Play Book Tag discussion

When you visit a library or a bookstore, what is your routine? Do you visit the new books first? Do you check out the displays?

Do you know what you are looking for or do your browse the books, looking for something interesting or something to jump out at you?

Are you one who asks the staff for help and recommendations?

Share any other library and bookstore nuances or experiences.

Don’t you love the smell and the joy and the experience of a bookstore? Well for me, I feel like it’s visiting with old friends. Because I immediately go to the fiction and staff favorites tables and it’s really fun for me to be revisiting all these titles that I read and loved to see what’s hot and what’s not. Sometimes I talk with people looking at and buying books and it feels like an immediate connection. Truth be told I want to support an independent bookstore. So every time I walk in one I know that I’m gonna walk out with something. Because I want them to survive and I know that it’s something that’s beloved on my TBR that makes sense for me to actually purchase because I will go on vacation and give it to someone or give it to a friend. So I wonder to the staff pics and new releases and best fiction tables and I look. I also look at the non-fiction too. I start to wonder which book I will buy that entice me and I know I will now soon read. Sometimes I buy a book I loved already so I can give it to a friend as a gift. Every bookstore is different and some of them have different feels and experiences. Sometimes you can buy tea or a little chocolate there. Mugs and journals and pens. It’s a warm home. Invitations and Memories. I just smile.

I also liked to buy something every time I go to an independent bookstore, especially on a trip or vacation. I usually have a couple of books in mind, ones that are hard to get from the library or are long so I need more time to finish them. Otherwise I will start with displays and staff picks. I won't buy what I call "a 2-hour book" - one with big print and lots of white space that I would finish in that short a time. Sometimes I will buy books on women's history that I can use for my talks (it's a tax deduction!)

I like to browse bookstores, but seldom buy there. Outside of a reference or cook book, I tend to read a book only once. I get most of my books through the library, which I contribute to through taxes.

I enjoy visiting the library. I gravitate towards checking out the new releases - fiction and non-fiction both. I see books that I've read that seem like old friends. And, I like bumping in to people that I know.

Lately, the majority of books I get are through reserve holds - books I've heard about here on GR.

Virtually all the books I read, I get from the library. I DO buy books, but mostly these are first-edition hardcovers, frequently signed by the author, and I keep them pristine. (It's my addiction, and I'm not looking for a cure.)

Typically I know what I want when I go to either a bookstore or a library. I'm a big user of the holds feature at the library, and am well known by the circulation staff.

Of course, there are times when my eyes are distracted by a display and I wind up with a book (or books) that I hadn't planned to bring home. But that is relatively rare.

I normally look at the new books shelf at the library, if by chance I pass it by. Like Tessa, my circulation desk knows me well. I try to keep a look at my "requested" list and what has come in. Their shelf is rather small and at times I have invaded a good 1/4 of it.

I used to visit the shelves at my library, but now I usually order my books online an just pick them up. The atmosphere has changed with this newer director plus it's easier to find things I'd like to read via Goodreads. Many of the books I borrow come from other libaries that I pick up at mine.

As for bookstores, I stay away most of the time so I don't spend too much there, but how I approach them varies with the actual bookstore and/or why I'm there. I don't enjoy shopping.

Of course, the fact that I participate in six F2F book clubs also means that I have a pretty specific list of books to read in any given month. And this year, I've hardly had time to read THOSE, let alone additional books for challenges and PBT tags. I completely missed the February tag... the first time that's happened since I joined the group.

Book Concierge wrote: "Of course, the fact that I participate in six F2F book clubs also means that I have a pretty specific list of books to read in any given month. And this year, I've hardly had time to read THOSE, le..."

You definitely get a free pass on the monthly tag BC. Not sure how valuable that might be, but there's no on who deserves it more.

I don't spend time in libraries to look for books - not even law libraries as any research I do is easier online. I only borrow ebooks and a rare audiobook from libraries, usually just looking up a specific title. In fact my regular ebook borrows are for either my Feminerdy Book Club or because I can't find my physical copy of a book I know I own and need/want to read.

I do visit the main branch of NYPL, the Schwartzman building on Fifth Avenue where Prudence and Patience welcome you out front, because of the exhibits and fabulous bookstore and gift shop.

But bookstores - the only shopping in really enjoy are bookstores. For many years, I would stop several times a week at Coliseum Books on 57th Street on my way home from work or after a cultural event, as it was open until 1 AM. It was my therapy, my transition from work. At least until the lease renewal was too expensive and the owner decided to close the shop and retire. I still miss it.

But there are plenty of favorite independent books stores that I regularly visit. At least once a year I make a list of 2 or 3 indie bookstores that in other parts of the city to check out, also exploring local dining options at same time. Last one I did was The Ripped Bodice in Brooklyn - so very worth the trip!

I also hunt out bookstores wherever I visit - foreign as well as domestic - especially any crime fiction ones. I have favorites in Paris - indies like Shakespeare and Co. as well as FNAC - think Barnes & Noble but around longer and I think always better.

Bookstores I roam in mostly, though I do occasionally have a specific book buying mission in mind. I always peruse the tables and displays as I enter, then new releases, staff picks, blind date with a book. I then look specifically at mystery and romance (if there are those separations), general fiction, cookbooks and food writing, travel writing. When in different neighborhoods or cities/towns, I love looking through the local shelves - authors, history. I count authors as clients and friends so I often go looking for their books to take pictures of them on the shelves and displays. My last visit to Book Culture on Broadway a couple weeks ago, I was greeted on the first table facing the door, dead center under 'new paperbacks' with my client/friend's newest book Didion and Babitz. Of course I took a picture and sent it to he. I did not buy it as I own 2 first editions autographed.

I just about always buy a book in the indie stores I visit. I also will visit used bookstores, usually approaching them initially to see if they have books by favorite out of print authors - almost all mysteries but a few others. Of course I also like specialty used/new bookstores for other genres like cookbooks. That gets me past the initial sense of being overwhelmed and helps me figure out the organization, to the degree there is any. I often stumble across some gem in those stores.

When I am abroad, wandering, and come upon a bookstore or deliberately look one up, I first try to get my bearings on the type of books. Paris is filled with small indie bookstores - there are 2 around the corner from my hotel. They are not always general in nature, and I've learned to wander around enough to get a bearing on what they are selling - often it's literary fiction not genre fiction. I could ask of course but it's more fun for me to figure it out on my own.

It would be would be far darker without bookstores to roam about in.