Buy a copy of Portzline's book here

So I've always been one to fall in love with the book stores I go to, and sometimes I'll even travel quite a ways just to visit the special ones.  That's why I'm so captivated by this fairly new concept of bookstore tourism.

So what is this thing?  Bookstore tourism is where you, either by yourself or with a group of other bibliophiles, make a particularly interesting bookstore your travel goal and then, well... travel to it.  The self-styled originator of bookstore tourism and author of Bookstore Tourism, Larry Portzline, says on his website that the goal of bookstore tourism is to support independent bookstores by promoting them as a travel destination.  Portzline himself used to lead "bookstore road trips" to New York, where the 50 people aboard his chartered bus would visit about 20 independent booksellers in Greenwich Village.

Now we all know that independent bookstores are now more than ever in need of customers and the boost that bookstore tourism can offer, what with the advent of the e-book and all.  I've seen a lot of unique and interesting bookstores, and it would be a terrible, terrible shame if any of them were to go out of business.  Because I know that they would appreciate me pointing you in their direction and because I think it would be super fun do some of my own bookstore touring, I'm going to start highlighting one independent bookstore each month!  Who's else is excited?!

I couldn't resist throwing this in to express the excitement

Each bookstore that I post about will have something truly wonderful about it that makes it worth traveling to reach.  I'll give you information on all my old favorites, plus some new ones that I hope to visit especially for this blog (I hear Nashville has some awesome bookstores).  I'd also like to post about some of the really beautiful ones all around the world, even though I might never see them all in person. Be looking out for June's bookstore in my next post!

But if you just can't wait that long to read about amazing bookstores, you can pay a visit to Travel Between the Pages, a blog I found while researching this post.  There are tons of posts on bookstore tourism, but really all of the posts on the blog are fascinating and worth a read.


 Until next time, happy reading and happy travels!