May 18, 2009

New York bookstore offers personalized service for travelersBy Beth J. HarpazUSAToday.com

New York — What kind of dreamer opens a bookstore in a recession, gives it a nostalgic name that means nothing to most people under 40, and stocks it with travel guides and obscure foreign novels?

Meet David Del Vecchio, owner of Idlewild Books, who says business is thriving despite the odds against independent bookstores, the travel downturn and an economy that was already heading south when Idlewild opened in May 2008.

“Since January, we’ve recorded double-digit growth every month,” he said.

But Del Vecchio admits that many customers have no idea what Idlewild means: It was the original name for John F. Kennedy Airport.

If the name of the store, located on 19th Street near Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, is old-fashioned, so, in some ways, is the concept. Idlewild offers personalized service to match customers with books, and it showcases a carefully curated collection of 7,000 books from 100 countries. More than half the mix is literature; the rest, guidebooks.

“Every book in the store has a strong sense of place,” Del Vecchio said.

Books are organized geographically — by state, country and continent — not alphabetically. The Iliad is amid books about Greece, along with Dinner with Persephone, a contemporary travel memoir. Ghosts, by Buenos Aires writer Cesar Aira is with Argentina books, along with classics by Jorge Luis Borges. The Conqueror, by Norwegian Jan Kjaerstad, is with other Scandinavian noir novels.

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