Great towns, great books: Road trip!

Today I set off with my friend Stacy on a six-day road trip to visit almost two dozen indie bookstores in seven states. Our first stop was my beloved local indie, One More Page, where owner Eileen McGervey and bookseller Lelia Nebeker greeted us with a bottle of sparkly Cava for the road (oh, don’t fuss, we didn’t pop the cork until we were done driving for the day).

Then we headed to the quaint town of Sykesville, Maryland, where Stacy repeatedly said, “Oh, my God! This place is adorable!” Sykesville is a delight. It’s anchored on one end by a railroad station built in 1883 that now houses Baldwin Station restaurant, and Main Street is filled with a variety of shops and eateries, including the Salazon Chocolate Company, where I bought A LOT OF CHOCOLATE (dark chocolate with sea salt and crushed organic coffee was necessary, to help us stay alert for the drive). Main Street is also home to A Likely Story, a great indie with a friendly owner, Debbie Scheller. She’s owned the store for eight years, and hosts a variety of in-store book clubs and other fun community events. She talked me into buying Liane Moriarty’s  The Husband’s Secret.I can’t wait to go back to Sykesville. Stacy may move there.

Baldwin Station restaurant, housed in the old Sykesville railroad station.

Next stop: Baltimore’s Ivy Book Shop, where we talked books for almost 45 minutes with owner Ann Berlin. What she’s reading; A Fort of Nine Towers, by Qais Akbar Omar, a memoir she described as even more gripping than a Khaled Hosseini novel, and A Marker to Measure Drift, by Alexander Maksik, which she said is one of the best books she’s read. Coming from the owner of a bookstore that carries 27,000 titles, that’s high praise. After that, we went next door to Bonjour, a coffee shop in a purple house. On to Pennsylvania!