“If bookstores were animals, they would be on the list of endangered species,” writer and historian Evan · Fries wrote in The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore. Although bookstores are on the verge of extinction, as Fries convincingly points out, bookstores are also resilient and powerful places that support communities, shape lives, and bring people together.
Fries sets the stage for his intriguing historical tour with an introduction to Three Lives & Company. Three Lives & Company is a cozy independent bookstore in Manhattan’s West Village, with hand-carved shelves filled with 6,000 books and individual booksellers who have been working there for decades, “keeping stock by hand and titles sold on yellow notepads.” Fries is more than just a loyal customer there. The bookstore closed when he married bookseller Omanda.
Freese doesn’t ignore the facts and figures, which can be frustrating for those who can’t enjoy e-Love Letters. For example, we learned that the United States Census Bureau reported that there were 13,499 bookstores in the United States in 1993; In 2021, that number dropped to 5,591. Most importantly, however, Freese is a storyteller. Each chapter introduces us to fascinating and dedicated booksellers, including the versatile Benjamin · Franklin, who owned a bookstore before the book-selling business became widespread in the colonies. Fries told us, “He was a shopkeeper selling books (retail and wholesale), a printer (sometimes a bookbinder), an editor (sometimes a writer), a marketer, a publisher, and a postmaster — in a vague role. ”
Freese goes on to review the history of bookstores in United States in chapters, including Marshall Field Bookstore in Chicago, the “first book supermarket” in the United States, and the Strand Bookstore, the last bastion of New York City’s former Book Block. Freese’s final chapter begins with Franklin, so it’s fitting to focus on another writer and bookseller: Ann · Patchett. When Patchett co-founded the Parnassus Bookstore in Nashville with Karen · Hayes in 2011, she was already a successful writer. Freese told us that Parnassus and other independent bookstores, such as Word Up in New York City’s Washington Heights neighborhood (known as the “Little Dominican Republic,” and Solid State Books, a black bookstore in Washington, D.C., have built a loyal following that (mostly) helped them through the COVID-19 pandemic—as well as Amazon.
Can the unique industry of independent bookstores survive? In many ways, Friese argues, it’s up to the reader and the book lover – up to us.
