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

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.

If you love books and bookstores, this book is pure joy. Well done.

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.

Whenever I travel I immediately look for any indie bookstores nearby to shop in. I like the write-ups and the wide variety of bookstores. This is a great way to promote those smaller bookstores we should all be making an effort to shop in ; ) And yes I know I am writing this review on Amazon ; ) The book is also a great way to find any local indie bookstores in areas where you might find yourself visiting or working. Having authors write about what their favorite bookstores are is obviously a nice personal touch as well. Great book for bookstore and book lovers.

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?