Parnassus Books in Nashville, TN

Parnassus Books is one of those very cool little indy book shops you should get to for many reasons. 

I think it is fascinating because an actual real author owns the place.  This is Ann Patchett's store.  I personally don't read a lot of modern fiction, but I did make a point to pick up one of Ann's books while we were here (it seemed like the appropriate thing to do).  You can get any of her releases here and each one is signed!

My wife and I ended up spending a good chunk of time here.  We arrived one morning just before a children's story hour.  We saw a LOT of young kids coming in with their parents.  The story hour here attracted a large crowd.  I must say too that, though the back area/children's section was crowded with children, they were all VERY well behaved and pleasant.  It is nice that this book store offers story time.  It is also nice to see so many parents taking advantage of this.  What a valuable free service they are providing!

While here, I picked up a SIGNED Al Gore book for my Presidential (or, almost Presidential) collection.  My wife found a cute shirt with the bookstore's logo on it for a reasonable $15 or so.

I noticed on their website that they do a TON of author signings, and they stock a lot of signed books.  I love that sort of thing.

I also noticed by the counter, that they sold small matchbooks with book covers on them.  The display showed a "Fahrenheit 451" matchbox.  I checked, and they were sold out of this one.  I really wanted to buy that one though- just because of the irony of buying a F451 book of matches...  at a bookstore.


Anyway, we ended up having a very pleasant conversation with the staff there as we paid for our items.  These are people that care about books.

This is definitely the kind of book store to splurge at if you visit.  Pick up a signed  book for yourself that you can't find anywhere else.  This is a special bookstore where you can still find a special book.