In Memoriam of Sandy Tishcoff, Owner of Mostly Books

Sandy Tishcoff is the first to admit Mostly Books, his store in Flatbush, Brooklyn, is just a small neighborhood shop.

"I know it's unusual in this day and age," says Tishcoff, referring to the era of superstore chains. "Yet we do try to cover every topic for our customers.

"We've got a good sense of knowing what people want and matching them up with it, and this goes beyond the best-seller syndrome," he adds. Mostly Books, at 1400 Cortelyou Rd., is for "people looking for an unusual and different kind of book."

For Tishcoff, a recent autobiography fits that bill: "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" (Knopf, 132 pp., $20).

Written by the late French magazine editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, it's about his coming to grips with a rare paralysis caused by a stroke that left him unable to move any part of his body except his left eyelid.

Yet by learning to blink his eye in a special code, Bauby painstakingly dictated the book one letter at a time, finishing it before dying from complications of the stroke this year at age 44.

"It's a slim volume, but it's a moving, touching book that I found to be very inspiring," says Tishcoff. "It's not maudlin as you might expect it to be. It's one of the most unusual and worthwhile books out there, and people are responding to it quite positively."

Customers have been responding favorably to Mostly Books since 1977 when Tishcoff, an Indiana native, opened the store after being laid off from his job as an administrator for a New York hospital.

"Flatbush is a pretty dynamic neighborhood, and there were a lot of young people moving into these wonderful Victorian-style houses here," recalls Tishcoff, 62.

"They were saying, 'This neighborhood needs this and it needs that,' so I thought, 'Why not a bookstore? And here I am."