#Bookends kailua how to#

With Milinda’s permission, I’m including it here in its entirety. Picking a winner was torture, but there was one letter I came back to again and again. Every space dedicated to books is heaven, and I’m so glad I was able to celebrate all of them through reading your letters! (Alicia even made a good case for Audible, her “bookstore of the mind.” YES.)ĭo you begin to see the difficulties? This is such a small sample of what I was given. Along with Diana, “ I give all my love to my local library hopefully, someday I am able to repay all that it has done for me.” YES. In the words of Isabella, “My experience with books hasn’t been all about the ones that lie permanently on my shelf.” For so many of you, your true book home, like mine, is the library. They create a community for us all where we don’t have to be alone. I heard about so many amazing booksellers who have welcomed you, embraced you, guided you to new favorites, and helped you find your tribe.

Jessica, writing about her local Barnes & Noble, puts this better than I could: “ I wish I had a Meg Ryan little shop around the corner bookstore to tell you about but isn’t what makes a place special the people?”Īnd Yolanda, “I never felt alone in Barnes & Noble.” Two of you fell in love with your husbands in a Barnes & Noble! (My husband and I walked through a Borders during our first date, and that turned out pretty great, too.) Danielle, referring to her Barnes & Noble, sums it up with, “Everything is brighter and makes sense in a book store.” YES. And Bronwyn said, about Boulder Bookstore, “when it’s time to leave, it’s the saddest part of the day!” Paige made me laugh she says when one leaves McKay’s Used Books: “You come out feeling disoriented as you adjust back to reality, you spent way too much money, and wait, why is the sun-down?” And Tom made me tear up and think about my own childhood when he said, “Book King made me braver, stronger and more outgoing.” YES.Īnd it’s not just the impressive indie bookstores that can be our homes.

“The peace I feel within this building is heaven on earth for an outsider and misfit like myself.” Lizbeth said her store, Golden Books, “feels like a secret.” Of her bookstore, Sophie said, “ The Hutch was a physical manifestation of my love of reading.”īriana promises this about The Iliad Bookshop: “In the words of SNL’s Stefon, this store has everything.” Sarah was sure she could “spend days, probably even years” in Mr. “ The Frugal Frigate was my first true love,” Rebekah told me. So many of the people who wrote in to this contest understand about being saved by books.Īnd then there were your relationships with the stores themselves. And then Ashleigh: “I know books save lives, because they saved mine.” You’re not alone, Ashleigh. Doris: “books have been my constant and steady friends.” ME TOO. Felicia is 100% right that “finding the ‘perfect’ book for you is like meeting a new friend.” YES. And Aubrey, who said: “Ever since I was a little girl, one of the things I wanted most in the world was a library like the one Belle was gifted in “Beauty and the Beast.” YES. Like Molly, who said: “It’s so important to be physically surrounded by books, and to be able to peruse through them tactically.” YES. The way you describe your relationships with books had me nodding and saying, “Yes!” out loud, alone in my office. (I’ll link to the bookstores’ websites throughout if they have a website available.)Īnd those are but a fraction of the amazingness!īefore I announce the winner and share the letter I couldn’t say no to, I want to obsess a little bit more about all your letters.

If you want to feel the same way about that trip, check out just a few of the bookstores I was introduced to this week: The descriptions of your bookstores made me want to tear out my hair in frustration because I can’t start a road trip right now to go visit all of these incredible places! (But someday I will, mark my words!) We are the book junkies, and we belong together. Every letter reached out to me and said: I am one of your people. If your goal was to kill me, you came close! Deciding on a winner was painful. If your goal was to make me laugh, cry, and want to hug hundreds of strangers in the middle of a global pandemic, and maybe adopt a few, then you were incredibly successful.

#Bookends kailua how to#

The How to Win An Intimate Evening With Stephenie Meyer, Your Favorite Bookstore, And Twenty Of Your Friends contest is over, and can I just say: