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Last time I said that there may not be a post for this Saturday due
to posting this coming Wednesday for the Insecure Writer’s Support
Group (IWSG). But when I heard about Independent Bookstore Day,
I had to post at least a brief write-up about it. This special day,
which occurs on the last Saturday in April, has been going on for
five years. Yet as much as I’m a supporter of independent, locally
owned bookstores, I only found out about it two days ago. So maybe
not enough people are sharing about it on social media and/or maybe
news media isn’t covering it enough. I can’t say for sure. What I
can say for sure is that I felt compelled to do my part and share
this special day with fellow avid readers and fellow writers who may
be in the dark about Independent Bookstore Day like I had been.
Independent Bookstore Day started in
California in 2014 and went nationwide in 2016. Each store that participates celebrates in their own special way.
Ways of celebrating have included discounts on books, author
presentations, scavenger hunts, kids activities, contests and even
barbecues. Indie bookstores are celebrated on this day to show the people that
brick-and-mortar bookstores are not dead, are not a thing of the
past, but continue to live and thrive even during this age of digital
technology domination. “In fact,” explains the Independent Bookstore Day website,
“there are more [brick and mortar bookstores] this year than there
were last year.” I can’t tell you how great and how much of a
relief that is to know, myself being a person who will not read a
digital book on a device that summons works from some cyber
netherworld onto a screen only to banish it back to that netherworld
as if it will never exist again.
True, I do shop for
books online. However, that’s more the exception than the norm for
me. I usually purchase a book online if it’s a very hard to get
edition. But if my local, indie owned bookstore carries the book, I
will buy it from them. The owners and staff of indie bookstores tend
to show more interest in their customers especially those that share
their love of books. Also, indie bookstores often work well in
exposing self-published authors’ works. Which was my case with the
Avid Reader bookstore in Davis, California. So I owe at least that
respect for them for putting copies of my short story collection, The Fool’s Illusion, on their shelves. Because of that, they are one of my favourite bookshops in my
home area of Sacramento.
Other favourite
bookstores in my home area are Time Tested Books, Jerry Cloutier’s
Used Books, Beer’s Books, and Bizarro World. The last in this list
specialises in comics (which I also love and collect) but also
carries prose books particularly of the science fiction and fantasy
genres and offers a good selection of vintage paperbacks. Within
that, they have a good selection of H.P. Lovecraft books. And to
celebrate this day, not only am I going to try visiting at least two
of those above stores I listed (some people will do what they call
bookstore crawls and go to as many as ten stores in a day, but
unfortunately I don’t have that time on this Saturday) but am
listing below links to past posts where I’ve discussed the value of
locally owned indie bookstores:
Be here Wednesday
for another Insecure Writers’ Support Group post!
Do you have a
favourite independent bookstore? Will you be celebrating Independent
Bookstore Day there?
Until next time . .
.
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