I have a tradition I keep when I travel. I find and visit a local bookstore, buying at least one book and hanging onto the receipt so I know where it came from. However, spending an entire month in a UNESCO City of Literature teeming with bookstores, I wanted more of an adventure. Before I ever boarded the plane to leave the USA, I put together a list of 19 bookstores to visit: my journey through Edinburgh’s bookstores. Golden Hare was a trek up to New Town from the residence near Arthur’s Seat. It was a cute little store with a small, but mighty selection. The bookseller was a delight. I grabbed Out There: Into the Queer New Yonder edited by Saundra Mitchell and Wain: LGBT Reimaginings of Scottish Folklore by Rachel Plummer. It wasn’t until I was writing this that I realized I completely forgot The Edinburgh Bookshop. 15 bookstores in one month. No problem. As we were wandering down toward the Grass Market a couple of days later, I wandered into Armchair Books. It was stacked high with very old books and some recent, used hardcovers. The old book smell was delightfully strong in this one. There, I found a first printing of Ursula K. LeGuin’s Buffalo Gals and another poetry book, Bloodroot by Annemarie Ní Churreáin. And of course, Blackwell’s was on the way to almost everything. Yes, Blackwell’s is a huge chain, like Barnes & Noble in the USA. However, this location is also the oldest bookstore in Edinburgh, having opened in 1848. I didn’t exactly feel old, but it was very nice. Braking Day by Adam Oyebanji and The Room Between Us by Denise Saul seemed just right. Transreal Fiction was the last shop on my list, a store with strange hours and only selling sci-fi and fantasy. After visiting Rosalyn Chapel, I walked to it from the bus stop. The selection was disappointing, but I still found The Half Life of Valery K by Natasha Pulley. A little ways off I found Typewronger Books and McNaughton Books. They’re technically different stores, but connected. Typewronger is all new books and old typewriters. When I paid for Prompts by Tawnya Selene Renelle and A Psalm for the Wild-Built and A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers, the bookseller offered to stamp the books and included a little origami dragon. McNaughton’s was another old bookstore. I still managed to find Summoned by Bells by John Betjeman and The Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith. On my own later that day, I decided to make the trek to a bookstore called Cornerstone. It was a bit of a hike to the other side of Edinburgh Castle from where I was staying, but I was feeling adventurous. This is where I failed in my Google searching. Cornerstone is in the basement of a church, and it is all Christian books. If that’s your thing, cool. It’s not mine. Fortunately, Waterstone’s was on the way back. Yes, it’s another corporate bookstore, but it’s a bookstore. I felt better about the trip after grabbing Blue Horses by Mary Oliver and My Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson. All of that brought us to closing night of our show, in which our lead (and banjo player and co-writer of the show) tested positive for COVID-19, ending our run one night early. After flying home, I, too, tested positive. That wasn’t fun. That said, I managed to make it home with 28 new or new-to-me books and a litany of stories to tell. That was a lot of fun, and I still have most of them to read.
