Can Small Town America Support Bookstores? An Owner’s Tale

Philip White
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Philip White signing copies of his book,
Our Supreme Task, at Well Read, March 2012

The commonly accepted narrative about bookstores is that they’re doomed. People simply won’t go to bricks-and-mortar spaces to buy hardbacks and softcovers when they can pull up a web browser, click or tap a couple of times, and boom! Either an e-book is on their screen or that supposedly archaic bundle of paper is on its way.

But while certain undeniable facts—the closing of Borders and the rise of Amazon as the alpha dog in the bookselling industry among them—prove this impression to be true-ish, there are other signs that cast doubt on it. Some of these are factual and some anecdotal. In the case of the latter, Half Price Books is always jam packed when I go into one of the four Kansas City locations to buy more books I probably don’t need. Also, I recently read The Atlantic’s feature on Ann Patchett, who is not only bankrolling a bookstore in Nashville but also got a spot on the Colbert Report because of it. (I’m not jealous, honest. OK, yeah I am.) Third, I have spoken in four independent bookstores in the past few months and at all but one of my other events (libraries, community groups, etc.) indies provided the books. 

The most recent of my bookstore talks was at Well Read in Fulton, Missouri, a two-story brick building on the very parade route that Winston Churchill took hours before he introduced the world to the terms “iron curtain” (he didn’t invent but popularized it) and “special relationship” in March 1946. Until last year, the store was somewhat disorganized, did little to no marketing and didn’t offer a space for reading or book events. All that has changed since Brian and Danielle Warren took over. I grabbed a few minutes with Brian to talk about book curating, the joy of sifting through boxes of old history books, and why two young, intelligent people took over a used bookshop in a small Midwestern town. 

Larry McMurtry on Books and Collecting

Randall Stephens

Like many historians, I have spent hours upon hours in well-stocked bookstores. It always helps if the shopkeeper is friendly and if the prices are good. It helps even more if he or she allows me to bring Beatrice, my border collie, into the store. (Two bookstore owners in Maine recently invited me and the dog into their shops!)

I usually look for strong religious studies, history, local interest, music, and literature sections. But it's enjoyable enough just to browse around the labyrinth of shelves, heaving with books, ready to topple at any moment.

Western novelist and book dealer Larry McMurtry well captures the subtle joys of book collecting and the ambiance of book stores in his rambling memoir Books (Simon and Schuster, 2008). (I gather it would make a good companion to another one of his autobiographical volumes, Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen: Reflections at Sixty and Beyond.)

McMurtry describes some of the fussy, cantankerous, bizarre, brilliant characters he's met during his life in the trade. He makes the rumpled old codgers of the business sound like super heroes. That is a real feat in itself! He talks about his own interest--first editions, comics, literary fiction--and the big finds he has scored over the decades. As a bonus, the book combines two of my favorite things, the memoir and obsessive collecting.

Here's a typical passage, written in McMurtry's keen, to-the-point style. He makes me appreciate the tactile qualities of book collecting all over again:

One might pose this question: If you don't enjoy the physical work of handling books, why be an antiquarian book seller at all? There are certainly better ways to make money than selling secondhand books. The pleasure of a hands-on approach to book selling is both intellectual and tactile. The best bookmen rarely lose or exhaust their curiosity about editions) variants, points, bindings, provenance, cost codes, and the like. The things there are to know about a given book-particularly if it's a complicated book, with a complicated text-absorb the attention of the best dealers for a lifetime. And certainly a normal lifetime is not long enough to enable one to learn even half of what there is to know about antiquarian books in general.

As we've discussed on this blog in the past, there's a strong case to be made for the physicality of old books and paper print sources. I love the easy access of reading on my iPad, but it doesn't beat the book as far as I'm concerned. And I can't imagine any virtual replacement for the charming, creaking old book shop!