Glorious Bookstores

While I was in Colorado I had the pleasure of visiting two of the three Tattered Cover bookstores in Denver. It's a locally owned business, but the store is even bigger than your average B&N or Borders (before they went out of business). Each location had mostly new books, but a small used book section as well. And awesome gifts and greeting cards (such as the 'Yay Unicorns!' magnet I got) (oh yes, I totally did). AND a yummy cafe with coffee and tea and scrumptious treats to eat.

But what was most fabulous was the books. Tens of thousands of books with gorgeous, touchable covers and pretty white paper and glorious black ink. Books in little nooks and crannies, on all different levels (at least two stories in each store), which were so much more creative and magically arranged than the chains I'd been to before. I thought, please let there not be a day when bookstores don't exist. I get the lure of e-readers. I wouldn't mind having one for traveling. But I will never lose my adoration for old-fashioned books I can touch and smell and worship in a way that electronics will never hold a candle to.

Here are a few pics of Tattered Cover, though they don't do it any justice at all:

 

 

Ahhh, I'm going to miss Tattered Cover. So, what are your favorite bookshops? Either in your town, or ones you've visited...

Saving a Local Bookstore

Hubs and I headed into town earlier this morning to run some errands, and he told me that one of the small local bookstores, The Paperback Rack, was having a big sale and had published a plea asking people to visit so they could scrape together enough money to keep from going out of business. Wow, that was an incredibly long run-on sentence.

Anyways, you don't have to twist this gal's arm to get me into a bookstore, since I love my paper and ink and have yet to purchase an e-reader. So, we headed over, and were pleased to see that the store was pretty busy. I have to admit I am not the biggest fan of small bookstores because I'm a child of the age of instant gratification, and I want to know that I'm going to find the book I'm looking for. For instance, I was fairly chagrined when I was told they weren't stocking any (ANY) Neil Gaiman books at the moment (though they sell mostly used books, so I imagine they just have to take what they can get). And, the nice store clerk did recommend some Charles de Lint, since he was a big inspiration to Neil, as well as another book that Neil wrote the foreword for.

It was a fun adventure. I whipped out my Droid and pulled up my Goodreads list, and was able to find four books that I had on my TBR list. And while I was flipping through the Charles de Lint book the store clerk had shown me, wondering if I wanted to buy it or not (I had some other Charles de Lint books on my TBR list, and my pile was getting pretty large), a girl walked by, spotted it in my hands, and asked if I was going to buy it because she'd been looking everywhere for it. I happily passed it over and she was ecstatic. It was a magical book store moment. Another was when some guy went up to the clerk and gave him a check to help save the store, even though he wasn't buying anything.

So, I made out like a bandit, getting five books for like $3-$4 each. Here's my stash:

And since you all know how I love posting random pics of my cats -  this is Mr. Fox on my night stand a few months ago (he's grown in size pretty significantly since then):



I hope everyone's having a great weekend. Any fave small bookstores in your area? Have you paid them a visit lately?