Bookshop Memories: Bluestem Books, Lincoln, Nebraska

Bluestem Books — Lincoln, NE

Growing up in Lincoln, Nebraska, in the 1980s and ’90s, there was a bookshop in the scuzzier part of downtown in an old brick building, under a towering overpass that took you out to the interstate on the east side of town. It was a tiny corner of our modest town that felt like a much bigger city. There were pigeons.

Bluestem Books was an institution by then. There were always cats around, and no one cared if you stayed and browsed or just sat and read for hours on end. Even as a teen doing his best grunge impression day in and out browsing the history, essays, and mystery sections. There was an old green chair in a little nook that was a coveted spot. People would circulate through the store, accidentally sneaking up on one another because there were virtually no open lines of sight because of the tight, full shelves.

The building was also ancient, for Lincoln. The wavy glass in the drafty windows and crumbly brick gave the building a charming derelict feel it may have deserved. Doorways had been knocked through brick walls, giving the shop a rambling layout. The wood floors creaked dreadfully, though muffled under threadbare, faded rugs. Old cast iron pipes passed through here and there, their purposes unclear. Strange metal fittings studded the concrete vault ceilings in places. I wondered if portions of the bookshop had once served as a meat locker or some other weigh-station for once-living things headed out on the nearby rail lines.