An Insatiable Love Affair
By Natnicha Chuwiruch
Bookistan hides on the side of Harvard Avenue, Boston, barely noticeable to common speed walkers. The glass window display holds old records, Elvis Presley plates, Star Wars Pez dispensers, Persian rugs, and an antique nightstand, complete with an old ceramic water pitcher. The store looks out of place amongst the many restaurants and bars in Allston.
Walking down the four small steps past the door, you are greeted by books from every corner. Stacks of books pile up from the floor, on the table in the middle of the store, and on the completely full shelves that stand in front of every wall of the square room.
The books on the shelves are categorized into Arts, Fiction, Non-fiction, Autobiography, Cooking and Sports. The pile of books next to the stack of children’s toys are fiction. Sharoozi knows exactly where to find each and every one. He pulled out a special edition of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien behind a stack of cookbooks and miniature figurines on a shelf when he saw my fingers glide over the Lord of the Rings trilogy set, stacked on top of one another and held together by a single rubber band.
“I have lot of knick knacks in my store that I just pick up from anywhere I find them, but my first love has always been for books,” said Sharoozi. His eyes stared out into space but the melancholic smile made it seem like the 68-year-old Iranian man was seeing something else in the air. His fingers covered his smiling lips, as if afraid that a secret would escape from them.
The smile on his lips disappeared when he started talking about his family. His voice becomes robotic as he lists out the order of his marriages and his children. Shahroozi has eight sons with four different wives. Two were with a Polish woman. Two were with an Afghani woman. Two were with a Canadian woman. And two were with an American woman. Yet, he runs Bookistan alone.
“I was a different man before,” said Sharoozi. His brow furrowed when he recalled his past. “I was not very conscious of what was happening around me, my nose has always been buried in books. That’s the reason for my divorces. None of my marriages could ever compete with the greatest love of my life.”
Sharoozi is always surrounded by books. He opened Bookistan because his home ran out of space. His own store is filled to the point of bursting as well. Shahroozi gingerly places a collection of Robert Frost’s poems on a stack of books. He manages to discover a big enough space in front of a second stack of books on a shelf labeled poetry as he talked about the beauty and sadness found in war poems.
“I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.”
Sharoozi recited Suicide in the Trenches by Siegfried Sassoon from memory — Sassoon’s works are among one of his favorite reads. When Sharoozi parted with a collection of poems and proses from World War I last week, it was difficult for him, but he loves to see people enjoying books as much as he does. It is like finding a new home for his treasure.
Shahroozi is very particular about each book that is featured in his store. He chooses each book carefully based on his own tastes or on customer requests. He purchases them from wherever he could — street vendors in Iran, second hand stores in Poland, donations from people in America. The only criteria he has is that it has to be a good read.
Shahroozi’s credibility comes from knowing his own product. He spends 15 to 16 hours a day reading yet has no one favorite book.
“It is a shame to have preferential treatment of literature,” said Sharoozi. “There’s just so many different types of material out there. Authors labor over one book for so many years. They bring a different insightfulness to their stories and to choose just one of many million stories as a favorite, is not fair.”
Shahroozi walks back in between the shelves of books to polish the collection of silverware piled on a mound of children’s toys. He is lost behind a wall of book spines, only to reemerge when the bell behind the front door rings. Forever wandering, both lost and found among the stacks. Shahroozi’s love of books will forever be an insatiable love affair.
