The funny bookish things we do
This morning I’m here to tell you about a discovery I’ve come upon recently. (P.S. This is a long one with heaps of book photos!)
It’s about how certain things can drastically change when a person reaches the mid-range of life — tastes, preferences, wardrobe choices, reading material, shoe size, habits, hobbies, politics, personality traits, etc. Everything is up for grabs.
Some of these changes can come on a person quite suddenly, while others sort of creep their way in slowly until one day you wake up and realize there’s this funny thing you do now and you don’t know exactly how it started but you sort of love it, it sort of feels like the real you somehow, and you sort of want to keep doing it for the rest of your days.
That second way is how I started visiting small indie bookshops in every city I visit and on special occasions and buying at least one book (with the bookshop’s signature bookmark if possible) to mark my travels, my personal celebrations, and my whims.
It’s been going on for years now — and thanks to this funny bookish thing I do, I now have books and bookmarks from indie shops in Amsterdam, Chicago, Providence, Savannah, San Diego, and all over Maine and New England. And every time I see these particuluar books on my shelves, I think about the trip I was on, who I was with, and what I was celebrating. And it brings me so much joy. Here are just a few examples⤵
In 2022, I took a trip to NYC for my 40th birthday and ended up with a “blind date with a book” purchase of Leave the World Behind from the Strand and realized I like thrillers every now and then.
In early 2020, I spent a few months in Asheville and picked up The Call of the Wild and Free after seeing it on a shelf in our rental, and it became one of my go-to parenting books. Still is.
In 2024, I spoke at a conference in Amsterdam and picked up the UK copies of two of my very favorite Emily Henry novels, People We Meet on Vacation and Beach Read at Waterstones. I’ll never forget how much fun my sister and I had looking at all of those UK covers!
This past winter, I spent the day in Portsmouth, NH with a couple of girlfriends and picked up This is a Love Story at Book Nook. The book wasn’t exactly my favorite, but I think of my friends whenever I see it on my shelf and it reminds me to text them.
In 2025, while in New Orleans at a conference for work, I snagged a fresh copy of Fahrenheit 451, which sent me into a dystopian novel-reading phase that helped me cope a little better with my country’s political madness and turmoil that year (and this year, too).
Last fall, I took one of my boys to Providence, RI for a college tour at RISD, and I found Hot Desk at Symposium Books downtown. It was a DNF for me, but I’ll keep it on my TBR because that trip was something I never want to forget.
A few summers ago, I spent the day walking around Southwest Harbor on Mount Desert Island in Maine, and I struck gold by finding a dog-eared copy of Last Child in the Woods at a little free library downtown.
Last fall, I spoke at a work conference in San Diego and was super sad to find their indie bookshop closed during my free hours. But I snagged a sweet little copy of Today Was Fun at the airport, which turned out to be a super-good read and completely on-brand for the work I do.
When my niece came to Maine for her 16th birthday last summer, we took a quick indie bookshop tour of Portland and I snagged a hardback copy of Atmosphere — a TJR novel I was obsessed with on audio last summer and couldn’t wait to add to the bookcase of my dreams the hubs had just built for me at home.
In the fall of 2024, when my little family sold our first home in Maine and set out on our #ontheroadagain adventure to find a (hopefully) permanent home base, I bought a copy of How to Read a Book by Maine author Monica Wood, and it helped me stay grounded in ways I can only describe as miraculous. I’ll never forget this one.
The winter of 2020-2021 was my family’s first “true” winter, the first time we’d ever spent the winter months living in a truly cold place with real snow (Maine). So when the hubs and I took a tiny road trip to Belfast, ME for our anniversary trip that year, I pulled him into a little bookshop downtown and bought Wintering by Katherine May — a must-have for anyone making their home in cold climes.
When my oldest son declared his major at art school as Woodworking & Furniture Design, I was so happy that I threw myself a private celebration ceremony by driving to Camden, one of my favorite little coastal Maine towns, and scouring the shelves of their gorgeous bookshop Owl and Turtle for a copy of Why We Make Things and Why It Matters — a book about a furniture maker who founded a now world-renowned furniture school in Rockport.
Two winters ago, while visiting Portland to grab some much needed face-time with my college kiddo, I picked up How Books Can Save Democracy while waiting for a seat at our favorite Portland poutine shop. Not only did I love the book, but I wrote an article about it that earned a feature in Oh Reader magazine this past January. So grateful!
Something really fun I found during our 2024 #ontheroadagain adventure was a sweet little used bookshop in a small rural Maine town where I picked up The Witches of Bone Hill. It was the perfect spooky-ish novel to read for fall feels, and every time I see it on my shelf I think about that little town, the used bookshop, and the big feelings I was feeling that fall.
In March of 2025, while spending a month in coastal Georgia, we got the news that our offer had been accepted and we’d officially be buying a sweet little house in the mountains of western Maine. One day, the waiting became absolutely unbearable and I was missing Maine so much that I took myself to Righton Books on Saint Simons Island and bought Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout. It absolutely did the trick, and I’ve loved it ever since.
This past weekend on a super fun Quebec City 40th birthday adventure for my sister we found exactly one indie bookshop with a small corner shelf full of novels in English, Librairie Pantoute. So of course, we spent a luxurious hour or so there picking up book after book until we settled on Crescent City (for me) and Field Guide for the Formerly Villainous (for her, mostly because it has a gorgous mushroom spray edge).
There are more, of course, but hopefully that’s enough for now:)
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I can’t help but wonder, is there a funny bookish thing you do?
Does it catch you off-guard when you catch yourself doing it again and again? Or have you fully embraced it as part of what makes you a little more you these days?
Whatever it is, I hope you embrace it. I even hope someone in your life notices the funny things you do and the way you embrace them, and they start embracing their own selves too.
These tiny pleasures, they’re contagious.
They might even be contagious enough to change the world.
Wherever you are this weekend, I hope you find yourself with a stolen moment or two to slow down a little, breathe deep, and take it all in. I hope you have a chance to see yourself as beautiful, gorgeous even, not because you’re following some trend or wearing the latest whatever, but rather, because you’re recognizing the mysterious beauty that accompanies everyone who embraces who they truly are ~ especially the ones who are so free and so themselves they transcend the trends.
& should you want to chat, I’m around :)
✌🏼️💓 🪴📚
Celeste
This is me in Quebec City last weekend ~ one of the many new photos added to the photo gallery portion of last week’s message (link here).