Road Trip - Preparing for Philly Bookstore Crawl

Sunday, August 15 - Bookstore Road Trip!

I promised Philly Bookstore Crawl's brilliant organizer Eric Smith that I'd deliver the official postcards to stores all out along the Main Line, so Sunday was a road trip with a friend/past colleague from my children's literacy days. We were on the road from 11 am to 6 pm, squeezing in 6 stores and a great Thai lunch:

First stop - Chapter Two Books in Penn Wynne, PA, which just opened earlier this summer. They were closed, so we found a place to stash the postcards behind a plant, out of the rain.

Second stop - Mavey Books, a beautiful, bright store in Ardmore, PA, where owner Nadia Alawa greeted us happily, having just that morning emailed Eric to see when the cards might be coming. We each left with a book we'd been looking for.

Third stop - Narberth Bookshop in Narberth, PA which is all calm, engaging, deep colors, warm wood, Persian rugs, and chairs that invite sitting to browse. My friend found a total treasure she'd been waiting to get.

Fourth stop - Main Point Books in Wayne, PA - my own store! I talked Bookstore Romance Day highlights while my friend happily browsed. She set a rule for herself of buying only one book per store, and only from her current "want" list. MPB seriously challenged that limit. Did I take a photo of the store? Nope.

Fifth stop - Reads & Company, Phoenixville, PA. Somehow I've never managed to actually be in the store and it is just amazing - books I need and engagingly displayed sidelines everywhere I looked. Had a good long chat with staff members about BRD, battling B&N, and books in translation. My friend bought 2 books, and handsold another one to me, a Japanese horror story in translation. Trying to duck in and out between violent downbursts I again managed to not take a photo. 

Sixth stop - Wellington Square Books in Exton PA. Again, we dashed in between rain showers, happily bearing the box of postcards. Very sweet staffers offered us from hot drinks from their cafe, and we gratefully accepted. As I'm working on a poetry project about a river I love, I ended up leaving with two nonfiction books about rivers and a beautifully written picture book about the cycle of water that gives me inspiration. We stayed until close, as it would be nearly a hour to drive back to Philadelphia.