I have always loved bookstores, especially because my step father took me to them all of the time while I was growing up.
We would drive around the city on some Saturdays going from one used book store to another.
That’s where I developed such an intense love for jazz music as well, since most of these bookstores would play Miles Davis or John Coltrane albums over the speaker system. I heard Kind of Blue for the first time one afternoon while browsing fantasy novels for about an hour. I asked the store owner what that music was, and he showed me the sleeve for the Miles Davis album and told me that it was an old pressing from the 1970s. Everytime I visited that bookstore from that point forward, I would ask the shop owner what music he was playing and then I would write down the artist, song, and album in a notebook that stayed in my pocket. My local bookstore these days is notable for its exceptionally warm heating system during our cold winters here. They have radiant heated flooring and a fan-forced furnace running simultaneously. You can feel how amazingly comfortable it is inside the second you walk through the front door and feel the wave of heat engulf your frigid body. I love sitting in the back of the bookstore where it is the warmest whenever the heat is on. They have a small coffee shop and there are seats in the back where you can read while you sip your beverage. I know I can’t be the only person who frequents this place in part because of it’s amazing indoor heat.