On the Magic of Independent Bookstores

& other ways that you can support the authors and books that you love

One of my favorite activities as a (particularly bookish and imaginative) child was to go to an independent bookstore, and get completely lost.

I would read about everything. At one point, I was obsessed with Amelia Earhart, so I used my time in the bookstore to try to memorize the cockpit of a 1930s airplane, just in case I would ever have to fly one (why I thought this would be a useful skill during the 1990s, I have no idea). I also read about Tibetan Buddhism—and found it much more reassuring and grounded than Catholicism, or the other churches that I had visited. I got lost in many, many worlds and avidly consumed books that I could not have possibly fully understood—but I attempted to read them anyway. I gobbled up knowledge and expanded my world, dreaming of what life might look like beyond my hometown. Books were an escape, a passport, a fountain of knowledge—a little bit magic, carefully inscribed on paper.

Thank you, Dog Eared Books in Valencia for making my launch day with this post.

Seeing Love Across Borders in independent bookstores across my country (thank you to one of my favorites, Dog Eared Books in SF for the pic) is literally a dream come true. Still, I can’t help thinking about how a lot of the places I used to hang out as a kid don’t exist anymore. Bonanza Street Books, where I spent many, many hours as a child, has long since shut—following a trend of many other independent bookstores and small businesses in general, unable to compete with big companies like Amazon.

I’ve recently been listening to “How To Resist Amazon And Why” by Danny Caine—and it is a beautiful reminder of how important independent bookstores are, besides the simple romance and nostalgia of walking through the stacks, not knowing what adventure awaits. Unlike Amazon—which is literally using books as an experiment in capitalism—independent bookstores are deeply committed to authors and readers, organizing events, curating lists (without even, an algorithm) and advising readers on exactly what they might like, exactly how to open their world next. Losing this means losing a community of people who love books, a safe space for people who sometimes would rather escape to a different world than live in the one where we are living and a sacred and hallowed home for words.

Perhaps similarly—though of course, I say this somewhat tongue-in-cheek—to how giving birth makes one see children, and the process of bringing life into the world differently, bringing a book into the world—and deeply caring about her journey into the hands of readers—has made the world of books that much more precious to me. While it is tempting to think that “a sale is a sale”—and indeed, it is, and I am so abundantly grateful to anyone who has bought Love Across Borders—I feel reminded of how important it is to invest in our communities, not just the local economy, but the actual jobs around books, the people who have so much dedication and care towards books, readers, authors and the stories that we tell. So I hope you’ll consider this next time you’re looking for your next story, the next world that you would like to escape to—our compulsive book buying habits can help keep this magic alive.

Also…as long as you’re here, another way that you can support authors—and our books—is through writing reviews. While I never used to do this (I used to simply like or dislike something, the old fashioned way) I’ve recently realized just how important these reviews are to getting a book out in the world—boosting it in the algorithm, reaching new readers, and all of that. If you read—and preferably, if you loved—Love Across Borders, would you add a review? You can gush about it—or not—as if you’re talking to your best friend, ranting and raving as you please. Just please don’t be like the person who gave it three stars because there “weren’t enough good stories about borders.”