Back in the late 80s/early 90s, I used to travel a few times a year to give LaTeX seminars and one of the things I would do was get the local yellow pages and (don’t tell anyone) rip out the pages that listed all the local bookstores and then I would proceed to go to every single one of them.

Boulder, Colorado had a great selection of bookstores. I remember going into one bookstore and being puzzled when I not only couldn’t find any of my favorite authors on the shelves, but I had never heard of any of the authors. It wasn’t until I left the store and turned around and looked at the store again that I realized it was an adult bookstore (I think it was named something like Kitty’s Books and the signage as to its nature was subtle).

Another fun moment was visiting a bookstore/cafe/literacy center in New Orleans and picking up a self-published game there called Cartoon Wars on the recommendation of the clerk on duty. I flipped through it back at my hotel room and realized it was created by someone I went to college with.

When I visited the UK, I came home with so many books, I had to declare my purchases at customs. Fortunately, I didn’t have to pay any import duty on them.