Literary Love: Keeping the Circle Unbroken

by Kurtis Kelly, Communications Specialist

Last Saturday, the annual Love Your Local Authors Festival was held to a full house in the Library’s Hondius Room. Eight hometown writers offered fascinating presentations about their works, then stayed busy signing books and visiting with eager readers. If there was any doubt about the Estes Valley’s passion for reading, one need only see the smiling faces of attendees with their handfuls of new books to take home and enjoy.

In this month of Valentines, we celebrate book love, library love, and all things literary to be cherished.

Chief among those treasures for book lovers: our local independent Macdonald Book Shop, which celebrated 90 years in business last year.

Laurie Button from the Macdonald Book Shop staff joined us at Saturday’s festival. As she noted, among the shop’s outstanding selection is a section devoted to local authors and local themes. Macdonald Book Shop has been a longtime supporter of hometown talent.

And if the Book Shop doesn’t have the title you’re looking for in stock, they’ll order it in for you: for in-print books, the title often arrives as fast—or faster—than you’d get it from one of those online sites. So why not keep the love local—and shop local!

The Library has benefitted from this long legacy of our community’s love of books. The Estes Park Woman’s Club began hosting used book sales decades ago. Our Friends group later took over the fundraiser in the early 1990s.

We repeatedly hear from book lovers how much they love this cycle. Readers purchase new books—and after enjoying them, they have several options. If the book is a ‘keeper’—one you’ll want to reference again—it finds a home on your bookshelf. Or perhaps you’ll pass that book along to a friend or family member to enjoy.

But just as often, readers enjoy re-gifting that book to the Library’s used book sales. With it comes the satisfaction that the book will be sorted by volunteers and re-sold, destined to be enjoyed by other readers, while raising some funds to enhance the Library’s services in the process.

Like the fruits of a bountiful garden, books have many lives. We’re happy to be just one part of that much larger unbroken circle.

To help keep that circle strong, the Library Friends & Foundation are preparing to open a Used Book Store this April. We’re excited to strengthen our partnerships with Macdonald Book Shop, and to help make Estes Park a place that book lovers delight in calling home, and where visitors keep coming back, relishing the joys of book-hunting during their travels.

We’re building upon our great team of volunteers to operate the future used book store. If you’d like to join in the fun and fellowship, check out our volunteer Bookstore Cashier posting at estesvalleylibrary.org/volunteer. Or simply email swalsh@estesvalleylibrary.org. 

We continue to welcome your book donations at 191 West Riverside Drive, Mondays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.