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Hi there. I’m glad I could land in your inbox right before your traditional Sunday roast. Have you been enjoying cozy fall junk since last we talked?
You’ll notice that today’s edition is interspersed with photos of Halloween decorations from my neighborhood. I do not have a creative bone in my body to do this kind of decorating, but I can admire it from afar.
That Thing About The Strand
You may have seen The Strand Bookstore post an impassioned plea on social media this week, noting that their revenue has dropped 70% compared to last year. It included a note from owner Nancy Bass Wyden, who implored readers to “shop local” and support the store instead of “big box bookstores.” What it neglects to mention is that Bass Wyden bought additional stock in Amazon during lockdown this year—which we only know because of financial disclosure forms Bass Wyden is required to complete because she is married to a US senator—and that the PPP loans The Strand received earlier this year did not preclude mass layoffs at the store or the largely unnecessary launch of an Upper West Side branch. Last month’s article from The Baffler interviewed former staffers, who say that they love The Strand but not Bass Wyden:
Some current and former Strand workers suspect that their boss isn’t particularly interested in running a bookstore at all; instead, it seems that she is more driven to leverage the Strand’s independent history into building a boutique brand, and she is taking the pandemic as an opportunity to do so. “Her dream is to expand, expand, expand, to promote merchandise rather than books,” Cassandra Baim, a former Strand employee who started as a regular bookseller and then worked in visual merchandising until 2017, said. “She’s really into the idea of branding herself and the Strand, what she thinks is a cohesive Strand brand. To what extent she knows how to do that, I’m not sure.”
“The books aren’t the focus. The idea of the Strand is the focus. The brand is more important than the actual grunt work of running a bookstore,” James Colon, who had been working at the store since 2012, told me. “We have knocked down so many shelves to put up merchandise. Eighteen miles of books? I’m sure we’ve lost miles of books.”
The Strand’s plea feels suspicious at best, particularly given that they did not participate in this month’s #BoxedOut campaign that was launched to help independent bookstores protest Amazon’s Prime Day. My sense is that, while The Strand fulfills an important role in New York’s independent literary scene, there are a number of other independent bookstores that have faced significant hardship this year and still managed to find ways to serve their communities and help other local booksellers. (Hell, it’s worth shouting out the many kind and helpful employees at the Union Square Barnes & Noble; I spent most of my youth in the hallowed halls of a suburban B&N/Starbucks, and I will always have a soft spot for it.)
One takeaway from the situation is to simply buy from other independent bookstores of your choosing to help them stay in business and pay rent. In New York in particular, there’s the gross reality that landlords will force out tenants because buildings are sometimes more lucrative when they’re empty, rather than when they’re a resource for the local community. (It’s worth noting here that Bass Wyden, meanwhile, owns The Strand’s downtown building.) Particularly in 2020, it’s easier than ever to find an independent bookstore anywhere in the US that has adopted some kind of online buying/shipping platform due to the pandemic.
But that doesn’t compensate for communities that have few general interest bookstores at all, let alone independent booksellers. In 2016, the Bronx lost its only Barnes & Noble location due to unsustainable rent hikes despite “angry and heartbroken” residents and local civic leaders fighting to save it. It’s a boon that the Black-owned bookstore The Lit Bar opened in the Bronx last year (and you should buy books from them!!!), but the poorest county in New York state did not have a general-interest bookstore to serve its ~1.4 million residents in the three years since Barnes & Noble’s closure.
As such, not all independent bookstores are in equally-dire straits or in equal demand. For instance, there are several independent bookstores in Bushwick, Brooklyn, but it took until 2019 for a bilingual bookstore, Mil Mundos Books, to open in the neighborhood east of Myrtle Avenue. The store specializes in providing “a curated selection of books celebrating Black and Latinx heritage and culture,” and nearly 50% of the store’s book selection is in Spanish (the neighborhood’s dominant language). According to BK Reader:
Gentrification has brought new housing and retail to the area, but these developments don’t serve the longtime residents, who can’t remember the last time they had a bookstore in the neighborhood, let alone one that offers literature reflecting their heritage, said owner Maria Herron. The Bushwick section east of Myrtle Avenue has not had a general bookstore in decades.
While there are several independent bookstores to pick from if you live anywhere north of Prospect Park in Brooklyn, it’s significantly more difficult to find one to the south. Internet-savvy Brooklyn bookstores like Books Are Magic, Community Bookstore, and Greenlight Books are all within the same 2-mile radius and have adapted online platforms, curbside pickup, and other systems to survive during the pandemic. In southern Brooklyn, it’s difficult to find any bookstore at all that isn’t religiously-affiliated, let alone one that has been able to safely do business since March.
I think the second (and more useful) takeaway here is that supporting the institutions that provide a service to you/your community/the communities of folks who you’d like to support is far more impactful than it is just to support an independent bookstore because it’s “independent.” The Strand’s plea for help rubbed me the wrong way because Bass Wyden isn’t serving her employees or her community. Who asked her to expand to West 82nd and Columbus? A Shakespeare & Co. bookstore and cafe opened ten blocks south last year, and it is lovely. You might find it useful to instead consult Unite For Literacy’s map of household “book deserts” to get an idea of where bookstores might need extra support and/or continue buying books from Black-owned bookstores around the country.
The Book-y Things
Because my personality seems to have coalesced around reading this year, I recently subscribed to Tailored Book Recommendations (TBR). It’s a service outfitted by Book Riot contributors that provides quarterly customized book recommendations. I completed a quick survey about my reading habits and interests (“please send me anything adjacent to dark academia, Hunger Games books for adults, or emulating a vibe similar to If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha at your earliest convenience”) and am waiting for three “bibliologist”-curated recommendations to arrive in my inbox. You can also opt to purchase the books directly, like a custom surprise book box. I’ll report back on this one.
Since last we gathered around this campfire, I read Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?: And Other Questions About Dead Bodies by Caitlin Doughty. The book is organized into short chapters, each of which answers a question about death ostensibly asked by a child. (A good example of one such question is, of course, the title of the book.) This mechanic allows Doughty, a mortician, to explain the nuances of dead bodies in a way that doesn’t immediately conjure an existential crisis. I got a lot out of the book and plan to read more of Doughty’s work soon.
I also read Self Care by Leigh Stein, which was fine, and The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, which was sweet and made me weep. I’m about to start Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-woo, which I got from the library.
If none of these books interest you, LitHub recommends which book to read based on your favorite Twilight Zone episode (a wonderful Halloween TV-marathon choice); The New York Times will guide you through the best Agatha Christie mysteries; and Book Riot pulled the best eerie literary fiction from the shelves for you to pick from.
Lots of words this week. Stay safe out there, vote early if you can, and reminisce with me about these weird magical anthropology books that activated a part of my brain I haven’t accessed since I was about 8.