I go to a lot of bookstores. I'm currently sitting in a Barnes and Noble in Tulsa, Oklahoma. There are two of Barnes and Noble in Tulsa, and I have already been to the other one twice, so I thought I would check out this one today. I've also been to Fine Books, which is in one of the malls, Gardeners, which is apparently the largest used bookstore in the state, the Frugal Bookshop, and there was also a small shop in one of the towns in which we had a performance--I didn't catch the name of it, alas, though it had a very friendly black cat which made up for the small selection.
Bookshops come in all sorts of varieties. You have your massive, unorganized piles and piles of cheap books stores. You have your tiny, independent store that mostly sells things the people running it like. You have your corporation bookstores, though these are becoming fewer and fewer as the days go by--a tragedy. You have your rare books stores, those where you mostly just look and don't touch, books not intended to be read so much as peered at. I love bookshops of all varieties (though I do prefer the ones where I'm allowed to touch).
During my first tour for the National Theatre for Children, I went to upwards of twenty or thirty bookstores. I bought thirty-one books over the course of that 10 week adventure. I was close enough to home that I could stop in and drop books off every once in a while. This tour, however, I find I have to restrain myself far more often. I am nearly a thousand miles from home. No quick pit stops to drop off books this time. Whatever I buy, I have to carry with me at all times. I have an unending list of books that I want to find and read. I have had a fair amount of success finding several of them in the last couple of weeks. Yet despite the cheap prices, despite the successful finds, I have more often than not forced myself to walk away from stores empty handed. This has been a challenge.
You see, I have an addiction. A book buying addiction. There. I said it. Don't misunderstand: it's not that I have an addiction to reading--I do read a fair amount, perhaps more than many of my peers, but I have far more books sitting on shelves unread, waiting for me to crack their spines, turn their pages, and invest in their worlds than I can keep up with. My addiction is to the thrill of the buy. The thrill of finding works by great authors that are not always easy to find. See, there's a certain kind of book that is my favorite thrill: I fondly call these books "OOPs. books." Out of print is this terrible disease that sadly befalls works that, for whatever reason, do not have consistent mainstream success. Several of my favorite authors have such books running about the used bookstore circuit. I get excited whenever I find something by Gene Wolfe, Jack Vance, Roger Zelazny, or M. John Harrison (to name a few) that I have never seen in print before. I love coming across a book I've never heard of before written by an author I love. This is a thrill in itself, perhaps not quite as potent as the thrill of finding something for which I have been searching. But still. I revel in the find.
So, why am I sharing all this with you? Well, my name is Daniel. I've been a bookoholic for roughly 14 or 15 years. I hear admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery....
Oh, one last thought: go support bookstores. I buy a lot of books, but I can't keep them in business by myself, try as I might. I urge you to support even the big chains and especially the small, independent stores.
PS. Read a book. It's good for you.
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