Granny Bones Bookshop

Place
See also: Granny Bones

Granny Bones is an independent bookstore in Chicago. It's in Old Town, just west of Lincoln Park. The building is just across the street from the Green City Market Lincoln Park (which operates May - October, every Wednesday and Saturday, from 7 am to 1 pm). The shop is in a converted 3 story brownstone. Most of the staff are undergraduate or graduate literature majors at local schools (e.g., Northwestern, Loyola, U of I Chicago, etc.), which is obvious because the only employee dress code is wearing a top with a university's name (but not necessarily official apparel). Otherwise, the employees are an eclectic mix of goth, hippy, biker, prep, metalhead, and so on, complete with piercings, tattoos, ripped jeans, creased khakis, sandals, boots, torn fishnet stockings, mohawks, and so on.

That eclecticism is just the tip of the iceberg at Granny's. The seemingly-countless, bright, airy, welcoming rooms are packed floor to ceiling with grand old bookcases overflowing with best sellers, pulp fiction, coffee table books, rare editions, cookbooks, atlases, graphic novels, poetry, etc. The organization scheme defies simple explanation, and yet provided a customer is accompanied by staff, they usually find the perfect book. For those who need more time to decide, or who simply wish to linger, Granny's includes a charming, clean, affordable, fair-trade coffee shop. Cozy chairs, a friendly fireplace, and an unpredictable menu of themed drinks and baked goods await.

Perhaps needless to say, Granny Bones sings with old and powerful magic.

Receiving Room

Lex leads the way up the stairs. The route ascends past the second floor and then past the third, fourth, and fifth floors. (From the outside, Granny Bones Bookshop is a 3-story building.) At last Lex leads the way into a modest, windowless antechamber with pale white-wood paneling. A smattering of austere, matching wooden chairs are arranged for guests to wait upon.
Showing no signs of exertion from the climb, Lex strides across the antechamber to a set of heavy white-wood doors with matte silver hardware. As he approaches, an invisible sentry of some kind steps aside. The sentry's actual size and silhouette eludes Jane's senses, but it's something like a bearded ogre with a club. When Lex grasps the handles of the doors, there's a flash of a silver symbol on each one: a snowflake with a helix of chains behind it.
Beyond the doors lies a regal receiving room. It's a circular room at least 30 feet in diameter. The floor is inlaid with a mosaic: the tiles are every imaginable hue of blue, white, and gray. They combine in the symbol of a snowflake with a helix of chains behind it. (One might note that the helix climbs counterclockwise, crossing the snowflake twice.) The lines of the symbol are accented in silver, and the arms of the snowflake glitter with scattered, embedded sapphires and diamonds. The same colors and precious materials adorn the six thick, white-marble columns around the perimeter. The columns support six matching white-wood ribs that divide the ceiling into six sectors. Five sectors each feature a different fresco of a period in Chicago's history: the primordial past, the Potawatomi fishers and traders, the boomtown half on fire, the White City of the World's Columbian Exposition, and the towers of steel of the late 20th century. The sixth sector is either painted to look like mist or it's actual mist.
In the center of the room, a circular dais of 3 wide steps holds a unique throne. It looks like a fountain of molten silver, but flash-frozen. A seat has been hammered into the center of the cold plume, with a thick, pale blue cushion.
Beyond all that, the most extraordinary element of the room is the apparent lack of walls. There is the faintest glint of something like glass or ice here and there, but otherwise the view is unhindered. When the doors close behind a visitor, they fade from view. Northward, one can admire the tamed wilds of the Lincoln Park Zoo. Westward is Old Town's upscale brownstones and retail. South is the trendy and avant-garde opulence of Gold Coast, and then the Magnificent Mile of skyscrapers stretching to the clouds. Eastward is the grand, forbidding spread of Lake Michigan, chased with whitecaps. This high up, the wind blows harshly in swirls and curtains of snow. But inside the room, the air is placid and only a little chilly.
Tucked between two of the marble columns is a circle of plump leather armchairs. The leather is something off-white and supple, perhaps a rare breed of caribou. The chairs are made further inviting by throws of soft, warm furs. The chairs encircle a matte gray brazier, its bowl packed high with flaming coals.