Latino bookstores turning the page

www.nydailynews.com/latino/2007/11/28/2007-11-28_latino_bookstores_turning_the_page.html

By Claudia Torrens. DAILY NEWS. 

The closing of two landmark Spanish-language bookstores on W. 14th St. has left long-term customers scrambling for alternative options around the city. Librería Lectorum shut down in September after nearly half a century in business, followed last month by 35-year-old Librería Macondo. Both operated within a block of each other in Chelsea. “I am in total shock,” said Raquel Chang-Rodríguez, a professor of Spanish-American literature at CUNY’s Graduate Center and City College. “We live in a city that is supposed to be the capital of the Hispanic world in the U.S. and we lack two of our main Spanish-language bookstores. What can we do?”

Options might be more limited because of smaller inventory, but in the barrios there are still places to pick up the latest tomes en español from the likes of Isabel Allende and Mario Vargas Llosa