reading – Ted Macaluso

As a writer, I love used bookstores. Perhaps not for the reason you think (books, books, and more books), but because it is when I am inside a used bookstore, that I find out what people really read. Nielsen BookScan compiles sales figures and is a great publishing industry resource, but the numbers are dry. In a good used bookstore, I see it live.

That is especially true for a writer like me, who leans less toward literary reads and more towards genres like sci-fi, mysteries, thrillers and humorous short stories.

I’m in Missoula, Montana this week and found a really great used bookstore: The Book Exchange. They have a wide range of books, from classics like Isaac Asimov’s robot novels through current books like Percival Everett’s James (high on my TBR list) and Rebecca Yarros’s romantasies (among my ‘guilty pleasures’).

Writers, of course, also go to libraries, frequent bookstores that sell new books, and read book reviewers. But that is like going to a museum: what you see is curated by experts. Unbelievably valuable but filtered by gatekeepers. Suggestions on what people should read, but not the skinny on what people do read.

If you are ever in Missoula, check out The Book Exchange.