Melville House

Profile

In early 2001, Dennis Loy Johnson and his wife, Valerie Merians, started an online poetry project from their Hoboken home at Johnson's Website, MobyLives.com. After September 11, the couple compiled an anthology of New York poets from the site in Poetry after 9/11—the book that would jump-start their publishing company, Melville House, and spawn this inviting, discerningly stocked bookshop. Focusing on literary fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, the space attracts aspiring writers and loyal locals alike. The store is encased by floor-to-ceiling windows, and the blond-wood tables piled neatly with books and a few wood benches provide the spot's only décor. The selection skews toward in-house works, like Trevor Paglen's annotated collection of oddball military patches, I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have to Be Destroyed by Me, or Tao Lin's poetry collection, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, but also includes select books from outside indie publishers, including Akashic Books in Brooklyn and the not-for-profit New Press. Johnson, a former college professor, launched Melville House's growing novella series in 2004, which offers colorful paperback reprints of classics from writers like Kipling, Tolstoy, and Chekhov for less than $10 apiece. — Lauren Murrow