Independent Bookstore Day is on April 25! This year Indie Bookstore Day celebrates its 13th year. Lucky for us! So many great reasons to celebrate, enjoy, and support your local one-of-a-kind bookshop. And the celebration isn’t restricted to the USA – it’s going global. The more, the merrier! So walk, bike, drive, or take a bus to your nearest shop.
Bookshop owners and their staff, perhaps supplemented with volunteers, are eager to help you. Connecting with real people, not just via Zoom meetings, is a refreshing change in today’s online all-the-time world. Community events, such as book clubs, are often held only in person. So you can leave your computer behind and give it and yourself a rest.
So many choices – the wandering search is the fun part!
I happened to be visiting New York City this week, when I saw the signs outside the Strand Bookshop. The Strand is a much-loved store and NYC institution which has had its challenges. The huge shop on West 57th Street closed while I lived there, but the main location at 12th and Broadway is still going strong. Next year marks the Strand’s 100th anniversary. Congratulations!
And I happened to walk by two smaller locations conveniently located on the Upper West Side. They also have a kiosk in Central Park and a shop at LaGuardia Airport. Don’t leave home without a book and e-books and audio-books count too. Here’s the Strand’s link to Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/shop/strandbooks with the “Choose a Bookstore” link on the right.
Pllenty to do, see and read in NYC!
Here on Amelia Island, residents and tourists are in luck with two wonderful bookstores. I enjoy visiting and supporting both. A more traditional store, The Book Loft, is downtown on Centre Street, while the Story & Song Bookstore/Bistro and Center for Arts & Culture is conveniently off 14th Street. Both have their own personalities with all types of books and fantastic stories in common.
Here’s links to my local bookshops for more info or your next visit: https://thebookloftamelia.com/ Quite possibly the bookstore referred to in John Grisham’s Camino Island book series set here on Amelia Island.
The link didn’t work out so if it shows up as HOME, well that means Story & Song Bookstore/Bistro and Center for Arts & Culture. Technology got overly techie.
Most bookshops offer much more than books. They also stock so many other useful items: calendars, notepads, t-shirts, coffee, etc. All are practical gift ideas too. I’m often so surprised at what they have and do. They’ve become masters at reinvention to survive in our changing world of booksellers.
Always useful to hydrate and refuel
And if you can’t squeeze it into your day, consider ordering online from a newer book seller online: bookshop.org, instead of the Seattle-based book behemoth, Amazon, which sells everyrhthing. Bookshop.org partners with a local bookstore that you get to select. As of yesterday, they raised $47 million for local bookshops. 👏🏼 https://bookshop.org/
The Bookshop.org website and many local bookstores carry not just big-name authors but small indie authors like me. A win for everyone. Big league or small potatoes. Famous or infamous. Pick a story that strikes your fancy and get into some else’s head for a while or learn something new. Books offer that and more.
My girlfriend had fun in the bookshop too!
Karen Stensgaard is a novelist with three books published so far. Her long-awaited red-hot trilogy, called Project Pepper 🌶️, is still cooking in her editing oven. But she hopes its ready to serve soon. See more on her website: karenstensgaard.com.
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KAREN STENSGAARD 