Independent bookstores have grown again across America, and many of the best are in small towns. We visited five where the shop is the heart of Main Street. In each one, the owner greeted regulars by name, the shelves were full of handwritten notes and at least one resident animal had claimed a favorite armchair. We came home with heavy bags, a few new friends and a renewed belief that a good bookstore can hold a whole town together.
These are not the biggest shops in the country, and none of them is trying to be. They are small, personal and deeply rooted in their communities. What they offer cannot be matched by a website: a person who knows what you loved last month and has a quiet idea about what you might love next. Here is what we found inside, and how you can help keep places like them thriving.
More than books
Reading groups, children’s story hours and author evenings make these shops community living rooms. Again and again, owners told us that selling books is only part of the job. The rest is creating a place where people want to spend time.
At Riverbend Books in Hood River, Oregon, a Tuesday evening reading group has met for eleven years. When we visited, fourteen people were crowded around a long wooden table in the back, arguing cheerfully about the ending of a mystery novel while a gray cat named Pages slept on the windowsill. In Asheville, North Carolina, the children’s story hour at Two Floors Bookshop is so popular on Saturday mornings that parents arrive early to claim floor cushions.
Author events are another highlight. Small-town shops often host local writers, poets and illustrators, and the evenings feel more like a gathering of friends than a formal reading. Afterward, everyone lingers over coffee and cookies, and the conversations spill out onto the sidewalk.
People come in for one book and leave with three and a new friend. That’s the business.
Walter Pruitt, bookseller
Walter Pruitt, who has run a small bookstore in a Pennsylvania river town for more than twenty-five years, says the community side of the business is what keeps him going. He knows which customers like quiet novels and which want a thriller with a body on page one. He keeps a box of treats behind the counter for the dogs that come in with their owners. And he still writes a short note in every gift book he wraps.
The five shops we visited
Each of these bookstores has its own personality, but they share a warmth that is hard to describe until you step inside. Here is a short tour.
A historic bookstore in Hudson, New York
Hudson Hall Books occupies a narrow brick building on Warren Street that has housed a shop of some kind since the 1870s. Tall ladders lean against floor-to-ceiling shelves, and the floorboards creak in all the right places. The owner, Eleanor Vance, specializes in fiction, poetry and books about the Hudson Valley, and she hosts a monthly poetry night that regularly fills every seat.
A riverside shop in Hood River, Oregon
Riverbend Books sits a block from the Columbia River, and big windows frame a view of the water. The shop has a strong outdoors section, with trail guides, nature writing and plenty of books about the Pacific Northwest. Owner Sam Okafor recommends a book about local birds to nearly every visitor, and most of them take him up on it.
A two-floor bookstore in Asheville, North Carolina
Two Floors Bookshop lives up to its name, with adult books downstairs and a bright children’s floor upstairs, complete with a reading nook shaped like a treehouse. The staff is known for its themed displays, which change every month and are a local attraction in their own right.
A lakeside shop in Door County, Wisconsin
Harbor Light Books is a small, cozy shop in a former boathouse. In summer, the door stays open and the smell of the lake drifts in. In winter, the owner lights a woodstove and serves hot cider to anyone who braves the snow. The shop’s resident cat, Moby, has his own armchair by the stove, and he does not share it.
A Main Street shop in Marfa, Texas
Our final stop, Desert Page Books, is a tiny shop with an outsized personality. The selection leans toward art, design and books about the American West. The owner, Rosa Delgado, keeps a guest book where visitors write recommendations for the next traveler, and reading it could take a whole afternoon.
Hand-sold favorites
Ask the staff. Their handwritten shelf cards are better than any algorithm. One of the great pleasures of a small bookstore is the shelf talker, a little card tucked under a book with a short, personal recommendation. “Read this on a rainy weekend and thank me later,” one card in Asheville said. Another, in Hudson, simply read, “The best book I’ve read in five years. No exaggeration.”
Booksellers call this hand-selling, and it is a quiet art. A good bookseller listens to what you liked and why, then finds something that matches the feeling rather than just the genre. Many of the owners we met said hand-selling is their favorite part of the job. It is also why so many readers discover books in small shops that they never would have found elsewhere.
Key takeaway: the next time you visit an independent bookstore, ask the person behind the counter what they are reading. It may be the best recommendation you get all year.
How to support them
Buy one book a month locally, preorder through the shop and come to events. Small bookstores run on thin margins, and every purchase matters. The owners we met were cheerful, but several said that a single slow season can be a real challenge. Here are simple ways readers can help:
- Buy books locally whenever you can, even if you browse elsewhere first
- Preorder new releases through the shop to help them plan stock
- Attend author events, story hours and reading groups
- Give bookstore gift cards for birthdays and holidays
- Leave a kind review and tell friends about your favorite shop
Many independent bookstores also sell e-books and audiobooks through their websites, so you can support them even when you prefer to read on a screen. Ask at the counter how it works.
On our list
We could happily have kept driving from one small-town bookstore to the next for months. For now, these three remain at the top of our list for a return visit:
- A historic bookstore in Hudson, New York
- A riverside shop in Hood River, Oregon
- A two-floor bookstore in Asheville, North Carolina
Five independent bookstores where the owner knows your name and the cat has its own chair. Wherever you live, there is likely a shop like these within driving distance. Visit on a quiet weekday, ask for a recommendation and stay for a while. You may leave with more books than you planned, and perhaps, as Walter Pruitt promises, a new friend too.