Now is the time of year that regional associations of independent booksellers put on trade shows.

At these events booksellers shmooze with each other, and with publishers, sales people, and, sometimes, authors. Authors make speeches at buffet breakfasts, and often say good things about independent booksellers.

Speaking near Valley Forge to the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers this past weekend was author Libba Bray. Here is part of her wonderful 'Ode to the Independent Bookseller'.

Independent booksellers rock.

They are a cup of black coffee, straight up no chaser, in a half-caf vanilla-hazelnut with-whipped cream kind of world.

When you walk up to independent booksellers and say, with deepest apologies, 'I'm looking for this new book about the Victorian era and I can't remember the author's name but it has Glass somewhere in the title,' they do not roll their eyes and send you to the purgatory of the information desk -- that circle of hell not described by Dante. No, they smile and say, 'Why, I think you're looking for 'The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters' by Gordon Dahlquist.' Because they know everything.

Independents are the Iggy Pop of the book biz -- on the edge, a little dangerous, cooler than you will ever think of being, and still alive despite the odds.

Instead of the T-shirts that trumpet, 'I do my own stunts,' they wear the shirts that say, 'I do my own thinking.' The badge that says, Hello My Name is Book Lover. The tattoo that reads, I Sell Banned Books -- Ask Me How!

Independents are the personal recommendation. The word of mouth. The informed opinion. The debate. The discourse. The dissent. The punk rockers. The patriots. The hopeful realists and, occasionally, the pie-eyed dreamers, because sometimes we need to be reminded of that. They are the opposite of apathy. The ones who would raise their hands and say, 'But . . . about those weapons of mass destruction . . .'

(Independent booksellers) are the ones who take aside disaffected, snarky seventeen-year-old girls from Texas, and even though that seventeen year-old girl might be wearing a Devo-inspired, orange jumpsuit and heavy black eyeliner that she thinks makes her look like Chrissie Hynde but really just makes her look like she's been on the losing end of a bar fight, they say nothing but steer her instead toward Douglas Adams and Thomas Pynchon, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and The Stranger, Woody Allen and Amiri Baraka.

They are the openers of doors. The carnival barkers to exotic, new worlds. The Book Whisperers. They are charming dinner companions, and they always bring good wine.

Being around independent booksellers makes you feel smarter by association.

They are the good guys. They kick it Old School. They are the truthful friend who will say, 'Honey, that book makes you look fat.'

They are the front porch, the off-ramp, the scenic route, the handshake agreement. Independents understand that books have souls. They can put their ears to the bindings the way children put their ears to shells and hear the beating heart inside. And they treat our books accordingly, handing them off lovingly to others with a passionate appeal: 'This one . . . listen . . . '

They do not want an author's soul to be remaindered.

It is not easy to be an independent these days. It is an age of twenty-four hour sound bites, of product and packaging and a thank-you drive-through-please marketplace, of 'truthiness' and cynicism masquerading as patriotism, of lies and betrayals that challenge the ability to stand fast in independence.

As we sit here in Valley Forge, staring across the glittering forever highways of America to the historic land just beyond, it is a stirring reminder that this was a nation founded by independents. And it feels no less a radical, necessary act to me today to be a champion of books -- to champion ideas, to explore the myriad complications of the human heart, to examine the individual not out of context but as part of the larger human story. We have never needed the independent spirit more than we do right now. It is necessary work, and I humbly thank you for it.

That is quite a speech. I have to say that I am proud, very proud, that I have had the opportunity and the challenge to be a professional independent bookseller for the past two and a half decades and more.

Aired Sunday September 24, 2006 at 10:55 am and Wednesday, September 27, 2006 at 8:40 am

Orders/Information:

The speaker, Libba Bray, won NAIBA's children's literature award for her novel Rebel Angels. It is reported that she read this Ode to the Independent Bookseller to a very appreciative audience.

Currently in hardcover: Rebel Angels by Libba Bray. Hardcover Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers. $16.95 ISBN 0385730292.

From the publisher: "Gemma Doyle is looking forward to a holiday from Spence Academy -- spending time with her friends in the city, attending balls in fancy gowns with plunging necklines, and dallying with the handsome Lord Denby. Yet amid these distractions, her visions intensify -- visions of three girls dressed in white, to whom something horrific has happened that only the realms can explain. The lure is strong, and soon Gemma, Felicity, and Ann are turning flowers into butterflies in the enchanted world that Gemma takes them to. To the girls' great joy, their beloved Pippa is there as well, eager to complete their circle of friendship. But all is not well in the realms -- or out. Kartik is back, desperately insisting to Gemma that she must bind the magic, lest colossal disaster befall her. Gemma is willing to comply, for this would bring her face-to-face with her late mother's greatest friend, now Gemma's foe -- Circe. Until Circe is destroyed, Gemma cannot live out her destiny. But finding Circe proves a most perilous task. This sumptuous companion to A Great and Terrible Beauty 'teems with Victorian thrills and chills that play out against the rich backdrop of 1895 London, a place of shadows and light ... where inside great beauty can lie a rebel angel.'"

Rebel Angels will appear in paperback for $9.99 in December, 2006.