Poets & Writers Theater

This Wall Street Journal video analyzes the history and business model of the bookstore chain Barnes & Noble and how they are adopting the strategies of independent bookstores by empowering their local booksellers to make more decisions on inventory and displays in order to boost sales.

“I think there’s still a hunger for reading, for the print book, for something you hold in your hand and take with you,” says Emily Powell, owner and president of Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon, about the struggles independent bookstores face today in this CBS Saturday Morning interview with Michelle Miller.

“These times are really ripe for different opportunities and taking different approaches to things because everyone’s sort of making it up as they go along.” In this BLDRfly video, Wisteria Bristol, Peter Jones, and Sofia Miranda, co-owners of Trident Booksellers & Café in Boulder, Colorado, speak about shifting the store to an employee-owned model during the pandemic and how that has affected their connection to the community. For more, read “From Booksellers to Owners” by Lynn Rosen in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“A good bookseller absolutely is another kind of discoverer and thinker of history,” says Kevin Young in this trailer for The Booksellers. The documentary, directed by D. W. Young and executive produced by Parker Posey, explores the history, personalities, and business of bookselling in New York City.

“A good bookstore is your friend.” Ross Gay reads his essay about his love for independent bookstores and how they are a “laboratory for our coming together” at one of his favorite places, the Book Corner in Bloomington, Indiana. Gay’s essay collection, The Book of Delights, is forthcoming from Algonquin Books in February.

“I think that the digital age has made print books more popular in a weird way. It’s made everyone come out of the woodwork that really want to see books survive.” This short film directed by Chad Howitt explores the life of Josh Spencer, owner of the Last Bookstore, and what inspired him to open this popular independent bookstore in downtown Los Angeles. 

In this video, writers and book lovers—including Rumaan Alam, Ann Patchett, Jacqueline Woodson, Neil Gaiman, Mira Jacob, Benjamin Percy, and Peter Straub—help celebrate Independent Bookstore Day and the opening of Books Are Magic. The new bookstore is run by novelist Emma Straub and her husband Michael Fusco-Straub in Brooklyn. 

Politics and Prose Bookstore owner Lissa Muscatine and head book buyer Mark Laframboise talk about their favorite fiction books of 2016, beginning with Imagine Me Gone (Little, Brown, 2016) by Adam Haslett, who was featured in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this video, owner John Scioli and an assortment of customers share stories and memories of the Community Bookstore, known for being open at odd hours and completely crammed full of piles of books. The bookstore, which first opened in 1985 in Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill neighborhood, closed in 2016. 

“If we want to see evolution, if we want to see this paradigm shift, we have to start being intentional about it, and I believe that starts with the word.” In this Philadelphia Inquirer video, Jeannine A. Cook speaks about opening Harriett’s Bookshop in the Fishtown neighborhood of Philadelphia, which specializes in the work of Black and women authors. A Q&A with Cook by Jennifer Wilson appears in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

You (Emily Bestler Books/Atria, 2014), Caroline Kepnes’s psychological thriller debut about a New York bookstore manager’s obsession with an aspiring writer, has been adapted into a Lifetime television series. The series, which has been renewed for a second season, stars Penn Badgley, Zach Cherry, Nicole Kang, Elizabeth Lail, Shay Mitchell, and Luca Padovan.

At a public memorial at New York City’s Strand Book Store, family members, colleagues, and writers including Gay Talese, Fran Lebowitz, and Paul Krugman remember and honor Fred Bass, the bookstore’s longtime owner who died at the age of eighty-nine on January 3. The bookstore was founded by Bass’s father in 1927, and he began working there at the age of thirteen, taking over its management in 1956.

In this video, Ann Patchett and Karen Hayes, co-owners of Nashville’s Parnassus Books, celebrate the shop’s first anniversary and tell us five things they’ve learned about bookselling. Parnassus Books is featured in “Best-Selling Booksellers” in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Paul Reynolds, cofounder of Blue Bunny Books & Toys, speaks about the mission of his bookstore and how the shop and its customers have grown over the years. Founder and author Peter H. Reynolds is featured in “Best-Selling Booksellers” in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this video, Jeff Kinney, author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, speaks at the grand opening of his bookstore, An Unlikely Story Bookstore & Café, in Plainville, Massachusetts. Kinney speaks about opening his store in “Best-Selling Booksellers” by Lynn Rosen in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.