There’s a new bookstore in Charlevoix, Michigan, called Dockside Books. It’s appropriately named because water abounds in Charlevoix. From the bookstore if you look to the west, you see Lake Michigan and the Round Lake Channel, which leads into Round Lake. If you look to the east, you see Round Lake, which leads into Lake Charlevoix.
Dockside is a charming bookstore. Depending on the light, the color painted on the walls sometimes looks sea green or stormy blue. Changeable like Lake Michigan. A rowboat standing on end serves as a bookshelf. In addition to a wonderful selection of books in all genres, customers can shop for book bags, stationery, bookmarks, and journals. There is a nice sitting area where you can try out a book before you buy it.
I wanted to buy a book to be supportive of the new store. But I wasn’t sure what to get because I’d recently bought other books on my wish list. So, I asked the clerk what her favorite genre was and she said she likes them all (a diplomat!), but she added she loves historical fiction. I asked, “Do you have a new historical fiction book you could recommend?” She did. 33 Place Brugmann by Alice Austen. The story, set in Brussels in a small apartment building, begins with the Nazi occupation of Belgium. I bought the book because I like historical fiction and because the clerk enthusiastically recommended it. Also, I find that reading about World War II, Nazis, and fascism, which I’ve been doing a lot lately, is somehow less scary than reading today’s news. Sometimes, however, the parallels between the past and the present are frightening. I haven’t read the book yet, but if I like it, I promise I’ll post a book review.
I didn’t have long to visit the bookstore because I had two dogs in my car waiting for their promised walk. So I’m looking forward to spending more time in Dockside when I return to Michigan this winter. I also need to read 33 Place Brugmann before I return to the store because I promised the clerk I’d tell her what I thought of the book.
The locals like to say if you keep a big enough boat on Lake Charlevoix, you can go anywhere in the world you want. Sail into Lake Michigan, navigate through a few more Great Lakes and some rivers, and voilà you will sail into the Atlantic Ocean. And from there the world awaits.
Or you can do what I did and visit Dockside Books, buy a book, and go anywhere in the world and anywhere in time without getting seasick. Soon I’ll be traveling back in time to Brussels as World War II begins and the lives of ordinary people are upended because of Hitler.
To see interior pictures of Dockside, scroll through the slideshow below.
Writing Near the Lake 