Book People 2005
For the past fifty years Jay Dantry has been selling books in Oakland taking photographs of his customers and writers he has encountered An...
Description
For the past fifty years Jay Dantry has been selling books in Oakland, taking photographs of his customers and writers he has encountered. An enormous documentation is here distilled into a single Gesture, evoking the space of his bookshop.
Jay Dantry was a literary guru who opened Jay’s Book Stall in 1959 on Forbes Avenue in Oakland. Jay’s Book Stall became one of the premier bookstores in the country, a mandatory stop in Pittsburgh for touring writers. Stephen King, Richard Ford, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Doris Lessing, Mary Higgins Clark, E.L. Doctorow, James Lee Burke, David Sedaris and Pittsburgh natives John Edgar Wideman and David McCullough were among the literary luminaries who stopped by to chat and get a Polaroid photo taken with the urbane and witty Dantry.