Support your local bookstores!

I didn't read as many books this year, but I feel like I read a lot more diverse set. One of the books that stayed on my mind was “The Diary of a Bookseller” by Shaun Bythell which is basically the daily diary entries of someone who runs the largest second-hand bookstore in Scotland. It built a LOT of empathy on the life and post-Amazon difficulties of bookstores, but also highlighted the importance of them.

My reading habit

My mom used to read plenty of books, mostly in Telugu. And her mom read a bunch too, and I think the habit naturally rubbed off on me. I always had good access to books, some bought, but mostly through a library.

I remember being excited to go to IBP Century Club, a membership my dad paid a lot of money for so he can hang out with his friends. But I think me, my mom and my brother got a lot more use from the membership because we used to borrow and a read a TON of books from the library. I borrowed a ton of Hardy Boys and devoured each book in a single sitting. I also remember standing in a long queue for a couple of hours at a bookstore so that my brother gets his hands on the latest Harry Potter.

I didn't read many books (or any in some years) between 2014 and 2018 when I was in college, and only started reading again when I moved to Berlin in 2020. Maybe it was COVID-19 that kicked it off again, but I am happy that I did. Books are important. Those who know me can attest to the insane amount of impact Steve Jobs had on my life.

I've read 23 books in 2022 and 33 books in 2023. I've read only 7 books so far this year, but that was intentional. I wanted to focus the time on other things (like writing!).

Bookstores and Libraries are important

Today's world is all about ratings, reviews, and bestsellers. We also self-select ourselves into Filter bubbles and only get exposed to a small subset of books through organic discovery. What this essentially means is that we basically are only exposed to the books that A LOT of people like. While I think you might be exposed to some great books like this, you will miss out on the ones that resonate the most with you. I've discovered that once I started eschewing ratings and started exploring widely, my own taste differs significantly from the general norm.

You will discover your tastes by trying out different things that look interesting and forming opinions independently of the crowd. This means picking up books that look intriguing. You will discover that you don't like some of the books you picked, but you will also discover your new favorite author or genre this way.

For example, I discovered “The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid” by randomly picking it up second hand for a Euro at a flea market. And Bill became one of my favorite authors, and I ended up reading and listening to him a lot.

This kind of random perusal of all kinds of books is only possible at a bookshop or library. I don't think Amazon will help you here, it will only highlight the popular books and ones from your filter bubble.

They become more important for kids. I spent A LOT of time at bookstores and libraries when I was a kid trying to pick out my next book. I think a lot less kids (later adults) will read if the libraries and bookstores disappear ☹️.

Even now, as an adult, I love bookstores. I drag all my friends to Dussman when they come to visit me in Berlin. I try to visit every single bookstore I find on my walks in the hopes of finding the next great book.

lesen und lesen lassen

As much I loved bookstores, I used to do the majority of my book shopping from Amazon. And Shaun's book made me realize what a hypocrite I am. Yes, I love bookstores and I want more of them, but I wasn't doing enough to support them. So I decided to try to buy my books from independent bookstores as much as possible. I realized I didn't need to limit my purchases to the books in stock, I could order the book through the bookstore and then pick it up when it arrives. Some of Shaun's regular patrons did a lot of this.

And I quickly found a great bookstore in my locality: lesen und lesen lassen. This was an independent bookstore that was running for 28 years, and they had a very convenient way to order a book online and pick it up in store. Well, convenient enough. The books were a little pricier (no discounts!) and every so often I had to wait a couple of weeks for the older or the more niche books, but I enjoyed the routine. I bought more than 15 books this way.

Imagine my surprise when I walked past the store last week only to find that it's now a clothing store. They unfortunately had to close because they couldn't run sustainably with the latest “market-rate rent” (the rent doubled!). This made me really sad because the announcement and shutdown happened when I was out of town, and it came as a complete surprise!

I think this will be the fate for more bookstores. And I am also not naive enough to think that it's likely to change without systemic support from the government. But I will try my best to support and evangelize independent bookstores and libraries as much as possible. And I hope you will too.

Finding your local store

So my objective was to find:

1. A good independently owned bookstore,
2. where I can also buy books that I order online. i.e, I am limited to the collection they stock, but it is also not a big hassle to order the other books.
3. It needs to be walking distance away, either from my office or my home.

I picked independent bookstores because the stores have a lot of character, and they're just more fun. But I also feel like they add more to society than generic large chain stores.

For the folks living in the US, you have a convenient website called https://www.indiebound.org/ that lists out all the stores. I couldn't find a similar alternative for Germany, but I found something close. The bookstores I found usually use a third party to run the online store, and I found two such providers (buchhandlung.de and genialokal.de), but bookstores from both are aggregated here: https://www.buchhandlung.de/karte/.

I found two new stores to replace lesen und lesen lassen, one close to home, and one close to my office. I haven't visited them yet, but I am quite looking forward to it.

Edit: I think it is fair to say that this is a privileged take. I have friends who peruse through bookstores, but then order the book on Amazon because it's significantly cheaper. It allows them to read more. I don't fault that, but I hope that at least those who're privileged enough will start supporting more local stores.