This originally appeared in our Today in Books daily newsletter, where each day we round up the most interesting stories, news, essays, and other goings on in the world of books and reading. Sign up here if you want to get it.
____________________________________________
Independent booksellers continued to expand in 2023 even amid slow industry sales
There were more than 200 new independent bookstores registered with the American Booksellers Association last year than in 2022. And there are twice as many now as there were in 2016—which in the future (maybe even now) we will understand as the moment when Amazon reached the height of its dominance. Several notable trends: romance-focused stores, stores owned by people of color, and online-only indie bookstores.
The Bookseller Who Brought Hardcovers to America’s Most Famous Bookstore
Linking to Paul Yamazaki’s turn in the NYT’s “By the Book” as an excuse to shout out Reading the Room, which is a small book born out of several days of interviews about Yamazaki’s history as a bookseller, his thoughts on running a bookstore, changes in book-selling, among other topics. Partly philosophical, partly pragmatic (which isn’t the worst summary of running a bookstore), Reading the Room is a quietly invigorating book in that it is hopeful in its outlook while also being realistic about the world. Worth a couple of hours of your time.
Jessica Lange to star in film adaptation of The Year of Magical Thinking
I am all for introspective Didion adaptations, but this doesn’t rush to mind as a particularly good time at the movies. So much of the compensation for crying your way through The Year of Magical Thinking is Didion’s writing itself—the kind of writing that doesn’t usually translate well to the screen. Are we doing a bunch of voiceovers here? In the one-woman show version, Vanessa Redgrave had the theatrical license to just say the lines and even that wasn’t entirely successful. High degree of difficulty here.
