McLean & Eakin Booksellers is located in downtown Petoskey, Michigan, on Lake Street, in what is referred to as the Gaslight District. It’s been a shopping district for over one hundred years. Many of the old gas lamp posts, while now electrified, still remain.

McLean & Eakin was established thirty-three years ago in 1992 and has remained in the same family. It’s located in the G & A Building, built in 1907. The initials stand for Guleserian and Altoonjian, two Armenian immigrants who ran a Persian Bazaar on the first floor of the building and rented the second floor to the Petoskey Normal and Business College. It’s fun to imagine all of the people who shopped for goods that would have come from the Middle East and Asia. Perhaps they bought a Persian rug, or a piece of ornate furniture, or an exquisite painting. Over the years other businesses came and went, including a women’s clothing store during the 1950s and 1960s.

A couple of days ago when I walked into the store, I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger, a book I’m currently reading, welcomed me. At the checkout counter, I discovered a display dedicated to Enger’s novels and an announcement that he would be appearing at an author event in Petoskey. The clerk told me that the owner of McLean & Eakin is a huge Leif Enger fan. I own all of Enger’s novels, so I bought The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon, which is supposed to be a wonderful historical novel. The story, inspired by a real midwife’s diary, takes place in Maine in 1789.

From the outside one might expect McLean & Eakin to be quite small, but it’s two stories, so customers will find plenty of titles. The main entrance is on Lake Street, but if you go around the block to the back of the building, you’ll find another entrance, also at street level but one story lower. The G & A Building, like many structures in Petoskey, was built into a hill.

The staff is always friendly and helpful. On more than one occasion, I’ve watched a clerk function as a human algorithm: A customer feeds the clerk titles of books they’ve enjoyed, and the clerk starts suggesting other books they might like.

McLean & Eakin offers a rewards program, and even though I live over nine hours away, I joined. At first I resisted because I lived so far away. But as I traveled to Petoskey more frequently, and as every trip included at least one visit to the bookstore, I signed up. There is no fee to join the rewards program, and I realized it was financially foolish not to belong. For every $100 dollars I spend, I receive a ten-dollar coupon. On this trip to the bookstore, I earned my third coupon since enrolling in their rewards program.

In addition to books, customers can shop for greeting cards, stationery, writing journals, puzzles, games, candles, stickers, coffee mugs, socks, and other miscellaneous items. At the back of the store on the main level is a charming children’s section.

At one time people could walk into the Persian Bazaar and take home a piece of a faraway world. Today people can walk into McLean & Eakin, buy a book, and read themselves into another world. After I finish I Cheerfully Refuse, which has taken me forward in time to northeastern Minnesota along Lake Superior, I will read The Frozen River, which will take me back to 1789 in Maine.