Bookstores are about people. Connie Brooks runs Battenkill Books with her mother Marilyn. I will be uploading stories and photos from the bookstore on my Ipad and taking photos with my camera. This is about people. And our choice: do we wish to live only in a digital and corporate world, clicking on our purchases with no human connection to the creators of them?

Sometimes that works. I just bought a cheap suitcase online for $50. Great. I didn’t need to talk to the machine in China that made it. Books, among many other things are different. They are about ideas, connections, imagination. They nourish the soul. I go into Battenkill and Connie and Marilyn suggests books to me, and help me choose them. Important to my soul.

So I’m heading there shortly for the phone calls, people bringing books and the Christmas Parade coming right out the door. Vote for people, affirm the importance of people in our lives. Corporations are not the only entities worthy of concern. This Christmas, people all over America are voting for community bookstores. This is one community “connection” that corporations will not wash away, I believe. You can call me at 518 677-2515 or Connie at the same number and order my books or any other books. Or e-mail her online at www.battenkillbooks.com You can occupy your local bookstore, if you can’t occupy this one.