…in Salem, MA. It was the last remaining bookstore in Salem, which once had so many used and new bookstores. The Cornerstone closed a couple of years ago (right after Halloween, appropriately), and the Derby was the last one hanging on. They’ve been “Going Out Of Business” for years, but always seemed to have new books. But now, after almost 40 years, they finally closed their doors.
The Derby Square bookstore was almost unique in having practically no bookshelves – books were piled in stacks, reaching way above your head. Pulling a book you wanted out of the bottom of a stack risked a bookalanche. Here are some pictures:
Those pictures give a false impression. The bookstore itself is a LOT more claustrophobic than those pictures suggest. They also don’t show how some of the tables the books are resting on are held up by bungee cords (!!)
Now the only places in town with books are the museums and the antique stores. But a sign in the window of the now-defunct DSB says that “Salem needs its own bookstore”, and that, after they clean up in there, they’ll be opening “Wicked Good Books”.
Of course, it could take them five years to clear all that away. God only knows what they’ll find at the bottoms of those book stacks. Original copies of the Oath of a Freeman and the Bay Psalm book, maybe.