Just ask Judy Gardner for great, unusual summer reads. She’s sold more than 300 customers on this fascinating medical book

Bricks-and-mortar bookstores will never disappear. Why? Because of people like Judy Gardner.

Now, many experts will tell you traditional bookstores are threatened by online giants like Amazon. The same folks happily predict the imminent demise of the printed book, with an ever-increasing number of people downloading electronic books to their tablets and e-readers.

Why, what could be more perfect than all your summer reading, at the cottage or on the road, stored on a device half the size of a paperback novel?

But online ordering and downloading misses a crucial ingredient: the personal relationship with a skilled bookseller, or should I say book selector. In this case, Judy.

Whenever I go into the Indigo Books store in Calgary’s West Hills shopping centre, I immediately go searching not for books but…