An (Expected!) Boom of Diverse Bookstores
“Diverse Bookstores See a Boom No One Was Expecting.” Strange headline, but I’ll get to that in a sec. Here’s the subhed: “Over 300 bookstores have opened in the past couple of years — a revival fed by demand for ‘real recommendations from real people.’”
Remember in 2020 when there was the call to support our local booksellers? Customers have come through. According to Allison Hill, chief executive of the American Booksellers Association, in this article, “It’s kind of shocking [how so many bookstores are thriving] when you think about what dire straits the stores were in in 2020…We saw a rally like we’ve never seen before.” That’s one part of what this article is addressing.
But, really, this is a great article about how people have seen — and met — a need in their community for bookstores that reflect the types of books that they or their community might want. People across the country have opened up shops, such as Terri Hamm who started Kindred Stories in Houston “when her daughter, who is now 14 years old, said she was bored by the books her mother was bringing her home to read. An avid reader, she gravitates toward book about Black girlhood.” Or Laura Rodríguez-Romaní who transformed Los Amigos Books in Berwyn, Illinois from an online shop with pop-up events into a brick-and-mortar store. Rodríguez-Romaní is a former dual-language teacher and wanted to offer children’s books in both English and Spanish. “We don’t have representation of those categories of books in typical bookstores,” she said. There are more and more examples just like it in this piece.
Personally, I feel like the headline (for a totally separate article) should just be “Bookstores See a Boom No One Was Expecting.” (Great!) I think the more *interesting* & *relevant* story is this “boom” of “diverse” bookstores. That said, because we already know what the subhed says is true — consumers crave “real recommendations from real people” — why is it “unexpected” that people from all sorts of demographics are opening shops & people are flocking to them?
PS:🚨Different online headline: “Some Surprising Good News: Bookstores Are Booming and Becoming More Diverse.” A bit better.
originally published on instagram