling to shoplift.

As you can see, you really have to visit the Old Book Barn to get a sense of its crazy eclecticism. As I checked out, I came to notice that one of the women behind the counter called another women her mother, and it became apparent that there were two or three generations of family owners working in the store. I asked the person who check me out, maybe she was Cheryl, how long they had the store. 20 years? She was both answering me and asking her family members if that was the exact number. 20 years, and from what I could tell, still going strong.

Cheryl's Old Book Barn
126 South Highway 51
Forsyth, Illinois 62535
(217) 875-0222