Guest Post: The persistence of indie bookstores

Note from Paul: This is a guest post from our friend Catherine Connors, legendary blogger (previously Her Bad Mother, now Holy Doodlebug) and co-author of The Feminine Revolution. Catherine visited the store during her trip to Alt Summit and wrote the following about her visit.

When I was younger, I wanted to own a bookstore. 

 If you are on a site like this, reading this, I bet you did too. But then someone stamps that dream out around high school or college with harumphs of SAT prep and sensible majors. 

 The dream invariably sneaks back later in life as a fantasy about retiring to some idyllic village on a stormy coast and opening a quaint bookshop-cafe that becomes a gathering place for local eccentrics. 

 And also a base from which to solve cozy mysteries. 

And have a good muffin.

And there would be a bitchy cat. 

Who no one would be allowed to pet.

My own cat is named Margaret Catwood. Perhaps this one would be named Jane Pawstin.

Of course, by later in life you’ve learned a few things about business management and market economies and capitalism in general and you treat the fantasy as just a that — a fantasy. It’s the adulting version of the SAT prep harumphing once again stomping out your lovely dream.  

 Who would choose to run a bookstore in this dark and stormy Amazon economy? 

And would you really want to stand behind a cash register all day, at your age? 

Especially if there aren’t any unsolved mysteries. 

And who is going to bake the muffins?

My inner bookish child was shocked – in a good way – to learn this past weekend that the answers to those questions are:

-       Friends of mine, Paul and Sarah, and their bookstore is more profitable than their last two Silicon Valley venture-funded startups. (Take that, capitalism.)

-       That’s why the good Lord gave us chairs.

-       Lack of cozy mysteries to solve was a disappointment. 

-       You can DoorDash the muffins. 

I was visiting Palm Springs for an event, and visiting Palm Springs means making every effort to spend time with my dear friend Sarah, regardless of any other reasons for being there. It happened that this particular weekend, Sarah was stretched with her rare in-store duties at the Best Bookstore in Palm Springs. So we decided that the best option for getting the most time together would be for me to come hang out at the bookstore while she worked. 

Great idea! I love bookstores and I love Sarah, and I imagined that we would have a quiet catch-up while she made post-it labels for the books and fielded the occasional question from a customer, and then go grab lunch. Which is sort of how it went, but at the same time, somehow, it was not what I expected at all.

Palm Springs is in peak season, and this is a town where people come expressly to read by a pool. So there was a rich, steady stream of humans with questions and purchases to be made, as Sarah scribbled out her exclamation point laden “Sarah Cards” between guests.

On the face of it, you might think that thirty-second life updates squeezed between “OH MY GOD I LOVED THAT ONE!” or “HAVE YOU READ THIS!?” this would make for less-than-ideal hang out conditions, but the opposite was true — it was one of the best times that I’ve ever had. 

I texted Sarah the following day: “I actually think that bookstore time might have reset my life.”

Why was that? Because being in a busy independent bookstore, it turns out, is a surefire way to renew one’s faith in humanity. It’s a reminder that this messed up world is still full of readers! Who read books made of paper! Sometimes BIG books made of paper! Big, heavy books — multiples of big heavy books! — that they’re going to make the effort to haul home! Because they love books that damn much! 

Going to an independent bookstore is kind of like going to church, the good kind. With tens of thousands of different denominations of gods to worship without judgement. But also a space of one shared worship: The adoration of story. And each congregant is engaging in their own kind of observance—some of them just soaking up the magic of books and the quiet communing with other readers; others are searching for sacred objects, holy artifacts to hold in their hands and then take out into the world as portals of escape or safety or inspiration. 

And standing behind the cash register is kind of like being witness to a confessional: Every person purchasing books had something to say about those books, about what drew them to the books or what they hoped from the books or just how pretty and weighty and special the books were and why they were worth carrying however many miles home. Every book is an opening into someone’s spirit.

An independent bookstore is a sacred space, in other words, and that is true even in a capitalist world: It’s a safe haven from thoughtless consumption, a respite from an extractive economy. It’s a marketplace only in the ancient sense of the agora — the common space for humans to exchange things of value, where the things of value on offer are things that feed the soul. 

 It’s a marketplace that sustains storytellers and creatives and curators and misfits and dreamers, and it reminds us that there is real currency in the things that spark our imaginations. A currency that comes with a cash register ding and a “thank you, come again!”

It’s unlikely that I will end up retiring to a stormy coastal village to open my own bookshop and solve cozy mysteries with Jane Pawstin and a muffin (although if the opportunity presents itself, I will absolutely be seizing it). But after a weekend behind the counter, I can say this for sure: The persistence of indie bookstores like this one are proof that there are still loads of goodness in the world. 

They persist because there is still goodness in the world—because we still crave connection, still seek stories, still believe in the magic of a good book with a pretty cover and tables full of manatee bookmarks, cat cards, and Pride stickers.

So, if you find yourself feeling disillusioned with the world (which, let’s face it, we all are), do yourself a favor and go spend a few hours in your local indie bookstore. If you’re in Palm Springs, do it at this bookstore. They made the decision not to have a serpentine-like maze of shelves in the middle. All the shelves are pushed to the walls so that it’s one open space. One big cocktail party without cocktails, where often the conversations about books bleed into one another until the entire store has lined up with copies of the same book. 

I promise you that even it doesn’t reset your life, it will bring you some deeply needed joy. Or at least a deeply needed next read. 

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