Indies’ Curation Connection
As we approach National Independent Bookstore Day, the question keeps knocking around: What makes independent bookstores so special? What’s the most appealing part? Why do we keep coming back? There are obviously multiple reasons, but I return to one: curation.
What is a bookstore without it’s curation? It’s what gives each store it’s own character and appeal to different customers and audiences as they browse Google Maps or decide between favorites. The curation dictates the experience and sets the tone for what you’re going to find. Your ultimate reading experience is shaped by the curation of the store; after all, you can only walk out with a book that they chose to have in stock. (Obviously you can order a book, but then I suppose you’re curating your own experience, which is lovely, but not the same thing!)
My favorite bookstores often have a unique selection that is dependent on both the ethos of the store and also the taste of the booksellers. One thing that I love about working at Dog-Eared is how much of all the staff’s taste is accounted for in what we have stocked in the store. Writing shelf-talkers is both fun and also something that we take (perhaps a bit overly) seriously, especially when it’s a book that we loved. I anguished over my description of My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki, one of my all-time favorite books. The individuality is what makes independent stores so great!
That’s what I appreciated when I first visited Reading in Public in West Des Moines: it’s a lovely little store, and I also saw a lot of books that we don’t regularly stock at Dog-Eared Books. What bliss! I picked up my copy of The Hole by Hiroko Oyamada, a 90-something page little thing that was splendid and so strange. The store had a distinctive feel; it’s not something that’s easy to put your finger on as you browse through the shelves, reading the blurbs on different books. It’s an overall aesthetic & thematic sense that comes from what’s put forward and is available. I feel the same distinction when I shop, for example, at Prairie Lights in Iowa City. Places have their own force.
Curation is also a responsibility, though: stores are, in part, at the whims of what books are in high demand and what new bestsellers are coming out, but the distinct selection of books determines whose voice gets heard (& read). When booksellers read widely and recommend widely, it can make a huge difference in what books are selling. It’s a lot harder to buy a less conventionally popular book if you have to hunt it down online. The ability to go into a store, find something on the shelf, walk out with it, and just start reading is important. Sometimes, as readers, we want a window into someone else’s world, and sometimes we want to see someone who looks a little more like ourselves explore new worlds. Everyone deserves to have the opportunity to make that choice!
I had a splendid experience the other day when someone came in looking for a queer mystery or thriller. In that moment, I felt such excitement despite my initial answer being “I’m not sure, let me look…” In my mind, the mystery section is so dominated by white, heterosexual men, and this was a challenge for me to look harder and think more broadly about the underlying assumptions we make about books and genres. (Silvia Moreno-García published a very interesting article in The New York Times, “Saying Goodbye to Magical Realism,” where she discusses the way the label gets slapped on all sorts of Latin American literature with little regard to the complexity and variation of genre). First of all, the question opened a very exciting curatorial can of worms that I’m hoping to spend more time with, and second, we had way more options available than I had initially anticipated. (Human, if you’re out there, I hope you’re enjoying your book.) If there are any recommendations for queer thrillers, I’d love to hear about it in the comments. I’m currently reading The Gulf, a murder mystery by Rachel Cochran that’s slated to come out in June and creates all the ambiance of the Southern gothic.
One of the best experiences is when customers develop relationships with a particular bookseller because they have compatible taste; I’ll ask people if I can help them and they request Amy or Mariah or Jess right off the bat because they know that they will just get what it is they’re looking for. (Chad’s popular too, and rarer to come by). Sometimes, there’s the joyous moment where you’re talking to someone as they’re reading a shelf-talker or perusing a section, and they look from your name tag to the name on the shelf and go, “Oh, it’s you.” The tone usually borders on surprise and disgust—I think that’s mostly the surprise coming through. If that was ever you, don’t worry: it’s funny. Also, see previous comment about the effort put into some of the shelf-talkers, and forgive me if I ever sneak up behind you while you’re reading one. I can’t help it—I’m excited to talk about my favorite books.
Next time you stumble across a strange and wonderful book that you’ve never heard of before, just know that the odds are high it’s beloved by one of your indie booksellers.
