My favorite way to find new books to read is to visit bookstores. Small, locally-owned are usually the best, but I’m not against a “big box” store. Even when I’m on vacation, I try to locate at least one local store to visit! I almost always manage to find at least one! Ever since I taught myself to read as a toddler, I have been in love with books – with learning. While other kids were using their allowance money for toys, jewelry and other trinkets, I was much more singularly focused with my spending. I bought books. Fiction, nonfiction, paperback, hardback, pictures books, chapter books…it never mattered what category it fell into as long as it was a book, and I could read it.
I have an entire process that I follow when I shop for books. It’s a process that is reverential, it’s purposeful, it’s…well, it’s almost like a religious practice. At the heart of this practice is having a warm beverage to sip while I browse. I love when a bookstore has its own coffee shop in it, but if they happen to not have their own, I stop at one along the way. I wander the shop leisurely, sipping my drink slowly, soaking in the ambience of the store until a book’s cover catches my eye. I may continue wandering, just to see if any other books capture my attention. Book (or books) in hand, I tuck into one of their cozy chairs with a warm beverage, and dive in to see what exactly it is that I have found. Then once I’ve given myself a good preview of them, if they have intrigued me, I take them up to the checkout so that they can go live with me forever!
Sometimes, though, I want a little more of a focused book search. Well, in all honesty, it’s not a thing that I want, so much as it is something I need due to time limits, deadlines, or even financial constraints. So what is a “prefers a nice, lingering, ritual shop” girl to do? I consult a list! Whenever I’m browsing the internet, out shopping for other things, reading reviews, I write down the titles of the books that sound like something I would enjoy. Because I have autism, I like the structure and the handiness of a list. Because I have ADHD, I almost always lose my list like a feral little goblin. So to honor (and appease) both of these sides of my brain I keep my list both typed in my phone’s Notes app and written by hand in a notebook lives in my purse.
To say that books are important to me is to completely undersell it. Books nourish my soul, feed my curiosity, quiet my mind. There is nothing like the feeling of getting so lost in a book that you completely lose track of time and space. My love of reading and learning can be traced back to my grandfather, who set aside time each day to read. I can remember so many days of my childhood that involved us reading together, the memory of which frequently replays in my mind. Him sitting in his easy chair reading his book, with me on the floor next to him reading mine, leaning against his leg and resting my head on his knee. We would sit there in the shared silence until some time had passed, at which time he would slide his bookmark into its place and reach down to ruffle my hair and declare it was time for whatever the next thing on our agenda was. That was usually lunch for us, so we’d sit together eating and telling each other about the books we were reading.
When I started my own family, I hoped to be able to pass down my love for reading to my children. My kids had a full bookcase before my oldest had even turned one! Every night I would read a book or two for their bedtime, before naptime, on longer car rides, and occasionally for no specific reason at all! Most of their books were in English of course, but because I had studied French and Spanish in school, they also had lots of books in those languages as well. I made sure to get them books about all different cultures, different places, and different lifestyles. At that time we lived in a place that was not very diverse – nearly everyone in our community fit neatly into the “white, conservative, Christian, rural” box. To help combat this we collected books about other races, other cultures, other religions…we made our own diversity!
That is also a nod to my grandpa. He was always curious about life and experiences that were not his own. In college I majored in History, so at the end of the semester, if there were books that I couldn’t resell back to the university for a descent price I would pack them up and send them to my grandpa. He loved learning. Even though my grandpa is gone now, I can still feel him sitting next to me as I read. Humming softly, running his fingers back and forth across the pages, taking in all the knowledge that he could.
But I digress…
Below are some of the other creators that I have found online and admire for their intellect and thoughtfulness, as well as for their book recommendations. All of these lovely folks can be found on Instagram, and I have included their Instagram handle for you. I hope that you will enjoy them, too.
