The paperback edition of Mudbound was released March 17, so I’m touring again. Last week I did a three-day whirlwind pass through the Midwest, with events at Anderson Bookshop in Naperville (a Chicago suburb), Shaman Drum Bookshop in Ann Arbor and Harry Schwartz Bookshop in Brookfield (a Milwaukee suburb). Wonderful shops all, especially Harry Schwartz, which I’m sad to report closed its doors today. Like many independent bookstores, they got killed by the one-two punch of amazon and the economy. I’ll confess that I used to have a bad amazon habit myself, but being on book tour and meeting so many lovely, knowledgeable, passionate indie booksellers has caused me to mend my wicked book-buying ways. If we don’t support our local bookstores, we soon won’t have any, and then where will we go to hang out and browse, and who will be there to say, “You have got to read this book, Hillary, I know you’re going to love it”?

So, dear readers, please renounce the anonymous online megastores, spend the few extra bucks and buy from the bookstore around the corner. Which in my case is the wonderful Oblong Books of Rhinebeck.