My Bookstore ─ Writers Celebrate Their Favorite Places to Browse, Read, and Shop

In this enthusiastic, heartfelt, and sometimes humorous ode to bookshops and booksellers, 84 known authors pay tribute to the brick-and-mortar stores they love and often call their second homes.

In My Bookstore our greatest authors write about the pleasure, guidance, and support that their favorite bookstores and booksellers have given them over the years. The relationship between a writer and his or her local store and staff can last for years or even decades. Often it's the author's local store that supported him during the early days of his career, that continues to introduce and hand-sell her work to new readers, and that serves as the anchor for the community in which he lives and works.

My Bookstore collects the essays, stories, odes and words of gratitude and praise for stores across the country in 81 pieces written by our most beloved authors. It's a joyful, industry-wide celebration of our bricks-and-mortar stores and a clarion call to readers everywhere at a time when the value and importance of these stores should be shouted from the rooftops.

Perfectly charming line drawings by Leif Parsons illustrate each storefront and other distinguishing features of the shops.

Contributing Authors and Bookstores Include:
Fannie Flagg—Page & Palette, Fairhope, AL
Rick Bragg—Alabama Booksmith, Homewood, AL
John Grisham—That Bookstore in Blytheville, Blytheville, AR
Ron Carlson—Changing Hands Bookstore, Tempe, AZ
Ann Packer—Capitola Book Cafe, Capitola, CA
Isabel Allende—Book Passage, Corte Madera, CA
Mahbod Seraji—Kepler’s Books, Menlo Park, CA
Lisa See—Vroman’s Bookstore, Pasadena, CA
Meg Waite Clayton—Books Inc., San Francisco, CA
Daniel Handler and Lisa Brown—The Booksmith, San Francisco, CA
Dave Eggers—Green Apple Books, San Francisco, CA
Pico Iyer—Chaucer’s Books, Santa Barbara, CA
Laurie R. King—Bookshop, Santa Cruz, CA
Scott Lasser—Explore Booksellers, Aspen, CO
Stephen White—Tattered Cover Book Store, Devner, CO
Kate Niles—Maria’s Bookshop, Durango, CO
Ann Haywood Leal—Bank Square Books, Mystic, CT
Florence and Wendell Minor—The Hickory Stick Bookshop, Washington Depot, CT
Rick Atkinson—Politics and Prose Bookstore, Washington, DC
Les Standiford—Books & Books, Coral Gables, FL
Robert Macomber—The Muse Book Shop, Deland, FL
David Fulmer—Eagle Eye Book Shop, Decatur, GA
Abraham Verghese—Prairie Lights, Iowa City, IA
Charlie Brandt—Chapter One Bookstore, Ketchum, ID
Luis Alberto Urrea—Anderson’s Bookshops, Naperville, IL
Mike Leonard—The Book Stall Chestnut Court, Winnetka, IL
Albert Goldbarth—Watermark Books, Wichita, KS
Wendell Berry—Carmichael’s Bookstore, Louisville, KY
Edith Pearlman—Brookline Booksmith, Brookline, MA
Mameve Medwed—Porter Square Books, Cambridge, MA
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.—Harvard Book Store, Cambridge, MA
Simon Winchester—The Bookloft, Great Barrington, MA
Nancy Thayer—Mitchell’s Book Corner, Nantucket, MA
Elin Hilderbrand—Nantucket Bookworks, Nantucket, MA
Jeanne Birdsall—Broadside Bookshop, Northampton, MA
Martha Ackmann—Odyssey Bookshop, South Hadley, MA
Ward Just—Bunch of Grapes Bookstore, Vineyard Haven, MA
Ron Currie, Jr.—Longfellow Books, Portland, ME
Nancy Shaw—Nicola’s Books, Ann Arbor, MI
Katrina Kittle—Saturn Booksellers, Gaylord, MI
Ann Patchett—Mclean & Eakin Booksellers, Petotskey, MI
Kathleen Finneran—Left Bank Books, St.Louis, MO
Barry Moser—Lemuria Books, Jackson, MS
Jill McCorkle—Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, NC
Carrie Ryan—Park Road Books, Charlotte NC
Laurent Dubois—The Regulator Bookshop, Durham, NC
Lee Smith—Purple Crow Books, Hillsborough, NC
Angela Davis-Gardner—Quail Ridge Books & Music, Raleigh, NC
Ron Rash—City L