This statistic warmed my heart on Saturday: “Australians bought 55 million books at a value of more than $1.1 billion, an increase on the previous year.” (Neilsen)

Despite the advent of e-books, the arrival of Amazon and the 2011 closure of Angus and Robertson and Borders, Australia’s 600+ independent bookshops are “far from disappearing,” Helen Pitt reports in The Sydney Morning Herald.

Pitt quotes Joel Becker, Australian Booksellers’ Association Chief Executive: “Video didn’t kill the radio star, television didn’t kill reading, e-books didn’t kill real physical books and Amazon hasn’t killed the local bookstore… Australian readers still love going into a bookshop to buy books.”

As Bram Presser writes in “Spectrum”, bookshops “have weathered the storm and come out stronger.”  This is the best news I’ve heard all week!  I’m no Luddite and I love my Kindle, but Bookshops and libraries are my oases.  A sense of calm and tranquillity comes over me when I enter.  I feel I’ve come home, which is exactly the feeling I want to give to my clients and their families through facilitating life story writing.