Can E-Books Save the Indie Bookstore?
For those of us who love small, independent bookstores, the rise of the e-book has been an alarming, complicating phenomenon: because there is truly something wonderful, dizzying even, about being able to carry around thousands of books, and read any one of them on the subway. But this makes us feel like we’re betraying the bookstores we love, where we fortuitously discovered our favorite books, met some of our favorite people ever, and where we sometimes just like to go to clear our thoughts. So it was with great relief that we learned of a new partnership between Canadian e-reader empire Kobo, and small independent bookstores everywhere. Initiated by the American Booksellers Association, this partnership has already been entered into by two of our personal favorite bookstores in the city, WORD and Greenlight. So we thought we’d ask WORD Books owner Christine Onorati what’s going on…
