Books as Souvenirs

“I don’t understand,” said my friend. “Do they not have books at home?”

I took his point. We were, after all, in Hawai'i, one of the world’s great paradises, and I was leaving the beach to drive our rental car thirty minutes to the other side of the island to go to a book shop. Our trip was only for a few days, and I was spending a not insignificant chunk of it in search of an item that I’d be perfectly capable of purchasing back home.

Except I wouldn’t be able to. Not really. That trip I ended up purchasing Dragonfruit by Malia Mattoch McManus, a book I had no idea existed until I went to Honolulu’s local indie, da Shop. The selection at da Shop was small, but the curation was thoughtful. There were a few kids books, a wall of the typical bestsellers and current buzzy titles. But a good third of their limited inventory was devoted to local titles and authors, a large chunk of them either self-published or from independent presses. So, hypothetically, could I have ordered Dragonfruit from the comfort of my laptop and had it delivered to my home? Yes. But I wouldn’t have even known about the title if the people at da Shop hadn’t curated it for me, if I hadn’t taken the time to carefully pour over each of the titles placed on their “Local Reads” table. So in a very practical way, no, I couldn’t have just gotten it at home.

Also, logistics aside, I consider patronizing local indies whenever I travel a mitzvah. Independent bookstores are magical. And yes, when shopping at an indie I’ll pay more for any given title, and yes, the typical indie’s selection may be less extensive than chain stores or mega websites. But it’s a way of supporting small businesses, putting money back into the local communities I’m visiting, which aligns with my personal morals. I am aware that it absolutely requires a certain amount of privilege to be able to patronize indies (they are frequently cost- and location-prohibitive). But I happen to have that privilege, and I enjoy exercising it. Which isn’t to say that my book-buying habits are purely out of moral satisfaction.

Here’s the thing, I like collecting books. I also like reading books, sure. But oftentimes my book buying has very little to do with my book reading. (That’s what my Scribd subscription is for.) For me, book buying is often a distinct and unique pleasure of its own. It’s about collecting beautiful pieces of art. I don’t buy books that I know I will never want to read, but I will frequently buy books based on how much their covers make my brain sigh. It’s about voting with my dollars to help change the kind of books that get published, the kinds of authors who get supported. It’s about romanticizing my life.

Sometimes it’s about nothing deeper than waking up to a beautiful day in an exceptionally good mood and wanting to spend it in my favorite outfit, browsing slowly for hours with a caffeinated beverage in hand, and treating myself to a pile of papery goodness. It’s also about making memories when I travel.

Correct me if I’m mistaken, but souvenirs are a thing. Last I checked, it was a widely accepted practice that when a person goes to a place that is not their home they come back with an object that serves as a memento of their time in the foreign place. When my friend bought a Starbucks mug that read “Montreal” while on her honeymoon, nobody batted an eye even though “they have mugs at home”. And yet when I decide to go book shopping while on vacation I am not infrequently given a certain amount of grief, and I just don’t get why. Almost always the books I purchase are directly related to the place I am visiting, like when I took home A Moveable Feast from Shakespeare and Company in Paris or my Penguin's Classic copy of Nicholas Nickleby from the used section of the Blackwells in Oxford. But even in the cases when the book I buy doesn’t have a connection to the location, either via subject or author or theme or something, that physical book will still remind me of my trip. When I see Special Topics in Calamity Physics on my shelf I remember stepping into the campus bookstore to take a break between classes during that semester I spent in Beer-Sheva, and when I pick up my copy of To The Bright Edge of the World I’m instantly transported back to the summer day I spent exploring Crested Butte the summer before I left for grad school.

Those memories bring me joy. And so did buying those books.