I’m going to say something that may grate on many. And yet, I’m choosing not to soften it.

If our primary way of “supporting books” is buying them, we’re practicing a form of literary virtue that feels more powerful than it is.

While our purchases directly support publishers and bookstores, they do almost nothing for the reading commons — leaving millions of people without access to the best books not because of taste, but because of cost.

That loss is silent.Ignorable.And structural.

I say this as someone who reads an average of 100 books a year and who loves authors, stories, bookstores, and the physical pleasure of books. I also say this as an avid public library user, borrowing 100+ audio books a year across genres through Hoopla ( the an amazing app many public libraries in the US use for digital lending and it is on the chopping block of public funding) — books I finish, books I abandon, books I never would have risked money on, books that surprised me into new lines of thought.

That freedom is the point.

Image credit: Veronika Andrews from Pixabay

This is not buying versus borrowing

Let’s remove this false — and deeply damaging — opposition.

Buying books is a good thing.Supporting indie bookstores is a marvelous thing.Owning and gifting books you love are pleasures worth savoring.

What I’m arguing is subtler — and more consequential:

Buying is not the only meaningful form of support. And it is not always the most powerful one.

A robust reading culture doesn’t require us to choose between market participation and public access. It requires us to recognize that they do different kinds of work.

Markets reward what sells.Libraries — like public parks — protect what deserves to be available regardless of its commercial value.

Is reading a luxury good — or a public good?

This distinction sits underneath everything.

If reading is a luxury good, access is conditional — on income, timing, storage, and confidence. If reading is a public good, access is unconditional — especially for people without disposable income or permission to explore freely.

Public libraries are what make thinking, curiosity, wondering, and dialogue public goods.

And they are not just “scale.”

Libraries are equity.Libraries are access.Libraries are participation.Libraries are individual agency.Libraries are dignity.Libraries are democracy, if you want to use the word carefully.

They are how curiosity survives even when inconvenient to market forces.

And dignity matters.

There is something profoundly different about choosing a book freely — without justifying the expense, without calculating whether it’s “worth it,” without being evaluated as a customer.

That experience confers dignity. It tells a reader: your curiosity is legitimate. Your wonder is why I write.

Circulation is not trivia. It’s leverage.

Libraries don’t guess what matters. They respond to use.

Borrowing, holds, waitlists, ratings — these are signals. All feelings we value so highly are reduced to sterile data that shapes what libraries buy, rebuy, renew, and keep available.

When you borrow a book, you are not extracting value.You are creating proof of relevance.

This is why I encourage authors — especially self-published ones — to do the unglamorous work of getting their books into public libraries. And why I encourage each of you to borrow/request your allotted fill every month!

Yes, it’s calendar monitoring and logistics and labor.

But it is also impact.

Not measured in units sold.Measured in lives reached.

What libraries make possible

Some of the books that changed me most are books I would never have purchased.

Some I didn’t finish.Some contradicted me at my core.Some opened doors I didn’t know existed.

Libraries make that possible because they remove risk. They take failure and regret out of the equation. Which is especially meaningful when the cost of books competes with life’s necessities.

Public libraries allow:

* Exploration without commitment

* Abandonment without guilt

* Curiosity without justification

What stories actually do to us

Stories have the power to make our minds malleable again.

They inform, shape, and prune — not through coercion or demand, but through offering.

Every step is purely generous.None of it is conditional on our response.

Books give to us the way only art can.

No other influence works quite like that.

Stories normalize our curiosities.They validate our questions.They show us that something we’ve never experienced is possible.

And they do this quietly — without asking us to perform belief, loyalty, or identity in return.

That is not trivial.That is formative.

This is for anyone who believes in stories

This isn’t just for people who post reading stats or yearly book lists.

It’s for anyone who advocates for books.For stories.For writing.For reading.For the strange, human magic that happens when words move between people.

If that’s you, this is an invitation — not a correction.

Now, a deeply personal plug for audio books…

I’ve shared that in my own journey through unpleasantries of adulting, I realized - after consuming audio books for 15 years — that they may be the best that tech innovation ever offered us. If you had it better than many, you had somebody read to you when you were a child… It grounded you, helped you calibrate, relaxed your nervous system enough for restorative sleep. Well, audio books are a way for me to have somebody read to me — whenever I want, for as long as and at a pace that suits me.. and that is miraculous. And a most powerful hack of one’s nervous system. Plus, now I can read AND hike, or clean my house, or do a puzzle…

Rather than a choice against anything, audiobooks render reading a delight that supplements most activities.

A more powerful reading practice

If you want a resolution that strengthens the literary ecosystem rather than just signaling taste:

* Get library cards in every location you can. This isn’t “voter fraud,” this is supporting your favorite franchise everywhere you can.

* Borrow to your limit every month. Especially books you’re unsure about. Regardless of whether you’ll listen/read. You buy a book without an implicit promise to read it — borrow the same way!

* Use the system fully. Holds, requests, digital borrows — all of it counts. Vote with your library card.

* Rate generously when something moves you. Visibility matters.

* Then respond however you wish. Buy to own. Buy to gift. Recommend. Or simply carry the book forward in conversation.

Discovery does not have to justify itself in advance.Response can come later — or not at all.

That freedom is the gift.

A closing thought

Owning books is a private pleasure.

Libraries are a public promise.

A promise that curiosity won’t be rationed.That reading won’t be conditional.That dignity is not something you have to earn before you’re allowed to wonder.

So yes — buy books.Love bookstores.Celebrate authors.

And then and also and always: patronize your public library like the future of reading depends on it.

Because it does.

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