Rare Book Monthly
To Costa Rica and Back, Again
Larry Coulter of Good Light Books.
It was interesting to note that, other than Larry, almost all the booksellers I spoke to in C.R. said that they have a huge problem finding good books. Larry tells me that he has gone to most of the English language bookstores in Costa Rica and offered to sell them his good quality, relatively current duplicates and sale paperbacks for $1.00 a book and they declined to buy because they don't want to come to Alajuela. Having searched in vain for a book to read in some of those small town bookstores I wondered what the heck their problem was. If I were a bookseller there I'd be at his shop once a month restocking. It isn't a long distance to anywhere from anywhere in C.R. and hotels are cheap, so you could go to Alejuela from almost anywhere, stock up, spend the night for about $25, and go home to your store with some new books for those desperate tourists such as my husband and I. Larry told us that he sometimes takes his truck, which is fitted out with bookshelves, and goes to the beach to sell books to the tourists. The others really should take him up on his offer as none of them really carry any good, current books and the tourists are crying for them. I would have killed to have him show up at Montezuma with his truck full of books when I snapped closed the last page of my last paperback. If you want to see what Larry has to offer, go to www.goodlightbooks.com.
We ran out of time, but we heard that there were several more bookstores in Puerto Viejo on the Caribbean Coast, so now we have an excuse to go back. Oh boy! Ta, ta 'til then.
