Donald Scripps

There’s a quaint wooden wagon in Petros Park.

Nobody really knows who owns it or where it came from. It has a pitched roof and tiny windows and a ramp leading up through the door, and it’s attached by a hitch to a small hatchback car, which has driven a short way onto the grass of the park by one of the walking paths to allow the wagon to be nice and visible to anyone and everyone walking. It parked there early in the morning on Saturday, and it stays there until late in the evening Sunday.

The exterior of the wagon is painted in cheerful colors and decorated with hanging planters; there’s a table set under an awning that extends from the wagon’s side, on which a selection of books rests to draw the eye. A sign above the door reads Tiny Bookshop: Used and Rare Volumes in a carefully carved script. The interior of the wagon is a bit cramped, with shelves against the walls filled with rows upon rows of all manner of books; some even seem to be unpublished manuscripts, hand-bound with care. A counter with a register hides boxes of what is probably more books, and a cat lays on a shelf above one of the windows, tail flicking.

Its arrival Saturday morning seems to have prompted other booksellers to the same purpose. WIthin a few hours, tables with pop-up canopies are set up, each with stacks and boxes and stands of books of their own. Some are well-loved, dog-eared and crack-spined. Some are so new they creak when they’re opened. Many have names or messages scrawled in the front cover or title pages; some are even signed by the author. Perhaps a rare or coveted first edition is among these shelves?

When the tiny bookshop and the other tables begin to draw a crowd, food vendors arrive as well, ready to capitalize on the chance to sell wares of their own: hotdogs, burritos, kebabs, empanadas. There isn’t a specific theme except one: easily held one-handed. How else can you buy and read books, after all, if you’re eating with both hands?

Into the evening Saturday night, as the sun sets and after, lanterns are placed out to encourage the city’s nocturnal denizens to partake. Some canopies have built-in stringlights that invite a sense of whimsy to the space, lighting the tables beneath in a gentle, sometimes twinkling glow.

And by Sunday night, the wagon is packed back up and the hatchback trundles out of the park and away, leaving the tables and food vendors behind with the thinning crowd.

[ Bookfair gathering! Inspired by the video game Tiny Bookshop, bc I found it incredibly wholesome and cute. It’s timed for the entire weekend, with plenty of opportunity for nocturnal pups, too! Tag in, tag each other, tag around and have fun! Open for as long as it needs to be (aka forever!) ]