“You can take the girl out of the bookstore,
but you can’t take the bookstore out of the girl.”
The more I sit with that phrase, the more I realize why it still feels so true. It’s not just about where I worked for nearly two decades. It’s about what books do to you once they’ve had time to settle in. They stop being objects on shelves and start becoming part of you. Stories, ideas, histories, hobbies, curiosities. Fiction and nonfiction. Books about lives wildly different from your own and books that feel uncomfortably familiar. Over time, they take up residence inside your life, shaping who you are and how you move through the world. Once that happens, reading isn’t something you do anymore. It’s something you breathe.
What’s important to say here is this: I wasn’t always “that kind of reader.”
I loved books growing up, but I wasn’t the kid who always had one in her hands. We didn’t have a home library or shelves overflowing with novels. But books were always there, quietly. At the library. At school. On the edges of my life, waiting patiently. And that matters. Because you don’t have to grow up surrounded by books to grow into a life shaped by them.
My path into the book world wasn’t planned. But once I was there, it felt like home in a way I hadn’t expected. Bookstores do something subtle to you. They train your curiosity. They teach you how to wander without an agenda, how to notice what you didn’t know you were looking for.
And that’s something algorithms can’t replicate.
Online, you’re shown more of what you already like. In a bookstore, you’re invited to grow. You drift past tables, covers catch your eye, a sentence pulls you in. A book finds you, one you never would have searched for on your own. Discovery happens sideways. And that kind of discovery changes you.
It also changes how you think about a TBR (To Be Read) pile.
Mine have always been endless… and that’s a good thing. A TBR isn’t a to-do list. It’s a reflection of curiosity across a lifetime. Some books are for right now. Some are for five years from now. Some you’ll return to again and again, only to find they mean something entirely different each time.
You were never meant to read every book you want to read. A TBR pile isn’t pressure, it’s a possibility.
And rereading? That’s not failure or stagnation. That’s a relationship. Stories grow because you grow. A book that once comforted you might later challenge you. Another might feel like coming home no matter how many times you return to it.
That’s what I want this space to hold.
Within the Bookends exists for readers who love books but don’t always recognize themselves in the way reading is often talked about. This isn’t about numbers, challenges, or keeping up. It’s about awe. About wonder. About giving yourself permission to read for yourself and no one else.
Because reading isn’t about how much you read.
IT’S. THAT. YOU. READ.
It’s about letting yourself step into someone else’s life for a while and coming back changed in ways you can’t always name.
So welcome.
If any of this feels familiar, you’re in the right place.
Within the Bookends 