My happy place

In praise of independent bookstores

Over the weekend — our last weekend free from sports commitments until the end of the year(!) — my family took a trip to the eastern shore of Maryland.

And, on Sunday afternoon, we decided to drive to Saint Michaels, a quaint little town probably best known as the home of the Inn at Perry Cabin, which is a very nice (and very expensive) hotel. (We did NOT stay there!)

We were just driving through the town when my wife spied a bookshop. Knowing how much I love book stores, she said we should stop. We parked. The boys complained. (Walking through quaint little town isn’t high on your priorities list when you are a teenage boy.)

But, we found our way to the bookstore. It’s called “Book Hounds” and it is AWESOME. (Everything you need to know about the store is that in its listing of hours, it says this for Wednesdays: “Open by Chance.”)

Why did I love it so much? Two big reasons.

First, it just looks amazing. Here are a few photos from the shop’s Instagram page.

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The whole place is inviting. Cozy. Warm. Friendly. It makes you want to browse for a book, pick one and then sit and read it for the rest of the afternoon.

Then there’s the books.

No independent bookstore can match Amazon or Barnes & Noble for selection. So, there’s no point in trying.

What great independent bookstores can do though is put a signature stamp on what they carry. At Book Hounds, there’s space at the front of the store —near the register — that has books the owner is currently reading. (One of the selections: “I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself” by Glynnis MacNichol.) Upstairs, there’s a handful of books displayed from the recent New York Times survey of the 100 best books of the 21st century.

The kids and young adults sections are carefully curated. There’s the amazing “Wildwood” by Colin Meloy (of the Decemberists) and “The Wild Robot” by Peter Brown.

The mystery section — a personal favorite of mine — is similarly thoughtful. Ditto the sci-fi/fantasy area.

The best bookstores these days are, for me, the ones where you feel like you get a sense of the owner and his or her reading habits just by walking around. That, with every book they choose to carry or feature on a display, you peer into a window of what they like (and what they don’t).

Amazon can never do that. Yes, I know they have the people-who-bought-this-book-bought-these-others-like-it feature. But it’s an algorithm. It’s not a person with their own quirks and history as a reader.

Needless to say, we bought a bunch of books.

I went for the new Lev Grossman tome — “The Bright Sword,” which is his take on the Arthurian legend. (It’s worth listening to Grossman talk about the book on a recent episode of the New York Times Book Review podcast.)

Did I need it? No! I have like 20 books in my queue on my Kindle! Did I plan to buy it when I went in the store? I did not!

But that’s the great thing about a great independent bookstore. You don’t need to go into with a plan. Or even a specific book you want to buy. In fact, it’s better — in my opinion — not to. See what your eye lingers on, what book jacket seems like a story you’d want to read. Be surprised.

Serendipity is something that giant booksellers can never replicate. And it’s one of the truly great feelings in the world.

If you’re ever near Book Hounds — Saint Michaels is less than 2 hours from DC — stop in. It will make your day.

And if you live nowhere near the DC area, I hope you have your own version of Book Hounds in your city or town. In fact, I’d love to hear about your favorite independent bookstores! Tell me what they are and why you love them in the comments section!