This was posted on Laura Benedict’s blog, from her editor at Ballantine Books, Mark Tavani:
One thought above all keeps me sane just now: books are a mere format. Yes, they can be beautiful and wonderful to hold in your hands, and yes, there are some books I plan to keep in my home until the day I die simply for their sentimental value. So I understand what is magical about books. But the most magical thing about them is the information they convey: the story they contain. The word “book” and the word “story” are not synonymous, just as eight tracks and music are not the same thing. Stories pre-date books by milleniums; and though books might someday go away, story will last as long as our civilization does.
And thus, we will always need writers.
I agree that we will always need writers and it is the story that is important. However, there is something about going into a bookstore with all of those books, all of those possibilities – browsing, trying to decide what to buy right now and what to wait to buy. For me it’s therapeutic and exciting. I actually almost panic when my stack of books to read at home gets down to one or two.
My most favorite bookstores are independent bookstores. Has anyone been to Garcia Street Books in Santa Fe? It’s a very small store, but they manage to carry such a wonderful variety of books.
Oh, yes, I’ve been to Garcia Street Books! And there’s a lovely place in Taos, too, right off the plaza to the north. I like that you can go upstairs.
I love that bookstore in Taos too. I think it’s called Moby Dickens. Wouldn’t that be a cool trip – visiting all of the great independent bookstores in the country, or in a region? There are several great independent bookstores in the Lincoln Park area of Chicago too. Then, of course, there’s Tattered Cover in Denver. What fun. Of course, I’d be very poor at the end of it.