Micawber's Bookstore

I didn't plan on visiting Macawber's when I was in Minneapolis/St. Paul this summer. It was on my list of stores to visit if I had the time, having skimmed the Indiebound website for any stores that I might have missed in the area when I lived in the Twin Cities. What brought me to the Saint Anthony Park neighborhood of Saint Paul, where this store is nestled in a leafy and laid-back neighborhood, is the the Finnish Bistro across the street where I met some friends for brunch (which, I have to add, has very tasty food; I had a very delicious omelet with lamb meat). After eating my friend and I took a little time to visit the store for about 15 minutes.

Macawber's is a very charming and respectable neighborhood bookstore. I liked that it is a small store, but even thought it was small, it has small real strengths. To the right as you enter, it houses a very large children's section, and scattered through the store one finds very good specialized sections on Minnesota (its history and culture), poetry, and cookbooks. It has bookstore traditional sections, fiction and nonfiction, making for a good browse. The staff in the store was extremely friendly, enthusiastically answering questions and chatting with customers. My friend was taken by a Big Lebowski kit (referring to the movie) and almost bought it after conversing with the staff person for awhile on the movie and its merits.

Micawber's has down-home charm and makes for a great bookstore visit after eating at the Finnish Bistro. 

Micawber's

2238 Carter Avenue

Saint Paul, Minnesota 55108

(612) 646-5506

www.micawbers.com
www.macawbers.blogspot.com

Common Good Books

Common Good Books is famous for being owned by Garrison Keillor. It is a pleasant store, specializing in new books, with a winding layout and cloistered reading areas. I haven't bought many books from the store, only because there are so many other well-deserving indie bookstores in the Twin Cities and I figured Keillor would do well with his liberal base in what feels like a gentrified, upper middle class neighborhood. That might be a little unfair characterizing it such, after all I always ended up in this neighborhood. There is a very nice coffee shop, Nina's, just above the store and I regularly met my colleagues just across the street at W.A. Frost, a very nice restaurant and bar. And, the headquarters of my old union, Saint Paul Federation of Teachers is in the same building as the bookstore, the Blair Arcade. Visiting the area, and the store, on this 2010 summer trip did bring back the memories.

Common Good Books
165 Western Avenue North
St. Paul, Minnesota, 55102
www.commongoodbooks.com