How about you?

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Given that you’re reading a post about bookstores written by a word nerd fromGrammarly for HuffPost Books, we can safely assume that you’re a reader. So where do you buy books?

A few years ago, your answer was probably a big box chain like Borders, Barnes and Noble, or online superstore, Amazon. Local independent bookstores were on the decline, and it seemed only a matter of time before they became a quaint relic of the past – like soda fountains or knowing your neighbors by name.

When Borders closed its doors in 2011 after 40 years in business, many saw it as the beginning of the end. Waldenbooks and B. Dalton, two of the largest bookstore chains, had already shuttered, leaving Barnes and Noble and discount chain Books-A-Million to duke it out in the brick-and-mortar bookstore space.

But then something remarkable happened. It turned out that reports of the death of the indie bookstore were greatly exaggerated.

In part because of the vacuum left by the closing of big box stores and in part because of the groundswell behind the “Shop Local” movement, independent bookstores are actually on the rise. The American Booksellers Association reported an eight percent growth in sales in 2012, and those numbers have continued to steadily, modestly climb.