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Independent bookstore is a term used in to identify bookstores that are primarily owned and operated by local people (often themselves writers or poets such as Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti) who usually have strong ties to the community and neighboring colleges and universities. Independent bookstores are thus frequently involved in non-profit community events and issues. They also tend to offer books which are not necessarily available in chain bookstores.

Background

Independent bookstores have historically supported and cultivated the work of young authors and poets, often acting as literary salons. This sometimes includes promoting or publishing works that might have otherwise not been published.

Shakespeare and Company

One of the most famous examples is the Shakespeare and Company (bookshop) in Paris during the Sylvia Beach period in the 1920s. During this era, the store was considered to be a center of Anglo/American literary culture in Paris. The shop was often visited by authors belonging to the "lost generation" such as Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein and James Joyce. The contents of the store were considered high quality and reflected Beach's own literary taste. Shakespeare and Company, as well as its literary denizens, was repeatedly mentioned in Hemingway's A Moveable Feast. Patrons could buy or rent books like D. H. Lawrence's controversial Lady Chatterley's Lover, which had been banned in England and the United States.

Ulysses
It was Sylvia Beach who published Joyce's book, Ulysses, in 1922 through Shakespeare and Company. The book was subsequently banned in the United States and United Kingdom until 1933. Shakespeare and Company published several other editions of Ulysses under its imprint in later years.

City Lights

Another example is City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, California which was founded in 1953 by Peter D. Martin and Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Ferlinghetti became its sole owner in 1955, and started City Lights Publishers that same year in order to publish what he called "an international, dissident, insurgent ferement." Among the writers it publishes are the Beat poets, including Jack Kerouac, Gregory Corso, and Allen Ginsberg.

Howl
In 1956 City Lights published Howl & Other Poems as number 4 in its City Lights Pocket Poets Series. Ferlinghetti and the bookstore manager, Shigeyoshi Murao, were arrested on an obscenity charge for publishing and selling the book. With the aid of the ACLU, the book was vindicated in court, the judge ruling that the work was not without redeeming social importance. In The Fall of America, Ginsberg describes City Lights as "home."

Printers Inc. and The Golden Gate

A contemporary example is Printers Inc. Bookstore (1978-2001) in Palo Alto, California. Noted author Vikram Seth wrote portions of his first work, The Golden Gate in the cafe of the Printers Inc. bookstore and references both the bookstore and the cafe in sections 8.13 and 8.14 of The Golden Gate.

Contemporary issues

American supporters of independent bookstores, such as the American Booksellers Association are often critical of corporate booksellers like Barnes & Noble and Borders Books and Music (the #1 and #2 book retailers in the U.S. as of 2005). They criticize these chain stores for dominating the bookselling industry with their large stores, discount marketing, and sales of non-book materials like CDs and DVDs.

The aggressive growth and marketing efforts of such chains are often blamed for driving independent bookstores out of business. Independent bookstores also face competition from mass merchants and discount department stores like Wal-Mart, Target Corporation and Kmart, as well as from smaller retailers like grocery and drug store chains.

Online bookstores

Some independent booksellers have begun to sell books online to compete with Web-based booksellers like Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com. For example, the American Booksellers Association's Book Sense program features a website (booksense.com) allowing independent bookstores to participate in a common virtual online storefront.

Bookstore Tourism

Bookstore tourism, a grassroots effort and marketing tool initiated in the U.S. in 2003, is aimed at raising the visibility of independent bookstores by promoting them as a group travel niche.

Partial list of well-known independent bookstores

Popular culture

See also

External links

Independent bookstores | Bookstores

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Independent bookstore".

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