Each Thursday, to celebrate #IndieThursday, I’ve asked authors, bloggers, readers & other lovers of books to write about how independent bookstores have influenced their lives, or the lives of those around them. Today I’m pleased to welcome Jen from Running in the Rain and The Brevity Experiment.

Not Fooling Anyone

 I am a certifiable bookstore brat.  You hear and read about army brats all the time; people who grew up with parents moving them from military base to  military base.  While my parents were always very stationary non-military types my childhood was largely defined by epic trips to independent bookstores.  My parents would drive my siblings and I into the city and they gave us our allowance.  I would spend as much time as possible weighing my options and agonizing until the last minute about which book of many I would ultimately take home.  The forced march to the register was torturous as I always second guessed my choices but after all of that I’d have in my possession a singularly fantastic book that I would read and re-read until the binding finally gave way with a sigh of exasperation from repeated abuse.

While it is entirely possible I romanticize my childhood bookstore visits a bit and wax somewhat poetic about the experiences had in those golden days I cannot say that such a childhood myth didn’t project into my adult life.  What isn’t mythical or romantic about going into a small, out of the way place, that contains more information and stories than could be successfully digested in a lifetime?  It’s an adventure picking up books that float like some undiscovered country just out of reach until that moment.  They are perspectives, thoughts, feelings that persist long beyond the final page.  Yes, bookstores have always been magical places with their lacunas and well stocked niches.

So as a bookstore brat, with each new place I find myself I hunt out the local bookstores to find that touchstone linking the past to the present.  Independent bookstores, as so many of us know, provide not just reading materials but they also tap into that part of culture we hold most dear.  It is there that we make acquaintances, perhaps even friends, and have meaningful conversations about editions, authors, and all the various tropes that literature has to offer.  They provide a sort of intellectual watering hole that become more and more valuable the older we get.  How else do we find the time and place by which to connect with others about a passion held most dear?

As more and more bookstores close and independent booksellers struggle for their survival it becomes imperative to support our aforementioned passions.  Yes, it is more expensive to buy a book new from a shop at full price than to order it for a penny plus shipping from an online seller.  As the economy becomes ever an ever more hostile place for the consumer it is doubly so for the independent business owners who have not only invested much of their personal wealth but also much of their lives to these bastions of literate society.  While we are financially rewarded for seeking the ‘best deal’ on our flights of fancy or our fonts of information it is at times done so at a cost to that which gave us the opportunity to purchase, learn, and grow in the first place. 

As author Neil Gaiman said, “…a town isn’t a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it’s got a bookstore it knows it’s not fooling a soul.”  As a man who has made a living out of using fiction to illustrate what is most true about the human condition he would certainly be an authority on the subject.   Bookstores provide second homes for those of us divorced from our last or far from our own.  They give the opportunity for the meeting of minds and a place for children to haggle with their parents over the cost of paperback verses hardback. They are places of wonder, mystery, and enlightenment.  I find that a town’s soul often resides within their bookstores and honestly, I would never want to live in a town without a soul.

Jennifer Tepavcevich can be found at @JenTepavcevich and on both of her fiction blogs.  Running In The Rain is an online novel with chapters posted weekly.  The Brevity Experiment  is the home to many works ranging from flash fiction to short stories.  She spends much of her time reading, writing, and dreaming. 

Participation in #IndieThursday is simple: just visit your local independent bookstore, either in person or online. Tweet what you purchased, as well as the name of the store, using the hashtag #IndieThursday. Help celebrate indie bookstores!

If you would like to do a guest post on how independent bookstores have influenced your life, please email me at jennsbookshelfATgmailDOTcom.