Just what the neighborhood needed

July 23, 2022 9:14 PM

Some Surprising Good News: Bookstores Are Booming and Becoming More Diverse “Yu and Me Books is one of more than 300 new independent bookstores that have sprouted across the United States in the past couple of years, in a surprising and welcome revival after an early pandemic slump. And as the number of stores has grown, the book selling business — traditionally overwhelmingly white — has also become much more diverse.” (archive)
posted by jimw (24 comments total)

This is good news. And it gave me an idea. I'm thinking of moving to #smalltown#. Less than 1000 people but some passing trade and one big annual event. 'I could open a bookshop!' I thought. Googled "#smalltown# bookshop" to discover there's not one, but two bookshops already, each around a theme. And you know what that means don't you... Yup, room for a third.
posted by Thella at 12:42 AM on July 24, 2022 [15 favorites]

Not to be discouraging but several, well a bunch, of years ago I had a local shopping pamphlet with all the bookshops in Harvard Square (Cambridge, Ma). Wish I'd kept it, over 30 in a ten block radius. Now 3 (5 counting comic shops). This in one of the most bookish areas anywhere.

And oh gosh do I get an existential guilt pang everytime I walk past, kindle in my back pocket.

There are a bunch more in the metro area, several that hit the general theme of this wonderfully optimistic article. The very best way to find new cool (and old cool) is browsing in a well curated bookstore. I do think the surviving shops contain much more interesting selections, tuned with care to the local demographic.
posted by sammyo at 5:43 AM on July 24, 2022 [2 favorites]

It's definitely something I've noticed around me - Ames didn't have any decent bookstore when I moved there in 2016 (it had a mediocre Books-a-Million - it seemed like a college town could do better than that, even a college town full of engineering and computer science majors) and now it has an excellent independent bookstore that has multiple book clubs. Des Moines has at least one more good independent bookstore than it did. (It's very small but well-curated.) I used to buy almost exclusively ebooks, because of how often I move and how much I dislike moving large quantities of books, but lately I've been buying a lot from Dog-Eared Books in Ames because I want them to continue to exist, even though it's a 90-minute round trip.

I do wonder whether it's a sustainable trend or whether it's propped up by people buying "emotional support piles of unread books" and people who - like me! - are prone to buying books out of guilt and optimism and the notion that buying books - and specifically, buying print books at independent bookstores - is a Good Thing To Do. But I appreciate the heck out of it.
posted by Jeanne at 6:05 AM on July 24, 2022 [9 favorites]

Harvard Square has its own problem -- unchecked gentrification inflicted by the ultra-rich and power brokers who send their get to Harvard. Still, your point stands.

I saw a meme the other day complaining about going to a bookstore for books and only finding puzzles and calendars. As someone who grew up in the '90s hearing about the imminent death of bookstores and print, I am glad to see them survive on any terms, at least any they set themselves.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:27 AM on July 24, 2022 [2 favorites]

I think that it really depends on the bookstore. Kinokuniya is always packed when we go in. Katy Bargain Books seems to still have a steady flow of customers, even though they had to downsize from their freestanding building to a store front in a strip mall. Meanwhile, both Half Price and Barnes and Noble have closed stores in our area.
posted by Spike Glee at 6:29 AM on July 24, 2022

I definitely noticed a rise in “anarchist” bookstores which are also mutual aid hubs but that is possibly selection bias on my part.
posted by Cyber666 at 6:57 AM on July 24, 2022 [5 favorites]

Folx here love and cherish the Seminary Coop in Hyde Park, Chicago. They recently converted their business into a non-profit-- a model others might like to follow. Providing new books on a wide variety of subjects IS a public service.
posted by homerica at 6:58 AM on July 24, 2022 [6 favorites]

The love of hard copy books is resilient. I haven’t bought a non-digital book in ten years and my wife ditto … but our teenage daughter LOVES them. Not only reading them in that form. but enjoying them as decorative objects.

This piece definitely had the feel of a lot of NYT business reporting - very subject to Sunday Styles or Real Estate section conversion of anecdote to trend. The better explanation for how someone could open a bookstore in Manhattan in 2021 is not a resurgence of interest in hard copy books but landlord desperation. I bet the proprietor is on a 2 year lease or sublease and will be out of business when she’s shown a renewal at 3x the rent for ten years which requires a personal guaranty.
posted by MattD at 7:09 AM on July 24, 2022 [11 favorites]

I'm delighted and also not surprised by this. Last year, the PTA of my child's elementary school raised $60k via a read-a-thon including sponsorships by the local city council (and a sex shop - haha) and over $1k of books purchased from a local independent bookstore for the teachers. This is not a fancy shmancy school. There is a lot of support for reading, education and books right now for *arm waving* reasons. Previously they had an annual walk-a-thon that raised a tiny %age of that. Books mean something to people right now, particularly for people with children in their lives.
posted by Toddles at 7:46 AM on July 24, 2022 [3 favorites]

I've noticed this here in Canada too, although it seems to be less about new bookstores opening than about some who were struggling before now thriving. A lot of them really connected with their communities during the height of the pandemic lockdowns. One small one, which I had not visited often, gained a lot of customers by doing deliveries, hosting Zoom-based readings and book clubs etc.. They have my loyalty now and for the future, and I'm sure I'm not alone.
posted by rpfields at 7:57 AM on July 24, 2022

The near-death of the small independent bookshop started when the giant chain bookstores started opening in suburban malls back in the 1970s & 80s: Borders, Barnes & Noble, etc. With Amazon driving those places out of business, I’m hoping there's space for independent focused booksellers to build back a bit.
posted by Galvanic at 8:07 AM on July 24, 2022 [2 favorites]

I bet the proprietor is on a 2 year lease or sublease and will be out of business when she’s shown a renewal at 3x the rent for ten years which requires a personal guaranty.

That was my first thought—she’s out when they raise the rent. I do think people want bookshops that are also community spaces, but looking at places like Bluestockings and Cafe Con Libros, there’s a lot of fundraising involved and it’s not possible to survive on books and coffee.
posted by betweenthebars at 8:33 AM on July 24, 2022 [3 favorites]

The only bookstore within a reasonable distance of me is a sleepy little used store that does a lot of its business online, with collectors. They survive by owning their building, and are standoffish and suspicious of browsers (I think they're worried about people front-running their inventory) but I love them anyway and missed them greatly when they closed down for the first year and change of Covid.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:02 AM on July 24, 2022 [1 favorite]

Our suburban town of 25,000 has three bookstores, one long running store with primarily children's books, one newer Black-owned store with a focus on representation in their books, and the south's oldest feminist bookstore (operated as a non-profit and hosted on the campus of Agnes Scott College), plus Columbia Seminary has their own bookstore, and there is an independent used bookstore and a Half-Price both just outside the city limits. There's also a great store just over the line in Atlanta that hosts most of their readings at the Carter Center, including when Jimmy has a new book come out. I don't know if DeKalb County, Ga is an unusually literate place, or if it's just actually a good time to run an independent bookstore.

Meanwhile, the Barnes and Noble just a few miles up the road in Atlanta recently closed because of increased rent, and the Waldenbooks at the mall closed many years ago like pretty much everything else in the mall.
posted by hydropsyche at 9:32 AM on July 24, 2022

Things like this will never survive long-term unless we find a way to outlaw landlords.
posted by liminal_shadows at 10:19 AM on July 24, 2022 [2 favorites]

The annual San Diego Book Crawl (map), starting on Independent Bookstore Day (April 30) is neat: 11 San Diego Independent Bookstores, 3 days, 1 passport, and you!
posted by Iris Gambol at 10:22 AM on July 24, 2022 [2 favorites]

The love of hard copy books is resilient. I haven’t bought a non-digital book in ten years and my wife ditto … but our teenage daughter LOVES them. Not only reading them in that form. but enjoying them as decorative objects.

I wonder if this is an effect of the rise of Bookstagram and Booktok. Those are visual media, and there's a lot of focus on the aesthetics of books, even just as background decoration. You can't pose in front of a bunch of digital books, and you can't turn face out the ones that define you as a reader.

Honestly, I almost never buy books from bookstores these days, although I do order from bookshop.org sometimes. (I've decided not to order books from Amazon anymore. I'm using Kobo for ebooks, which may not be any more ethical and is a worse user interface, but it makes me feel better.) It's partly that my taste has gotten too esoteric (and frankly lowbrow) for the local independent bookstore, and I feel like they'd sneer at me if I special-ordered my lowbrow, esoteric books. It's easier to order from bookshop.org.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:25 AM on July 24, 2022

We've seen a few of these in Seattle, and some friends recently moved out east to start (or rather save) one in Vermont. I love em and always find something new in their curation and styles. I hope it can be made sustainable and they may need side businesses to stay alive, whether that's selling online or providing other services, but I am happy to hear the trend at least exists!
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 12:28 PM on July 24, 2022

Something else I wonder is if the recent trend on Amazon where it can be literally impossible to buy an actual, non-counterfeit hard copy version of smaller run books is helping the independents.
posted by rockindata at 4:02 PM on July 24, 2022

Kew and Willow Books, a woman-owned bookshop launched with a crowdfunding campaign, has been operating successfully in Kew Gardens, Queens, for a few years now. It's one of the only independent bookstores -- really, one of the only bookstores, period -- in the borough.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 4:32 PM on July 24, 2022 [1 favorite]

Rockindata,

Can you elaborate on what Amazon is up to?
posted by njohnson23 at 4:43 PM on July 24, 2022

Here is a recent twitter thread by François Chollet, the author of a Python programming book.

I've been asked about this a lot, so let me provide a quick FAQ.

Q: What's the nature of the issue?

A: Anyone who has bought my book from Amazon in the past few month hasn't bought a genuine copy, but a lower-quality counterfeit copy printed by various fraudulent sellers.

There was an nytimes article about counterfeits displacing real copies as well, I’ll see if I can find it.
posted by rockindata at 5:22 PM on July 24, 2022 [1 favorite]

The counterfeit book issue is not new, here is the nytimes article from 2019 that describes basically the same issue.
posted by rockindata at 5:25 PM on July 24, 2022

Not to be discouraging but several, well a bunch, of years ago I had a local shopping pamphlet with all the bookshops in Harvard Square (Cambridge, Ma). Wish I'd kept it, over 30 in a ten block radius. Now 3 (5 counting comic shops).

Bit of good news there, at least for the Boston area as a whole. One of those three stores, the Harvard Book Store, recently announced it's opening a second branch, which will be like four times the size of the current store, in the Prudential Center across the Charles - more specifically, in the space Barnes & Noble gave up a few months ago (granted, the store's main investor now is John Henry, yes, the Boston Globe and Red Sox John Henry, but still).
posted by adamg at 8:23 PM on July 24, 2022 [1 favorite]