Thanks.
To what? To Inklings Bookshop. As this American Holiday kicks off my little bookstore is running down. This is it. The last weekend.
But it's been a marvelous ride. A four year adventure in books. Four years of shelves and dust and booksmell. Four years of stories. Four years of books.
Each book a bridge, a connection between worlds. Between a reader and a writer, but between readers, too, as connection points for shared conversations, for shared visions and dreams and memories. Bridges, too, between customers and bookseller. The girders made from the spines of books, the cables from woven pages, and the road itself from words, from sentences and paragraphs layered to a paved sturdiness.
So thank you, Inklings Bookshop. You did not pay well, at least in money. But you gave so much else.
Adios.
13 comments:
How'd you get so enlightened, little brother?
I'm so proud of you & your adventure.
It was great! Except, you know, for the cavernous hole tunneling down through the local TD Canada Trust Bank that represents my bank account. Deep it is, grasshopper.
I think there's a rice farmer on the far side of the world looking into an abyssal pit and saying "你好？ 这是什么?"
(Hello? What is this?)
Okay, that would have been much funnier if those little empty boxes were actually chinese characters. Yeah. Much funnier.
Aww, Bryan.
I love your bookstore, too. Just hearing you talk about it, I love it too.
I'm sorry you have to say good-bye.
Good-bye Inklings bookstore. Thank you for being such a good friend to my friend, and giving him so many wonderful things.
I just hate seeing another small, independent business close down. As a former business owner myself - not books - who had to shut down due to conglomerate competetion, I empathize.
And if I lived in your area, I would have shopped your store first for all my book reading needs I'm sure, as local businesses still have my first loyalty.
People tease me about this "fault", but I don't care/
So sorry for your loss Bryan, but I hope the future holds some ray of promise.
Good Luck to you.
(And hey, if you need a home for some of those books that are cluttering up your living room - I'll pay shipping. Really!!)
...........dhole
Thanks, Donna!
How much do you think it would cost to ship you 20,000 books?
:)
Hey, I fixed the Chinese in the other comment! Okay, Blogger fixed it. A nice little chew treat for Blogger! Good blog.
I'll let you know the cost after my first shipment of my novel. I should sell at least that many in the first run, right? I'll ask the publisher.
........dhole
Donna,
Of course! Everyone sells that much, right?
:)
This makes me sad, Bryan.
Not for you, although I know the heart-wrenching and bitter-sweetness must fill you right now. But I know you are going to take all Inklings has given you during your literary adventure together and spin it into something even greater. Something that will touch even more hearts.
No, I'm sad for your patron's loss, the community's loss. They won't so easily be able to carry the hard won connections forward, without the bridge of Inklings to bring them together.
But you will. And for that I am thankful.
I hope you keep sharing your journey with us.
It's sad in so many ways to lose a business but to me, an old fashioned, walk-in-the-door, acres of musty old tomes bookstore represents so much more than a financial endeavor. For those of us who love books, bookstores like yours are sanctuaries. We have a Books-a-Million in my town but, other than the coffee, I don't like it so much. I'd a whole lot rather spend my time in that old used bookshop that I frequented in my college days. The smells in REAL bookstores are less chemical and more...spiritual.
I've never been in your store but I'll miss it nonetheless. It was on my list of destinations for a future road trip.
New York City
Niagara Falls
Inklings Bookshop
Grand Canyon
I don't think the trip is going to be worth it without the Windsor leg...
Book, when Windsor collapses into the Detroit River it will be a fabulous tourist attraction in its own right! The Ugly Submerged City. It'll be very popular, I'm sure.
And Niagara Falls is worth seeing. My wife and I have been there a few times.
Ahh - I just came back for a peek and got the news. Sorry to hear that you are closing the shop. The economy is so nasty bad all over.
Well, take heart - there are always other adventures.
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