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But as I chatted with Margaret Barber, longtime owner, I worried. She told me this has been her toughest year financially. Of course, her bookstore has suffered as most of the book industry has suffered. People are reading less. Young adults, and others, prefer to download books electronically, rather than holding books in their hands.
To add to Margaret’s troubles, some in El Paso confused the closing of another wonderful bookstore, the Book Gallery, with The Bookery. School districts and teachers stopped ordering from The Bookery, with the assumption that The Bookery had closed. Yes, the Book Gallery in El Paso closed (alas), but The Bookery in Socorro is still open, and alive. We need to support it.
Where else can you find an owner who has read hundreds of the books she sells? Who will sit with you on her porch under the rough-hewn vigas, offer you coffee, and talk about books, and the famous writers who have visited her store, and the scuttlebutt of the neighborhood? Margaret is unstintingly honest, and will pointedly let you know when an author, or his or her work, is not up to snuff in her estimation. Isn’t that what everyone wants, an honest opinion? Don’t you want to be introduced to a new author, or pointed in a new literary direction, by a book lover who possesses an uncanny memory? Let me tell you, you don’t get a Margaret Barber on Amazon, and you don’t get her at Barnes and Noble. You get her only at The Bookery.
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To open up your mind, go to The Bookery on El Paso’s historic Mission Trail, at 10167 Socorro Road. Margaret’s phone number is 915-859-6132. From I-10, you get off at Americas Avenue, follow Americas (Loop 375) until you get to Socorro Road, and then head east. As soon as you pass the Socorro Mission, The Bookery is on the left side. It is one of those places worth fighting for.