“What I say is, a town isn’t a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it’s got a bookstore, it knows it’s not foolin’ a soul.”

— Neil Gaiman, English novelist

“I love walking into a bookstore. It’s like all my friends are sitting on shelves, waving their pages at me.”

— Tehereh Mafi, American children’s author

Books are my life. Okay, maybe not all my life but I would be so lost without them. It all started when I was born into a family of booklovers. This was before Google and streaming and color television. My mother believed in libraries. Once a week we made a trip to the William Alexander Percy Memorial Library in the Delta. Mother deposited me in the children’s sections while she wandered over to the murder mysteries. Once on the way home she stopped by a small bookstore and suggested I choose a book of my own. I was about 8-years-old and could hardly believe we were actually purchasing a book to keep. I chose a book on anatomy.

In the last two years amid pandemic, closures, isolation, winters, ice and rain, I read books. At first, I re-read my favorite books some for the second or third time. Then a friend loaned me her Kindle loaded with books. Though I had vowed never to own a Kindle, it became convenient and available. Of one author I read 36 books. The characters became my everyday friends. Diane Greenwood Muir’s 37th book is to be released soon. I’ll be there.

Later I was gifted a Kindle and it would be up to me to choose my own books. Not being able to hold the book in my hands, turning it back and forth, looking at the print size or flipping the pages, I felt lost. Like everyone else my world had changed. I downloaded one Kindle book “The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek” by Kim Michele Richardson. I couldn’t go wrong with a book about books. As I read, I could not believe there was an “ethnic” group of people living isolated in the Appalachian Mountains of Kentucky for around 197 years with blue skin, and I didn’t know about it. The “blues” were isolated and ostracized for their color. Amazing book with a sequel “The Book Woman’s Daughter” due out May 3.

My current read is “The Girl from Simon’s Bay,” also a historical fiction novel that finds its story as engaging as the last book. Simon’s Bay is part of South Africa and noted for its coastal shipbuilding industry. The story is set during the breakout of WWII. Oddly enough Louise in this story finds herself in similar circumstances as the Book Woman of Kentucky: isolated and ostracized over color. Both women were not quitters. Not even close.

For the first time in two years, I ventured into the Friendly City Bookstore, not a giftbox and not an electronic. Just a lovely young woman named Caroline. We spent quite some time talking books. Then I quietly moved through the whole store: mysteries, local authors, history, humor, cooking, and the children’s section with a tiny coloring table. I left with Louise Erdrich’s “The Sentence” and a T-shirt. For book lovers it’s a divine experience in the presence of all those books.

Shannon Bardwell is a writer living quietly in the Prairie. Email reaches her at [email protected].