Top Ten Tuesday: (Five) Favourite Bookstore Experiences

Created by and with thanks to That Artsy Reader! This week’s theme was all about bookstores you’d love to visit; but as I don’t have a list of those, I thought I’d change it up a bit. Here are five memories I have of walking out of a bookstore with a book so ultimately meaningful to me, the buying experience is etched onto my brain!

(Also: as this goes live, I’m on holiday [yay!], but I promise to catch up with any comments and everyone’s TTTs when I get back!)

.

1. The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare
In what used to be my favourite bookshop (and is now, regrettably, an Apple store), the YA section was down a dramatic staircase, in a little alcove with lighting so dim it was basically mood lighting. That, friends, is where I first saw Jace Herondale staring up at me from a glowing NYC backdrop. At my bored mom’s insistence, to hurry me out, I bought the first (and at the time, only!) three books on a 3-for-2 offer, and the rest is history!

2. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Here’s a story on the power of a cover. I remember seeing THG for the first time, face-out on a shelf in another now-closed bookstore near me. It promised I could choose my own cover, folding out to let you have either Katniss or Peeta in a little peephole. I had to play with it, to see what it was all about; then I had to read some of it; then, before I knew it, I was twelve chapters in, on my way to the till. Don’t judge a book by its cover, indeed.

3. The Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer
Honestly, what did we even do before Bookstagram and the blogosphere could introduce us so easily to what’s popular? I had no idea Twilight was a thing when I first saw the cover. We were months out from Breaking Dawn being released; but by the time it was, I was beyond obsessed. I took a special trip to town just to buy it, and hugged it the entire walk to the till.

4. The True Blood series by Charlaine Harris
This is another one I bought largely on those 3-for-2 deals that were huge in the early 00s. When I turned 18, I spent a lot of weekends in London, exploring–and every trip, on the day I was set to go home, I’d raid a bookshop, apparently for the thrill of breaking my back carrying (mostly True Blood) books on my way to the train station. Oh 3-for-2, you did do my bank balance and back some damage, but you gave me the True Blood series, so I forgive you!

5. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling
Who doesn’t remember buying this one? I was on the way back from the worst camping trip in the world, ill and grouchy and feeling generally awful. We stopped off at a Woolworths (remember those, fellow Brits?!), and by some miracle, they hadn’t sold out in the eighteen hours of it being on sale. I snatched a copy up, finished it before midnight, and I genuinely think it cured my illness. The magic of reading.

.

Do you have any memorable book buying experiences?

Advertisement