The Most Independent Bookstore, Ever!
by Gene Taft
I am pleased to report that the death of the bookstore, much like the death of the book itself, has been greatly exaggerated.
How do I know this? Simple. I have living proof.
Like most little girls, my seven-year-old daughter is into Barbies, cartoons and board games, but her really most favorite thing ever in the world is to play “retail.” She has a grocery store and a whole restaurant set up in our basement. She’s not so into the shopping, cooking or serving of food (I’m still waiting on a Coke I ordered over a year ago), but she loves taking orders, writing up the bill, leaving your check on the table and taking your pretend money at the register (cash or credit, no checks).
Ok, maybe playing restaurant is pretty typical for little girls. But, what crazy little seven year old besides mine LOVES to play bookstore? And I’m not talking one of those lousy chain stores at the mall or the tacky big box stores. No, no. She loves to play Independent Bookstore. Note to self, maybe we’re spending too much time at Politics & Prose.
YES. For the past few years, my daughter has begged me play bookstore with her. Mostly we just goof around, but we’ve set up a pretty elaborate store with shelves of books, an information desk with a computer, a cash register and a fake warehouse/receiving room. We do periodic inventories with actual Excel spreadsheets and place orders, we deliver, we have readings and we’ll hold a book behind the counter if you call us and ask.
Where does this bookstore obsession come from? A love of reading? Maybe, because in spite of her protests when it comes to doing her homework, my daughter is a very good reader and she loves books. But there must be more to it.
My daughter knows my job involves helping authors (I’m a book publicist), but she, like her namesake, my grandmother, doesn’t exactly grasp the nuances of my job. She knows when I go to work, I go upstairs to my office with its tasteful array of book lined shelves. Okay, you got me. I go up to an office littered with books. Piles and piles of books. So maybe I’m the culprit.
As a self confessed book glutton, I decided several years ago that I needed to do book-related volunteer work in addition to my day job, which is how I found the Gaithersburg Book Festival. My daughter has been to many GBF events so I should haven’t been surprised when after probably a year of playing bookstore, one day she answered the real, pretend telephone at the information desk of our store and said, “Hello this is the Gaithersburg Book Store, how may I help you?” After my initial surprise that our pretend store even had a name, I was so happy that she was paying enough attention to what I do to give the store this particular name.
That is my living proof that bookstores are alive and well–a seven year old knows what a bookstore is and loves them enough to want to play bookstore. In the end, what could be more encouraging and what could be more independent that a make believe bookstore?
You know the funniest thing about this story? We don’t even live in Gaithersburg! But I do know the Mayor. I’ll introduce you if you like, but beware, he’ll probably have you volunteering at the world’s greatest book festival before you know what hit you.
Sorry, I’ve gotta run, the bookstore manager is telling me my coffee break is over and we have customers in the store and telephone calls on hold.
“Hello, Gaithersburg Book Store, how may I help you?”
Happy Independent Bookstore Day!
Gene Taft owns and operates GT/PR, a greater Washington, D.C., based public relations firm specializing in the promotion of books and authors. Prior to starting his own company in 2006, Gene spent 15 years in New York City working in-house for publishers ranging from Columbia University Press and The Overlook Press to The Free Press at Simon & Schuster and Viking/Penguin. His last position in NYC was Vice President, Assistant Publisher and Director of Publicity at PublicAffairs, a member of the Perseus Books Group.