Hidden Cleveland: Zubal Books

Inside an old Lutheran publishing company on West 25th Street, Pergamon the cat guards William Faulkner, Dante Aligheri and Jane Austen. The black rescue kitty works alongside John Zubal, who started bookseller Zubal Books in 1962. The air inside the labyrinth of towering shelves is thick with the smell of paperbacks and hardcovers — around 800,000 of them in 75 subject areas. While a small section of about 5,000 volumes is available to walk-in customers, Zubal took the collection online in the 1990s, selling everything from Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms to rare works such as 68 volumes of a quarterly journal on microscopical science for more than $9,000. It’s hard to contain the wonder of all the words on all these pages. But for Zubal, whose fascination with collecting texts began in elementary school, the book life has been a beach for more than 50 years. “This is enjoyment to me,” he says amid the stacks. “This is playing.” 2969 W. 25th St., Cleveland, 216-241-7640, zubalbooks.com