Talking Leaves Books

Buffalo, NY

Talking Leaves Books has been providing the reading public of Buffalo and Western New York with a distinctive and unusual selection of the finest writing and thinking bound into books for almost 30 years now.

The name of our store derives from a recurrent conceptualization of books by peoples who were unfamiliar with print; bookpages were seen as ""leaves"" that ""talked,"" imparting wisdom and knowledge and spirit (not ""data"") in order to represent, expand and preserve them. Books were seen as an intriguing way of keeping track of the treasures of the people: their minds and their ways of being in, and understanding, the world.

The best books do precisely that: they open us up to new worlds, or illuminate more clearly our own; they stretch and deepen our vision and our comprehension of the universe and its creatures, cultures and ways. The goal at our store has always been to find and present this sort of book to our community, and to engage actively in the community to promote literacy and the public discussion of the substance of the books we offer. As our culture becomes more uniform, the voices and visions outside the mainstream become ever more significant.

If your interest in, or passion for books tends to the idiosyncratic, the unusual, the marginal, the ""original,"" and stems from an inquiring, free-spirited and independent mind, we think you'll enjoy browsing our website; the pages here will tell you more about us and what we like to do, and more about some of the books that excite and inspire us.