Previously, I have written about one of Nashville’s more interesting features. The fact that famous people can be seen almost anywhere at anytime. Several months ago, we saw Nicole Kidman at the mall, and, many years ago, I met Johnny Cash in a bookstore.
Well, it happened again, and it happened in a bookstore. However, I must first give a little background.
There used to be a great locally owned bookstore called Davis-Kidd Booksellers. It was an amazing place where people could get lost in the shelves of books. Unfortunately, Davis-Kidd went the way of many bookstores and closed its doors.
People throughout the area lamented the loss for all kinds of reasons. However, a main reason was that Nashville had lost a treasure. One Nashvillian was particularly taken aback. Ann Patchett is a bestselling author who felt that the city needed an independent bookstore and decided to open one across the street from where Davis-Kidd once attracted readers.
The other day, I finally made it into Parnassus Books and found another amazing store. It is not as large as Davis-Kidd, but it is a place where book lovers can get lost in the written word.
I was browsing the shelves when I overheard a customer talking to one of the people working in the store. As the conversation continued, I thought to myself, “Hey, that is Ann Patchett.” She was working alongside everyone else. How cool was that?
It was not long before I saw the writer once again. She was part of the sing along that closed the last episode of The Colbert Report.
If you are a lover of books, then you need to make your way to Parnassus Books. Who knows? You might run into a bestselling author.
SBI: A Thinning Crowd 
There is a bookstore like that in Vineyard Haven on Martha’s Vineyard. It was a great spot for meeting authors, especially because so many summer on the Vineyard. I love bookstores. I MISS bookstores.
I hope bookstores survive and don’t go the way of record stores.
I hope so too!
It will survive on the Vineyard. It’s a book reading sort of place. But as for everywhere else, book stores are an endangered species. If not extinct.