Support your local or not-so-local independent bookstore

Elaine and I are great fans of the New York City bookstore Three Lives & Company. We visit whenever we visit the city, and we always come away with a pile of books. It seems unlikely that we’ll be able to visit Three Lives, or New York, any time soon. What to do?

Three Lives is currently doing business by telephone and e-mail (also curbside pickup, and hand delivery in the West Village). I e-mailed to say that I wanted to buy some books, and suggested that the store post photographs of their display tables on their website. They were unable to do that (the website is pretty rudimentary), but they sent me photos. So we now have nine books coming our way for further adventures in the Four Seasons Reading Club, our two-person adventure in reading.

I like the idea of supporting an independent bookstore in all seasons. But especially now.

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My timing is good: Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York has announced a #SaveNYC Quarantined Cash Mob for Three Lives.

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In Chicago, the Seminary Co-op Bookstores are doing business on the Internets. And — gasp! — they have, or had, a copy of Robertson Davies’s The Cornish Trilogy on the shelf.

Also in Chicago: Pete Lit reports that Madison Street Books, a weeks-old bookstore, is doing business on and off the Internets. The bookstore offers curbside pickup, free delivery in the West Loop, and one-dollar shipping in the States.

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From The Washington Post: “Independent bookstores survived the rise of online retail. Coronavirus poses bigger challenges.”

[Nine books for two people? Yes, because we already have one copy of William Lindsay Gresham’s Nightmare Alley.]