The Book Box/Shake, Rattle, and Read, Thanks Ric
I’ve lived in Uptown in Chicago for 34 years—and that whole time there has been a little used bookstore down the street at Lawrence and Broadway. First it was the Book Box and then it changed its name to Shake, Rattle, and Read. Along with books there was a wide assortment of used vinyl. The current owner Ric Addy will never know what a godsend his shop has been to me through the years. Readers of this blog will have already picked up that books have saved my life. Reading has been my constant companion even before I could read. As a pre-reader I begged for the same books to be read to me over and over. I connected with story. As miserable as the Uptown neighborhood appeared to me in the early 80s it was only bearable because of the Book Box. I’d go there with empty pockets, just to browse. That’s all I could afford. Still it was enough to stand there in that environment and breathe in words, musty yellowed pages of them, pulp fiction covers, ...