Last year, the California Bookstore Day celebrating indie bookstores was such a huge success that the project is going bigger in 2015. This Saturday, May 2, Independent Bookstore Day will include 400 indie bookstores across the U.S. participating in the inaugural national event. Meanwhile, our neighbors to the north will be celebrating their first Authors for Indies Day.
The U.S. organizations put it this way as to why they think the event is important:
Independent bookstores are not just stores, they’re community centers and local anchors run by passionate readers. They are entire universes of ideas that contain the possibility of real serendipity. They are lively performance spaces and quiet places where aimless perusal is a day well spent.
Indie bookstores, whether dusty and labyrinthine or clean and well-lighted, are not just stores, they are solutions. They hold the key to your love life, your career, and your passions. Walking the aisles of a good bookstore means stumbling upon a novel from India that expands your heart. It’s encountering an art book that changes the direction of your life. It’s the joy of having a perfect stranger steer you toward the perfect book.
In a world of tweets and algorithms and pageless digital downloads, bookstores are not a dying anachronism. They are living, breathing organisms that continue to grow and expand. In fact, there are more of them this year than there were last year. And they are at your service.
We are blessed here in the greater Washington D.C. area with several terrific indie bookstores like Mystery Loves Company, One More Page, Politics & Prose and Kramerbooks and Afterwards Cafe. Check out the event website links at the top of this post for the participating bookstores and authors near you and stop by this Saturday. Help support your local stores and your favorite authors at the same time.
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