week nine: in the windy city.

Apr 24

You can find my “Week Eight” post here.

“Hey, my ETA looks like it’ll be 5:30. Should I meet you at the restaurant?” I would be in CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, that evening, where I was staying with my friend Alex for a whole week. I was excited to see a familiar face after having gone a while without a friend, and the stability of a single place for several days was eagerly invited.

“No you can come to my apartment, not a problem,” Alex messaged back. Perfect. I was at Prairie Lights bookstore in IOWA CITY, IOWA. The five-hour drive from Shakopee had begun close to 7 in the morning and had given me ample time to myself as I passed through land that all looked pretty much the same. I bet the Midwest is explained similarly to all the folks who live outside the region, in that we’re told there’s nothing to see out there. An exaggeration, surely. I hadn’t exactly expected to find cornfields in downtown Iowa City, but my point was that I didn’t know what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised to arrive in a college town with unique, independent businesses lining the streets, outdoor seating areas, bikers, and people of all ages—not unlike your typical downtown area. I pulled into a parking deck and decided to make my way to Prairie Lights Books & Cafe on foot. I noticed a comic-book store called Daydream Comics. I couldn’t help stepping in.

“I’m sorry, but I’ve never really kept up with newer comics. Could you tell me a good place to start if I like Batman?” Naturally, the man at the register knew exactly what to suggest and sent me on my way. I had arrived early, so I enjoyed a nice latte in the Prairie Lights coffee shop on the top floor before snaking back down to get Jan Weissmiller for our interview.

Prairie Lights Books & Cafe

IOWA CITY, IOWA

The University of Iowa is famous for its writing program. Started in 1936, it was the first creative writing program in the entire country, and today continues to be the highest ranked. Also in Iowa City, you’ll find Prairie Lights, where I had the pleasure of speaking to Jan Weissmiller, the owner of the store. Opened in 1978, the founder of Prairie Lights created Iowa City’s only indie bookstore at the time. Jan considers the store to be the “writers’ bookstore,” and the perfect place for browsing. With over 11,000 sq. ft. covered mostly in new books, the options for a great read are nearly endless, with potential for more used books around the corner, as well.

How would you describe this bookstore in one word?

“Quietly vibrant. People are reading and browsing and so we don't want it to be raucous. But on the other hand, the ideas in here feel vibrant all the time. I can't tell you how many conversations I have daily that are just amazing.”

The store is known for its reading series, featuring a combination of well-known and local writers. And the youth in the community really manage to show out for these events.

“One of my favorite stories from a reading here,” Jan recalled, “is we had Andrew Sean Greer, who wrote—who won the Pulitzer Prize for this novel called Less. He was here, and these kids were super prepared. And Brandon Taylor, who has now become quite well-known because of his own books… was here. And listening to Andrew Sean Greer along with these kids and these kids were so prepared and they had all these great questions and Andrew was really loving them and everything… And when it was over, I said to Brandon ‘God, weren’t those kids remarkable?’ And Brandon said, ‘those kids are terrifying.’”

Prairie Lights is hosting live events now in combination with virtual events that became popular during the pandemic, run by folks with longtime, passionate ties with the bookstore. Good thing, too, because Iowa City is home to a population dedicated to reading and education.

“There's so many writers here, and the history of writing is… people identify with it,” Jan explained. “Even if they're not in the English department—the doctors and lawyers identify with writers and they can go to readings and they meet writers at parties. We have a very big mix of people that come to our store. The hospital here is also really big. It's the biggest teaching hospital in, the biggest university teaching hospital in the country.” Jan also enjoys a program Prairie Lights does in collaboration with the Iowa Youth Writing Project, where university students in creative writing work with low-income, underprivileged kids in the larger community on writing, which is followed by a benefit reading where the kids read their work.

“I've got some wonderful pictures of these kids too,” Jan said. “They, they, they, we have to have stepped stools for them to get up to the microphone, and they just, and they do, and their families come, and then we have, then we have a reception in the cafe afterward. And we announce that whatever the store takes in that day, we give a percentage of it to the Iowa Youth Writing Project.”

I was interested to hear what Prairie Lights dealt with in regard to the pandemic, and how their business had been affected over the past few years.

Jan was recommending…

*Keats: A Brief Life in Nine Poems and One Epitaph,* by Lucasta Miller

“Well, it was really fast as you may remember…” Jane explained. “We stayed here and did curbside pickup, free. We instituted free delivery in the Iowa City-Coralville area and we're still doing that actually. Our online orders, as was the case with most bookstores, just skyrocketed. Really hard to keep up with those for us. And we got a lot of support from people that had left Iowa City and were immediately worried about Prairie Lights. There [are] a lot of people in Iowa City, they just can't imagine not being able to come to Prairie Lights, and the idea that they could lose it was very frightening to them.” What Jan came out of the pandemic with was the realization that people were finding ways to escape isolation any way they could. Prairie Lights was an escape for many, and not just through book-buying.

“I felt like people were calling us because they were isolated just to talk to us,” Jan recalled. “I mean, it would be under the auspices of getting a book, but then the conversations would turn into all these other things, and I just felt like, ‘wow, they really see us as people that are going to be there and be supportive.’ We get to know our customers really deeply.”

I asked Jan for any parting message to folks out there. “We'd love to meet you,” Jan said. “We'd love to talk to you about books, or whatever else you want to talk about.” Who doesn’t want a friend like that?

Iowa City had truly been a treat, and I was a little obsessed with how nice the strong, cursive Prairie Lights logo looked on their merchandise. I took a bookseller’s recommendation and walked out of there with a copy of Kindred, by Octavia Butler, quickly returning to my car so I could reach Chicago by dinner time.

It felt as if I could see the Windy City’s skyline for a good thirty minutes before I was truly there. There were several highways with several lanes of traffic converging in vexing ways. I felt a little anxious driving into the city, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle after Atlanta and Los Angeles. Once I had gotten close to the address Alex had sent me, I was able to slow down a bit and take in my surroundings as the highways poured into more pedestrian-friendly districts. Eventually, I found Alex on the sidewalk near his apartment building in Lincoln Park, and he hopped in, directing me toward the parking spot I ended up claiming for the week. As I’ve mentioned before, I immediately love huge metropolitan cities and their unique neighborhoods and public transportation systems (not you, San Francisco). The noise of the cars on the street floated freely through Alex and Charlie’s (his roommate) kitchen window. The little eateries were tightly Tetris-ed into the neighborhood in between the apartments. Like a plant photosynthesizing under the sun, all of it reinvigorated me. And of course, Alex was a sight for sore eyes. I was really looking forward to slowing things down for a moment and letting him give me the Lincoln Park experience.

I freshened up quickly and we headed out to dinner at Homeslice, a pizza joint, where we caught up on each others’ lives since we had last spoken. The large, open window next to me let outside flow in, so I could see the metro frequently pass over a bridge a block away. No one walking down the block with their dog or sitting at an outdoor section of a restaurant paid the metro any attention. Alex kindly gave me a walking tour of his neighborhood, pointing out spots we had to visit. He had only been in Chicago a few months, so it was nice to see him so well-adjusted. Unfortunately, I had to call it an early night to accomplish what was sure to be the undertaking of the week the following morning.

For some context, I was originally planning on going through ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN, on my way out of Chicago. That day ended up not working well for the bookstore owner I was supposed to meet, so we found a day that did—the morning right after I arrived in Chicago. Our interview was set for 10:00 am, and it was around a four-hour drive to Ann Arbor from Chicago. The twist was that I would also be crossing time zones, so I had to add an hour to my travel time to get there when I was supposed to. Lincoln Park was a bit eerie at 4 am. It was cool, with an occasional wind blowing some tarp or a branch in my periphery as I quickly made my way to Lola from the apartment. No cars, no bikers—just me. Closer to five, when I was on the highway outside LANSING, MICHIGAN, the folks with an early commute joined me under the line-up of tall streetlights and a gradient of blues and oranges in the sky. I arrived at Literati Bookstore fifteen minutes before the interview time, eager to meet Hilary Gustafson for an interview I made sure to fit into my route by any means necessary. It was all worth it.

Literati Bookstore

ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN

In beautiful downtown Ann Arbor, you'll find a wonderful collection of new fiction titles at Literati Bookstore, owned by Hilary Gustafson. Opened in March 2013, in the same town the original Border Bookstore was founded, Literati rose up to fill a gap that had been left in the community when the national chain closed down in 2011. Before the pandemic, Literati would hold around 300 events yearly, either in the store, off-site or in collaboration with community partners like Neutral Zone, the local youth poetry and writing center.

During the pandemic, they shifted to an online model for events, but have since started bringing back in-person community engagement.

How would you describe this bookstore in one word?

“Rebirth? It was a new start for Michael and I, but for the town of Ann Arbor, it was sort of just like a rebirth of a bookstore.”

I asked Hilary about how and why the bookstore came to be and was surprised to learn that it was something a bit unexpected for her.

“I studied politics and international relations. And then I worked in DC for a while, and I was like, ‘no, thank you, I don't want to do this.’ Um… and I remember I was waitressing in DC and kind of feeling like I don't know what I want to do. The chef there was like, ‘what do you love?’ And I said, ‘I love reading. I wish I could have a job that supports that.’ After college, I got a job at Simon and Schuster… and then worked there for five years. And my last job with them was being a sales rep for independent bookstores. And that's how I learned the business… then decided to do this, which was scary and I can't believe I did it. But we did it. My husband and I did it.”

To Hilary, it’s been important for the store to be plugged into the community since the very start. Conversations with community folks help Literati understand the kinds of books and events they should be providing—and sometimes, these conversations lead to priceless gems.

“[We have] a lot of retirees who have an immense reading history and sort of, like, a lot of the authors that have sort of gone into obscurity, it's fun to learn from them and to hear and have them recommend titles, and see them special order books that I've never heard of.”

A lot of successful bookstores with diverse communities understand that reading fiction, in general, isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Serving as a community hub and allowing community members to connect with others over other interests often makes spaces like Literati valuable to not only readers but everybody.

“We used to do a thing before COVID that was called Local Learning,” Hilary explained, “where we would have an expert in many different fields come… you paid $10 to come to class. We had pottery, or mushroom foraging, or… figure drawing, or different kinds of cooking. So, that brought many different people in who maybe wouldn't have interacted just with the books in a straightforward way.” I loved the idea of coming to a bookstore every week to just learn something random with random people. I asked Hilary to explain what the scene was like when they had to shut down the store in 2020.

“No one knew what was going to happen,” Hilary said. “So we, we started a GoFundMe, sort of, the day, in the days directly after, and we couldn't believe the support we got. We raised over $100,000 in two days…which was huge and that allowed us to keep… all our staff at their same pay rate. Even the people who were hourly, who weren't coming into the store… we could continue to pay them because that was really important to us.”

Hilary recommended…

That much support in just two days was astonishing to me. But as Hilary said, there is a sizeable older population in Ann Arbor. Many people remembered what it felt like to lose valuable community bookstores a decade ago, and they didn’t want the kind of space Literati provided to be in jeopardy again.

“I'll be talking to someone about a book,” Hilary said, “and then another customer will come over and is like, ‘yes, that was great, but you know what? It sounds like you would also really love this book.’ So, they're having a conversation with each other just because they're in the same place at the same time, but maybe in no other part of their life are they going to be in the same place, at the same time. So, I really think it is a way to bring people together and, in that way, it creates a social fabric in the community… it supports different ideas and people. That's what I love about what we do.” I had randomly come across so many interesting people on this trip that I wouldn't have met otherwise. I was overjoyed to learn that Literati was there to provide a space where spontaneous human connection wasn’t a novelty but occurred more often than you’d expect.

*Inside Literati, in Ann Arbor, Michigan*

Walking down Main Street, it was satisfying to see some old buildings still around amongst the occasional Starbucks. Walking out of Literati, I began to feel a bit tired from having woken up so early that morning, so I thought it best to walk somewhere for lunch.

“You’ve got to go to Zingerman’s,” Charlie’s voice echoed in my head as my tummy grumbled. You’ve got it, Charlie. Hilary had mentioned two other bookstores in town, so I charted a walking tour around the heart of Ann Arbor and set off, to West Side Book Shop first. The store offered used and rare books, and almost felt like an archive collection in the back of a university library—at least, what I imagined one of those to look like. They had some old editions of books stocking their shelves, and I’m sure a collector would’ve had a field day. Next, I found my way to Dawn Treader Books, which seemingly also offered used and rare books. I saw now how two other bookstores were open so close to Literati—the three of them simply served different audiences. Dawn Treader was long and narrow, with bookshelves leading any reader to the back via twists and turns and ramps with ample books and boxes and stools and even a sarcophagus lining the walkways, although I may have hallucinated that last one. Judging from the name of the store, I figured they had a certain appreciation for the fantasy genre. Dawn Treader reminded me much of Montana Valley Book Store in Alberton. At that point, my friend Max called me from back home, and we caught up as I walked to Zingerman’s Delicatessan. I was a bit shocked when I got there, and it took me a few walkthroughs to snap out of it and get in line to order a sandwich. Located in the historic district was a neighborhood called Kerrytown, where Zingerman’s occupied a large street corner, with ample outdoor seating and a separate cafe, as well. Even with all of the space, though, there seemed to be none left—there were people seated everywhere. Half of the main building was a store, with deli counters selling all the meats and cheeses you could dream of, and everything from pasta to spreads to beans fully stocked the walls. I couldn’t get over the vibrant colors of the beautifully designed signs hanging on the walls, and the black and white honeycombed flooring. I was told there was a 30-minute wait for sandwiches, and wait I did. That Dave’s Open Road sandwich was worth every minute. You have to check out these menus.

The drive back to Chicago meant that I would “gain” an hour, so I arrived back at the apartment around the same time Alex was getting back from work. We decided to keep it simple that evening, and Alex took me on a walk around Lincoln Park.

“Oh, I go to this church sometimes,” Alex said. The sidewalks were very spacious in this area, with trees, flowerbeds, and lampposts buffering the walkways on the roadside. Large manicured bushes and thin, black, metal fences separated the walkways from the homes. I liked the layout very much, and it reminded me a bit of the relatively quieter neighborhoods in New York City. We looped back around and went home, making our way across a diabolical six-way intersection at N Lincoln, N Halsted, and W Fullerton. The avenue that cut through the + intersection in a diagonal brought me back to Tucson momentarily, the only city in America that designates an avenue diagonally cutting through a street and an avenue as a stravenue. Look it up if I didn’t explain that well. Kathryn and I had driven around in Tucson for a bit trying to find one naturally, but we had been unsuccessful. They were there, though.

The following day was my break from driving, and while Alex was away at work, I hit the town with not a plan in mind, except that I would walk where I’d go. I was comfortable walking around Alex’s neighborhood at this point but then branched out, stopping to grab a coffee here and somehow convincing myself to get a haircut there. This was an emotional goodbye, to say the least; I was a bit distraught when I came back to Alex’s apartment and saw how the longest, most luscious mop of hair I’d ever grown had been reduced to scraps. It took me a bit of styling before I came to terms with the change—what’s done was done. Alex and I got dinner at McGee’s, a tavern next to Homeslice, and got some insanely delicious quesadillas that I couldn’t stop thinking about for days to come. We took the long way around, strolling through Oz Park and South Pond. There were so many beautiful spots in this little part of the city. A professional photographer was taking photos of what looked like a newly married couple, the skyline and green trees radiating warmth under the evening glow behind them. There were groups biking and jogging and picnicking on the lawn. I too would want to take advantage of every summer hour outside before the cold crept into Chicago later in the year.

The next day, I gave myself a later start, but made my way to the Fulton River District for an exciting interview at Semicolon Bookstore and Gallery.

Semicolon Bookstore and Gallery

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

Imagine an open floor layout with white-painted brick walls covered with vibrant street art—and books! You’d probably think walking into this bookstore located in Chicago’s River West that it has a certain vibe. Semicolon Bookstore and Gallery is all about that vibe, and let’s its open, carefree culture spill into the streets, attracting folks around to see what they’re about.

However, proprietress Danielle Mullen didn’t know what exactly she’d be getting herself into when the store opened in Jun 2019—just a few months before the coronavirus pandemic brought about shutdowns worldwide. But where exactly did the idea come from?

How would you describe this bookstore in one word?

“Authentic. Every day, we come as ourselves. And, we know that that is not in line with a ton of other bookstores or a ton of other companies, in general. But we are who we are.”

Danielle desired to curate a space where she could seek comfort every day, regardless of if anyone were interested in showing up. She combined her love for books and street art, and thus Semicolon was born. There vibe? Remarkably different than what you see at many bookstores. So where does the name of the store come from?

“It represents [when] an author could stop the sentence but chooses to move it forward,” Danielle said. “And that's what this was for me.” Danielle was diagnosed with ocular melanoma, which effectively put a hold on her time as a frequently-traveling art museum curator. After starting her chemotherapy, she wanted a comforting space to spend her time. Today, Semicolon offers a thoughtfully curated collection of new books, around 90% of which are books by authors of color.

“The funny thing,” Danielle explained, “is that our audience here is mostly white people. That's kind of what the neighborhood is made up as. And we're happy to help them delve into what authors of color look like. It’s not something that you have to outwardly notice. It's just, ‘read a book because you like it.’” Regardless of the community demographics, Semicolon chooses to highlight underrepresented voices because stories bring audiences together, and since they have a community platform, no voices should go unheard.

Semicolon Books has grown popular in the Chicago community over the past few years for a multitude of reasons, including their commitment to making reading and books accessible to the youth in the area. They started a program called “Clear the Shelves,” which according to Danielle has given over a million dollars worth of books away to Chicago Public Schools students. “I remember being the poor kid who couldn't take books home,” Danielle said. “It is imperative to bridge that literacy gap by allowing people to take books home and keep them. And so that's what we focus on.” The program entails letting kids come into the store, clear out their books and merchandise, enjoy some lunch, and have fun. “Pandemonium. If you've ever let kids loose in any space—and I'm talking about 200, 250 kids—it’s crazy. But we love it. We have such a good time talking to them about the kids… seeing what their interests are because we know their interests are all over the place, and we like to provide for that.”

I was having trouble understanding this level of generosity. It wasn’t something I hadn’t come across at quite this scale yet. But for Danielle and the rest at Semicolon, it’s all about providing an accessible and accepting atmosphere to folks starting at a young age. According to her, black-owned bookstores have always served as community hubs, and that’s an ideal all bookstores should strive for.

“Some stores are too busy trying to compete with Amazon, not considering that Amazon can't compete with us,” Danielle said. “It's getting lost in this faux competition when all we have to do is be a place where our community members can exist comfortably.”

Before I left Semicolon, Danielle left me with a reminder. “You need those small shops that are in your neighborhood. These were the same shops that were giving food away to the people, that were giving clothes away, that were helping people out with cash donations. Those were the shops doing it. It was never Amazon or any of the other behemoths. It was just the community—small—businesses. And that's what everybody should, kind of, cling to as we continue to move forward.”

Danielle recommended…

*Stories from Tenants Downstairs,* by Sidik Fofana

Semicolon had been such a breath of fresh air, and the employees were all so nice. I could totally see myself walking in frequently if I lived around here, just to chat and see how they were doing. Charlie, along with some friends who had visited bookstores in Chicago, had given me two other suggestions I planned on visiting before returning home. The heart of Wicker Park was bustling with the roar of the CTA metro, cars in narrower lanes of traffic, and folks making their way to shops like Dr. Martens or Carhartt, or a bar or donut shop peppered somewhere in between—hopefully that paints a descriptive picture. This is where I found Myopic Books, the self-proclaimed “Best Used Book Store” in Chicago. I had always loved the used bookstore scene, having lived and worked in one for a little while in Hilo. Myopic really shined bright in Wicker Park, its narrow aisles packed with gem hunters, hoping to stumble upon something they didn’t know they were looking for. I snaked my way upstairs, having gone through the entire store, and there seemed to be a bookshelf with any genre you could think of. Many bookshelves had ample space for more books. Afterward, I slipped right around the corner to Quimby’s Bookstore, a store I felt really leaned into the independent, community bookstore vibe. The store was packed with small-title publications in the form of comics and zines. There was an incredible amount of hand-drawn, neon paper covers on their shelves. It felt like the perfect place to get a taste for something unique and perhaps even a bit strange. The décor was a fascinating amalgamation of repurposed furniture and mannequins and items you’d find in a wizard’s lair. What caught me by surprise was a vintage $5.00 black and white photo booth I couldn’t resist hopping into. I had to rush out of Quimby’s, and back to my car in front of Semicolon, because my parking had expired. That evening, Alex and I exchanged the happenings of our day over some exquisite sushi next to an animated older woman who couldn’t help eavesdropping on our conversation. We ended the day with some dessert from Dairy Queen, and I thought to myself about the kind of stuff I had been doing all day. I haven’t gone to see the Bean yet. In fact, I hadn’t done anything touristy in Chicago at all. I didn’t have any regrets. I’ll see the Bean next time. It’s not going anywhere.

The week was winding down. It was Friday. That meant Alex and I had to wake up early to partake in a little tradition he was eager to share with me. The two of us arrived at Montrose Beach a little before 7 am. It was a bit chilly—one could even say windy—and there were a bunch of other folks sitting on towels on the oversized concrete steps leading down to the sidewalk lining Lake Michigan, wearing hoodies, looking like they had just rolled out of bed. With every passing minute, more and more people started arriving and finding a spot to sit down, occasionally seeing someone they knew and catching up. The grey skies started to break as a band of orange emerged on the horizon, gradually growing larger. As I noticed folks arriving with pool floaties, Alex explained the tradition a bit more. Apparently, a guy started jumping into Lake Michigan after spending his morning biking, and his friends decided to join him. Since then, every Friday, more and more people have shown up to join, many simply through word-of-mouth. When I was there, there must’ve been hundreds of folks present, jumping off of the ledge in waves at the gesture of someone I believed to be one of the co-founders of the event. There were dogs too, and everyone gathered to cheer on the cutest doggo as he jumped with us. After, folks would grab a mug they brought and enjoyed a cup of coffee. It was the strange beauty of random human connection. There was a liveliness cutting through the air and no one seemed to mind being up so early on a Friday. The ice-cold water of the lake wasn’t unbearable, but it was something that collectively woke all of us up that morning. I’ve linked a website I found belonging to one of the founders of the event here. It’s incredibly neat, and something you should check out.

*A mantra to take us back to a simpler time*

This was also when I experienced a lingering side effect of COVID. I was only able to wade in the water for a brief time before I felt short of breath. I would have to ease myself into anything even a little strenuous. I wonder for how long… We pretty much relaxed for the rest of the day and found ourselves at a bookstore/bar before dinner that evening. I was instantly in love with Kibbitznest Books, Brews & Blarney. I immediately texted my friend Max when I got there. “Max I found the bookstore that feels just like the place I want to own one day.” Imagine a small brick-walled warehouse with wood-paneled rooms and groovy furniture, lamps and lights everywhere, board games and books, barstools and beers… it was the perfect place to grab a morning coffee and work remotely. The perfect place to gather friends in the afternoon to have a good time. Just the perfect place. There was a typewriter on a counter by the large windows at the front side of the store available for public use. It took me a minute to figure out how to use it, and when I thought of what to type, one thing immediately came to mind. The real ones know. Alex and his friends, Elena and Katherine were with us for dinner at Old Pueblo right after. It had been a divine day to be surrounded by other human beings.

Saturday. The end of my full week pause in the Windy City. I decided to be bold that morning and took the metro—thank you, Chicago, for making it clear how to properly pay for/navigate public transportation (cough cough San Francisco cough cough)—to go have brunch with my friends Noah and Hunter from UNC. I’ve never been a huge fan of breakfast, but brunch? I’m often first in line for brunch. It was delightful to catch up with them and hear how Chicago had been treating them post-undergrad. Hunter had actually been in San Francisco at the same time I had been, so I had reached out to him about meeting in Chicago ahead of time. As if some sort of battery fueled by seeing friendly faces had been recharged within me, I parted ways with them and soon made my way back to Wicker Park with Alex for some casual weekend window-shopping before driving to EVANSTON, ILLINOIS, for my final interview before a weeklong break.

Bookends & Beginnings

EVANSTON, ILLINOIS

As if venturing off into a hidden fantasy world, you’ll find Bookends & Beginnings located in an endearing old garage down an alley in downtown Evanston. The space the store has now called home for 8 years used to be a different, used, and antiquarian bookstore for 40 years before Bookends & Beginnings owner and co-founder, Nina Barrett, made it her own. Books have been floating between those walls for half a century.

How would you describe this bookstore in one word?

“Cozy. And I’m very proud of that. I think that bookselling in America has become so commodified… I didn’t want this to feel like a place where you came in and you bought a product. I wanted it to feel like a place… where you would just kinda get lost.”

Today, you can find a wide selection of new and used books, a wonderful children’s books collection, and much, much more.

“Before I opened this store,” Nina said, "I won a couple of James Beard awards doing food reporting for the local public radio station. And so, um, food and cooking and chefs and kitchens are very dear to my heart, and you will see that, at the front of the store, cookbooks really have ‘pride of place’ here.”

Nina made me laugh when she compared running the bookstore with her staff to the TV series, Firefly; that it feels like they’re all “on an old, rust bucket spaceship that’s just hurtling through space, with an eccentric crew of people on board who are taping the engine together with duct tape and constantly dodging all kinds of interstellar dangers, and barely squeaking through each episode.” But there’s a reason that when the pandemic happened, Bookends & Beginnings stayed in business, and the local Barnes & Noble left town. Many people have reached out to the store over the years, thanking them for being a refuge or source of comfort for college students drowning in stress. For providing reliable, high-quality gift items for their friends. For providing foreign language books. And the fact of the matter is that with many brick-and-mortar retailers disappearing, indie bookstores begin filling a lot more gaps in people’s lives.

Nina recommended…

*Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey*, by Florence Williams

Running the bookstore during the pandemic brought its own set of challenges, but the staff managed to find a way to open as quickly as possible while maintaining a safe environment for customers and staff members. Nina even drove three employees to and from work for a year so they wouldn’t have to use public transportation during the height of the COVID spread. The store also managed to create “Literary Lunch Breaks” so folks could hop in to hear an author speak while they ate their lunch, and held virtual, educational classes—all of this to maintain community in any way possible. “We had a session where he talked about the history and the culture of sourdough and taught us how to make a starter,” Nina recalled. “And then we reconvened, eight days later, when we’d had a chance to bake something. And it was just… it was so much fun.”

The main reason I wanted to meet with Nina was because of her activism in the indie bookstore scene in the fight against Amazon.

“We are the lead plaintiff in a class-action suit against Amazon,” Nina explained, “because essentially the situation that they have created in the book world… the playing field is so not level in terms of the pricing that we pay for books versus the pricing that they pay for their books. There’s also just a huge issue with them using books as ‘loss leaders,’ so not only do they not make money off them, but they don’t care if they don’t make money on them. They never expected to make money on them. They’re willing to sacrifice books to sign up customers so they can sell them all the things they do make money on.” Nina also explained to me how for years, bookstores have noticed customers coming in, browsing books, only to take photos of books they wanted so they could purchase them on Amazon instead. However, recently, the reverse has been happening more often; when customers come in with their Amazon wishlist and ask to see the books for purchase at the store. And that’s a sign that the message indie businesses have been trying to get across has been reaching consumers.

“It’s really not just about bookstores,” Nina said. “It is about every brick-and-mortar store. It is about your downtown. When you, when you walk around and you see all these, you know, vacancy signs, and all this brown paper in peoples’ windows, and you wonder what is happening to your downtown. What’s happening is that Amazon is doing the same things to all these other businesses that it’s doing to bookstores. It’s basically sucking all of the business out of those businesses so that nobody can sell enough stuff anymore to pay rent on a brick-and-mortar store…. There’s this huge climate shift in how our communities look, and how we interact with them that is due to Amazon sucking the lifeblood out of them. And I think that that’s a battle that we should be fighting.”

Nina told me that there’s hope for indie businesses in America. I can’t wait to share everything else she had to say in the documentary..

*Bookends & Beginnings, in Evanston, Illinois*

Evanston had been a valuable experience. Nina’s presence in the battle against Amazon made her someone I definitely wanted to connect with during this project, and I learned a lot from her perspective. As I drove back to the apartment from Evanston, I thought about how I was almost back on the east coast. Almost back home. These final two weeks would bring the hard part of this project to a close. As much as I was looking forward to being back home with my friends, I thought about how wildly amazing this adventure had been. All of the random people I had met. All of the bookstores I had visited. This was the kind of work that satisfied me. Hearing the stories that people had to tell and finding a way to weave them together in a narrative discussing something bigger.

I would be perfectly happy being on the road like this for work after I graduate.

This week’s food for thought

“I do have a background in the food business, and I do remember when a movement started up in the 70s to say, ‘oh… that tomato that you bought at the grocery store is a green rock, and it’s not a real tomato.’ But this is what mass food production has done to the food system in America. You go to the grocery store and there’s all this processed food, and there’s… industrial-produced vegetables that don’t have nutrients anymore and aren’t ripe. People started speaking up and saying, ‘vote with your dollar,’ essentially. ‘Support your local health food store. Support your local food co-op. Support local, independent restaurants. Support chefs who are supporting small farming.’ And that message—it really took about, I don’t know, it took about 30 years, I think, to really, really gain traction to the point where I think that people now accept that as good consumer behavior. It’s difficult, because, especially now prices are skyrocketing, and maybe going to your, you know, local grocer isn’t as affordable… But I think that that message when it got through to consumers… it completely revolutionized the food world. And I think that the bookstore world is sort of in the same place now. I think… we’ve had some success in getting that message across. That if you want to have these places in your community, where you can bring your kids to story time, or you can meet an author in real life, where you can take a class, where you can have these community conversations, those are really valuable interactions and you need to vote with your dollar for it. I have some faith, that we can restore, at least, pieces of a world where things happen at a human scale, and humans have human interactions instead of increasingly giving way to this, kind of, algorithm-driven, faceless, no-human interaction world which I think is taking a bigger toll on us. It’s like having all of the nutrients taken out of your vegetables, and you eat it, and it still tastes like a vegetable, but it’s not anymore. I think your local, your local stores are nutrient-rich places where humans connect with each other, and that’s totally worth voting for.”