The Best Barnes and Noble

 The best Barnes and Noble is just north of Grand Central; it's at Fifth Avenue and 46th. It has a functional bathroom, it has proximity to Broadway, and it has a well-organized flow of traffic by the cash register. (If you go up to the Upper East Side, it's *chaos* at *that* particular cash register.)

I strongly recommend getting yourself a cup of tea and sitting with an unpurchased copy of "Changing My Mind," by Julian Barnes. No one will care if you don't spend money on that book. The stockholders within Barnes and Noble are *not* suffering. The book is a short account of how Julian Barnes once disliked the works of E.M. Forster--until he grew older and changed his mind. He realized that Forster was sort of saucy and naughty. (Barnes had missed this fact for several years.) For whatever reason, I think this essay is charming.

Barnes especially likes "Where Angels Fear to Tread."

There was one unfortunate scene from my own life at the midtown Barnes and Noble. I wanted to inspect the entire Agatha Christie catalogue--which was stashed on the bottom shelf of a bookcase. If you want to look at the titles, you actually have to sit on the floor. Kneeling won't get you low enough. A guard came and chastised me; "no sitting on the floor" is code for "don't be homeless at my Barnes and Noble." I could see how the rule might *seem* to make sense--most writers produce just a few major books, so you can kneel, grab three Hilary Mantel titles, and go from there. But you *can't* do this with Agatha Christie. We're talking about forty or fifty books. She was more prolific than God. The situation *demanded* that I sit and take one or two minutes while remaining in contact with the floor.

The guard would not listen to reason; he cut me off. Then, drunk with rage, I sought the counsel of his employer. This woman could tell from my wild eyes that I had lost my mind, and she said to me, in a schoolteacher's voice, "You do whatever you like, dear...."

Fortunately, this tragedy hasn't recurred. And I can still recommend the midtown outlet. That said, they have Laurie Colwin's memoir in the "food" section--not in the "memoir" section. I'm going to let that slide.