Shelf Life
Remember what it was like to enter your favorite independent bookstore: strolling the shelves of local authors, breathing in the scent of new and used paperbacks, filling your tote bag with hours of printed fun? Shelf Life is a monthly column where Rachel A.G. Gilman tries to recreate this feeling, chatting with owners about the history of their bookstores, how the pandemic has reshaped the bookselling business, and some of their favorite titles.
Bookseller Best Reads of 2021
To wrap up 2021, we touched base with every bookstore profiled to hear about what’s new, and to get their picks for the best thing they’ve read this year.
A Room of One’s Own
“Room” (which is how employees and patrons lovingly refer to the shop) was first opened in 1975 by a group of women as a feminist bookstore in the downtown area of the Midwestern capital city, hoping to help connect people with one another, as well as to the feminist, lesbian and gay movements.