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On this Independent Bookstore Day, love letters to some of my favorites:
The business I think I& #39;ve walked into most often during the pandemic: @bookwomanaustin. A beautiful bookstore filled with books & the love of books. 45 years strong in Austin.
Next (I& #39;m sticking local for the moment) @MalvernBooksTX, which specializes in small presses & poetry. An astonishing place where you can find books you& #39;ve never heard of that will become your favorite.
Then @BookPeople! I was thrilled to do an online event but every writer I know longs to be back at the top of the stairs, at the heart of the store. The last literary night of my old world was for Deb Olin Unferth& #39;s brilliant Barn 8, 3/10/20.
I have loved reading @laurenthehough& #39;s tweets of her independent bookstore tour of New England, including many of my old haunts & favorites. (Here& #39;s the soundtrack I hear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bERY1fa7oc)">https://www.youtube.com/watch...
There& #39;s @HarvardBooks, a last piece of my childhood Harvard Square, a glorious upstairs & an amazing basement full of remainders, & one of the best shop windows in bookselling.
Let& #39;s not forget comic book stores on Independent Bookstore Day: @myp_comics is also still & beloved in the square, & I left off @AustinBooks, one of my favorite places in Austin.
& @PorterSqBooks, too recent to have been my local all the years I lived in Somerville but somehow still my hometown bookstore: when I read there in 2019, all my pals & many of my former library patrons came.
Speaking of hometowns: the splendid @newtonvillebks, whose only flaw is its geographically inaccurate name (it& #39;s in Newton Center now).
& of course @booksmithtweets, a store of my heart & also childhood, where long ago I once was introduced to Nick Hornby after he& #39;d read & he knew who I was & it is still one of the coolest things that& #39;s happened to me & really impressed my friends.
I long to visit @RiverRunBkstore again. I think the last time I was there I was with @timkinnel.
In a moment I have to take a break, so two more bookstores for now:
The amazing @ParnassusBooks1, run by Karen Hayes & Ann Patchett. I would say that even if they hadn& #39;t chosen my book for their First Editions Club, which sells HUNDREDS of copies of literary books.
Seriously: our bungalow was filled with boxes of book for me to sign. The cat, who likes to gnaw on cardboard, was in heaven. (Sorry, @ParnassusBooks1.)
https://www.parnassusbooks.net/parnassus-signed-first-editions-club">https://www.parnassusbooks.net/parnassus...
& lastly (for now), @Prairie_Lights, which has had a profounder effect on my writing than any other bookstore. Among other things, it& #39;s the first place I was hand-sold a book (by @paulingram26, of course).
How canny a bookseller is @paulingram26? One of the books he handsold me was Observatory Mansions, by Edward Carey, a year before I ever met the fellow.
