From a devoted reader and lifelong bookseller, an eloquent and
charming reflection on the singular importance of bookstores
Do we need
bookstores in the twenty-first century? If so, what makes a good one?
In this beautifully written book, Jeff Deutsch--the director of
Chicago's Seminary Co-op Bookstores, one of the finest bookstores in
the world--pays loving tribute to one of our most important and
endangered civic institutions. He considers how qualities like space,
time, abundance, and community find expression in a good bookstore.
Along the way, he also predicts--perhaps audaciously--a future in
which the bookstore not only endures, but realizes its highest
aspirations.
In exploring why
good bookstores matter, Deutsch draws on his lifelong experience as a
bookseller, but also his upbringing as an Orthodox Jew. This
spiritual and cultural heritage instilled in him a reverence for
reading, not as a means to a living, but as an essential part of a
meaningful life. Central among Deutsch's arguments for the necessity
of bookstores is the incalculable value of browsing--since, when we
are deep in the act of looking at the shelves, we move through space
as though we are inside the mind itself, immersed in self-reflection.
In the age of
one-click shopping, this is no ordinary defense of bookstores, but
rather an urgent account of why they are essential places of
discovery, refuge, and fulfillment that enrich the communities that
are lucky enough to have them.