Today’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl is a Thanksgiving freebie. I’ve decided I’d like to share ten bookstores I’m personally thankful for:

1. Politics & Prose: A D.C. institution, this now trio of shops bring authors to the District on a daily basis. And they have a music buyer on staff, making them pretty much the only place in town I can buy new cds still.
2. Kramerbooks: A mainstay of my Dupont Circle neighborhood, this bookstore, cafe, and bar is open until 1 a.m. weeknights and 3 a.m. Friday and Saturday (and was very handy this year when I realized I didn’t have any cake for Rudi rather late on his birthday this year).
3. Powell’s: This Portland, Oregon, megastore is like a beacon for booklovers, being pretty much a block wide and several stories tall. Do not plan a trip to the Northwest without stopping, and do not stop without several hours to adequately explore.
4. R.J. Julia Booksellers: This was the first bookstore I ever joined as a member. Located in Madison, Connecticut, it has long hosted great author talks and provided hours of entertainment. It also took over the bookstore in Middletown, around the corner from my old house, after I moved.
5. Whitlock’s Book Barn: This is one of Connecticut’s great used bookshops and one of two (that I’m aware of) in the state housed in barns. Located in Bethany in the Housatonic Valley, you can find both antiquarian titles and used paperbacks in this rural paradise that my parents used to drag us to kicking and screaming when we were kids.
6. Capitol Hill Bookstore: This rowhouse near Eastern Market in D.C. is filled to bursting with books. While the fire marshal has clearly vetoed the piles of books that used to sit on each stair tread, they are still in stacks in the bathroom and on every other flat surface. Plus, they are deliciously cranky both in person and on their Twitter.
7. The Strand: New York City’s answer to Powell’s (although don’t tell a New Yorker that), the Strand is home to 18 miles of new and used books. When I win the lottery and am ready to purchase my unabridged copy of the OED, they have a copy of all 20 volumes on hand.
8. The King’s English: This Salt Lake City, Utah, shop is one of my favorite stops when we’re visiting Rudi’s mom.
9. East City Bookshop: This Capitol Hill-area bookstore has quickly built a loyal following, and not just because of their stroller parking area and photo wall of dogs. They boast an extremely knowledgeable kids/YA bookseller and run a plethora of bookclubs, including W(h)ine and Angst, a YA bookclub for adults.
10. Mahogany Books: This tiny bookstore, located in the Anacostia Arts Center, is the only bookshop East of the Anacostia River in D.C. and delivers Black-centric books for “readers in search of books written for, by, or about people of the African Diaspora.” It was this bookshop that introduced me (literally — she came in to pick up a book just after they hand sold me her poetry collection) to Elizabeth Acevedo.

Local runners-up you can visit here in D.C.: Loyalty Books, Solid State Books, Bridge Street Books, Second Story, Lost City (formerly Idle Times), Sankofa, Wall of Books, Carpe Librum, The Lantern, and more.

How about you? What bookstores are you thankful for?

Have you signed up for the Virtual Advent Tour yet? We’d be excited to have you join us!

I’m not loving this week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl, so instead I’m going to share the 11 books I currently have out from the library:

1. The Library Book by Susan Orlean — The amount of time this book is taking me is not indicative of how much I’m enjoying it.
2. Woody Guthrie and the Dust Bowl Ballads by Nick Hayes — I’ve had this graphic bio out since this summer, and it’s been living in a bag I haven’t looked in in a while. I need to finish it and get it back to the library.
3. Knitting the Fog by Claudia Hernández — This poetry collection is in the same bag with Woody. I hope they’re having a good time.
4. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong — This book was everywhere earlier this year. Honestly, I have no idea what it’s about and even whether I still want to read it.
5. Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell — I meant to reread Carry On first, but the sequel came in before I figured out where my copy has gotten to.
6. The Undefeated by Kwame Alexander and Kadir Nelson — I loved this picture book history of Black American history and have kept it out because I haven’t yet had a chance to read all the biographical reference pieces at the back.
7. Book Love by Debbie Tung — This is a collection of bibliophilic cartoons. I like to read a handful at a time and then put it back down.
8. Autumn by Ali Smith — This got such good reviews when it first came out, both in the U.K. and here, that I picked it up when I saw it in the library’s window display, but this is another one where I have no idea if I even want to read it. Books sometimes just like to visit my house.
9. Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks by Jason Reynolds — I am very much looking forward to reading Jason’s latest middle grade novel.
10. Kiss Number 8 by Colleen A.F. Venable — This is a coming-of-age graphic novel set in 2004 and I literally raced through the first half when I picked it up last night.
11. Bittersweet by Susan Wittig Albert — I’ve never read of of her China Bayles series, but this one, the 23rd in the series apparently, is set at Thanksgiving, so we’ll see!

What do you have out from the library right now?

Have you signed up for the Virtual Advent Tour event for bloggers yet? We’d love to have you join us!

We could look at this photo as a complete failure, having failed to complete sock or book, by the end of October.

Or…

We could look at it as getting a really nice jump start on the 2020 Halloween season. I know which perspective I’m going with.

Head over to As Kat Knits for what other folks are knitting and reading this week.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday post from That Artsy Reader Girl is Halloween-themed, so I thought I’d share some suggestions for Halloween costumes you could do based on literary characters. I have only used some of them personally:

1. Pippi Longstocking:
   
2. Phryne Fisher (the tv show demonstrates how many amazing outfits you could pick from)
3. Raggedy Ann:
   
4. Sherlock Holmes (it helps if you own a deerstalker hat)
5. Anne of Green Gables (I’ve noticed puffed sleeves are in right now)
6. Anyone from Harry Potter:
   
7. Any of the ragtag group from the Oz books (if you pick the literary version of Dorothy, your shoes will not be red and fewer people will recognize you; conversely, you could go as the tornado, although I would make it a two funnel-tornado in order to be able to walk)
8. Go classic with Count Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (for the latter, you would need to divide your costume down the middle)
9. Little Red Riding Hood:
   
10. Paddington

Have you ever dressed up as a favorite bookish character?

No knitting. No knitting pictures. I’m definitely feeling stuck, which probably means I need to just pick up one of my projects and put a few stitches in it. And then do it again.

I’m glad to report that while I put aside The Library Book (I was suddenly able to renew it), I did pick up NPR’s Linda Holmes’ debut novel, Evvie Drake Starts Over, which friends had loved. They had said it was a quintessential summer novel, because it takes place in Maine and includes a lot of baseball, but that actually made it a perfect fall book for me, since that’s when I miss New England the most. I can’t imagine it will take me far into the weekend to finish it, particularly since there’s no baseball to watch tomorrow night.

I’m nearly done with Jenny Colgan’s The Bookshop on the Shore, which also seems to fit with my mood, since in my head I kind of assume Scotland is not unlike Maine. If you liked the first Bookshop book, I think you will enjoy revisiting the town in this companion novel (but not really a sequel).

Next up, I think, will be George Takei’s graphic memoir about growing up in an American concentration camp.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday from That Artsy Reader Girl invites us to consider Top Ten Extraordinary Book Titles.

Here are 10 titles that piqued my interest:

1. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, by Newt Scamander (J.K. Rowling)
2. Rayne & Delilah’s Midnite Matinee, by Jeff Zentner
3. Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow, by Jessica Townsend
4. Grief Is the Thing with Feathers, by Max Porter
5. The Tea Dragon Society, by Katie O’Neil
6. Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World, by Ashley Herring Blake
7. Killers of the Flower Moon, by David Grann
8. Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor
9. A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle
10. The Other F-Word, Natasha Friend

How about you? Are there books you’ve picked up simply based on their title?