An aggregation of thoughts on the non-death of independent bookstores

By Ted Streuli, June 24, 2020

As the world comes back to life, prematurely and with consequences, perhaps, like Dr. Frankenstein’s creation, there’s a run on, or to, our favorite retail crannies: independent bookstores.

The horror of squeezing past fellow bibliophiles in the mystery aisle with far less than the requisite six feet available isn’t driving us to buy more Kindles. The fear of who else might have touched this dust jacket is proving no deterrent, although Michigan libraries are frustrated with borrowers who are microwaving — and damaging — the books.

“Reminder that KDL will quarantine returned materials for 72 hours,” one branch of the Kent District Library reminded patrons via Facebook, posting with a photo of a book with a hole burned through multiple pages. “The pictures below show what will happen when you try microwaving a book. The radio frequency tags in all KDL materials have metal in them. They will catch on fire in the microwave.”

Independent booksellers were enjoying a comeback before the pandemic. According to the American Booksellers Association, America had 2,524 independent bookstores in 2019, up 53 percent from the 1,651 that existed in 2009. As the diseases and government-ordered shutdowns spread in March, there was fear those numbers would drop like the price of a 10-year-old encyclopedia.

But indie bookstores decided to fight Amazon on its own turf, turning to online sales and virtual events. Fortuitously, Bookshop, a shoestring web startup that peddles books online for independent shops, launched in January. The pandemic was such a boon, owner Andy Hunter told Wired he expects to hit $6 million in sales in his first year. He also expects sales to fall as stores reopen.

Browsing a bookstore remains an experience we love, Kindle downloads be damned.

Alex Marshall’s June 17 New York Times story about the June 8 resurrection in London was full of hope, as the top of his piece suggests:

Just after 10 a.m. on Monday, Cathy Slater, the owner of Dulwich Books, stood waiting to welcome her first customers into the store in months.

Bookstores in England were allowed to open their premises on Monday for the first time since the country went into lockdown in March. Slater said she was overjoyed to be back and had prepared especially: There was a vase of flowers on a table by the entrance, and a huge bottle of hand sanitizer on the counter.

The first customer wasn’t what she had hoped for. About 20 minutes after opening, a man stuck his head around the front door, and shouted, “Do you sell Post-it Notes?”

But at 10:30 a.m., another customer, Helen Boome, arrived and headed straight to the children’s section. “Is it OK to touch?” she asked. After getting the all-clear, she grabbed a book about Greek myths for her son.

Within minutes, Olivia Holmes walked in wearing a face mask. She was looking for “The Redeemed,” by Tim Pears, the final part of a trilogy set during World War I. Then another customer arrived, and a fourth loitered at the door: A sign in the window said, “Maximum of three people in the shop.”

The atmosphere was vibrant, if a little constrained. And it was a vibe that echoed at five other booksellers in the capital.

The story was enriched by some terrific photos; following the link above will be worth the click.

In a June 13 column for Britain’s The Independent, Lucie McInery described her pent-up exuberance for bookshops, pointing out that while we escape into a book’s story, it’s also rejuvenating to disappear into a bookstore:

When I was growing up, our weekend routine would start early on a Saturday morning in Bewley’s Cafe on Grafton Street in central Dublin where dad would buy me a chocolate doughnut as breakfast. Such indulgence at that hour of the day would make my mother’s toes curl. But with dad, it was allowed, nay, encouraged, as it gave him permission to follow suit. Once fed and watered, we would troop around the corner to the enormous Hodges Figgis bookstore on Dawson Street – and there we would remain, sometimes for hours, perusing the shelves and making our choices of what to bring home. It’s one of my favourite childhood memories and, to this day, I love nothing more than losing track of time in bookshops.

Bookstores in Washington, D.C. will reopen Monday, just in time to put John Bolton’s tell-all on display. And in another odd bit of lucky timing, black-owned bookstores are so busy they’re struggling to meet the demand for books about racism. The topic has been a boon for independent bookstores generally, but a widely shared recommendation to buy those titles from black booksellers resonated with customers.

“We have had a huge financial boost,” Danni Mullen, the owner of Semicolon Bookstore, told The New York Times. “We went from moving 3,000 books a week to 50,000 books a week.”

In another Times story, Mullen said Semicolon Books survived March and April thanks to orders for racism-related titles she got through Bookshop.

The Kindle is no more a threat to books than an elevator is to stairs. The bookstore obituaries were published prematurely, written by those who underestimated our love of books and our passion for dusty, introverted, passive-aggressive retail outlets owned by smart people who skipped the retail marketing class and instead built cheap wooden shelves serviced by hand-me-down book carts. When the virus came the edict was to stay home and read a book, a directive we’ve longed for since we discovered the Boxcar Children.

To understand the depth of that passion, consider Kate Gale’s contribution to the Huffpost, in which she wrote:

I was living in my car in New England and wasn’t making enough to move indoors, but I had the hatchback of my car set up with a sleeping bag, a pillow and along the sides my little row of science fiction. Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, Carl Sagan and Ursula K. LeGuin. I felt very rich with all of my books. When I met my husband, we compared homeless notes. Where did you put your books in your car? How many did you have? We had both found a used bookstore and started a collection before we had a place of our own.

Take a pandemic and season it with a Black Lives Matter movement and add a pinch of well-timed entrepreneurship. Maybe it’s divine intervention or a re-animating lightning strike, but indie bookshops might not be on the endangered business list after all. And thank God for that. I couldn’t have spent the whole pandemic streaming Gilmore Girls.