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.
Rough Draft Bar & Books
Rough Draft felt like exactly the kind of literary communal space I had always wanted growing up: somewhere equally equipped for meeting up with friends as it was for drafting out plans for a new writing project, a place where a person could show up when it opened mid-morning and find themselves not leaving until late at night.