Nancy Scheemaker, general manager of the Northshire Bookstore, Saratoga Springs, N.Y., wrote to us: "We enjoyed Shelf's Bookstore Chalkboard of the Day on 2017 Reading Resolutions so much that we were inspired to create a version of our own. An ordinary interoffice bookstore e-mail chain unfolded as the team responded to the concept. Booksellers always have a story to tell about their reading lives, don't they?"
Scheemaker shared a recollection from Northshire bookseller Jennifer Armstrong: "I read a book about something I knew nothing about, and 10 years later I was celebrating New Year's Eve at the South Pole with some super-nerds and some ice core drillers from Australia. It was weird, but on the plus side I toasted the start of 2004 with twenty year old Scotch over 3,000-year-old ice. Some books should have warnings on them 'may change your life.' "