The following letter went out to the mailing list for Longfellow Books yesterday, and I thought it was so lovely and touching that I asked to pass it along here via my blog.

Dear Friends,

Happy belated New Year.  It’s a quiet, cold Sunday morning at Longfellow Books and I’m reading the Sunday paper. I turn to the Audience section of the Press Herald and glance at the Bestseller List according to Borders. I am shocked and pleasantly surprised at how different this list is compared to Longfellow’s bestsellers. I look over at our display of our top 100 best-selling books of the year and I begin to do some analysis.

Bestsellers list are all about numbers. Out of 100 books, 39 of our best-selling books are either written by local writers, published locally or are about the issues that confront this community. Of these 39 books we sold almost four thousand copies. I am astonished and glad. Independent bookstores should honor the local and I believe we have done that well  from the day we became Longfellow Books over 7 years ago. We have hosted over 100 author events this past year; as booksellers at the PPL Brown Bag Reading Series, at SPACE and at our store. We have served over 150 bottles of wine and countless cookies baked by our dear friend, Phyllis Rogers. We have gone through 27 boxes of dog biscuits, one dog at a time.

It is really not about numbers at all. Not this store, not our lives. It is about the quality of our existence.  About how we feel when we wake up and face the day. And today I feel proud and grateful and more committed than ever to honoring the local. I am grateful to the writers, publishers and all those who work to produce the written word. I am grateful to you, our customers and friends; those of you who ask, “How are you guys doing?” It truly is comforting that our customers are aware of the enormous challenges facing independent booksellers and, more important, that you want us to succeed. And then you come back to us, some of you daily, some weekly and choose to spend your money here, buying locally. I am proud to sell books in this intelligent, creative, caring little city by the sea.

Sally, from Wigon Office Supply (Free Street, 75 years in business, no computer), interrupts this writing as she arrives for her Sunday Times. We talk of books, and weather and, as she leaves, she asks me if I want any coffee from Arabica. Sally knows that this is a small shop and that I am alone. And she offers a simple, caring gesture. And that is community.

So here is hoping that the New Year brings all of us good things. That we continue to talk and take care of each other. And that we work together to sustain and enrich our little place in the world.