Labor action has surged in many industries over the past two years, including in bookselling, a business where unions had been rare. Since 2020, employees have unionized or are attempting to do so everywhere from Printed Matter in New York City to Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle and Bookshop Santa Cruz in California. In Minnesota, workers at four Half Price Books stores have announced plans to affiliate with locals of the United Food and Commercial Workers union. Read more
Category: Bookstores
In the New Hong Kong, Booksellers Walk a Fine Line
Some independent shops flout the new limits on free expression. Others try to come to terms with them. For readers, they offer a sense of connection in a changed city. Read more
How Lin-Manuel Miranda and Friends Made an Old Bookstore New
The century-old Drama Book Shop in Manhattan struggled for years. Then “Hamilton” happened. Read more
A Moment Or A Movement? Black Bookstore Owners On Business One Year Later
An afternoon inside a bookstore was as glorious as ever. Here’s what I bought.
Wherever I travel, it has long been my custom to check out the local secondhand bookstores. I carry a pocket flashlight for scanning dark shelves and shadowy alcoves, methodically pull out any hardback with a faded spine to verify the title, and never use a cellphone to compare prices with online listings. If I want a book, I’m not going to nickel-and-dime a brick-and-mortar shop, especially when so many of them are struggling. Read more
Paris Bookstores Are Designated Essential — But These Landmarks Struggle To Survive
Gibert Jeune, which held a prominent place in Parisians hearts, is one of the latest to close. The pandemic is only one pressure on independent bookstores, but some have found ways to survive. Read more
Opening a Small-Town Bookstore During the Pandemic Was the Craziest Thing We Ever Did
It’s every book lover’s fantasy. Yet nothing can quite prepare you for the reality of starting any business, even under normal conditions. Certainly, few dreamers think to prepare for the nightmare of a global pandemic that shutters most brick-and-mortar retail, disrupts supply chains, and kills hundreds of thousands of your fellow citizens. Read more
Closed During The Pandemic, English Bookstores And Libraries Reopen
One book store owner told the Guardian newspaper, “We’ve had people trying to smell the books through their masks, and perfectly respectable middle-aged people acting like kids in a sweet shop.” Read more
New York bookstore figures out the perfect sideline: pickles.
Even in boomtimes it is hard to keep a bookstore afloat: the margins are razor thin and you’re in constant competition for bookbuyers with the largest monopoly in the universe (Am*zon). This is why a lot of stores—particularly newer ones—build higher-margin sidelines into their business models… like, say… beer! (Alena Jones recently wrote for Lit Hub about what bookselling means in the context of selling everything but books.)
Well, I’m here to tell you about a bookstore in New York City that has boldly—zestily, even—gone with pickles as its main sideline. Sweet Pickle Books, conveniently located in the pickle Mecca of the Lower East Side, is your one-stop destination for used books, old cassette tapes(?), and two-pound jars of pickles. Read more
