Basking in the glow of First Light Books

18 years ago – during a period of my life so remote I barely recognize it as my own – I went to Texas for the first time.

I was in my fourth year of journalism school in Ottawa, but I didn’t want to be journalist. Thinking I might do an MBA instead, I applied to many of the usual Ontario schools – to Queen’s, to UofT, to Guelph. I wrote the essays. I secured the letters of recommendation. Then I took the GMAT.

That GMAT changed my life, to nearly the same seismic degree that meeting my husband while backpacking across Europe a few years later did. If not for my GMAT score, I’d almost certainly have gone on to one of those Ontario grad programs, and progressed from there to a life in Toronto. Instead, I started applying to more competitive US schools and now I live in New York City.

The first such school I applied to was Texas A&M. I didn’t end up studying there – the place is more football team than academic institution – but the winding journey to College Station took me through Austin. I spent two days touring the blue dot amid Texas’ red sea, but I didn’t cover much ground. 90% of my photos are of the UT bookstore, where I was so bowled over by Texas sports fanaticism that I documented every Hook ‘em Horns mini-fridge and burnt orange nail polish bottle as if I was an anthropologist surveying a foreign land. Which, in a way, I suppose I was. 

This time around I had even less time – I spent 24 hours in the city, and much of that was devoted to work – but I’ve gotten much more efficient. Within an hour of landing, I was eating queso, then I walked north along SoCo, hitting every mural, hat shop, and cowboy boot emporium until I reached the Colorado River. Eventually, I ended up in Hyde Park, where First Light Books stands: a gorgeous, relatively new bookstore and coffee shop in what was once a post office.

And wow, this bookstore is special (just read the booksellers’ bios here, you’ll know you’re in good hands). Even in the middle of the day on a Thursday, it was absolutely packed – there was a queue at the coffee window, every interior table was taken, and people (and their dogs) gathered outside in a spirited melange of chatter, iced matchas, and tote bags that gave Brooklyn, not God’s Country. I perused the staff picks, got my own iced drink, picked up gifts for Fig and Kip, and then guiltily took work calls in the sunny kid’s corner.

If you’re ever in Austin, go there. Or if you’re in Houston, San Antonio or – god forbid – College Station, drive there. It’ll be well worth it.