Arielle Calderon of BuzzFeed suggests some things she thinks belong in every book-lovers home. Actually a lot of them leave me either cold or indifferent. But I do like these.
No lack of reading material in bath
A library for nature lovers
Readers’ stairs
For bookworms
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And people say reading is boring
Robin Edds of BuzzFeed has found some pictures that show the lighter side of the book world.
But beware, some of these are Not Safe For Work.
Learning to drive
Funny books
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‘A Road Trip to Recover My Reading Life’
Cassandra Neace, a freelance writer living in Houston, drove approximately 2040 miles to her brother’s doorstep in Tennessee and back again., primarily to get her books.
In high school, I dabbled in fantasy and in books that look at what the what the world is and what it could be. In college, I read books that explored race and gender and that led me to question history. In grad school, I dove into the classics. I read Dickens, Keats, and Shakespeare. A bunch of others too.
I have a stack for each of the years between graduating from high school and moving to Texas, and those stacks are distinct from one another. They tell their own stories. And they have little in common with the books that I have on my shelves now.
Book recovery trip
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‘Do you know what I want when I go to a bookstore?’
From makinglight, the Nielsen Hayden’s wonderful blog:
(And let me just say in advance: AMEN!)
AN OPEN LETTER TO WHOEVER THE HECK IS
IN CHARGE OVER THERE AT BARNES & NOBLE
Listen up.
If I want a toy, I go to a toy store. If I want candy, I go to a candy store. If I want electronics I go to an electronics story. Do you know what I want when I go to a bookstore? Any guesses? Well, it isn’t toys, candy, or electronics. I want books.
Not just books: A good selection of books. And that includes midlist and backlist. Say I see the third volume of a series on the shelf, a series I’d not encountered before. It looks interesting. I want to buy the first couple of volumes too. They came out a few years ago. If they aren’t there, what’s the message? You want me to order ’em from Amazon? If I’m doing that I might as well order all three and get free shipping.
I know it sounds like Dreadful Business Speak, but what you need to do is get back to your core competence: Selling books. To people like me. I’m here, I’m eager to buy books. I’ll drive three hours to get to a well-stocked bookstore. And that does not mean well-stocked-with-sports-jerseys-coffee-cups-and-calendars.
For the Love of Benji, all those books are fully returnable. I bet the candy isn’t. Stock books. Give people places where they can sit, good light, ample parking, and Sell Me A Book, kay? Not just the book I was looking for. The book I wasn’t looking for, but knew, the minute I saw it, that I had to have it.
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Alma Alexander
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