Small Business Saturday at One DC Bookstore

By: Aryanne Ferguson

Small business Saturday was this past weekend. Did you have the chance to support your local bookstore? It may be hard to remember if you’re still recovering from Thanksgiving weekend; I know I am. What with the travelling, the cooking, the eating, the family, the 6am shopping, and the post-shopping look at my bank account, it was a more full weekend than usual. Thanksgiving now seems to be all about consumerism—am I wrong or was I too idealistic before to let the $$-frenzy sneak up on me? In any case, the president and his daughters dropped by a Washington DC bookstore called Politics and Prose and bought 17 books. 17! Oh no, now I have book envy. You can read about the books that sold well on Small business Saturday here. I haven’t read any on the list, but I’m a fan of a few of the authors:

Anthony Doerr (The Shell Collector is my favorite book of short stories. Ever.)
Marilynne Robinson (By dumb luck I picked up her novel Home in a thrift store. It’s the best book I read all year.)

Going to the small business bookstore and buying a bestseller defeats the purpose. I’m thinking about all those small publishing companies … cough… August Rose Press… cough, which don’t experience much of a boom on Small Business Saturday, even though they are small businesses. What would it take to coordinate awareness of the abundance of lit mags, small presses, and self-publishers?  Food for thought, Reader.

While you’re thinking, do you have any author recommendations, Reader? I love reading someone new!