The American Bookstore: A List | Front Porch Republic

The American Bookstore: A List | Front Porch Republic

Tara Ann Thieke offers a list of 30 bookstores across America that she has visited and loved. I've only been to one -- Powell's in Portland -- and a different branch of another -- Wonder Book in Frederick, Maryland. Some day I want to browse the old textbooks and Loeb Classical Library editions at Raven Books in Cambridge, Mass.

"Used and independent bookstores are the true resistance against what Russell Kirk called 'the enemies of the permanent things,' the resistance against all which would sand us down and dehumanize us; against that which praises satisfaction and comfort over communion and encounter. How can one encounter that which human hands have barely touched, a throw-away coffee table book meant to be replaced next season? But the faces of these owners, the roaming cats, the tumbling piles, the derisive notes pointing to certain sections if you so dare, the odd hours, the employees who tell you the whole history of a street or draw you a map to the other bookstores in town, the yellowed editorials stapled to a wall, the $2 copy of a rare Kierkegaard that the owner himself tells you is a treasure beyond worth: these were the best memories I brought home of America."