Independent bookstore

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Independent bookstore is a term used in to identify bookstores that are primarily owned and operated by local people. They tend to have strong ties to the community and are frequently involved in non-profit community events as well as in cultivating the work of young writers. Independent bookstore selection tends to be more esoteric and less mainstream than chain bookstores.

Independent bookstores are under considerable financial pressure due to competition from amazon.com and other online sellers, chain bookstores, mass market sellers (Costco, BestBuy), and even publishers themselves. Thousands of bookstores have closed in the past decade and there have been recent high-profile independent bookstore closures (the original Cody's Books on Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, California, A Clean Well-Lighted Place for Books in San Francisco and Printers Inc. Bookstore in Palo Alto). In some cases, the community has risen up to save an independent bookstore that threatened to close (Kepler's Books in Menlo Park and Cover-to-Cover Books in San Francisco).

Contents

[edit] Literary history

Independent bookstores have historically supported and cultivated the work of young authors and poets, often acting as literary salons. This sometimes includes promoting or publishing works that might have otherwise not been published.

[edit] Shakespeare and Company

One of the most famous examples is the Shakespeare and Company (bookshop) in Paris during the Sylvia Beach period in the 1920s. During this era, the store was considered to be a center of Anglo/American literary culture in Paris. The shop was often visited by authors belonging to the "lost generation" such as Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein and James Joyce. The contents of the store were considered high quality and reflected Beach's own literary taste. Shakespeare and Company, as well as its literary denizens, was repeatedly mentioned in Hemingway's A Moveable Feast. Patrons could buy or rent books like D. H. Lawrence's controversial Lady Chatterley's Lover, which had been banned in England and the United States.

[edit] Ulysses

It was Sylvia Beach who published Joyce's book, Ulysses, in 1922 through Shakespeare and Company. The book was subsequently banned in the United States and United Kingdom until 1933. Shakespeare and Company published several other editions of Ulysses under its imprint in later years.

[edit] City Lights

Another example is City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, California which was founded in 1953 by Peter D. Martin and Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Ferlinghetti became its sole owner in 1955, and started City Lights Publishers that same year in order to publish what he called "an international, dissident, insurgent ferement." Among the writers it publishes are the Beat poets, including Jack Kerouac, Gregory Corso, and Allen Ginsberg.

[edit] Howl

In 1956 City Lights published Howl & Other Poems as number 4 in its City Lights Pocket Poets Series. Ferlinghetti and the bookstore manager, Shigeyoshi Murao, were arrested on an obscenity charge for publishing and selling the book. With the aid of the ACLU, the book was vindicated in court, the judge ruling that the work was not without redeeming social importance. In The Fall of America, Ginsberg describes City Lights as "home."

[edit] Printers Inc. and The Golden Gate

A contemporary example is the now defunct Printers Inc. Bookstore (1978-2001) which was located in Palo Alto, California. Noted author Vikram Seth wrote portions of his first work, The Golden Gate in the cafe of the Printers Inc. bookstore and references both the bookstore and the cafe in sections 8.13 and 8.14 of The Golden Gate.

[edit] Contemporary issues

American supporters of independent bookstores, such as the American Booksellers Association are often critical of corporate booksellers like Barnes & Noble and Borders Books and Music (the #1 and #2 book retailers in the U.S. as of 2005). They criticize these chain stores for dominating the bookselling industry with their large stores, discount marketing, and sales of non-book materials like CDs and DVDs.

The aggressive growth and marketing efforts of such chains are often blamed for driving independent bookstores out of business. Independent bookstores also face competition from mass merchants and discount department stores like Wal-Mart, Target Corporation and Kmart, as well as from smaller retailers like grocery and drug store chains.

[edit] Online bookstores

Some independent booksellers have begun to sell books online to compete with Web-based booksellers like Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com. For example, the American Booksellers Association's Book Sense program features a website (booksense.com) allowing independent bookstores to participate in a common virtual online storefront. Others, such as Powell's Books, had a web presence before Amazon.com.

[edit] Bookstore Tourism

Bookstore tourism, a grassroots effort and marketing tool initiated in the U.S. in 2003, is aimed at raising the visibility of independent bookstores by promoting them as a group travel niche.

[edit] Partial list of well-known independent bookstores

[edit] Popular culture

  • The 1988 film Crossing Delancey starring Amy Irving, takes place in an independent bookstore.
  • The 1998 film You've Got Mail starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan explores the difficulties faced by an independent bookseller competing with a large corporate bookstore. The look of Meg Ryan's store was inspired by Books of Wonder in Manhattan. Ryan worked at the store as part of her research. The film was a remake of Ernst Lubitsch's film The Shop Around the Corner. Ryan's store is named after the 1940 movie.
  • In the 1999 film Notting Hill, actress Anna Scott (Julia Roberts) falls in love with independent bookstore owner William Thacker (Hugh Grant) whom she meets when she comes into the bookstore.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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