Communities are built upon the shoulders of independent bookstores
On "How to Save Bookstores and Why: The present and Future of Bookselling" by Danny Caine
The first time I go to Storyhouse Bookpub, I am meeting owner Abigail Paxton about an event her store is holding in partnership with my workplace. I walk in and immediately feel hugged by the L-shaped space, a cozy children’s nook to my right, books taking up nearly every inch in front of me. We sit near the front of the store and chat. Abigail is serenely cheerful, dressed in bold colors and a sweet smile. She greets every customer that walks in.
My second time at the bookstore, it’s the night of the event. A reading by a local author, Carol Roh Spaulding, someone my nonprofit holds dear. Her fiction explores living at the intersection of multiple identities, and digs deeper into the Korean-American heritage of which she knew little. Abigail is already close with Carol, they smile and hug, old friends. She leads us to the upstairs of Raygun, the t-shirt store next door, where they hold their events. There’s at least 25 people there, and nearly everyone stands in line to buy Carol’s book after the reading.
The third time, I’m with my sister and we’re showing my mom around our region, which she will move to with our dad a few months later. We asked her what she wanted to experience in her new home — the local bookstores topped the list. We each buy a few books. Mine include Yellowface by R.F. Kuang, and How to Protect Bookstores and Why: The Present and Future of Bookselling by Danny Caine, a book that solidifies my belief that places like Storyhouse Bookpub are the most important cultural institutions in our communities.
Danny Caine is a writer based in Lawrence, Kansas, where he also co-owns the Raven Bookstore. He published a zine in 2019, “How to Resist Amazon and Why,” and the updated version in 2022 made waves in the conversation around tech and monopolies. “How to Protect Bookstores” is a continuation of that conversation around what we value, the degradation of our communities by giant tech, and the importance of spaces that allow us to share ideas and engage thoughtfully in our community.
Caine profiles 12 independent bookstores and their owners. He travels across the country (and even to Paris) to understand how they’re innovating to meet the bookselling world of the 2020s.
What he uncovers is that bookstores are simply refining the work they’ve been doing for decades: building a literary community within which thoughtful, caring people are able to exchange ideas and learn to think in more critical and expansive ways, leading to a more just and understanding society.
Every ounce of that community building can be traced to the booksellers like Abigail who care deeply about literature and the way its shaping society. To browse for books on Amazon is to be fed through an algorithm with the express goal of making a horrifyingly rich person horrifyingly richer. To browse for books in an independent bookstore is to be thoughtfully guided to the exact book you need by someone who understands the power of their product.
That product goes far beyond the Colleen Hoovers and Nicholas Sparks of the world. Authors like Kaveh Akbar and Percival Everett and Lucy Ellman and Kim Coleman Foote and Kelsey Bigelow and millions of other writers outside of the mainstream find their audiences here. It’s where small presses like Two Dollar Radio Club and Biblioasis (both profiled in the book) and Milkweed Editions can publish bizarre, brilliant, impactful authors that HarperCollins and the like wouldn’t look twice yet.
These bookstores are places that are, as Caine writes, “creating a world of books beyond those appear on Walmart’s shelves.” More voices in literature have a place to sing; we better understand the world because of it.
Bookselling is a tiresome job that often does not pay well. Owners are fighting an uphill battle against Amazon (although booksellers like Nina Barrett of Bookends and Beginnings of Evanston, Illinois are charging fearlessly into that battle). Across the country, a homophobic and racist sect are fighting to destroy our access to literature and our right to feel seen and valued in the art we consume.
Bookstores across the country remain unwavering in their belief that access to literature is vital to the health of our society. They spend each day ensuring their stores remain a place where anyone can come and feel hugged by the books on their shelves.
Birchbark Books & Native Arts in Minneapolis passes on Native cultures by selling Native literature and art.
A Room of One’s Own in Madison, Wisconsin, operates their store with “a bold and proud celebration of all trans people and their stories.”
Writers find space and freedom to write at Shakespeare and Company in Paris in exchange for labor and a short piece about their stay for their historical archives.
Loyalty Bookstores, a Black-owned bookstore in Washington, DC, continued to provide drag story hour for families in the face of violent and hateful protests from white supremacist groups.
Source Booksellers in Detroit prioritizes exemplifies what it means to ground your practices in building community, as evident by owner Janet Webster Jones explaining, “The community is people, and the people are the customers, and we want to serve them in all kinds of ways.”
And there are places like Storyhouse Bookpub, a nook tucked into Des Moines’ East Village, that have built a warm and comfy space for families and strangers and everything in between to gather around a love of reading. For local writers to share their gifts. For cultural conversations to reach new ears. For language to show us new ways of loving and living and existing.
The Midwest Creative is a proud member of the Iowa Writers Collaborative. Please consider a subscription to my brilliant colleagues’ work to support storytelling across the state of Iowa. All of these authors provide content for free, with paid subscription options. Pick one or more, and help sustain this movement.
And then there’s our favorite, Beaverdale Books, a stalwart supporter of the Okoboji Writers’ Retreat and a community asset in the Greater Des Moines area.
I’m old and really miss the days when I lived near multiple bookstores that catered to different perspectives and audiences. Bookstores are businesses and the people that run them must make a living. In order to do that they cater to people of privilege. Who else can wander in and spend $50 or $100 on full-priced, hard-covered books? I wish them well, but the places that build community are the public libraries. That’s where the poor kids get books and go to story time. That’s where the homeless people read a magazine and warm up in the winter and cool down in the summer. That’s where the senior citizens get their taxes done and go online to sign up for Medicare.