RIP Jim Lewin: a wonderful bookseller, writer and human being

2018 photo of sales counter at the York Emporium (Chris Otto); inset: Jim Lewin (The York Dispatch)

Last week was a sad one, as we learned that Jim Lewin, longtime owner of the York Emporium, the best used bookstore in York, Pennsylvania, died on Nov. 26. Jim was a family friend, a tremendous writer and a compassionate human being who put his heart and no small amount of elbow grease into making the Emporium one of the very best spots in southcentral Pennsylvania for book lovers (and those seeking out oddball treasures). Jim owned the Emporium for nearly 20 years before selling it and retiring this past April.

Mike Argento, a colleague of mine when I worked at the York Daily Record, wrote a terrific profile of Jim and the store's history when Jim retired. It's the best piece to read for Jim's full story and to learn how Jim and his store became York institutions. Argento writes: "The store’s eclecticism reflects Jim’s own. He loves books and reads widely. One of his benchmarks for a good used bookstore, and one of the benchmarks of his own store, is that someone can wander in and find a book they never knew existed. ... Some things he just did for himself. He started a jam session that features bluegrass, folk and blues every Sunday afternoon, a slow business day, 'because I got tired of being here all alone.' ... Over the years, Jim introduced special events – 'being mercenary,' is how he put it – to make the Emporium a part of the fabric of York’s culture. He’s had events celebrating literary genres, from sci-fi to horror to romance to mystery, and hosted concerts and the aforementioned jam sessions."

To me, Sundays were one of the best days to go to the Emporium. I hate just sitting around, waiting for the week to start. What better way to pass an afternoon than perusing bookshelves? 

Our family went to the store regularly over many, many years. Jim, usually stationed just inside the door, would greet us all by name and ask what was new. Our house remains filled with books purchased at the Emporium. Ash essentially grew up with it as his primary bookstore. While we were memorializing Jim last week upon hearing of his passing, Ash talked extensively of his love for Jim and the store. He noted two important things: 1. You never went into the Emporium looking for a specific thing; unexpected treasures would find you. 2. The passage of time was different when you were inside the Emporium. Two or even three hours might go by as if in a happy dream of endlessly going through mazes of shelves with the wonderful smell of books. It was the timeslip that Jim built.

I've specifically mentioned the Emporium in about three dozen posts over the years. And if I'd been transparently detailing the source of every book I've written about, Jim's Emporium is the source of another fifty or more posts. When Papergreat was in its first year of existence, Jim generously gifted me an 1897 program for the York Opera House that I turned into a two-part post.

Here are two pictures I took inside the Emporium during separate visits in 2018. The first shows a silhouetted Ash browsing the shelves. The second shows some of the eclectic decorations that filled the store. Jim was a huge fan of Star Trek.

In addition to being an bookseller, Jim was also an author. His books include Lines of Contention: Political Cartoons of the Civil War; How to Feed an Army: Recipes and Lore from the Front Lines; How to Tell a Secret: Tips, Tricks & Techniques for Breaking Codes & Conveying Covert Information; and How to Party Like It's 1899.

And from 2008 to 2013, while he was also juggling the daily business of managing the Emporium, Jim wrote more than 50 posts for his blog Book Flaps (subtitled "Musings of a smalltime book peddler"). It's a great peek inside the business and it displays the wonderful writing touch Jim had. As you know, I worry about the permanence of the internet and I don't know how long Book Flaps may continue to be online. I want to share Jim's final blog post, from September 2013, in its entirety. It takes on a new poignance with Jim's passing:

Treasure

    I was on my knees this past Tuesday afternoon, painting (and cursing) an old bookcase that obstinately refused to be anything close to useful. I happened to glance up and saw her standing there, silently, watching me.

   “He’s gone.”

   The shop was closed. It always is on Tuesdays. But I had left the front door unlocked, because you never know who is going to wander in. Obviously, today was her day. She had let herself in and found me there, paint-spattered, on my knees and gently damning this inoffensive piece of furniture.

  “Sunday afternoon. He died in his sleep.”

  I let out a groan and got to my feet. I didn’t really know what to say.

  They were an older couple (“older” being a relative term as I close in on that realm myself); maybe mid-80s. I don’t think I ever got their names. But they had been coming into the shop on a more-or-less regular basis for two or three years now. I’d see them every month or two.

  It was always he who bought the books. He’d walk around and look in several areas, but he would always find his way to the same spot; the same books. He would delve into our Treasure Chest.

   The Treasure Chest is really just an old trunk that I found in one of the storage rooms shortly after we took over the place. The handles are missing. What hardware that is left on it is rusted. It certainly doesn’t lock ,and it really is pretty well beat up. Its glory days are long past.

    For the first year or two we were operating the store, I would drag it around, trying to find a spot where it might fit. But nothing seemed to work. It wasn’t tall enough to be a display stand. It was too rickety for a table of any sort. And while it did have a certain texture and charm (as in, “I’ll-bet-that-was-really-something-in-its-day” way), it was now, simply, in the way.

    Until, that is, we re-worked our paperback fiction area two years ago. Suddenly, and unexpectedly, there was a spot. And! There was a function: older, series paperbacks. They were the sort of paperbacks that few wanted; that wouldn’t command high dollars, or any dollars at all actually. But we had a lot of them left over from the previous owners.

    Don Pendelton’s The Executioner series (more than 700 individual titles so far), Able Team, Phoenix Force and Stoney Man. Also the Nick Carter — Killmaster series (250+ titles) and the like. The main characters are all clean cut, square-jawed and handy with both guns and women. Mostly women. The books all contain plenty of bad guys, too. But they’re pretty disposable.

    We probably had two hundred, or more, of these books when we took over. So we tossed them all into that old trunk and slapped a sign on it, dubbing it our “Treasure Chest.” All books found therein are 50¢.

    We don’t sell a lot out of it, perhaps $5 or $6 a month on average. But its fun, and it fills a niche. And it doesn’t eat much, so we keep it.

    I wiped the paint from my hands and took a step closer to her, preparing to give her a hug. But she wasn’t interested in that. In fact, she wasn’t interested in me, or what I had to say, at all.

   "The last group of books that he got here are still in the bag. They’re on his night stand,” she said.

   I just stood there and looked at her. I still hadn’t said anything.

   “I want to go to the Treasure Chest,” she said. “I want to visit with him there for a minute.”

   She didn’t ask permission. She didn’t say another word. She just went back to the Treasure Chest and spent some quality time there. I don’t think she was interested in the books.

  A little earlier tonight as I walked past, I noticed that our Treasure Chest is starting to look a little empty. And that’s not right.

   I need to start looking for more of The Executioner.

   It’s important.

* * *

I could go on with stories about Jim and the Emporium. But I also realize that so much of Papergreat stands as on ongoing kind of tribute to the man and the place. The books and ephemera I've written about, the rabbit-hole inquisitiveness and the passion for the obscure and esoteric: they're all reflections of the physical bookstore in downtown York that Jim lovingly created starting on Jan. 1, 2005. 

I do want to conclude by noting that, as the United States got crueler and dumber in the past decade, Jim wasn't shy about standing up for what's right. He did this until the very end. Below are a few of his final Facebook posts, and they speak to the man he was. Rest in peace, Jim. We'll keep reading, learning and trying.