Liz Whitelam of Whitelam Books is the current NEIBA president and she wrote this for their newsletter:
“We all work really hard to ensure that our customers end up with the book they need when they need it. We race across the store waving the book that fits the exact description we overheard a customer sharing with one of our team members, or in some instances, practically knock a book out of someone’s hand when we know that it is going to be too much right now in the face of something they’re currently going through.
But as booksellers, we don’t always prioritize our own book needs in the same way. I think we all invest a fair bit of time and energy trying to keep up with a lot of books that we “should” be reading, often at the expense of what we really want to read, or, for that matter, just taking a chance on something we wouldn’t ordinarily pick up. Or, we don’t make time for really popular books, because they don’t need our endorsement to sell.
Recently, I was feeling a little grouchy – broadly about the state of the world, of course, and also specifically crabby about what felt like a lot of repetitive and uninspiring offerings in Edelweiss catalogs, many of which seemed to be trying to check boxes about what they thought the market currently demands instead of just… well, telling a good story. And I really needed a good story.
I gave myself permission to step away from the “should” reads for a moment, and revisit two “big” authors who I hadn’t read in a long time (because they don’t need my help to sell): Ann Patchett and Elizabeth Strout. Like many of us, I generally have an audiobook going at the same time that I’m reading one or two physical books. So I took on Whistler and The Things We Never Say, one in each format. And I was absolutely captivated by both of them. There is nothing particularly flashy or groundbreaking about either, but boy, I could not wait to jump back in whenever I had a spare moment. And as a hallmark for how thoroughly I was immersed in both texts: I actually had to go back and check to see which I had physically read vs. which I had consumed via audio, because I had internalized the experience so deeply, I honestly could not remember.
Both of these books focused on meaningful human connections, some where we least expect them, but also some exactly where we expect them. Reading them left me feeling very tender towards humanity, exactly the book medicine I needed. It is such a pleasure when a book – or two books! – can help you fall in love with the world all over again. And what a delightful reminder that we have the power of putting a physical empathy delivery system into the open arms of our customers, so that they, and we, can all feel a little better.”
