On Buying Books

Today, Shannon Hale, author of The Books of Bayern, Princess Academy, Rapunzel's Revenge, and many other wonderful books, posted this post on why it's important to keep bookstores. Also today, Kristin Cashore, author of Graceling and Fire, posted this post on why we should support independent businesses. I decided I had to find an independent bookstore near my house (and quickly). So I found one that was just a few minutes away, bought The Maze Runner by James Dashner, and put another on hold to buy later this week. It was a very nice little bookstore that I'd actually walked right by many times before and not known it was a bookstore.

I also put a button on my sidebar (you have to scroll down a bit, but it's there) that is a pledge to read the printed word. I'm not going to get a kindle or a nook or anything, but I'm going to stick just with regular old printed books. I've actually been opposed to buying a kindle for a long time, even though everyone says I should get one. I buy so many books that I'm constantly running out of space to put them. I have 4 separate bookcases in my room because every time I fill one up, I put another in. But I've tried reading on other people's Kindles and it isn't the same as reading a physical book. You don't get the book-ness of it, the feeling of the pages and the cover and so many other things I can't really describe that make a book special. When I see I book that I love in a bookstore, I take it off the shelf even though I know I'm not going to buy it because it's like a friend. When I look through bookstore shelves, I see so many books that I've read and enjoyed that I see on my own shelves every day and it's like they're all saying hi to me. I know all their stories and beautiful descriptions and characters. I'm obviously in love with books; I wouldn't have a book blog otherwise. But getting back to the point, books are special and stories are special. That is why we must keep the printed word alive.