A literary powerhouse in Massachusetts’ Pioneer Valley
What better place to locate a bookstore—one with a sprawling poetry section—than just up the street from Emily Dickinson’s house and around the corner from Robert Frost’s home? Amherst Books proprietors Shannon Ramsey and Nat Herold knew what they were doing when they chose Amherst, MA for their indie bookstore in 2003. And they’ve been delighting customers ever since with their diverse collection (including small press offerings), outstanding literary events, and welcoming atmosphere.
Amherst Books and I arrived in town just months apart in the early 2000s. Even after all these years, I still get a special joy when I walk inside, like I’m coming home. The literature wall with the rolling ladder, the spacious children’s corner, the comfortable armchairs, and the warm lighting all combine to create a timeless, made-for-bibliophiles quality. As one Yelp reviewer wrote, “Pitch me a tent, and I’ll just live here.”
Discussing the magic of bookstores with me, Nat quotes French philosopher Roland Barthes, who said, “Every book chooses its reader.” Nat adds, “I like to say we’re midwives in that process.”
And what well-stocked shelves these midwives keep! The store carries new and used books from local, national and international authors, including no fewer than 45 books by or about Emily Dickinson alone. With particular strengths in philosophy and poetry, the collection also includes general and science fiction, children’s literature, and books about cooking, history, gender studies, women’s studies, black studies, the sciences, essays and more.
In addition, Amherst Books hosts around 170 literary events yearly (when the country isn’t in quarantine). Luminaries like Min Jin Lee, Jericho Brown, James Tate, and Norton Juster have given talks or done readings here. So have regular-Joe local authors like yours truly. As a writer, I believe that a book’s story isn’t complete until it’s read and, ideally, discussed. Platforms that bring authors and readers together in one room elevate this co-creation to new levels. I’m grateful to Amherst Books for hosting the launch of all my books to date.
Booksellers’ origin stories
Nat grew up in a house of books and readers. “We were so bad about returning all the library books we borrowed,” he remembers, “that the Washington, D.C. public library would send a truck around once a year or so to take back their books. They never cut off our borrowing, however.”
Books were also a way for Nat to communicate with his father, who was an alcoholic. “Often the only way to spend time with him was to talk about books,” Nat recalls. “Recommending new books to each other was how we bonded.”
Shannon too took refuge in reading as a youngster. “Books carried me through a lot of lonely times,” she remembers. “So, when I was looking at colleges and saw UMass’s 26-floor DuBois Library, I knew I was going to go to school in Amherst! Once there, I got a job at the library, which then opened doors for me at Amherst Books.”
Bookselling was a natural fit for Nat because it allowed him to continue surrounding himself with books and connecting with people through book recommendations. “In other sorts of retail, you don’t learn anything meaningful about the person who’s buying, say, tissues,” he notes. “But a person reveals a lot about themselves by the books they choose.”
Shannon is on the same page (pun intended). “What I love most about bookselling,” she says, “is the idea that reading, which helped me when I was lonely, could also be the thing that connects me to others.”
Lean times
Thriving as an indie bookstore is never a given in these times of fierce competition and consumer focus on the digital. Nat attributes Amherst Books’ success to strong customer service, a uniquely curated book selection, and a robust reading and book launch roster.
Shannon ascribes their progress to two components. “First and foremost, we have stayed true to our core, book-loving selves,” she says. “We constantly remember what brought us to reading and then do our best to translate that to our community.” Secondly, she and Nat know their community well. “This allows us to reflect the community back to itself by way of a carefully chosen collection.”
To supplement their revenue, Amherst Books now carries certain non-book items, including literary tote bags, postcards, and book-themed T-shirts. “We’re giving people an alternative to online shopping,” says Shannon. “An alternative that allows direct interaction with products and the chance to socialize with staff and other visitors.”
Going local
Shannon and Nat are personally committed to a vision of sustainability that promotes growing roots and being part of the local community. How lucky for readers and authors alike that this shared value produced Amherst Books.
Shirley Reva Vernick is the author of The Blood Lie, Remembering Dippy, and The Black Butterfly. Her work has garnered innumerable awards and recognition, some of which include: the American Library Association Best Fiction Books for Young Readers List, Simon Wiesenthal Once Upon A World Book Award, Dolly Gray Literature Award from the Council for Exceptional Children, Langum Prize for American Historical Fiction. Fitzroy Books is proud to publish Ripped Away in 2022.
The modern world provides us with countless conveniences. Almost anything we could want is available for purchase within seconds, at any moment. Amazon can deliver a package to our house within days for free, and this convenience is exemplified by book deliveries, its flagship service. So why then do we still go to book stores to buy books? This simple answer is that we don’t; we go for the experience. The more complicated answer involves our relationship with books and our emotional responses to seeing them, browsing them, the wholly deliberate de-commodification we enact by treating books as something slightly more sacred than most of the other objects we buy. Bookstores evoke a complex web of interconnected desires, sensations, and visceral satisfactions, all of which can be more or less articulated as the smell of books. As services like Amazon out-supply big-name stores like Borders and Barnes & Noble with its unlimited capacity and as sleek e-readers pose as practical upgrades to thousand-page tomes, an independent bookstore like Flyleaf Books continues to thrive because it is an important member of the community for which simple convenience could never substitute.
The interior almost seems designed to facilitate a sense of discovery and opportunity. After meandering through the front area, browsing the newest releases and staff favorites, the staff-curated poetry section and various fiction and non-fiction sections, you are inevitably drawn towards the back of the store to discover the—again, curated—children’s section. The space is semi-contained by half- and full-sized bookshelves and resembles a play area. To the other side, an entrance opens up into a large, spacious room containing the used books section. This space serves as a reflection of the front, with bookshelves lining the walls and tables set up in the middle. This is also the space where the community engages itself in the events hosted by the store.
Flyleaf is clearly managed by people who care about what they do. Over the course of interviewing her, Jamie stopped several times to personally make sure that people in the store had help if needed. When speaking about the store, she mentioned that, growing up in Chapel Hill, she had always wanted someone to open up the kind of bookstore Flyleaf has become. One can’t help but think of Toni Morrison’s advice to write the book you want to read; the same can be said of the stores that sell them. It certainly isn’t the largest bookstore in the area, but with its carefully managed selection, that hardly matters. Each section is constantly curated, and Jamie joked that five different people touch each book before it makes it to the shelf. When browsing the selections, that level of care is obvious. Jamie worked to find the right mix of people to help her manage the store and noted how happy she is with the staff group and culture.
Like so many others, I had moved to New York City with a dream to write, to be at the center of things and pay attention. But such a reality, even in the service of a great dream, is a hard and often lonely one. I knew it wouldn’t be an easy move to make, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t harder than I guessed it would be. I was out of my element and struggling to find my place. I knew very few people. To say that I was overwhelmed and scared on a daily basis would be an understatement.
I had an appointment. I was set to interview 
At this point in our conversation, Carol stopped and looked far off. I followed her line of sight. She was looking out the window, at the streams of autumnal light. Whatever she said next would be carefully considered. She took a deep breath.
The store-front windows of Broadway Books make the shop light and airy, and its well-organized shelves draw customers on to explore the next book, the next topic, the next table. Over the shelves hang poster-sized covers of other volumes for which readers might want to search.
The birthday party on Saturday made it obvious what a community asset the store is. I met a trio of women who had been friends for forty years. Regular customers milled about, chatting, talking books with the owners and staff, having their photos taken at the picture booth set up for the day, and eating cake and drinking champagne. Despite the bustle of the celebration, I saw the staff continuously assisting customers by making recommendations and finding books. One of the owners (alas! I did not discover which one) asked everyone there to please go out and tell the story of their book store, and I am happy to comply with that request here.
I began my bookstore safari in Seattle, Washington, where I was visiting my particular friend Maren Donley. Before I arrived, I explained my quest to her, and she immediately recommended a visit to the Third Place Books. While there are three Third Places (I’m not sure how the math works on that, whether it requires simple addition or some kind of quantum exponential multiplication), Maren suggested we drop by the Lake Forest store. “I drive by it twice a week. I had never been in until I met my priest there for a meeting. Then I said, ‘Oh! I have really been missing out!'” she told me.
The selection of books, Mr. Sindelar told me, has a curatorial aspect. The staff have a lot of say in the choices, which are also guided by the interests of customers and the diverse ideas and opinions that represent the neighborhood. It seems that every aspect of Third Place is indeed geared toward fostering community and neighborhood. The Commons area not only has ample seating and a play area for small children, it has three restaurants as well: sustenance for both mind and body.
As we wended our way toward the registers at the front of the store, Maren pointed out the cards that annotated the books on the tables and shelves. The cards offered reviews by the staff, noted awards won by the book and author, and even let browsers know that a less expensive edition of the book in question was available on a different shelf in the store. I had seen cards similarly deployed in other stores, but never to such good effect. Walking through the store while looking at the books and reading the cards was like enjoying a stimulating conversation with friends or taking part in a silent book club discussion.
Bookstores, for me, have always been imbued with magic: their exterior signage, the glimpse of books and bindings through gleaming glass windows sound a magnet call that I am utterly helpless to resist. It little matters whether the bookshop is a dusty repository of the previously loved or a modern facility that houses the recently released, but it must be independent—chains necessarily lack the vibrant individuality that differentiates one store from the other.
When one first walks through the doors at Quail Ridge Books, however—child and adult alike—the immediate impression is one of space, modern and convivial. It can be challenging indeed to marry the two: large can be lacking intimacy, modernity can be at the expense of warmth. And, for bookstores, the challenge doesn’t end there: one must, after all, pack in the shelving that allows for ready browsing, with aisle space for fellow booklovers to exchange a smile or two, so that one can peruse the spines from a little distance without feeling confined and hemmed in. Quail Ridge Books navigates these potential pitfalls masterfully. The walls are a warmly inviting shade of maroon, chandeliers add a decadent luxury to the browsing space, and the chairs—Oh, an entire blog post could be written on the chairs alone! They are upholstered in bright fabrics, with cushions deep and snug. And you realize, as you sink into one with books on your lap, that you are indeed welcome to stay and leaf through some favorite selections. For Quail Ridge Books is not about lining customers up, extracting from them their book-purchasing funds, and getting them out the door to make room for the new and next buyer. Quail Ridge Books, the store and the staff, are imbued with a passionate love of books and of sharing that passion with the Raleigh world. This dedication meant that the chair choice was no small matter. As Lisa, the owner of Quail Ridge Books, noted: “I have three daughters and when they were growing up, they always wanted to go to bookstores and sit in comfy seats. Not all bookstores have comfy seats, or any seats at all, so that was important: lots of comfy seats.” And so it occurs to me that Quail Ridge Books is like the Victorian library that we all wish we had at home with the winged back chair in front of the fireplace, innumerable books all around. Quail Ridge Books has one such library—and they are inviting us all in!
