Tag Archives: writing

The Day the Borders Opened and Closed at the Same Time

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Last year, my husband Jack and I  decided to take a vacation in celebration of two things: 1) five years of keeping Tales of the Lonesome Pine Used Books open despite e-readers, a tanking economy, and online sellers; and 2) that an agent had agreed to represent my book about our bookstore–a woman whose kind heart, spot-on instincts and amazing brain got my book proposal shored up and out the door in three short months.

The day after the proposal ambled off to make its way in the world, we did what any small-town small-business owners would do: hopped on the Internet to hunt 1/2-price vacation deals. (We had a lot to celebrate, but not much to do it with.)

Chicago proved affordable; off we flew for a week of forgetting we were poor. Our last day there, I awoke to an email from Agent Pamela; two publishing houses wanted to talk. On holiday herself, Pamela nevertheless called me, her voice exuberant as she explained, “We have sold this book, Wendy; it’s just a question of to whom.”

Jack and I did the happy dance around our hotel room, pelting each other with pillows.  We half-waltzed, half-floated down the stairs and around the corner to our usual breakfast nook–

–where the newspaper on the table lay open to a story that all remaining Borders Bookstores were closing.

Human hearts can sing with joy even as they crack open.

“Bookstores are doomed” blared the op-ed, while the news story gave facts and figures. Jack and I both cried while reading; here we were, on vacation from our solvent-enough shop, giddy with happiness that a book about our bookstore would be published, and one of the big guys was going down for the last time. Drowning, not waving.

Jack looked at me. “We passed a Borders yesterday, near the hotel.” Off we went, coffees unfinished.

Some of the staff were dismantling computers, pulling wires out of walls. One was crying. I heard customers asking if the books were half-off now.

I don’t know that I can convey this well, but in that moment “my book” became a book honoring we happy few, we band of booksellers who make sure people have access to not just the best-sellers, but the quiet wonders as well.

What we booksellers do is important, more than nostalgia, more than casual access to retail. Social Justice, All God’s Critters Got a Voice in the Choir, Equality, Education: take your pick. We represent an open market of free ideas, with value tied to meaning more than money. We have to be in our children’s future, or more will be lost than the feel and smell of pages. So much will be lost that the next generation won’t be able to count it. Worse, they won’t even be able to name it.

So Jack and I came home from Chicago with a book deal, and 20 books we’d bought at Borders–plus Unabridged, Myopic and After-Words. And we came home with an unabashed–and unquenchable–fire in our bellies, determined to be lifelong advocates for books and the people who sell them. That impractical, improbable trip to Chicago has been on my mind lately, as Little Bookstore prepares to launch Oct. 2

Because bookstores are more than important; they are irreplaceable.

The Mad Hatter’s Riddle Comes Clear

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Alice in Wonderland’s Mad Hatter used to have the monopoly on “most famous tea party ever,” although I fear some political parties may have overtaken him. Or joined him. I’m not sure which.

Anyway, among the Mad Hatter’s famous tea-party riddles is, “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” Like tea parties themselves, this has an update: “Why is Twitter unlike a bookshop?”

The answer makes about as much sense as anything else in today’s speed-and-celebrity-crazed world. Twitter, for those unfamiliar, is that 140-characters-or-less never-ending “conversation” you can have with the rest of the world just by signing up. Think of a very large high school lunchroom, each table seeking to be the “cool kids” and shouting short sentences into the room. No one is listening to anyone else, just making sure they’re heard.

It’s Facebook on crack cocaine: say what YOU have to say, and don’t worry about the rest. There’s even something called a “Klout” score, calculated by how often you Tweet (send a message) and how often your Tweet is retweeted (someone else resends it). Your Klout score goes down if you answer other people’s tweets or retweet others.

In other words, the more you listen, the less Klout you have? Oh dear; perhaps Twitter is not unlike the Mad Hatter’s madcap party, or the world on the other side of the looking glass.

If ever there were a world less like a bookshop, the Twitterverse is it. In the bookshop, conversations need not be short because time lasts longer. And in a bookshop, it’s all about listening. It makes your score go up, not down; customers come back,  knowing they’re not just markets you’re trying to sell to, but humans you’re trying to connect with.

Now that I’ve dissed it, let me say that I’m on Twitter because I wrote a book and got told to “go social market.” And I’ll stay on because I have actually met some fun people, and connected with some friends in the region I never see face to face. It’s like meeting in a Walmart aisle, seeing their Tweets about what’s up with their day. Plus, some Tweeters are genuine, funny, and sweet, being themselves more than pushing an agenda–or a product. Despite my initial terror, Twitter is like the rest of the world–what you make of it.

So I will be myself, and enjoy others doing the same, on Twitter. But until my dying day, I will maintain that Twitter is not like a bookshop, and be grateful for the listening calm that running mine counterweights against Tweetopia, balancing the scales of life.

Care for a cup of tea as we chat?

(Don’t forget to enter Caption Contest V; scroll down to August 14, view entries and leave yours in “comments.”)