Patricia Storms has been offering reports and interviews on independent bookstores. Her latest report is on The Bookmark and is starting to delve into interesting description and history. I’d say that between this, The Bookstore Tourism Blog and Betsy Burton’s memoir, The King’s English: Adventures of an Independent Bookseller, indie bookstores are starting to nab their respective due for posterity. But why has no one thought to write a history of independent bookstores as a whole?
Category / Bookstores
The Bookstore That Cried Wolf?
Frances notes that Book Passage, the independent bookstore in Corte Madera, might be in trouble. It seems that a Barnes & Noble may be moving into the vacated storefront (once occupied by a Marshall’s) at the Town Center shopping mall. (At this point, Town Center management hasn’t revealed who the new tenant is.) A number of Corte Madera residents are quite upset about this.
Even so, the devil’s advocate in me has to ask why there’s so much uproar over what is, at this point, just an unconfirmed rumor. Why, for example, did the Independent Journal‘s Jim Staats fail to call Barnes & Noble Corporate or its legal counsel to get definitive answers? (Staats notes that he spoke with “Barnes & Noble spokesmen,” but judging from the article’s reliance managers at other B&N stores.) All we have then is this article are unsubstantiated rumors from the Corte Madera residents. Would not there be papers filed with the Corte Madera Zoning Administrator? City planning papers? Documents outlining any necessary retrofits of the property?
I’m wondering if there is much ado here about nothing. I’d hate to see Corte Madera literary types waste so much time over, say, another Best Buy store.
Yours Is Not to Question Why
An employee who worked at a bookstore and wrote about a Rachael Ray appearance has been fired for venturing his opinion. We don’t have cable ourselves and watch television perhaps once a solstice, but we have to agree that we’re a little skeptical about colossal attention given to someone who has created something called the “mini-cheeseburger salad.” (via Bookslut)
Indie Bookstores: Not Unlike a Bedside Manner
Bookdwarf, who is apparently more quick on the draw with my hometown newspaper than I am, points to this interesting claim by A Clean Well-Lighted Place President Neal Sofman. Sofman discovered a study of Chicago merchants illustrating that local retailers recirculate more of their sales dollars into the local economy than do chains. The study in question can be found here. If this is indeed the case, then why are the big publishers spending a substantial chunk of their promotion money placing authors into large corporate venues like Borders (and, for that matter, withholding their authors from smaller and more independent media outlets)? Would not a more targeted and devoted audience of readers more inclined to buy books and shift cash into the local economy be a more effective marketing strategy?
In Which Jennifer Weiner Is Assaulted by the Marina People
Jennifer Weiner is back home and she notes this strange question about a woman asking her at the San Francisco Barnes & Noble if she was “self-actualized.” This is not much of a surprise, as this Barnes & Noble is very close to the Marina. Such strange terminology is bandied about by residents there on a daily basis. Although for those of us in the Haight and the Mission, we would never think of asking any distinguished lady if she was “self-actualized,” as most living bipedal mammals, are by their very nature already quite actualized by way of living, breathing, thinking and feeling. On behalf of my fellow San Franciscans, I apologize to Ms. Weiner for being frightened by the Marina people and hope that the publicists book her in safer quarters for the next book.