…until I can visit a bookstore again.
I haven’t been inside a bookstore in weeks and weeks now, for reasons that have nothing to do with towering TBR piles—my TBR pile has never towered, not even over me, and I am very very short.
This isn’t to say that I’ve not gotten any new books. I have gotten some in the mail.
But going to the bookstore is different.
I miss walking into the bookstore and going, “Squee! I want this! And that! And that one too!”
I miss wandering around the aisles, double and triple-checking to make sure that I’ve not missed anything.
I even miss hemming and hawing over which books I should get. Will it be that urban fantasy novel, even though I’ve not heard anything about it? Or should I stick to the tried-and-true and get the romance by an author whom I’ve read before, but wasn’t amazed by?
But most of all, I miss the anticipation. I leave the house with an extra bounce in my step when I know I’m going to be in the general area of one of my favorite bookstores. I race around doing whatever it is I am supposed to be doing, just so I manage to hit the bookstore before it closes—I do this even when I was there just the day before.
My name is May and I am a bookstore addict? I hope not.
This book ban of mine included no online bookshopping and no trips to the library.
The library system in Singapore is wonderful—even though they’ve done the worst thing ever and now fiction is shelved by genre 
–and I’ve always made use of it.
And I love ebooks. I’d probably stop buying print if I could. The ability to carry an entire library, and more specifically, my entire collection of keepers, with me has an appeal that print books cannot match.
It’d be the darndest thing to be determined to convert my entire collection into ebooks…and still have to visit real bookstores.
I need to learn how to hem & haw. Deciding too quickly makes my bookstore trips too brief. Can’t even finish a cup of the overpriced coffee before I’m out the door.
by Alessia Brio June 8th, 2007 at 8:27 am:mrgreen:My name is Kimber An and I’m a bookaholic.:mrgreen:
I haven’t been able to get to the bookstore or library in eons too.:cry: Well, the little stores, yes, but they got nada. Thankfully, my mentor-type Blog Buddies have been sending me their Advanced Reader’s Copies to review on my blog. Mwa-ha-ha! I’ve gotten NEFERTITI by Michelle Moran, DOWN HOME ZOMBIE BLUES by Linnea Sinclair (and it’s not due out until November!), HOW TO LOSE AN EXTRATERRESTRIAL IN 10 DAYS by Susan Grant (actually my esteemed co-moderator is reviewing that one, but I got a copy too), and another one’s in the mail - MAGIC LOST, TROUBLE FOUND by Lisa Shearin.
by Kimber An June 8th, 2007 at 8:28 amI love paper books, but not book stores anymore. I buy books online almost exclusively. I can browse as long as I want with no other customers or salespersons breathing down my neck and without my feet getting sore from standing so long. I can see covers, back copy, and sample chapters. I can instantly find everything on the author’s backlist. I can pop over to the author’s website if I feel like it. I can see what “other people who bought this book also bought” and click through to all sorts of things I might never have found otherwise. I don’t have to wander all over the store looking for books in segregated genres, or even wondering in what genre somebody decided to shelve that book I’m looking for. (Last time I was in a book store, it seemed that any fantasy title written by or featuring a woman in the lead role was shelved in Romance.)
After staring at a computer screen 8 to 12 hours a day (between work and writing), the very last thing I want to do is is read a book on another screen. Besides, I am addicted to paper and ink. I like holding a book in my hands, feeling the paper under my fingertips, turning the pages. I like seeing the spines crammed onto my shelves and thinking “mine mine mine mine.”
Yeah, I said addicted. No intervention if you value your life.
by Kerry Allen June 8th, 2007 at 9:03 amI used to use the bookstore as a place to write. (The B&N used to be next to the college and had a very “camper” friendly cafe: Big square tables and a long counter along the window wall that was deep enough for a laptop and open notebooks. It moved down to the beach — the DVD/CD area is huge, the cafe 1/3 the size of the original and all the tables little round things of ersatz French cafe spindly wrought iron and chairs to match.)
Writing in a bookstore is terrific therapy for a writer. Depending on where you are emotionally at a given moment you can wander down the aisles and find great works to inspire you or wander down the aisles and find complete drek that someone with half your craftsmanship managed to get published. Either could send me back to the keyboard revitalized.
Bookstores I must avoid these days. I tend to buy things when I’m in them. Usually, when I must buy a paper book, I go to Pat’s Paperback Exchange and buy used. Most of my book purchases ave been electronic. I enjoy the visceral experience of a physical book, but being able to read any book anywhere I can open my laptop at full screen — that’s about 250% original print size — is very restful.
But I can understand your excitement in counting down the days. Now adays, a trip to the bookstore with money to buy new books is a major event for me. I’m really looking forward to Father’s Day. Everyone knows the only thing I want is bookstore gift cards.
by KeVin Killiany June 8th, 2007 at 9:42 amGreat post May.
by mary beth June 8th, 2007 at 9:46 amI used to love going to the bookstore. But like Kerry, I’ve started buying most of my books online. I also buy a lot of category at Wal-Mart. The bookstores I used to love frustrate me now. They’re over-crowded and I can never find what I’m looking for, even though customer service says there should be copies on the floor. I remember when the clerks at my local bookstore would recommend new authors based on my past reads. They knew me by name and we would talk about the latest favorites. Those days are long gone.
Another reason I like to buy online–discounts.
Alessia, I usually go in knowing what I want to buy. It’s when what I want isn’t there and I don’t see anything else I want that I have hem and haw. LOL.
Kimber An, I have ARCs. Shannon Stacey’s Taming Eliza Jane, Larissa Ione and Stephanie Tyler writing as Sydney Croft’s Riding The Storm and Nalini Singh’s next book (brain dead and can’t remember the title). It’s just not the same as walking into the bookstore!
Kerry, see, I buy almost exclusively for bookstores where they know me and I know them, so it’s different for me. So I don’t have that problem. And I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on the issue of ebooks!
Kevin, I don’t really write very much outside, unless I’m on the train or in a plane etc. I rarely head out with the idea that I’m going out somewhere to sit and write, and when I do, it’s the library. I hear you, when I go into the bookstore, I MUST buy something. Otherwise I’ll be stuck in there forever.
Thank you, Mary Beth! Like I told Kerry above, I still have booksellers who give me book recommends and save books for me they think I’ll want if they know I’m coming in. I know just how lucky I am, so I’m really sad that I’ll be moving soon.
by May K June 8th, 2007 at 10:01 am[...] By the way, I’m blogging at RTB today. Rather, I blogged several days ago and it only went up today. It was one of those things I did whilst procrastinating my studies. [...]
by Friday, I’m Freaking Out « miladyinsanity June 8th, 2007 at 10:02 amI’m jealous of all of you! Now that officially become an author, I don’t have time to read. I don’t have time to browse in bookstores. (Although I usually have time to run, sign all the copies they have of my books, and run out!)
On the upside, I must consider my time well spent because RT Book Reviews just gave my Jul/Aug release THE SUPPLICANT 4 stars!
SWAK,
by Lucinda Betts June 8th, 2007 at 11:17 amLucinda
It’s funny how you can be running errands, and getting so much done, then you dash into a bookstore for one discreet item and time sloooooows down…. You find yourself standing in front of the racks, drooling and dreaming. And there are other people like you there too — they’re stealing time from their schedules to get caught in the bookstore’s web for a few minutes/hours.
No wonder we have to avoid them if we want to get anything done.
Great post, May!
by Kate Donovan June 8th, 2007 at 1:26 pmWhat a wonderful post! You’ve inspired so many wonderfully-long responses. There’s nothing quite like being inside a book store. When I’m in a book store I don’t even care what the weather is outside - the gloomier the better. And I remember the first time I discovered a book store with coffee - way before Starbucks was so popular - I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.
by Kathy Holmes June 8th, 2007 at 3:31 pmKate, oh no, it doesn’t happen that way. I plan my errands to make sure I get a trip to the bookstore. I am an ADDICT, not just addict. LOL. (And I really am working on that post with the numbers you sent)
Kathy, thank you! I don’t drink coffee or anything else in bookstores because then I would only have one hand for books, and one armful? Just isn’t enough.:mrgreen:
by May K June 8th, 2007 at 3:38 pmIt’s out of the way for me to go to a bookstore. The one closest to me doesn’t have many romances.:sad: I get to Barnes & Noble about once a month. Otherwise, I go to Target or WalMart or the library. I still manage to pile up the books.:mrgreen:
by Edie June 8th, 2007 at 5:07 pmEdie,
But what’s important is that you pile up the books! 
by May K June 8th, 2007 at 6:38 pm[...] No matter how high of a rating your book gets from RT, you should not, as an author, go from blog to blog, making a comment about your newest book, your last book, because even if your book did receive 4 stars at RT or 10 stars at iloveyourbooks.com or 18 coffee mugs at readerslovecoffee.com, the seemingly non stop self promotion only serves to turn readers off. Blog comments aren’t a place to advertise your wares. The comments are a place to participate in conversation and if you add smart comments, readers will be interested. If not, you appear like a spammer. And spammers, well, they get deleted. Of course, on this blog, if you are BevBB or Sarah McCarty, the spam filter thinks you are spammers too. I haven’t figured that one out. Sorry guys. [...]
by Dear Author.Com | Public Service Announcement for Romance Community June 12th, 2007 at 6:09 am