Tuesday Thingers and Booking Through Thursday

This week's question from Marie at The Boston Bibliophile:

Since we're past the Fourth of July and the summer season has officially started, what are your plans for the summer? Vacations, trips? Trips that involve reading? Reading plans? If you're going somewhere, do you do any reading to prepare? Do you read local literature as part of your trip? Have you thought about using the LT Local feature to help plan your book-buying?

Just as everyone is beginning to turn their thoughts to fall this year, my husband and I will be sitting on the beach in Hawaii, drinking pineapple juice and watching the sunset. Anjin and I tend to take our vacations towards the end of the summer, right after the American Labor Day holiday. Schools are back in session and the summer vacation rush has died down. It is the perfect time to get away. Not to mention it falls right around the time of my birthday.

In preparation for our trip, I have perused online websites and read through tour books as well as talked to friends and family. In this case, it is more for deciding what we want to see and do. Most likely while there, I will seek out books by local authors and my desire to read more about the state's history will grow exponentially--it always does when I travel. I am thrilled to be returning to Hawaii, visiting the place where I spent a part of my childhood. My time there is a distant memory, and I look forward to creating new memories with my husband.

I never considered using Library Thing as a resource for further research in regards to my trip, but it is not a bad idea!

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What would you do if, all of a sudden, your favorite source of books was unavailable?Whether it’s a local book shop, your town library, or an internet shop… what would you do if, suddenly, they were out of business? Devastatingly, and with no warning? Where would you go for books instead? What would you do? If it was a local business you would try to help out the owners? Would you just calmly start buying from some other store? Visit the library in the next town instead? Would it be devastating? Or just a blip in your reading habit?

It would not be a stretch to say that I am already prepared for such contingencies. My TBR collection is quite extensive and would keep me sufficiently entertained for the next decade or so at the very least. Add to that the books on my shelves that I have read that I can always reread. I rarely, if ever, reread books now, but there are quite a few in my collection that I keep around for that eventual day when I will do so.

With the number of book trading sites and online book clubs out there, there will always be resources for obtaining new (albeit used) books. The reading community may not be large in terms of the world population, but I imagine there are enough of us, not to mention in diversity of interests and tastes, that we could easily be able to organize book boxes and rings to ensure that books continue to be shared with others interested in reading them.

If it was just a matter of one store in town going out of business, it would not make much of a difference to me. I have no big attachment to any one store. In fact, I have a tendency to do business in quite a few, spreading my support and money around--this includes both brick and mortar stores as well as online stores. There are other bookstores in the area; the next town over is not so far away or even the town after that. It would not be worth making a big fuss over. Sure, I would moan about having to go a little farther or because of the loss of a good resource, but when it comes to books and reading, I will do what I have to do in order to keep my supply steady.

In the case of a library, if my local branch closed down, there are still several others throughout the city I can use. If the city libraries all closed down, I would then move on to the county libraries or to one in the next town or city over. As it is, I do not frequent my local library very often, and so I probably would not feel the impact of such a loss right away. That sounds terrible, perhaps, but it's true. It is hard to justify using the library when I have my own personal library at home that is full of books waiting to be read.

Even though I may not have a specific attachment to any book store or library, if I discovered that it was going out of business, I would probably make an effort to help out (donate books if appropriate and try and frequent the shop more often), but it would only be in a limited way. As one person there is not much I could do, but even those small efforts made by enough people might make a difference. It would be worth a try anyway.

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Tomorrow is the last day to to enter the giveaways! For more information and to sign up visit Sunday's post titled Sunday Salon: In Between Books.

There are two separate contests and participants may enter one or both. The only catch is that participants must answer a simple question. If you answer the question, you will automatically be entered into the main drawing for a book of your choice (limit up to $25).

For a second chance at a prize, you can also enter in the drawing for one of the ARE books I am giving away. In the case of the ARE Giveaway, simply tell me which ARE books you are interested in winning, and I'll add your name into that drawing as well. Do remember to specify which ARE book you are interested in or else you might end up with something you did not want.

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I took the plunge and now have my own domain name. While the old web address will redirect you to my new address, those who have me listed in their blog rolls may want to update your link to the new one: http://www.literaryfeline.com/.