Today in bookstore recession survival strategies
Hector Tobar visits Los Angeles’ new tamale shop and bookstore. Mama’s Hot Tamales, which faces MacArthur Park in what some call the cradle of Los Angeles’ Central American population, is sharing its space with Librería Hispanoamérica in the hopes that the two businesses can help one another survive the economic [...]
Mark Sarvas reads at St. Mitchell’s Books & Books
My buddy Mark Sarvas is reading from his novel Harry Revised today (Saturday) at Books & Books, my hometown independent bookstore, and the place my mom took me on my 14th birthday to announce I was old enough to “stop reading garbage.”
So much has been said about the store and its founder, [...]
Drew Johnson on North Hatfield’s Troubadour Books
From time to time I’m posting bookstore appreciations from readers. Below Drew Johnson, a writer whose fiction has appeared in Harper’s and StoryQuarterly, and is forthcoming in Virginia Quarterly Review, praises Troubadour Books of North Hatfield, Massachusetts.
Bob Willig’s Troubadour Books is a plain brown building that sits behind a dirt parking lot, mixed in with [...]
Matthew Tiffany on Portland, Maine’s Longfellow Books
From time to time I’m posting bookstore appreciations from readers. Below Matthew Tiffany of Condalmo praises Longfellow Books.
Portland, Maine has a good number of bookstores, considering its small size. Along with the late (and missed) Casco Bay Books, you have Yes Books, with its amazing selection of used and rare books. (Leave your [...]
Jane Ciabattari on Sag Harbor’s Canio’s Books
From time to time I’m posting bookstore appreciations from readers. Below writer, NBCC board member and blogger Jane Ciabattari praises Canio’s of Sag Harbor.
Canio’s Books, in the former whaling village of Sag Harbor, on the East End of Long Island, is starting to come into its best season, autumn. The busy summer folks have gone, [...]
Joel Turnipseed on Micawber’s of St. Paul
The love letters to independent bookstores continue. Below Joel Turnipseed, author of Baghdad Express: A Gulf War Memoir and blogger at Hotel Zero, praises St. Paul’s Micawber’s.
Micawber’s, the last indie bookstore in the Twin Cities not owned by a millionaire best-selling author, is a little gem of a shop that has no need to [...]
John Williams on Saratoga Springs’ Lyrical Ballad
From time to time I’m posting bookstore appreciations from readers. Below John Williams, a former Harper Perennial editor now doing freelance editing and writing (and maintaining a blog at A Special Way of Being Afraid), praises Saratoga Springs’ Lyrical Ballad. (Images swiped from Book Trout.)
The last full week of every August, I visit Saratoga [...]
Jessa Crispin on Dublin’s Winding Stair bookshop
While focusing on things other than blogging this month, I’ve been running a series on independent bookstores. Below Jessa Crispin of Bookslut, just back from Ireland, considers taking up residence in Dublin’s Winding Stair bookshop.
I would like to move into the Winding Stair bookshop in Dublin. I would be perfectly happy living among the leather [...]
Mark Snyder on NYC’s Drama Book Shop
While focusing on things other than blogging this month, I’ve been running a series on independent bookstores. Below Mark Snyder praises NYC’s Drama Book Shop, ground zero for playwrights and all manner of performing arts hopefuls.
We Who Love Books are spoiled in New York with its abundant (though always shrinking) number of quirky used bookstands [...]
Jeffrey Frank on Ithaca’s Bookery I & II
While I focus on things other than blogging this month, I’m running a series on independent bookstores. Below novelist and New Yorker editor Jeffrey Frank (author most recently of Trudy Hopedale) praises The Bookery of Ithaca, New York.
The Bookery is actually two stores — Bookery I and Bookery II — a few steps in [...]
Justine Larbalestier on Buenos Aires’ El Ateneo
While I focus on things other than blogging this month, I’m running a series on independent bookstores. Below blockbuster YA author Justine Larbalestier praises the magnificent El Ateneo of Buenos Aires’ Barrio Norte.
The most beautiful bookshop I have ever seen is El Ateneo in Buenos Aires. It’s a refurbished grand theatre and as you can [...]
Liz B. on Portland Maine’s Casco Bay Books
While I focus on things other than blogging this month, I’m running a series on independent bookstores. Below Liz B. praises Portland, Maine’s Casco Bay Books.
A few years ago, I moved from Portland, Maine, to the other Portland, you know, the one with Powell’s. I live in the city that houses one of the [...]
James Tata on Portland’s Powell’s Books
While I focus on things other than blogging this month, I’m running a series on independent bookstores. Below writer James Tata praises Powell’s Books of Portland, Oregon.
It’s not too much of a stretch to say that I live in Portland because Powell’s Books is here.
When I first visited Portland as a tourist in [...]
Michael Gorra on Hamburg’s Bücherstube Stolterfoht
While I focus on things other than blogging this month, I’m running a series on independent bookstores.
Below Michael Gorra, a critic and Smith College English Lit professor, recalls visits to his favorite Hamburg bookshop, the Bücherstube Stolterfoht, where he yearned for every volume although (or maybe because) all but the children’s titles were [...]
Michael Kennedy on Kenny’s Bookshop of Galway
While I focus on things other than blogging this month, I’m running a series on independent bookstores. Below Michael Kennedy, a writer and former journalist living in Tokyo, remembers Kenny’s Bookshop of Galway, Ireland, which closed its doors in 2005 to sell exclusively online.
Since my connection to Ireland is one generation removed, I have [...]
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