“A ‘text’ existing only on a screen and in the mind is not, to me, a book. To me, it is not enough that a book is thought realized in language; it must also be language further realized in print on paper pages bound between covers. It is a material artifact, a thing made not only to be seen but also to be held and smelled, containing language that can be touched and underlined with an actual pencil, with margins that can be actually written on. And so a book, a real book, language incarnate, becomes a part of one’s bodily life.”
Wendell Berry – “Carmichael’s Bookstore, Louisville, KY”
“People in a good bookstore use their feet differently; there is never a full step as we are reluctant to drift too fast past the anthologies of fiction, some familiar some new.”
Ron Carlson, “Changing Hands Bookstore, Tempe, Arizona,”
…I start to explain to my toddler that there’s a difference between coffee shops and independent bookstores – and it’s not just that people will happily overpay for a cup of coffee that costs just pennies to make though prefer to pay pennies for a book that costs thousands to produce, but also that, generally speaking, people really need a cup of coffee at 7 a.m., whereas no one really needs a book until mid-morning, earliest, which is why Starbucks is open and Daniel’s (Boswell Book Company) is not.”
Liam Callanan, “Boswell Book Company, Milwaukee, WI”
“But that’s the thing: To Dick, books matter. They are not to be downloaded and deleted. Books are loved and treasured. It is this love, this appreciation of the written word, that suffuses the air of Nantucket Bookworks.”
Elin Hilderbrand, “Nantucket Bookworks, Nantucket, Massachuesetts”
“I’ve visited more bookstores than I can count, and every time I walk into one of them, I get that rush of first love again.”
Ann Hood, “Island Books, Middletown, Rhode Island.”
Two of my favorite Indy bookstores; Brilliant Books and Horizon Books, both in Traverse City, MI
Do Haeng Michael Kitchen 