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A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies...The man who never reads lives only one. George R. R. Martin’s words might stand as the motto of millions of men and women for whom books are essential daily companions. Whether fiction or nonfiction, the little paper objects that Stephen King called 'uniquely portable magic' inhabit our lives with their stories, but also with their mysteries. Finding out what’s next or what’s behind the curtain becomes its own reward. As the author’s partner in crime, we keep our night-light burning, always leading us to a conclusion that beckons us on to the next book. Thus reading becomes a lifetime journey through space and time, a voyage that renews us even as it reminds us we are not alone. Franz Kafka described books as the axes, or icebreakers, for the frozen seas within us. What then is a reader’s journal? Perhaps if clearly seen and attentively kept, it is an explorer’s log to discoveries and ports of call along the way, pointers to finding ourselves amidst blizzards of information.
So many books, so little time.” Frank Zappa was right. Our ever-expanding mental list of what we want to read always makes us second-guess our own choices of what we do read. Wise readers have no compunctions about following the practice of bookseller’s son Samuel Johnson, who once responded to a friend’s inquiry with a tart, 'No, sir, do you read books through?'
However you deal with it, your lifetime reading wish list beckons. Do you want to finally immerse yourself in sprawling Russian epics or catch up on Dickens or the thirty-eight Discworld novels you might have missed? Or perhaps you would love to carve out time for the three volumes of Shelby Foote’s Civil War histories that have been gathering dust on your shelves ever since you discovered them at the secondhand book sale.
Your personal wish list might be on any topic, genre, period, or author. (Who among us hasn’t yearned to read every book by a favorite author?) What matters is that even though we know we can’t read everything we want in our multimillion book world, we keep reaching and reading and gathering in the goodies.
According to a 2014 Pew Research Center survey, a typical American reads five books a year. The number of books you read most likely surpasses that number, but even if the lesser tally is accurate, it still amounts to dozens and dozens of books perused over a lifetime. Over time, however, memories of those books, even of their titles, dissolve as we move forward.
In an incandescent passage, Ursula K. Le Guin wrote, 'The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.'' A book log keeps the stories alive with your own notes, thoughts, and quotes. Attentively kept, it becomes a diary of the mind, a record of the things that keep us going.
Visiting the former home of a beloved author can give even the most ardent devotee a deeper sense of who the writer was and how he or she lived. In compiling this gathering of literary landmarks, we metaphorically walked the extra mile to seek destinations that offered more than just a plaque or an apology that the original building had been replaced by a rug store or pie shop. Each of our selections offers not only the immediate context of place, but also an enhanced sense of the author who lived there.
One additional tip:
Each of these landmarks is multifaceted. Most of them have guided tours, many feature additional events, several have gift stores, and all of them have informative websites with directions.
“A book worth reading is worth buying.”
—John Ruskin.
“Where is human nature so weak as in a bookstore?”
—Henry Ward Beecher.
An anonymous sage once said that it’s not surprising that many romantic relationships begin in bookstores because so many other meaningful connections are formed there. Many of us can still remember the shop where we first picked up a copy of The Joy of Cooking or thumbed through our first novel by David Baldacci, J. K. Rowling, or Sue Grafton. Those first bookstore encounters were the beginnings of long, important relationships that have outlasted many marriages.
This gathering of notable bookstores is eclectic, personal, sometimes whimsical, and definitely not final or exclusionary. For each state and the District of Columbia, two bookstores were selected, to which a smattering of overseas bookshops were added. The bookstores were chosen because their selection and local staff help generate interest among area booklovers. These independents and chain stores share a sense of purpose in bolstering a community of readers. Mercifully, they are not alone: this list could be doubled and redoubled and redoubled again. Bookstores nurture us in ways that nothing else.
