Most of the bookstores we visited on the trip were independent, or bookstores that don’t belong to a chain. There are a few chain bookstores in the US—Barnes and Noble, Books-A-Million, 2nd And Charles, and Half Price Books. The first three are all found within 30 minutes of my house. Pittsburgh has two Half Price Books so we stopped at both. We had to!
When going to book events, it’s always important to check if you’re allowed to bring personal books or if you have to buy them at the event. At Readers On The River you could bring your own books or buy from the authors. I didn’t have prep time to acquire many of the author’s books so it was time to go hunting. Half Price books was our best bet in finding some of the authors.
The authors at Readers On The River were a mix of indie, traditional, and hybrid authors. We decided to see if we’d find any cool editions by some of the authors.
I saw this cool copy of Thinner by Stephen King. I decided to not get it.
I did leave with a Stephen King though. This was published through Cemetary Dance, a specialty horror and dark suspense publisher. Founded in 1988 by Richard Chizmar, CD is known for their hardback releases, particularly their lettered and signed editions. The price was an absolute bargain. I love finding valuable books out in the wild. This was the only book I bought from the first Half Price Books.
At the second Half Price Books I found a few R.L Stines and a book by one of the attending authors! I never read the Fear Street books when I was small, so after the Netflix movies came out I decided to start collecting them. They’re just challenging enough to find in the wild that it makes it fun.
This was the last chain bookstore we stopped at—from here out it was all indies.
Kristian Beverly 