The Great Bookstore Shake Out is almost over, and the independents have won. Borders — which began as an independent in Ann Arbor, before metastasizing into a Walmart of prose — went bankrupt in 2011. Barnes & Noble is disappearing, one outlet at a time. Evanston closed in 2020, Clybourn this year.
Borders ended up caught between the variety of the Internet and the intimacy of the independents. Its outlets could never stock as many books as Amazon. Nor could they duplicate the native flavor of the corner bookstores, with their local author readings, folk music nights and wandering felines. As paper books become a niche product, niche retailers have become the best place to buy and sell them.
When I promoted my book How to Speak Midwestern, a guide to the region’s dialect and sayings, I did all my readings at libraries and independent bookstores, because there was nowhere else to read. (I published How to Speak Midwestern with a regional independent, Belt Publishing out of Cleveland. It sold 12,000 copies. There’s something to be said for the bottom-up approach.) There’s no better place to get the feel of an unfamiliar town than an indie bookstore, because indie bookstores promote their local artistic scenes. Barnes & Noble won’t sell your self-published novel. The indie bookstore will display it on the front counter, with a “Signed by the Author” sticker. That’s why indie bookstores are essential stops on any regional road trip. Here are some of my favorites, and the regional reads you should seek out there.
Boswell Book Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Boswell has the size and the stock of a chain bookstore, but this summer, the store will be holding events for Kodachrome Milwaukee, a book of local photos, and A Guide to Midwestern Conversation, “which teaches everyone how to love the language and sentiments of the American Heartland.” That sounds like my kind of book. Regional read: A Sand County Almanac, by Aldo Leopold, a founding document of the conservation movement, and an inspiration for Earth Day.
Zenith Bookstore, Duluth, Minnesota
The entrance to this bookstore on the shores of Lake Superior is painted with the spines of classics old and new: Wuthering Heights, Little House on the Prairie, Black Elk Speaks, The Hunger Games. When I visited, I got to reunite with Chicago’s greatest independent bookseller, Jack Cella, the former manager of Seminary Co-op, who retired to Duluth. Regional read: North Star Country, by Meridel Le Sueur, a folk history of Minnesota.
Prairie Lights, Iowa City, Iowa
I felt I’d made it as a Midwestern author when I was invited to read at Prairie Lights. This bookstore, and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, combine to make Iowa City the most literate town, per capita, in the Middle West. Regional read: Moo, by Jane Smiley (a former Iowa State professor), on hijinks among faculty members at a land-grant university.
Bookbug, Kalamazoo, Michigan
Just because it’s the home bookstore of my favorite Midwestern novelist, Bonnie Jo Campbell, who attended my reading in a Stormy Kromer cap. Regional read: Once Upon a River, by Bonnie Jo Campbell, on a spunky girl’s struggle to survive in the wilderness along the Kalamazoo River.
Prairie Archives, Springfield, Illinois
On the town square, across the street from the Old State Capitol, Prairie Archives’s cluttered stacks seem dusty enough to have been browsed by Abraham Lincoln himself. Needless to say, the store has a large collection of Lincolniana and Civil War history. Regional read: The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln.
Totem Books, Flint, Michigan
Flint has a rich cultural scene, because of legacy auto industry money from the Mott Foundation, and because it’s cheap enough to support a bohemian lifestyle. Totem is graced with one of the 300 murals produced by the Flint Public Art Project. Inside, it’s an all-purpose cultural center: book store, record store, cafe, live music space. Regional read: Chevy in the Hole, by Kelsey Ronan, a first novel about life, love and addiction in a dying industrial town.
Mac’s Backs, Cleveland Heights, Ohio
This was a favorite bookstore of Cleveland Heights resident/alt-comics author/curmudgeon Harvey Pekar. Not surprising, because, like Pekar, Mac’s Backs pays granular attention to Cleveland’s artistic scene, hosting poetry readings and book clubs, and selling stacks of signed books by local authors. Regional read: American Splendor, by Harvey Pekar.
Literati Bookstore, Ann Arbor, Michigan
The history of bookselling in the 21st Century comes full circle here. Two years after Borders collapsed of its own bulk, Literati opened a few blocks from its abandoned flagship store, providing Ann Arbor with a hometown bookstore that won’t forget its roots. Regional read: Braided Lives, by Marge Piercy, about two cousins coming of age at the University of Michigan in the 1950s.
The Book Cellar, Chicago
Come back home to this indie bookstore/wine bar in Lincoln Square. This is where I bought my signed copy of The Great Believers, by Rebecca Makkai. This is where I’ve done a reading for every book I’ve ever published, even Running for Home, a novel from a micro-press in Ohio that sold about 100 copies. The Book Cellar has a place for every reader and every writer. Regional read: The Great Believers, by Rebecca Makkai, about the AIDS crisis in Chicago in the 1980s.
Honorable mentions: River Lights, Dubuque, Iowa; Magers & Quinn, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Everybody Reads, Lansing, Michigan; McLean and Eakin, Petoskey, Michigan; Loganberry Books, Cleveland, Ohio; Pages Bookshop, Detroit, Michigan; Bookies, Chicago, Illinois.
For even more recommendations, check out the Midwest Independent Booksellers Association website. They get into some really small towns, mostly in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I can’t go everywhere.