I cut most of my ties with Amazon last year. I still occasionally have to order something at work from them, and every time I tried to export my Goodreads data to StoryGraph, it crashed it, so I’m still trying to figure out how to make that work without losing that information. But I canceled Audible and Prime, and to celebrate, I wanted to spend 2025 focusing my book shopping on indie bookshops. Since this was the year I turned 50, the goal I set was to buy 50 books from independently owned bookstores.
That’s a lot of books. Even for me. Yet I prevailed.
I already knew 24 of them were in the bag, because I get a book a month from each of my subscriptions from Nowhere Bookshop in San Antonio. I had hoped this year to actually visit them in person (and also to see my friend Hope) but then Dad got sick, my reliable car became not so reliable, etc. The final straw that told me this year was not the time was when the weekend I wanted to go the most was the same weekend as UNT Fall Preview. Of course, it was. So I settled for supporting them from afar. But I think 2026 is our year, Nowhere! I can feel it!
Part of my plan was to also hit several of my favorite bookstores I’ve visited before on the way to or from San Antonio:
- Deep Vellum in Dallas
- The Wild Detectives in Dallas
- Fabled in Waco
- BookWoman in Austin
- BookPeople in Austin
But while I still ordered a few books from Deep Vellum, actually visiting these places didn’t happen either.
I also had plans to go to Neighbor Books in McKinney, a relatively new bookshop in their cute downtown area that looks amazing online. But we went on a Monday, and I didn’t think to check if the bookstore would be open then. It wasn’t. Womp, womp.
So where did I go? I’m so glad you asked.
- The Plot Twist Book Bar – Denton’s romance shop where I rounded out a fairytale retelling series and my Rebel Blue Ranch collection
- Patchouli Joe’s – a popular Denton indie where I bought several books on my birthday and then ended up later in the year joining their new fantasy book club.
- Magic City – took my new car for its first road trip up to Tulsa to see Travis Baldree read from his new book Brigands and Breadknives and then proceeded to buy several more books.
- Green Feather – a little side quest in Norman on my way home from Magic City. I will definitely be going back, because it was fantastic and also there are other Norman bookshops I want to visit. It’s close enough it could probably even be a day trip.
- The Larry McMurtry Literary Center (formerly known as Booked Up) – While I missed wandering the whole labyrinth of the building, I still found a couple of treasures and got to talk to one of the folks in charge about what they’re doing with the space.
With a little re-routing of my original plan, it was still a successful year supporting small businesses and bookish projects. And I got a lot of really great books out of the deal, too!
M. Suzanne Terry 