If You Love Indie Bookstores, Read These Books

Happy Independent Bookstore Day!

Today is Independent Bookstore Day in the US and Canada. It’s also the birthday of East City Bookshop, where I worked for three happy years. I really miss IBD now that I’m in the UK — we have Bookshop Week in June and (somewhat oddly) a separate Bookshop Day in October, but neither seem anything like as big a deal. Working in a bookshop on IBD was always tons of fun, with cakes and fizzy wine, special offers, balloons, and the community turning out en masse to support us. I hope to get to do it again someday.

I love bookshops — and if you’re here, I’m guessing you do too. In fact, I’d be remiss not to mention that I’ve got a book about bookstores of my own coming out, an enemies-to-lovers rom com featuring two rival bookstore owners which I wrote on commission from Avon/HarperCollins. Bookishly Ever After is out in the UK in June and in the US in September.

Also, I wanted to give a shout out to my one of my all-time favourites — the Bookish Life of Nina Hill. Since I’ve already recommended it twice in these newsletters, I felt like it couldn’t make the official list, but it is such a lovely, cosy read about a bookseller, and I highly recommend it.

But for now, of the many books about bookshops, here are a few I recommend.

84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

This slim modern classic from 1970 is a collection of letters between an American reader and a British bookseller at a second hand bookshop. It’s the story of a twenty-year friendship conducted through correspondence, and it’s utterly charming.

Bookshop US | Bookshop UK | Blackwell’s

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

I can’t believe I still haven’t read this one — yet I am determined! Author Louise Erdrich, a bookstore owner herself, tells the story of a bookshop being haunted by its most annoying customer from November 2019 to November 2020. It’s probably very “of its time”, and so might not be for everyone, but I’ve heard good things and definitely plan to read it at some point! USA Today called it "Dazzling. . . . A hard-won love letter to readers and to booksellers, as well as a compelling story about how we cope with pain and fear, injustice and illness.”

Bookshop US | Bookshop UK | Blackwell’s | Libro.fm

How to Read a Book by Monica Wood

First of all, look at this gorgeous cover! This one has only recently come across my radar, and seems to be very much in the vein of the “up lit” I love. It’s about three strangers with very different lives who meet in a bookshop in Portland. I say strangers, but actually, they have one devastating thing in common — the death of a woman at the hands of a drunk driver, and their differing relationships to her. It’s out in the US on May 7 — no sign of it in the UK yet, sadly — and Lily King calls it "a beautiful, big-hearted treasure of a novel"

Bookshop US | Libro.fm

The Storied Life of A J Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

This is another one that’s been on my list forever, but I have no hesitation in recommending it to you, because I’ve heard so many good things about it over so many years — and although I haven’t read the author’s smash hit, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, I did read Young Jane Young and loved it. This one is about a curmudgeonly bookstore owner whose life changes when an unexpected package arrives in his bookshop… a pretty irresistible premise.

Bookshop US | Bookshop UK | Blackwell’s | Libro FM

The Banned Bookshop of Maggie Banks by Shauna Robinson

Abby Jimenez calls this one ‘a sparkling bookish story about rules just begging to be broken'. When Maggie Banks arrives in town to run her friend’s bookshop, she quickly discovers that the rules in question are about what books she is allowed to sell: only the classics. So she does what any self-respecting bookworm would do in this situation: she starts an underground book club…

Bookshop US | Bookshop UK | Blackwell’s | Libro FM

Want more?

More great books about bookshops can be found here (US) and here (UK).

Feedback is welcome on the format of this newsletter, and please feel free to comment with the thing you love, so I can recommend relevant books for you!

Note that I use affiliate links for Blackwell’s, Bookshop.org, and Libro.fm. When you buy books after clicking, you help support my writing. Thanks for doing that!

2 L