Bookstores, libraries, and other literary souls have long been safe harbors for ideas, community, and other dangerous ideals, so I always have to check them out when I stumble across them, even if it’s just a cursory glance.
Right now, Oklahoma City has about five or six raging independent bookstores holding firm to the true spirit of mass literacy—charging head-first into the wracked sternum of total commercialism, ever battling mega stores like Barnes & Noble.
That’s why it was an absolute pleasure to discover—in the white-bread, chicken-fried, MAGA-wonderland of Guthrie, Oklahoma—a new bookstore in an old town that revels in the ideals of what should make America great, A Novel Idea on 116 W. Oklahoma Ave.
But, sadly, not everyone in town appreciates folks who read good... or read at all.
Before the excited owners could cut the grand opening ribbon and say, “Imagine that!” a small band of feral internet crusaders began denigrating the owners, the staff, and, even worse, the customers, all in the name of a shit-brown red wave on a cheap ball cap.