Last weekend my kids and I were planning on going back to Connecticut to visit family and attend the Eastern States Exposition (the Big E) which is the largest fair on the east coast. We haven’t been to the Big E in years and were very excited about our trip. Then a nor’easter started brewing off the coast. After a week of watching the weather reports we finally canceled our trip. It ended up being the right decision but we were very disappointed. What do I do when I am grumpy about something? Buy book or go to the thrift store. I did both those things on Saturday when I…

A few weeks ago, my husband and I were visiting a local coffeeshop and I was puttering on Google Maps to see what else was in the area. Imagine my surprise when I saw there was a bookstore a mile or so down the road. (No, I really didn’t know it was there. Yes, my husband questioned that fact.) Of course we had to visit. The Bookworm Bookstore is located inside West Shore Farmers Market in Lemoyne, PA. That was another surprise for us. We hadn’t realized there was a farmers market. We will definitely be back to explore that and try some of the food. We had just eaten…

It is an incontrovertible fact that any visit to a new town, city, or country demands that you visit a bookstore or two. Therefore, when my husband and I spent a few days in Columbus, OH last month I was forced to visit The Book Loft. After all, how could I possibly resist 32 rooms of books? It was an absolute maze of tiny, interconnecting rooms. The store provides maps so you can find your way around if the idea of being eternally lost in a bookstore overwhelms you though I can’t imagine why it should. Each room, for the most part, is its own category. The Book Loft also…

Last week I wrote about our trip to Mohican State Park and I mentioned that it rained one of the days we were there which obviously made bookstore visits absolutely necessary. We started at Holly’s Book Rack in Ontario, OH. Frequently, I find that some of the secondhand bookshops I visit don’t stock older books. Since those are the books I am usually looking for that can lead to disappointment. Thankfully, Holly’s Book Rack had a good selection of classics and older books. I spent a long time browsing and finally bought the books in the photo above. When I was paying for them the owner looked through my selection…

Last Thursday I visited Snowball Bookshop in Barberton, Ohio. It is a bookstore I have been wanting to visit for quite a while but the store has limited hours and it has taken a while to find a day where my time off and their open hours coincide. The store describes itself on Instagram as “the largest used and out-of-print bookstore in NE Ohio.” I am not sure I agree with that description, Loganberry Books is much bigger, but they do have a lot of books crammed in the store. I have mixed feelings about this bookstore. We will start with the positives. As I have already said, there are…