A community’s downtown is often considered the “heart of the city” due to its economic, cultural and historical significance, and the accessibility of transportation. There is that and more in downtown Fayetteville. We have several major businesses, our city and county government offices, many retail stores, restaurants, historical buildings, galleries and museums, and access to mass transit. And we have a bookstore that is an example of something that thrives in a city’s downtown core.
If downtown is the “heart” of the city, an independent bookstore is its “soul.” Many, if not most, independent bookstores are in their city’s downtown area. Travelers who visit downtown are very often booklovers. And they love to walk along the shelves, treading the creaky wooden floors while exploring the variety of titles in each genre and simply experiencing the familiar ambiance found only in a local bookstore. Out-of-town customers often tell us they don’t visit a downtown without looking for a bookstore where they can find these experiences. For them, a bookstore is like a comfortable old friend.
There are numerous fiction and non-fiction books about bookstores. Mystery and romance novels that have an “indie” bookshop for their setting are hugely popular now. Non-fiction authors have traveled around the world researching the history of individual bookstores, past and present. Others lament the decline in bookstores and write about the possible reason for that. “Books about bookshops” have something for everyone’s taste, and here are a few that might just become your next read.
1. The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore by Evan Friss
This must-read book covers the history of bookstores beginning with Benjamin Franklin’s first bookstore in Philadelphia and bringing us to the present. The author treats us to the story behind a variety of large and small book dealers. As we follow this history, we are reminded of how bookstores have shaped our history and why we need them more than ever before. Photographs and illustrations throughout the book add to the nostalgia of the stories. I had the pleasure of meeting the author at a recent book festival in Charlottesville and loved hearing some of his stories firsthand.
2. Why Books Still Matter: Honoring Joyce Meskis Edited by Karl Weber
“If books didn’t matter, nobody would try to ban them,” reads the book’s overview.
Joyce Meskis was the founder of the famous Denver bookstore Tattered Cover and an advocate of First Amendment rights. This collection of essays by leading publishers, booksellers, authors and free speech advocates offers reflections on the important role of books in our lives today and pays tribute to the movement that Meskis championed. Books have a dynamic role in our cultural, civic, social and economic development. If we lose sight of this, we will be diminished in ways we can only imagine.
3. Footnotes from the World’s Greatest Bookstores: True Tales and Lost Moments from Book Buyers, Booksellers, and Book Lovers by Bob Eckstein, Forward by Garrison Keillor
This is like a travelogue of 75 bookstores around the world — with marvelous illustrations by the author. Included are stories by many great writers and artists, including Deepak Chopra, Terry Gross, Ann Patchett and many more who entice us to seek out a bookstore in all the cities we visit. Oh, that sounds like a heavenly thing to do.
4. The Booklover’s Library: A Novel by Madeline Martin
The threat of war is looming over England, and widow Emma Taylor needs a job to support herself and her precious daughter Olivia. However, there are restrictions against widows with children, preventing them from taking a job. When the blitz threatens, Olivia is evacuated to the country, and Emma tries to convince the manager of Boots’ Booklover’s Library to hire her. Here she finds a new purpose as she develops friendships with her coworkers and the library’s quirky regulars. But she must also confront the memories of her late father, the owner of the family bookstore where they worked together before a tragic accident. As the war continues, Emma works to bring her daughter home while she learns to depend on others for support and to understand more about the power of literature to help in the darkest of times.
5. The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians: True Stories of the Magic of Reading by James Patterson and Matt Eversmann
Who are booksellers? Who becomes a librarian? Patterson and Eversmann introduce us to a variety of people who are in the business, and we find out exactly who they are. They said it best through the book’s description:
“To be a bookseller or librarian…
You have to play detective.
Be a treasure hunter. A matchmaker. An advocate.
A visionary.
A person who creates ‘book joy’ by pulling a book from a shelf, handing it to someone and saying, ‘You’ve got to read this. You’re going to love it.’”
6. The Vanishing Bookstore: A Novel by Helen Phifer
A story that opens with the following quote is sure to please booklovers everywhere: “Every story needs a happy ending. And you can’t have yours until you find the bookstore.” This story opens in 1692 in Salem, where witches may be lurking about. A young woman hides a journal under the floorboards of an abandoned bookstore and runs away. After many years, the bookstore vanishes, never to be seen again until it reappears in present time. Dora, in present-day Salem, is about to meet her long-lost mother when danger confronts them both. She begins to dig into her family’s past when she comes upon a secret that is locked in this mysterious bookstore that has not been seen in generations. As she is being watched, will she be able to find the journal that will uncover these secrets?
In the same way that downtown is the heart of a city and bookstores its soul, one might rightly consider books to be the heart and soul of our society. They can inspire us, connect us to each other and help us sustain that which is truly important.
Read CityView Magazine’s “The Downtown Issue” June 2025 e-edition here.
