Boston’s Indie Bookstores Aren’t Going Anywhere
Consumption habits may have drastically changed in the past few decades, but Bostonians’ loyalty toward the city’s independent bookstores has not waned.
Small handwritten notes attached to staff recommendations, customers reaching past one another to grasp for their favorite author’s latest release, and the distinct smell of books filling the air.
Harvard Book Store, on this sunny Saturday, is filled with book lovers perusing the isles without haste. Customers address each other in hushed tones, not wanting to break the studious silence that reigns among the shelves of carefully aligned manuscripts.
“I think the way Harvard Book Store reflects its community is with a focus on scholarly academic presses,” said Alex M. Meriwether, Harvard Book Store’s former General Manager, and current Chief Creative Officer. “We have a large local audience, of course, but I like to think that we get both tourists who come to see Harvard and ‘bookstore’ tourists, who know that this is a special store and that they’re going to find something interesting.”
But Harvard Book Store is not the only place of pilgrimage for Boston’s bookworms. Most towns of the Greater Boston area have their own independent bookstore, ranging from tiny, shoebox-like stores that only fit one or two copies of each book to larger locations that spread out on numerous floors and sometimes even have their own coffee shop. What these businesses have in common is that they are often central to the community they serve and have gained a loyal customer base throughout the years.
“One of the things that will keep bookstores in Boston healthy is to be community places where events happen. You’re not just going to buy books, you're going there for readings, for a book signing, a lecture from somebody… things are going on,” said Gian Lombardo, Senior Publisher-in-Residence at Emerson College.
Due in part to the continuing adaptability of these bookstores, the emergence of websites such as Bookshop.org — which enables customers to order books directly from independent businesses rather than Amazon — and the strong sense of customer loyalty, independent retailers continue to thrive in Boston. The pandemic was certainly a challenge for many, but most stores found creative ways of maintaining contact with their customers — such as hosting live Zoom readings and setting up at-home book delivery services — even in times when most interactions were virtual and the furthest most people would venture was their mailbox.
“I try to shop at as many independent bookstores as I can and Bookshop.org has been a really great resource because it combines the convenience of buying something online with being able to financially support local bookstores, which I’m very interested in,” said Kelly Brabec, a publishing graduate student and member of Emerson College’s book club, who lives in Brighton.
Brabec’s father also used to take her to Barnes & Noble as a young child growing up in North Carolina and she still has fond memories of it. She returns there occasionally because of its size, convenience, and variety, especially during the holiday season.
“I feel like in recent years there has been a big push to support independent businesses which, growing up, was not as talked about in my household. It was just like ‘Where can you go to find the thing you need the fastest?’” she said.
Many consumers are conflicted in their feelings toward Barnes & Noble, which has faced difficulties in putting down roots in Massachusetts. This seems to be just another symptom of the larger crisis of brick-and-mortar, but even so, many have not forgotten that large retailers like Barnes & Noble and Waterstones were the apparent cause of many independent bookstores’ downfall a mere decade ago.
But with the emergence of Amazon and large-scale web retail, allegiances have somewhat shifted.
“If we had had this conversation 10 years ago, it would very much have been Barnes & Noble against the independents. But now, Amazon is the bad guy, and Barnes & Noble and the independents have kind of teamed up together,” said one New England Barnes & Noble store manager, who did not wish to be identified for professional reasons. “It's very interesting because, without Barnes & Noble, the independents wouldn't be able to survive and get the deals that they need to get from the publishers in order to stay in business.”
There is currently no large Barnes & Noble location anywhere in the Greater Boston area —except for college-affiliated stores — with the closest being in Dedham, a town approximately 20 miles away from the city center. The Barnes & Noble location in the Back Bay’s Prudential Center closed in June 2022 due to issues in reaching an agreement with the landlord, and two other locations in Braintree and Saugus respectively also shut down for similar reasons later that year. There are still plans to open a location in Boston in the next couple of years, but on a considerably smaller scale than the giant’s typical 25’000 square foot retail surfaces.
A Push for Conscious Consumption
At a time when sustainability and ethical consumption are at the forefront of many consumers’ minds, stores such as Brattle Bookshop — founded in 1825 and one of America's oldest and largest used book retailers — or Brookline Booksmith — which has dedicated its entire lower level to second-hand books — have experienced a resounding success.
“Boston has a huge history, in terms of literary people, poets, writers, all sorts. And then you also have the fact that publishing was very much decentralized in the early 19th century. Almost every little city would have its own publishing houses and presses. But starting in the early 19th century with the dawn of the railroad, things started to coalesce around two publishing hubs; New York City and Boston.”
Many of these publishing houses are now defunct — with the remaining ones focussing mainly on academic literature — but the city-wide infatuation with small booksellers and the commitment to shopping locally have remained.
“Starting a bookstore sounds like a lot of fun, but it’s a business. And, in order for a business to continue, it has to make money and that’s one of the things that I particularly always was very aware of,” said Brattle owner Kenneth Gloss, whose father took over the business in 1949 and has kept it in the family ever since.
“I inherited this business from my father, I’ve grown up with it, my parents say my first word was ‘book’ because I would talk about them all the time. Maybe it was,” he said.
Beyond managing the store, Gloss likes to stay busy. He often travels across the country to source new collections and hold lectures and regularly appears on television shows such as Antiques Roadshow. He even has his own podcast, the Brattlecast.
“My wife says that I like to work half a day; I get in at 5:30 in the morning, the store closes at 5:30, that’s 12 hours, so that’s half a day,” he said.
But the hunt for rare and exciting editions is what Gloss still prefers. “Because there aren’t quite so many used bookstores anymore, we’re going out to more and more places and finding better and better books, not just the generally used books, but the very rare and high-value ones,” he said.
According to Gloss, social media also plays a large part in younger readers’ infatuation with the Brattle. The store’s outside bins, which stay open all year, are particularly sought out by Instagrammers from Boston and beyond, who often share pictures of them and have attracted an entirely new customer demographic.
“One change due to the pandemic was that a lot of our customers before worked in downtown offices and would maybe come down from lunch every day or once a week to browse through the store. Most of those customers are just not there anymore. It also tended to largely be older white men in terms of demographics. Now, there are huge numbers of tourists in Boston, and if you come into our store or on a busy day, you notice that the average age is much younger, there is much more diversity both in terms of gender and ethnicity, and all of that I attribute to the people who are posting and tagging us on Instagram and to the tourist business that is still going strong,” he said.
Amplifying a Multitude of Voices
Many Boston-based bookstores have also chosen to spotlight books by indie authors that focus on a variety of historically lesser-covered topics or topics often disregarded by large publishing houses, such as feminist, LGTBTQ+, and Black literature. Some also use part of their profits to fund programs aiming to serve their community like hosting events for local children and investing in various social justice initiatives.
“The great thing about indie bookstores is that you can kind of know better what their values are and you can find bookstores that sort of match your values,” said Katherine Nazzaro, Manager of Porter Square Books in Boston’s Seaport neighborhood. “For example, we have a prison book program where people can buy books and donate them to prisons, and we sort of take care of all the backend stuff.”
Another distinguishing characteristic of many independent bookstores is that they often try to establish long-term relationships with the authors they purchase from through mutual promotion and events focused on community engagement.
“A lot of publishing and, by extension, writing is networking. I think it is much more difficult for writers today who have to do their own marketing, but again, that also gives them the opportunity to build relationships with local bookstores. So in that way, if you have a book coming out, that bookstore will host a reading or a signing by you,” said Lombardo.
“This will hopefully make authors work more closely with their local bookstores, which will perhaps supplant working with their publishers in certain places. And that's how you'll also cultivate your following, by going and making these appearances and creating your community, and the indies are really good at cultivating that.”
But it is not just the authors that are taken care of. Many independent bookstores are also working on creating better conditions for their employees in the hopes of building trust and establishing a healthy workplace culture.
“We really wanted the employees to have a say in what was happening. With a lot of bookstores, you get one owner and they can make all of the decisions, which is the way with a lot of small businesses,” said Nazzaro, whose bookstore is employee-owned.
“The way it works is almost like being a partner at a law firm, where you come in and you if you've been a manager long enough, or have you been an employee long enough, you can become one of the owners. A lot of people make bookselling their career, but it is still a retail business. This gives people more of an incentive to stick around longer and become more experienced booksellers.”
An Immersive Experience
The specific browsing experience offered by each bookstore is also a key factor for many readers. Decor, atmosphere, and covers are very much part of the experience, as illustrated by online trends such as “Dark Academia” and “Cottagecore,” which have flourished in recent years. The consensus seems to be that a good independent bookstore needs to appeal to the senses as much as it does to the mind.
“I love to go to bookstores because I love to browse. I like to look around at all the pretty covers. I feel like a lot of people don’t do that anymore because of TikTok and the fact that everything is online now, that’s how most people find their books,” said Robin Van Impe, Vice President of Emerson College’s graduate book club. “But you can discover certain books by visiting a bookstore that you might not get into if you just use TikTok.”
Many younger readers are also resisting the pull of audiobooks and e-readers, although these have gained traction in the last decade.
“I will always read physical books, but if you’re reading a book, read it in the way that works best for you. I do support all kinds of forms, but I will live and die by a hard copy for the rest of my life,” said Madison Muschalek, President of Emerson’s book club.
Muschalek and Van Impe said that they both enjoy how certain independent bookstores have personal touches to them, such as tables dedicated to what the store’s employees are currently reading and enjoying, which also seems to be the case for many book enthusiasts.
“The grand age of bookselling may be behind us, but what sprouted up is new generations of people wanting to interact with books,” said bookstore employee Jim Behrle.
“There really isn't a substitute for going into a place and discovering a book that you've never heard of, even with algorithms and all that stuff. The things that are on display or on tables might just jump into your hands and you're like ‘I never would have read this book!’”
Behrle started selling books as a teenager and has worked at dozens of stores — both independent and chains — throughout the last four decades. He said that, although the world of bookselling has shifted and morphed a lot since he first started, customers’ desire to engage with books and seek out recommendations from fellow book lovers has remained.
“We were living physically living apart and doing everything on Zoom, and I think now people just want to feel things. They want to get back in touch with places and experience stuff. So there's definitely hope for all bookstores,” he said.
“There's something about going into a place, picking up books, flipping them over, and deciding what you want to buy. That’s really one of the great joys of life, right?”