Best Bookstore Lists Abound

Everywhere I read lately, I come across a "best bookstore of..." list. The latest is Best Little Bookstores of the West in one of my favorite magazines, High Country News. The article makes a point of picking out unusual, off-the-beaten track ones.

I guess.

Homer, Alaska is about as off track as you can get, unless you're fishing for halibut, and then you're in exactly the center of the world. But there is also a bookstore there, The Old Inlet Bookshop--which, as many welcoming spots do--doubles as a café and B&B. I may have to go back.

In Ketchum, Idaho, distant but far from undiscovered, is Iconoclast Books, which was recently reinvigorated by a crowd funding campaign by its owner after a series of tragedies. Another one to revisit.

According to the writer, Village Books in "quaint, rainy Bellingham" Washington has become the cultural cornerstone of a revitalized neighborhood in my first college town.

Read the piece for your own self (especially if you have a hankering for spots full of Western or desert bookstuff). For me, I find this flush of lists and stories encouraging. Independent booksellers persist. People are still reading. Bookshops and their owners provide stability in community for which there is clearly an appetite.

All of that is heartwarming in a time filled more and more with chaos and turbulence.

Keep reading and patronizing independents wherever you are, wherever you travel.

And thank you for the sticker, Stephen Colbert.

How Bookselling is Like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

I don't hate Amazon, I really don't. I was able to buy the matching outlet covers for the living room that the local hardware store didn't carry via the "everything" online store. And truth be told, I've bought my share of books there. But that was before I knew better, and before I realized that pushing a few buttons was instant gratification, and not a life-enhancing adventure as a stroll through my local bookshop.

So I took a bit of pleasure from this story about a book distributor who took his inventory off Ama$on (I love that). Not without unknown risk, but as a business partner declares "It looked pretty grim for awhile, but now it seems he's the wind in his sails."

Go Mom and Pops!

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/edc-beat-amazon-2014-8#ixzz3BbzHg6Ly

Perfect Little Shrines to the Human Spirit

I had a friend once who told me he didn't read for fun because he read at work all day. Not surprisingly, he had not one book in his house. What he was doing was processing information among work colleagues. Schedules, reports and manuals are not read, they are consumed. The information may be critical, but it is ephemeral.

Books can be also be on ephemeral topics, but they last on bookshelves in a way that no one ever preserved a delivery schedule.

Another friend recently shared a copy of a speech by Salt Lake City bookseller Tony Weller. Why Books are Precious. Interestingly, it was this speech that inspired me to proudly claim my dinosaur-hood in this blog. The speech, and the way I found it. As you'll deduce from the linkage, it is published online. However, my friend printed it out, and handed the copy around to people with whom she knew it would resonate. She didn't tell me not to copy it, but I could tell that to photocopy it would destroy something that it contained. So I started reading.

Surviving Amazon

A few weeks ago, I put the word out to my travel buddies asking for names of not-to-be-missed independent bookstores in their hometowns, or wherever they have traveled. I received a few suggestions, mostly from the western U.S. and most of those well-known, i.e. Powell's in Portland, Oregon. In the category of there are no new ideas, at about the same time, a friend sent me a link to a survey by CNN of the world's coolest bookstores. On the CNN list is, of course, Powell's in Portland. And many more, in places I would not have thought. The story of how and why some brick and mortar stores continue to exist and are thriving, is an interesting read, too.

In the meantime, I did find one on my own--in Pendelton, Oregon. I especially liked the neon...

Must Buy Book

I saw this today on Twitter (it's job thing). Courtesy of Kepler's Books @keplers and captioned with the note "I didn't know I needed this--until I saw it." It reminded me of an important lesson I learned when I downsized and moved last summer. Books are keepers. I had little trouble selling furniture, tossing boxes of "mementoes," streamlining my wardrobe. But getting rid of books was a challenge. Even ones I hadn't touched in years. Each held a certain place in my life. Together they show growth, or lack thereof. Assembled in cases, they take up an entire wall in my wee condo. But it is the anchor of my home and, I believe, my soul. Every book I gave away went to a used bookstore, safe in the knowledge that it would likely end up in someone else's hands and home for some time.

I hope it goes without saying -- if you, another Print Dinosaur, have made it this far -- we have a responsibility to keep purveyors of books in business. So when not if you need to buy a book (and we now know that you're mistaken if you don't), go to your local independent bookseller.

Duty to Encourage the Bookish

I love the idea of the "Free Little Library" so much, I started to make my own. Had the lumber (recycled from my dead wooden garage door), hardware and of course Books! The spot was perfect: in the front yard--on a walkable urban street frequented by walkers, runners, strollers and kids, under a major pine tree, with a natty bench beside. But then I moved. To a condo.

But thankfully, kids like Spencer Collins, age 9, from Leawood, Kansas, also see the beauty and wisdom of encouraging the habit, skill and love of reading books. He built his with his grandfather for a Mother's Day present (double points). But then, the city (egged on by cranky neighbors worried about "property values") said cease and desist with the unpermitted permanent structure in the yard. After a national hue and cry, the city is trying to find a way. To let a 9 year old foster his love of reading by making it easy for passersby to "take a book, leave a book." You can read more about it here: Spencer and His Free Library.

The major point is: reading is life. Encouraging reading is a gift, not an eyesore. In fact, the story has inspired me to revisit my idea of a "Free Little Library" in my condo. Because reading doesn't stop when you give up the yard.

And so it begins

We are a dying breed, those of us who love words on the printed page.

I refer to myself more frequently these days as a "print dinosaur," surrounded as I am by bright, accomplished people with every new idea and device designed for "pushing content." Hence the name of my blog.

And this is not a new phenomenon. I recall in my younger days (yes, pre-Internet) struggling with graphic designers who wanted more white space in the annual report. They knew, long before I accepted it, that people are no longer readers.

So why am I now pushing content on an electronic medium? Because I know you are out there, too. We print dinosaurs are wise enough to know that "Googling it" is the way people now find stuff. Including books to read. And we need to spread the word. Reading is fundamental to the human race. A book (not a Nook) in your hands is special. It defies explanation. But it must be demonstrated, cultivated and passed along. God bless librarians, everywhere.

Just this morning a friend asked on her Facebook page for summer reading suggestions. Books that "you could not put down." I immediately gave her several*, but so did a dozen others! Inspiring. And as I walked to my bookcases to find a few could-not-put-down titles, I was struck by the flood of emotion I felt. I love my wall of books. The spines are colorful, worn, touched by human hands (how many I cannot count). The books remind me of the stories within, places I've visited, people I've discussed the books with, lessons I've learned. Some bring back the feeling of a child on my lap, being read to. And from the gaps on the shelves--friends I've lent books to.

So let's start with summer. Bring back the summer reading list, long-live summer reads! But don't keep the list to yourself. Share it--with those you love the most, your officemate, a neighbor. Make sure some are children. Give them a book, and tuck the list inside. Ha! Just now I felt the scratchy fabric on my parents' sofa as I spent hours lying there, reading during the long, warm Salt Lake summers. I need to go take a "nap."

*Oh yes. My suggestions: Rebecca, A Supremely Bad Idea, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, and one I meant to add: The Spirit of St. Louis. What are yours?