{"id":4130,"date":"2024-03-23T16:42:54","date_gmt":"2024-03-23T20:42:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/?p=4130"},"modified":"2024-03-23T21:14:32","modified_gmt":"2024-03-24T01:14:32","slug":"the-joy-of-touring-bookstores","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/blog\/2024\/03\/23\/the-joy-of-touring-bookstores\/","title":{"rendered":"The Joy of Touring Bookstores"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For the third year in a row, many of the independent bookstores located in the Charlotte area are working together during the month of April on a project that they call the Greater Charlotte Book Crawl.  Their collaborative book crawl is timed to coincide with the Independent Bookstore Day, which will take place on April 27, 2024.  These participating bookstores are encouraging area readers to visit each other\u2019s businesses and get to know what makes each bookstore unique.  For more information about the book crawl, please click on the following link:  https:\/\/greatercharlottebookcrawl.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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Beginning April 1, bookstore lovers can pick up Greater Charlotte Book Crawl (GCBC) passports at any of the nineteen participating bookstores. Each visit to one of the bookstores during the month of April earns the crawler a new stamp.  The goal is for participants to visit all nineteen stores. Each \u201cfinisher\u201d will earn a special edition 2024 GCBC tote bag. The finishers simply need to show a completed passport at any participating bookstore. Finishers can also submit a photo of their completed passport to be entered in a drawing for the Grand Prize: a collection of gift cards from each of the bookstores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Greater Charlotte Book Crawl is all about the joy of touring bookstores.  As I see it, there is something magical about visiting bookstores.  I love going to bookstores and perusing the shelves.  Another way that I enjoy touring bookstores is by reading books about bookstores.  For readers who share this interest of mine, here is a short list of great books that are either set in bookstores or are about bookstores. <\/p>\n\n\n

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One of my favorite novels that takes place in a bookstore is The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry<\/em> by Gabrielle Zevin.\u00a0 A. J. Fikry, the central character in this novel, is a lonely widower who owns a quirky bookstore called Island Books.\u00a0 A. J. is a cantankerous man, but his love of Edgar Allan Poe\u2019s poetry and his deep knowledge of classic literature provide him with ways to connect with other booklovers.<\/p>\n\n\n

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One of my favorite nonfiction books about bookstores is Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books <\/em>by Paul Collins.  This memoir recounts the author\u2019s humorous experiences when he and his family move from San Francisco to Hay-on-Wye, a Welsh town that is famous for its many used bookstores.  He gets a job working in one of these bookstores where he tries to organize an American literature section.  This book is full of eccentric bibliomaniacs and all sorts of odd and amusing information about book history. <\/p>\n\n\n

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One of my favorite ghost stories that is set in a bookstore is The Sentence <\/em>by Louise Erdrich. The novel takes place in Birchbark Books, which is a real bookstore that Erdrich owns in Minneapolis.  The main characters in the novel are Tookie, a Native American woman who works in the store, and Flora, the ghost of a white woman who used to patronize the store.  Erdrich herself also shows up as a minor character in the novel. <\/p>\n\n\n

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One of my favorite fantasy books that takes place in a bookstore is The Lost Bookshop <\/em>by Evie Woods.  Often described as a work of magic realism, this novel deals with a magical bookshop in Dublin that functions as a sort of time-travel portal.  Part of the novel is set in the 1920s, and part of the story is set in the present day.  However, the timelines converge in intriguing ways.<\/p>\n\n\n

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One of my favorite children\u2019s books about a bookstore is The Book Itch:  Freedom, Truth, and Harlem\u2019s Greatest Bookstore<\/em> by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson and illustrated by R. Gregory Christie.  This book is a work of fiction, but it is based on the real history of the National Memorial African Bookstore, which Lewis H. Michaux opened in Harlem in 1932.  The store remained in business until 1974.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While I enjoy reading books about bookstores, I enjoy visiting real bookstores even more.   I urge all my fellow bookstore lovers to participate in the Greater Charlotte Book Crawl.  It has just been around for three years, but it has already established itself as a Storied Charlotte tradition. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the third year in a row, many of the independent bookstores located in the Charlotte area are working together during the month of April on a project that they call the Greater Charlotte Book Crawl.  Their collaborative book crawl is timed to coincide with the Independent Bookstore Day, which will take place on April […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-storied-charlotte"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4130"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4137,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4130\/revisions\/4137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}