How to Protect Bookstores and Why: The Present and Future of Bookselling

This is kind of a depressing book. It’s about local bookstores and how they’re under incredible threat from Amazon and – the book claims – the Right wing of American politics.

The author is the owner of a small bookstore in the college town of Lawrence, Kansas. Each chapter is a discussion with other bookstore owners about the struggles they go through. In the introduction, the author says that these bookstores are concentrated in the American Midwest for economic reasons, but he somehow ends up in Paris at one point…?

The book talks about the value of bookstores, and how it’s very hard to make money selling books. It offers several ways people can help – from the very simplistic (“read more”) to the more specific (“buy gift cards; do your Christmas shopping early”).

Later in the book, it veers pretty hard into political territory. It’s unapologetically Left-biased, and paints the American Right as a sinister force trying to destroy free expression. Your tolerance for this might wear thin.

The book did make me feel a little guilty about buying from Amazon so much. Since I read it, I’ve searched other places for books before going right to Amazon. Sometimes I still have to buy from there, but I’ve also bought from eBay, from bookstore.org, and from a publisher’s website, so I’m making some progress.

If there’s anything this book will absolutely accomplish, it’s this: if you have ever wanted to sell books for a living, you will find some other goal to pursue.