Of bookshops and bookselling

While independent booksellers these days may seem like David taking on Goliath, their spirits remain undaunted. Armed with creativity and passion, these brave individuals are not merely keeping our bookshops open—they are revitalising them. Their ideas, told through this blend of memoirs, historical fiction, and contemporary narratives, show their resilience and innovation.

1.    Consider crowdsourcing. Alba Donati in her Diary of a Tuscan Shop (2022) wrote that, “Ideas don’t just spring out of nothing – they smoulder, ferment, crowd our mind while we sleep. Ideas walk on their own two legs, follow their own parallel path in a part of us we have absolutely no idea existed, until one day they come knocking: here we are, they say, now listen carefully! The idea for the bookshop must have been lying in wait, ensconced in the folds of that dark and joyous country we call childhood.” Alba knows what she’s talking about. In 2020 she left Florence and put up a bookshop she named Libreria Sobra La Penna in Lucignana, a beautiful Tuscan town with a population of 180. Thinking out of the box, she raised funds for the bookshop through Facebook’s crowdfunding.  Opening a bookshop on a craggy little hill is challenging, but the obstacles Alba faced were even greater. The bookshop got partially burned and Alba had to do another round of crowdfunding. Then Covid hit. Despite all these challenges, Libreria Sobra La Penna was named one of the 20 most beautiful bookshops in Europe. Alba’s memoir is replete with charming stories of her childhood and life in the village. It also has a listing of books ordered and bought by her readers (note, she does not refer to them as “customers”) so this book leads to other books.

2.    Join a meet-up site and launch a Book Jam. If Alba was living a frenetic life as a book publicist in Italy, Nanako Hanada in Japan was starting to question the life she was living. She had just separated from her husband and her job at the Village Vanguard bookstore has lost its lustre. To find herself, she joined a meet-up site where her chosen persona was a manager of an unusual bookshop who recommends books “perfect for you”. Interestingly enough, this was a novel concept, and she attracted a lot of hits. This led to a friendship with a book/bar owner who allowed her to run a Book Jam where a customer got to sit at a table with Nanako and two others who would recommend books based on a customer’s question. Eventually, Nanako got her bearings, and she now runs her own bookshop.  The Bookshop Woman by Nanako Hanada (2024) is the author's personal story and comes with several book recommendations.

3.    Move to France, get a mentor, be a publisher. Sylvia Beach, American, with a capital of US$3,000 opened Shakespeare and Company, in Paris, in 1919. Her English language bookstore and lending library was largely inspired by her partner Adrienne Monnier who energetically run La Maison des Amis des Livres. The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher (2022) is a marvellous read on the beginnings of Shakespeare and Company, the writers in the 1920s and 30s (Scott Fitzgerald, Earnest Hemmingway, James Joyce fans, take note) who supported the establishment, as well as the complexities of the publishing business. This historical fiction book provides a lot of insights on how to keep the business meaningful, afloat, and relevant.

4.    Faithfully respond to customers, no matter how eccentric they are. 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff (1970) is collection of letters between Helene, an American writer living in New York at that time, and Frank Doel, chief buyer for Marks and Co., a London antiquarian bookshop. There is formality and seriousness at the beginning of the correspondences between the two which developed into banter and concern. During Britain’s postwar shortages, Helene would send food and personal effects to Frank’s family and staff of Marks and Co. The letters resonate with a deep love of books and the lengths to which people will go to acquire them.

5.    Operate the bookshop from a houseboat; put the right novels to appropriate ailments. The Literary Apothecary in The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George (2013) offers diagnosis and book therapy. When Jean Perdu, bookshop owner, becomes unmoored (literally and figuratively), there ensues an adventure that’s a bit of Barbery's "The Elegance of the Hedgehog", Jonasson's "The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared", and Greene's "The End of the Affair" (minus the pathos). There are also recipes and a list of the prescribed books from the Literary Apothecary at the end of the book.

6.    Have a bookshop with a secret backroom. The Forgotten Bookshop in Paris by Daisy Wood (2022) has two stories running parallel: Jacque and his La Page Cachee bookshop in the 1940, a time when being Jewish was a kiss of death; and present-day Paris where Juliette, fed up with her husband’s infidelities, rebuilds her life by opening a bookshop.

7.    Get Tumblewoods to help you out. Jeremy Mercer in his memoir, Time Was Soft There: A Paris Sojourn at Shakespeare and Company (2005) recounts his time at George Whitman’s Shakespeare and Co. bookshop. In exchange for a few hours help in the bookshop, read a book per day, and write a one-page autobiography, writers who find themselves homeless in Paris can have temporary lodgings at Shakespeare and Company – the bookshop’s Tumbleweeds. This memoir is as much as Jeremy as George’s story. The bookshop which opened in 1951 was originally called Le Mistral. It was renamed Shakespeare and Company in 1964 on the 400^th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s birth and after getting the nod from Slyvia Beach to use the name of her bookshop (Sylvia had to close her bookshop when Nazi Germany occupied Paris in 1941). If Sylvia Beach was a force of nature, George Whitman was an equally compelling and extraordinary character.

8.    Have extraordinary projects on the side (but don’t get caught). Camino Island by John Grisham (2017) is not your usual Grisham novel. Bruce Cable operates Baybooks, a popular bookshop in Camino Island, Florida. He indefatigably organises book launches, keeps up to date with writers, networks, and is always in his bookshop bright and dandy to attend to customers. Baybooks, much as it runs like a well-oiled machine, has a backstory. In Amor Fowles’s Table for Two (2024), Timothy Touchett did some work for Peter Pennybrook, purveyor of Used and Rare Editions which significantly catapulted Peter’s reputation and revenue in the bookselling business. These two stories provided me much entertainment. But Virginia, don’t go there.

9.    Have a room above the shop. In Days at the Morisaki bookshop by Satoshi Yagisowa (2010), Takako accepts her Uncle Satoru’s offer to live at his bookshop rent-free. This bookshop has been in the family for three generations. Takako gradually warms up to the arrangement, starts reading voraciously, and offers to work at the bookshop. This book reminded me of how I felt reading Haruki Murasaki's Norwegian Wood the first time - but with a more optimistic ending. Who wouldn't want to have an uncle like Satoru who owns a bookshop, who loves you unquestionably, will march with you to confront your ex, and has a fiery wife like Momoko?

10.Have great coffee. In Welcome to Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-Reum (2024), Yeongju, like Alba, is burned out. She opens Hyunam-Dong Bookshop, nestled in the neighborhood of the same name. Among other things, she enlists Minjun and delegates to him a coffee corner. Minjun put his heart and soul in what started as a small job and leapfrogs to envisioning that “word would spread that Hyunam-dong Bookshop made delicious coffee; that his coffee would live up to the expectations of those who came by specially to try it; that the flavours of his coffee would meld into the bookshop’s vibes, and the aroma would linger to warm the hearts of its customers.”

11.Worry as you run a bookshop. Yeongju introspects, “Perhaps the business model of an independent bookshop was one built on dreams – whether it was a dream of the past or the future. Those who start a bookshop probably dreamt of doing so at some point in their lives. And when they woke up from the dream a year or two later, they would close that chapter in their lives.”

She sagely adds, “Like any other bookshop owner, one of my biggest concerns is how long I can keep the place running. For those here who want to start a bookshop, you’ll be worrying about this, and other things too. But if you decide that a bookshop is not for you, and you want to pursue something else instead, it’ll come with another set of worries. What I’m trying to say is: whatever you do, you will face challenges. Even if it’s not a bookshop, you’ll fret over whatever business you’re starting; if you work for a company, that comes with its own set of worries too. In the end, it boils down to this: what kind of work do I want to do, despite all the worries? For me, I choose to worry as I run a bookshop.”

Let me end with Alba Donati’s Manifesto for Aspiring Booksellers:

Live your life reading
Welcome the people walking through your door as readers, not customers
Never fancy yourself better than your readers
Pay attention to what your readers ask for – it will open up new horizons
Never betray your readers by recommending the wrong book
Pick ‘your’ authors and give them visibility
Honour Sylvia Beach, every day of the week
Always offer a cup of tea Flowers – don’t forget flowers
Remember to celebrate Virginia, Emily, Jane, and all the others