Cricket Books

Currently located within Slow Down Nola
2866 Magazine Street · 11 am–6 pm daily

Cricket Books launched inside Fourth Wall Cafe in 2019. In April 2021, it expanded into a full installation within the Beaubourg Theater: a six-month iteration known as The Reading Room.

THE READING ROOM

Two tables—each forty-four by eighty-eight inches and thirty inches high—stood without screws, with three chairs tucked beneath each and the courtyard-facing side kept open. More than eight hundred books were available for purchase, ranging from one to forty-nine dollars, with most between four and nine dollars and tax included.

The room held a painting by Sadie Sheldon and Christopher Givens, a discarded canvas by Caroline S. Carson bearing the word fronteras screenprinted in black and painted over in white, a dry-erase board, free pencils both sharpened and unsharpened, plants, two chess boards, and a chess timer for serious players. A radio in the corner sometimes played WWOZ and sometimes did not. The courtyard doors stayed open unless rain or high humidity prevented it. There was one yellow couch, one brown chair, and other things too.

The books were specifically categorized, though the categories were never identified with text. The Reading Room was open whenever Fourth Wall Coffee or Down to Duke’s Place was open—an evolving bookshop, workroom, and social space assembled through objects, habits, and the possibility of encounter.

mystery creates wonder, which leads to curiosity, which in turn provides the ground for our desire to understand who and what we truly are.