Challenge to support bookstores > Likes and Comments
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This is a really good idea, Werner! Sadly, the only bookstore we had in town went out of business several years ago. They said it was because so many people were reading on Kindles. I've lost count of how many books I've bought this year. I visited a couple of rare/antique book stores this fall, and could have just about bought them out if I could only afford it! 😂
Meg wrote: "Sadly, the only bookstore we had in town went out of business several years ago. They said it was because so many people were reading on Kindles."I have a Kindle app on my PC (in that format, it's free), and I use it sometimes to read short e-stories, free e-books, or review copies that authors send me in electronic format. But personally, I don't ever actually buy e-books. (And if something I read for free is good enough, I'll buy a paper copy, so as not to use the e-book as a substitute.) That's just me; but I figure that since dollars and cents is the only language the publishing industry understands, I'll use mine to buy paper books.
Rare/antique book stores must be a joy to visit, if only to window shop! I don't travel much, and we don't really have any in the locales where I do shop.
In most years, I wind up waiting until very late in the year (and sometimes after Christmas!) to complete this challenge. This year, though, I've been much more on the ball; I picked up two books for myself at the bookstore in our local mall over the weekend. So, I've fulfilled the challenge for another year; and I hope others in the group will be able to join me before the year is out!
Jt wrote: "One of the librarians I commune with is very antagonistic towards the warehouse model. Amazon she claims poses a risk and threat towards the existence of mom & pop bookstores."I think she has a point (although I admit that I sometimes buy from Amazon myself).
What kind of library do you work in, Jt? (I work in a university library now, but I've worked in a couple of public libraries in my younger days.)
You're welcome, Jt! Love to you and yours, too.
Yesterday, while I was at our local mall, I visited the Books-a-Million (BAM) outlet, and bought myself two books. One is
New Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (to the Bible), which replaces an older edition I've owned for 40 years, that was literally fallen apart. The other is a story collection,
American Midnight: Tales of the Dark. So I've fulfilled my challenge to support physical bookstores for another year!
It usually takes me until late December to complete my "support bookstores" challenge in any given year. But having won a $25.00 Barnes and Noble gift card earlier this month through the wellness program where I work, and being in Harrisonburg, Virginia (which is home to a large brick-and-mortar Barnes and Noble bookstore) last week, I took the opportunity to redeem it. With that deduction, it didn't cost me much to buy copies of the anthology
Golden Age Detective Stories, and of
Mycroft and Sherlock by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse.
I live in Boston and you would think we would be loaded with lots of brick and mortar bookstores but sadly the city is cutting back on them. As some of you know I’ve been dealing with my husband’s stroke recovery but with prayers from some members we’re making slow progress so now I’m trying to hunt a brick and mortar bookstore I can visit and buy a few books. I’ve always loved them!
Doreen wrote: "...now I’m trying to hunt a brick and mortar bookstore I can visit and buy a few books."Good luck in that search, Doreen! Love, and prayers for Brians continued stroke recovery.
Good luck in your search Doreen! I fully agree with you. My family had to relocate four years ago. The area that we currently live in has no brick and mortar stores. We have to drive a minimum of an hour to get to the nearest one. My family used to take an afternoon and go to a local bookstore and just browse, sit and enjoy being in the atmosphere of books. I too love that experience. Prayers for your husbands full recovery and your strength.
Until just now, for the past two years, I'd forgotten that this thread existed! I did fulfill my challenge in 2025; and I'm one book along toward meeting it for this year. While in the Harrisonburg area earlier this month, I picked up a book at the Barnes and Noble outlet there for the library where I work. If your own physical TBR piles are already overflowing, buying books to donate to your local library is a great way to support both libraries and bookstores!
I was recently on a trip to see the DC area with husband and son and finished the Steinbeck book I'd brought along so needed another read ASAP. We went to a local B&N and I greedily piled-up 3 HUGE Dickens novels and a couple of contemporary classics, leaving the store with over $100 worth of literature and feeling very well-satisfied indeed. I've done my part for awhile ...
IMO, a physical bookstore adds a great deal to the culture of a community, and tends to encourage reading by its presence. And it promotes the reading of paper books, which have social benefits that e-books do not have. (For one thing, they don't require an expensive technological device to read them, so they put reading within the reach of everybody --even a dirt-poor kid with a widowed single mom, like I once was.) But bookstores have to make a profit to survive, which they do by selling books; and the book trade will continue to supply paper books only so long as they know there's a paying market for them.
So the challenge --which is only for those who can afford to do it, and don't feel at all abashed if you can't!-- is to buy at least two new paper books each year from an actual, brick-and-mortar bookstore, large or small, either in your own community (if there is one there) or in your travels. (They don't have to be expensive, and they don't have to be for you personally --books make great gifts!)
I'm glad to say that I've once again fulfilled the challenge for this year! Though this time, as we've come down to the last week of December, it was, as some British Goodreaders might say, a bit of a close-run thing. :-)