Crazy Book Guides?
Writer: Cathy Pickens
On a visit to a used bookstore—a favorite haunt—I watched a young man stop at the front desk.
“I’m looking for something to read?” He sounded uncertain. Or maybe I read too much into his tone and how he wiped his hands up and down the side of his pants.
The smiling clerk asked, “What in particular?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe something in classics?”
She pointed and he disappeared down the aisle while I took another aisle to the true crime section. I saw him standing stock still, staring at the shelves of paperbacks and old hardcovers. He didn’t reach out and touch any of the books. He didn’t tilt his head, scanning for a particular author or title. He just stared.
After a few moments, he wandered through the store. I thought he might’ve decided on a novel. But he didn’t venture down another aisle.
He circled the store and left the way he’d come in, with a nod to the young woman at the front counter.
Perhaps, again, I read too much into the whole thing. But I wanted to run into the parking lot and stop him, ask him what he liked to read as a kid or what kind of movies he liked. I wanted him to leave with a book to read.
But chasing young men in parking lots is crazy lady behavior.
I’m still sad, though. He left without a book.
Maybe I noticed him because, earlier that week in a big box bookstore that probably had 150,000 books for sale, I’d watched another young man come in the door and stop, looking around the massive space. He laid his hand on top of a paperback mystery on the front table but didn’t pick it up. He backed toward the door, as if uncertain how to navigate the mass of books. And he left. Without a book.
How do we find good books? We seasoned readers know how to navigate bookstores and libraries. We know what we like, and we know how to take some risks, try new things. But how did we find our way into books?
What was your gateway drug? What let you into the world where you’re now at home? Mine was Nancy Drew. Santa left her and Trixie Belden under the tree when I was seven years old. Before that, the library ladies (yes, all ladies then) in the library at the bottom of our driveway (what a place to grow up!) offered up as many books as I could carry back up the hill.
Today, with “entertainment” options we carry in our pockets and access with a click, we have to fight for our reading time. Books are losing favor.
The Pew Research Center reports the number who read at least (part of) one book a year is declining—only 72%. The widely reported average number of books read is four per year, though some report twelve. A big thanks to you avid readers for pulling up the stats!
If you’re reading this, you love books. You know what they do for you. But are you campaigning for the cause, helping fledgling readers and those lost in the mass of books find their books?
How the heck can we help?
Charlotte Readers Podcast helps, certainly. And reviewers and librarians and friends. And glorious happenstance.
At my young nephews’ birthday parties, even their friends knew what was in the package from Aunt Cathy: “Prob’ly a book.”
I’ve made several young friends in prison. As it turns out, nothing like doing time to become a reader. Who doesn’t love getting packages at mail call, even if it’s “prob’ly a book”?
I buy books because that’s how writers and publishers and bookstores stay in business, and I support the library—they buy loads of books and let us read all we want for free.
But I feel we’re losing the battle. How can we serve as guide into the magical book world? Give the newcomers confidence to find their own way?
Through a book club? Reading time with children in your life? Being a reading buddy at a school? Books or store certificates for gifts? Buying books when you can? Putting a book you love in the hand of a friend who might love it?
What’s your path as a crazy book guide to bring books and new readers together?
About the Writer
Cathy is the author of the award-winning Southern Fried mysteries (St. Martin’s), CREATE! Developing Your Creative Process (ICSC Press), and a series on North Carolina’s true crime stories for History Press, beginning with Charlotte True Crime Stories. She is a past officer of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime.
Website: cathypickens.com
Writer’s podcast episode, HERE.