Pilgrim’s Way Books
Dolores between Fifth and Sixth, Carmel
(831) 624-4955, www.pilgrimsway.com
“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.”-Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden. This whole family-owned, community-centric shop is a garden, full of books for the flowering mind and flowers and plants and dreamcatchers and hidden pathways to help the senses blossom. What started out 45 years ago as a specialty bookstore has evolved and expanded: It now carries the latest New York Times bestsellers, young adult and children’s books, paperback novels, biographies, self-help and cookbooks, local interest, travel and adventure – plus T-shirts, music, greeting cards, plants, candles, wind chimes, thermometers, i.e., a lot. Customers who can’t find parking can call ahead and when they drive by and their book is handed to them – which works as a microcosm of the personal hands-on attention that comes standard.