Location: 3032 Minnehaha Avenue
Today at the new Moon Palace Books, around noon, it was as bright inside as outside. The new location has so much natural light that, even though you are sitting indoors, you are still in the sun. A handy little tool in the middle of February, in Minnesota!
When you walk in you smell books and new wood, but books. That smell. That smell that causes your shoulders to drop with peace. You take a deep cleansing breath and then you look around. Books. What could be finer? The location is large and open, so while there are books as far as the eye can see, there is still space. There simply is no one angle to capture the full space in a photograph. There are little nooks and crannies going this way and that. There’s a fairly large, dedicated children’s book area right in front of a big window – offering all that sun to grow little ones’ minds – encouraging creativity and allowing the readers to daydream at the encouragement of a book. Upstairs are used books.
The space is wide open, and looks over the first floor. Chairs and a table are set up in front of the windows looking out over Minnehaha. The interior is light, unpainted wood that enhances the lightness and airiness of the space. The ceiling is open and pipes and duct work is exposed. The high wall over the cash registers hosts art from a local artist. In the back you see messages of ‘Geek Love Café’ coming soon. Moon Palace has received approval to serve beer, wine and light food. An opening is anticipated early March. Moon Palace is becoming more and more a community hub with author readings and discussions, poetry readings, Mama Ray reading and singing songs for little ones, and book clubs – just to name a few events.
As of today (2/9/18) there are ten events on the calendar for February alone. What this tells me is that the book (the one you can touch and smell and turn pages with your fingers) is alive and well in Longfellow and is going nowhere – and since this is Moon Palace’s 3rd location in just over 5 years, they aren’t going anywhere either. Thank goodness!
https://www.moonpalacebooks.com/
@MoonPalaceBooks
Photo: Jean Des Marais