There are many wonderful things about living in a small town. Especially when you are raising children. There are some drawbacks to it, though, and I ran face first into one of them tonight. Those who know me well know that I find book stores to be nigh unto irresistible (and I don't try to resist very hard!). My mother in law gave me a sweatshirt a few years ago with the saying "Lead Me Not Into Temptation, Deliver Me From Bookstores." and I think it's about the best thing she's ever gotten me. But I digress. One of my daughters wants "The Screwtape Letters" by C.S. Lewis. A fairly famous author and one of his more famous works. Our local library branch didn't have a copy, and she's leaving on Sunday for college, so I decided to slip over to our local 'bookstore' - and I use the term loosely - to pick up a copy for her.
Now I'm pretty savvy when it comes to locating books. So I headed for the "Classics" section. Not there. OK, maybe "Christian Fiction?" No joy. At this point I was perplexed. Was I looking in the wrong place or did they not have any copies? I finally broke down and cornered one of the young men who works at the store. And encountered an unexpected problem. He had no idea who C. S. Lewis was, and had never heard of either Narnia or Screwtape Letters. I spent a few minutes explaining the premise of the story to him....and ended up in the Science Fiction section. Once again, no luck. So finally he gave up and sent me to the person with a computer who could look it up. Finally some useful help! (This person also had never heard of the book or the author, I had to spell it for her because she kept typing it in wrong). The book was finally located (in Christian Living) and purchased, but the whole situation reinforced my feeling that this community desperately needs a real bookstore, not a coffee shop pretending to be a bookstore.
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