Creative Ways to Celebrate Book Lovers Day

by Lauren Lynch

National Book Lovers Day is August 9th. Why are we posting about a book lovers’ day on artofrv.com — a site that’s dedicated to RV travel, all things camping, nature photography, and art on the go? Well, first of all, we’re all about a creative approach to life on the road.

For people like me — a life-long book-lover and writer — this day can be a justification for spending a good part of the day invested in something I truly love … reading! Books are such a part of my life, I always have several physical books with me in addition to my digital collection on my Kindle or phone.

For people like my husband Patrick, who only reads for learning, or when he has to — Book Lover’s Day is an opportunity for discovery, for finding joy in reading simply for pleasure. (Well, we book lovers hope so anyway…)

WAYS TO CELEBRATE A LOVE OF BOOKS

• Buy a new book! (Take a walk on the wild side and try a genre you don’t normally read.)
• Reread one of your favorites.
• Give a book as a gift. (Or leave one in the wild to be found. See www.bookcrossing.com to track a book’s journey.)
• Visit a library. (Many even sell out-of-circulation books if you’re not able to return a borrowed one.)
• Look up the nearest Little Free Library and visit it (take a book to donate/trade).
• Visit a bookish destination (find great suggestions near the end of this post).

GOODREADS

Another book-lover recommendation is to get on goodreads.com. I love this community. It’s a great place to find your next read, to read reviews to see if it’s really as good as you’re hoping … and one of my favorite aspects: the annual reading challenge! If you want a Goodreads friend, connect with me here. Scroll down on my profile page and you’ll see my reading goal for the year, how many books I’ve read and what rating I gave each one. Hit the “view more” link and you’ll see my challenges for the past few years. I double-dog dare you to take on the challenge, set a reasonable goal and up it every year. I’d also love to connect with you on there and see what you’re reading. 🙂

ALWAYS ON THE GO? LISTEN TO A BOOK!

I love ebooks, but on a trip — when I’m hiking, driving, sketching, painting or just laying on a hammock in the shade — I also consume audiobooks. I’ve had an Audible subscription for many years and I still always look forward to that twelfth day of the month when my next credit (for one book) arrives and I get to select my next read. (Bonus: Click the banner below to get two free audiobooks, just for trying Audible.)

HINT: Audible credits get you one book per month whether it’s three hours or forty-eight hours in length, so I get my Brandon Sanderson, or other wordy authors’ books on Audible to make the most of those credits. Audible also gives members two free selections from their Audible Originals collection every month (also included in the free trial above). They always offer six very diverse books to choose from. They tend to be on the shorter side, but it’s a great way to try genres you don’t normally read — for free!

BUCKET LIST LITERARY DESTINATIONS

If you’re still at a loss as to how to celebrate, plan a visit to one of the book lovers’ destinations below … (and be sure to read the corresponding book before or during your visit).

• California
  Read East of Eden by John Steinbeck while visiting the Salinas Valley. Steinbeck’s childhood home is now the Steinbeck House Restaurant and Gift Shop and also conducts Summer Sunday Tours and The National Steinbeck Center is just a couple of blocks away. You can also visit Jack London State Historic Park in Glen Ellen to explore 30 miles of hiking trails, tour London’s cottage at Beauty Ranch, the Wolf House Ruins and the House of Happy Walls Museum.
  
• Connecticut
  Tour The Mark Twain House and Museum, a home Samuel Clemens designed and lived in when wrote his most well-known works such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
  
• Florida
  Experience frontier Florida when you read Cross Creek by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, then visit the farm where she penned her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Yearling. Going to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Historic State Park is like stepping back in time. We visited often when we lived in Florida. (You can look for their geocache box too if that’s your thing.) If you head down to Key West, you can also visit The Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum where he lived and wrote for over ten years. It is also home to dozens of six-toed cats, the descendants of the author’s own six-toed cat, Snow White. Yet another literary stop in Florida, is the Jack Kerouac house, where he lived in Orlando for a short time when On The Road was published. It is open for tours during events, but the rest of the year is home to writers-in-residence.
  
• Georgia
  Read Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, then visit her apartment in Atlanta where she wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Her first-floor apartment in a Tudor Revival mansion is now a museum on the National Register of Historic Places.
  
• Kansas
  Read Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder, then visit the Little House on the Prairie Museum in Independence, Kansas. (Visit on the second Saturday in June and you’ll also get to attend Prairie Days Festival.)
  
• Louisiana
  In New Orleans, visitors may tour the Writers’ Blocks, to see the homes and haunts of famous literary figures such as Tennessee Williams, William Faulkner and more. Stop by The Carousel Bar at the Hotel Monteleone where Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, Eudora Welty, William Faulkner, and Truman Capote hung out (it was even mentioned in Hemingway’s short story, Night Before Battle and Welty’s The Purple Hat). Their slowly rotating bar is the only carousel you have to be 21 to ride.
  
• Maine
  In Brunswick, visit the Harriet Beecher Stowe House, where she wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The Wadsworth-Longfellow House in Portland is where the author of Paul Revere’s Ride was born and raised. In Bangor, visitors can drive by Stephen King‘s eccentric Victorian mansion (at 47 W. Broadway), which is in full view of the street, but you’ll need to stay outside the wrought iron fence embellished with spiders and bats. If you love to hike, be sure to explore the Thoreau-Wabanaki Trail, the inspiration for Thoreau’s In The Main Woods.
  
• Massachusetts
  Read Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, then visit Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts where the novel was set and written. Also in Concord are the Ralph Waldo Emerson House and The Wayside (home to three literary families: the Emersons, the Alcotts and Nathaniel Hawthorne). While in the area, you may also visit Walden Pond, the inspiration for Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. In Amherst, Massachusetts you may visit The Homestead, home of the poet Emily Dickinson. And at Lenox, visitors may tour Edith Wharton’s country estate, The Mount (where there is also a writers-in-residence program). The Mount also has a beautiful forest setting in the Berkshires with hiking trails, outdoor sculpture, and scenic gardens.
  
• Mississippi
  Stop by the Tennessee Williams Home & Welcome Center in Columbus and tour the home of the playwright. William Faulkner’s house, Rowan Oak, in Oxford Mississippi was restored by the author himself. The home and 29 acres of land are open from dawn to dusk.
  
• Missouri: Read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (or Huckleberry Finn), then visit The Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum and see the places that inspired the books in Hannibal, Missouri. Interactive exhibits allow visitors to ride a raft with Huck and Jim, explore a cave with Tom and Becky, pilot a steamboat and paint the famous whitewashed fence.
  
• Nebraska
  Visit Willa Cather Memorial Prairie, the grasslands that inspired her novels O Pioneers!, The Song of the Lark, and My Ántonia.
  
• New York
  Read Leaves of Grass and visit the Walt Whitman Birthplace in Huntington, Long Island, New York. In New York City, visit Pete’s Tavern (once known as Healy’s and frequented by William Sydney Porter / O. Henry and where it is claimed he wrote Gift of the Magi). In Malone, New York guests may tour the Wilder Homestead, the boyhood home of Almanzo Wilder, immortalized by his wife, Laura Ingalls Wilder in Farmer Boy.
  
• North Carolina
  Read Cold Mountain then hike to the 6,030-foot summit near Asheville, North Carolina if you’re the ambitious type (an experienced hiker). Author Charles Frazier’s family has lived in the North Carolina hills for over 200 years and the area likely looks much as it did in the Civil War era in which the book is set (and where the movie was filmed). Located in the Pisgah National Forest Shining Rock Wilderness Area the unmarked trail is a demanding 10.6 miles. Or — view Cold Mountain from nearby Mt. Pisgah.
  
• Pennsylvania
  Tour the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site and home in Philadelphia where he wrote two of his most frightening stores: The Tell-Tale Heart and The Black Cat. You may also visit Green Hills Farm in Perkasie, where the Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Pearl S. Buck, lived for the last forty years of her life. Her stone house is now a museum and her gravesite is also on the grounds where visitors may wander award-winning gardens.
  
• South Dakota
  Read By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder, then visit the Ingalls Homestead in De Smet, South Dakota. RV Camping is available at 4 sites with water and electrical hook-ups (and a dump station on site). Tent camping, bunkhouse, and covered wagons are also available.
  
• Virginia
  Read Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry, then visit Chincoteague Island where the story is set. While on the island, the author bought a pony named Misty and took her home to Illinois, where she made fan appearances after the book became popular. After a decade in Illinois, Misty was returned to Beebe Ranch to be bred (her descendants are still there today). Tour the Museum of Chincoteague and even attend the annual swimming of the ponies in July.
  
• West Virginia
  Explore the Pearl S. Buck Birthplace Museum in Hillsboro where the Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning author lived before moving to China.
  

HUG AN AUTHOR

All authors thrive on kind words. When you enjoy a book, be sure to leave a review! It’s better than a virtual hug. If you’d like to learn more about my books, visit my website, Amazon author page or follow me on BookBub to receive alerts on new releases.

“Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn’t carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life.”

― Stephen King

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”
― Cicero
“If you have an RV and a library, you have everything you need.”
― artofrv.com

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