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.
