Rare Book Monthly
Bookstores in Costa Rica
Lexicon Library; librarians Nicole Dilello and Leslie Borasse (courtesy of Lexicon).
The second store was 7th Street Books, a new book store with a rack of used books in the back, and an attached espresso bar. It was a small, clean, well-lit store, but I was amazed at the price of the new books; about one-third more than they would have been here in the States. They had a very limited selection of books on Costa Rica, some novels, a few coffee-table art books, some pop fiction, and the like. Most of their stock, the clerk said, was designed for tourist "consumption", so to speak. Our next stop, as we walked along, was to grab a picture of a "typical" Costa Rican bookseller with this rolling caretta y sombrillo (cart and umbrella).
It was cooler than we expected in San Jose, and we were without long sleeves or long pants. We stopped in a store called Ropa Americana. It was a great place to shop for really good, slightly used or seconds of label clothes; i.e. L.L. Bean, Calvin Klein, and Jones of New York. We bought our warmer clothes, paid about $10.00 for several shirts, pants, and a couple of long skirts to keep the skeeters off my ankles. As we left, we spotted a shelf with a sparse collection of rather well-used books. "What are these," I asked in Spanish? "That's our bookstore," replied the clerk. I had to have a picture; she thought I was a page shy of a novel.
We found a copy of The Tico Times, the English-speaking, weekly newspaper, and there we found an advertisement for The Lexicon Lending Library, the only English-book library in Costa Rica. My antennae went up and bleeped. Since we had not had good luck with bookstores, we called the library to see if there was anyone there who could or would give me some info on books and book dealers. "Come on over," said Leslie Borasse, one of the two librarians.
We took a taxi on a beautiful sunny afternoon. The Library was located in the Sabanna area of San Jose in a very nice part of town where many English and American ex-pats live and work. It was in a rather elegant private home which had been converted to house the library and the founder's insurance company. It, like all buildings in San Jose, had the requisite iron barred gate and locks.
Leslie greeted us cheerfully and introduced us to Nicole Dilello, the second librarian. They gave us a tour of their library. We asked Leslie about the lack of bookstores and libraries in Costa Rica. "Ticos are very literate people, but they don't read much for pleasure," she replied. "If you see someone reading as they wait for a bus or sit in a dentist's office, they probably aren't Ticos."
We asked her how Lexicon got started. "John Michael Garrett is the founder. On May 25, 2002 the Lexicon Library was opened in Escazu another suburb of San Jose, but now is located in Sabanna. We began with 600 books and now we have about 6000. Michael was a big reader and couldn't find any English language books to read; it is very difficult to find good English-language books in C.R. He wanted to provide the English-speaking community in Costa Rica with good books." Leslie told us that when they get too many of one title or books they don't need, they share with other communities in other parts of Costa Rica such as Jaco, Guanacaste, the Reforma prison, and so on.
