Memoirs of a Book-Loving Sofa As told by Jeannette Watson
For 20 years a handsome dark-green sofa held sway at Books & Co., the celebrated Madison Avenue bookshop. At its only comfortable seating option, it regularly “received” many of the 20th century’s literary luminaries and “Please Be Seated” is the story, in the sofa’s own words, of its unforgettable encounters with them.
When the shop closed, the sofa was ferried to the haven of a library on an island in Maine, where it could resume its privileged life among books. But after many years it began to deteriorate, and there was unspeakable talk of having it replaced. Herein the sofa recounts its miraculous rescue, meticulous restoration, and triumphant return to the library.
Praise for Please Be Seated
Move over “The Little Engine That Could,” now “Please Be Seated” joins the ranks of enduring personifications – a literary star in a legendary New York bookstore who retires in all her glory to an island library in Maine.
–Susan Minot
Oh to be a sofa (not a couch!) in Jeannette Watson’s orbit! I once sat on this irresistible sofa, without an inkling of its extraordinary life, and long before I had made Jeannette’s acquaintance. This tale of a major player in the literary world of New York and Maine is a true delight!
–Carolyn Waters, Director and Head Librarian, The New York Society Library
Whichever way you sit, be you a lounger, a sprawler, or a percher, you will never position your posterior on a sofa in the same way after reading “Please be Seated.” It is a story of recovery, of restoration and renovation. I could not put it down, I read it in one sitting but alas, not on a sofa.
–David Wilson, Board CHairman, The North Have Library