My Bookstore: Writers Celebrate Their Favorite Places to Browse, Read, and Shop

My love affair with bookstores began when I was about eight years old. I accompanied my mother to a used bookstore to browse and I remember spying an old copy of one of the Nancy Drew mysteries and I've been hooked since, not just on books but the whole experience of browsing in bookstores, book sales, and finding books to fill my ever expanding collection at home. Several decades later, the joy of going into a bookstore and just absorbing the atmosphere is still indescribable and is an experience I will never tire of."My Bookstore" is an engaging read which allows readers to get a glimpse as to which bookstores 84 well-known authors like to browse in. Every author has his or her particular favorite and though I'm not familiar with all of these authors' works, I can certainly appreciate their love of books, bookstores, and the craft of bookselling. Many of these writers explain that their choice of a favorite bookstore leans heavily on how well-read and friendly the booksellers are and this is true in my case. Nothing turns me off more than walking into a (usually) chain bookstore and being passed around from one purported bookseller to the next, who has no clue as to where I might find a certain , less popular title (but boy do they know the bestsellers!). No, like most of the writers featured here, my favorite bookstores are those where I can walk in and ask about an old, less familiar title and be directed to it or given helpful hints as to where I might find it. In this digital age, finding hard to come by titles is much easier, but that personal experience of engaging with a bookseller is altogether priceless(though I admit online book shopping has its advantages).In "My Bookstore", authors such as Isabel Allende, Jeanne Birdsall, Dave Eggers, Louise Erdrich, Fannie Flagg, Ian Frazier, John Grisham, Elin Hildebrand, Pico Iyer, Laurie R. King, Ann Packer, Ann Patchett, Francine Prose, and many more wax lyrical about why a certain bookstore resonates with them more than most. Albert Goldbarth's pick is the Watermark Books and Cafe in Wichita, KS and he describes the environment in the bookstore as one of "a neighborhood of - you'll know what I mean - unalike like minded-ness". Ahh, yes, I understand well what he means - that shared love of all things books, an unadulterated passion for musty old tomes and new treasures alike. This is a book for bibliophiles, and is a joy to read.

It is interesting to read about people's favorite bookstores, but of course mainly for those who are within easy reach of a particularstore. I love to read about Powells Bookstore in Oregon, but living in Tennessee it feels pretty remote. I imagine everyonein northern California, Oregon and Washington State have found Powells by now. There are commonthemes throughout: readers looking for a well-stocked friendly bookstore that is easily l accessible, willing to order book andanxious to pair readers with books they will enjoy. Except for one reviewer who requested "Please - no store Cats!", most ofthese store do feature a cat or dog and that adds to the attraction for several readers. I , for one, would stop in to pet thecat and undoubtedly purchase at least 2 books.

I love bookstores and I love books, so this was a no brainer for me. I enjoyed reading about the bookstores, others loved, getting to know the owners and the authors who were writing about them. I'd like to tour the country and stop at each and every single one. They write with gratitude, wonder awe, joy and well, LOVE. Because when we find OUR bookstore, that's just the way we feel.

At a time when the indiy booksellers are closing without many others replacing them, it is great to read these guides to the different neighborhood Thinking Centers and Info Shops still going strong. I know so many of them from visits in my time trying to place my modest product (visited almost all of these stores and more than 2,000 booksellers in the US and Canada in all!), and there was not one I did not love whatever their always reasoned response to my entreaty.From my own local Portland's Powell's, the most voluminous and in many ways the greatest bookstore in the English speaking world to some tiny ones like my town's Artifacts--Good Books and Bad Art where I volunteer without pay, I always assumed that like me, the founder had entered the world of books as a calling to educate and serve fellow readers who might come to share their own love of Truth and scrupulous factuality; I may be mistaken, but I cannot remember being shown I was ever wrong about that much.Many of these stores, like Artifacts, have to sell "rubber chickens" to be able to get $4 Grapes of Wrath to high school kids, and many have suffered outright attack by predatory chains and now uncaring price cutters, but they soldier on as long with new enthusiasm every morning to spread their love of books and of reading.They, WE, believe that good reading makes good thinking and we can make the world better by means of the only tool that has been successful in improving thinking for the last 500 years. (A customer at Artifacts, Kelli, said, "There's a reason they burn books you know.")I bought this book as soon as I heard about it--couldn't get it fast enough. It is, almost every little essay, as inspiring as visiting these stores and seeing young and excited clerks whose greatest wish growing up was to work in a book store, one of these stores and the others which we will never hear about unless we live in their town but which mean so very much to their local communities.We are lucky, blessed, when we stop somewhere and find one open; I think they should charge admission--I'd pay; wouldn't you?

Having worked in two different bookstores, I was interested to read about other bookstores around the country. I wasn't disappointed, I would like to visit some of the bookstores mentioned!

Any booklover' s delight. These writers are wedded to the bookstores that nourish them and the stores here cherish their communities. I regretted arriving at the end of these warm narratives and have fond memories of the stores I've spent so many hours in, and sorely miss those that have closed. The editor could have dedicated this collection as an elegy to Cody's in Berkeley, a former home of mine.