this wasn't in the plan |but life is still pretty good

I often take my boys to Barnes & Noble so they can play at the train table in the children's section. I always do a bit of browsing through the books while I'm there (and don't normally buy anything), but my most recent trip was a little different. This last time I went specifically to look through a book that I didn't want to buy and only wanted to look through.

I'm currently working on getting my teaching certification up to date, and to do so I need to take one more test. I know that there's a more intensive study guide out there and I wanted to look through it, but not buy it. So I took found the book and then looked through it while the kids played with the trains. Going specifically to look at a book that I wasn't going to buy felt strange, much more so than just picking up a random book.

I know that bookstores encourage browsing to some extent - there's couches and chairs everywhere after all - but I think they usually prefer that you buy something. Any time I do need to buy some books (I just bought a bunch for birthday gifts for my son's friends), I seek out Barnes & Noble specifically because I like the fact that they offer that fabulous train table for the kids. And actually, I might have bought some books during this last trip (they had some that we really like on their buy 2 get 1 free shelf) if I would have had my wallet with me!

What are you thoughts on bookstore browsing?