Spotlight on Bookstores: Constellation Books; Reistertown, Maryland

This week’s Spotlight on Bookstores is written by Heather, a wife, mom, and avid reader.  She reviews a wide variety of books at her blog Age 30 – A Year of Books and also posts with her kiddo about their Mom & Son Book Club. In addition to running a fabulous in-real-life book club, Heather is a contributor to the Reading Group Guides blog.

“Heather Johnson: Ambassador of Books, Book Club Madam, and Blogger Gal”

I had never heard of Indie Book Stores until I started my blog.  Come to find out, Indie is just a cool way of saying “independent” … as in, not part of a huge chain store.  Aha!  How lovely.  So I did a search for Indie bookstores in my area and guess what?  There ain’t many.  Yes, there are some in Baltimore, but I don’t go into the city unless I have to (I’m just not a city girl).  Other than the city, my only choice was a town about 30 miles away. 

I checked out the website for Constellation Books; I signed up for their newsletter.  Every week I get a brief update on events at the bookstore and every week I say I’m going to take a ride up there to check it out.  It seems that there is always some little event going on, with cookies, tea or wine being served.  Sounds lovely, doesn’t it?

One evening in July, my plans were suddenly cancelled.  I remembered that Constellation Books was having Irish Music that night so I grabbed kiddo (he’s 6) and we hopped in the car for a 45 minute ride to the store.

Let me say right now that the store is lovely.  It’s in an old house so there are different rooms to check out.  Kiddo immediately plopped into the beanbag chair in the Children’s Books Room; he could reach from his spot to snag books from the bottom shelf without getting up.  I wandered through the rooms munching on the complimentary 7-layer Italian cookies and hot apple cider (my FAVORITE things!)  All the time we were serenaded by a one-man-band playing Folk and Irish Music. 

After browsing and snacking for a while, I checked on kiddo.  He was still rooted to the same spot.  Eventually he got up and walked around, but only to request some of his favorite Irish songs and sit up next to the musician. 

After a while we had to make decision on what books we were going to buy.  Kiddo’s decision was easy – he wanted one of the first books he’d taken off the shelf.  Together we picked out two books for his cousins; my sister had her 2^nd baby the night before, so we were getting a baby book and a big brother book.  Then it was my turn, and of course I’m not easy.  I was trying to decide between non-fiction, my first venture into Steampunk (that caused some raised eyebrows.  Even the musician said “It’s not every day you hear someone ask for that!”), or a book from my TBR list.  In the end, store owner Lauretta led me to a book that didn’t fit in ANY of those categories and I chose that one.  Of course.

I left the store with my new customer loyalty card already 1/2 way full (a full card gets you $10 off), a happy kiddo, a happy self, and a strong desire to magically move this store closer to my house.

If you’re ever in the greater Baltimore area, stop by and say “hi” to Lauretta at Constellation Books.  Snuggle in to the big white couch in the Fiction Room, browse the Bargain Shelf, and munch on some goodies.  You’ll enjoy her store, I guarantee it!

(Note from Dawn:  nothing says “great book shopping experience” better than cookies, cider, a happy child, a helpful bookseller, and a bag full of books - Constellation Books sounds like a great place to visit, again and again!  Readers, is there a special bookstore you’d like to see featured in the Spotlight on Bookstores series?  Contact me, using the tab above!)