Skip to footer

Valentine's Day: Bookstores take part in celebrations

One store is having staff act out famous rom-com bookstore scenes, while another is giving a prize to someone with a great love story.

|
Romeo Ranoco/Reuters
Street vendors sell heart-shaped balloons on the eve of Valentine's Day in Manila.
  • By Molly Driscoll Staff Writer

As Valentine’s Day approaches, some bookstores are getting in on the celebrations.

According to industry newsletter Shelf Awareness, bookstore staff at the Morris Book Shop in Lexington, Ky. are acting out bookstore scenes from romantic comedies and putting the photos on their Facebook page. Facebook page visitors are encouraged to guess which movie the photos are referring to and movies that have gotten the Morris Book Shop treatment so far include “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “The Big Sleep,” and “Notting Hill.”

Meanwhile, the bookstore at the University of Texas at El Paso is also honoring the day. According to the store’s Facebook page, the store is encouraging students to share “the best campus store love story.” 

“Did you meet your sweetheart at the store? Are you buying your Valentine’s Day gift here? Got a crush on someone you see at the bookstore? Or do you love something you’ve purchased here?” staff wrote. 

Whoever shares the best story receives “something wonderful” from the bookstore.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Valentine's Day: Bookstores take part in celebrations
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2015/0213/Valentine-s-Day-Bookstores-take-part-in-celebrations
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe