The Book Report on Independent Booksellers

Booklovers were treated to a celebration of independent bookselling with an all-star cast on a recent weekly installment of The Book Report, on KMLB radio in Monroe, Louisiana. On the August 15 show, founders and hosts Elisabeth Grant-Gibson and Pat Grant, the owners of Windows a bookshop, interviewed Louis Buzbee (The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop, Graywolf) and Betsy Burton (The King's English, Gibbs Smith).

Lewis Buzbee

Buzbee drew on his experiences as a lifelong reader, as a bookseller at northern California's Upstart Crow and Printer's Inc., and as a sales rep for Chronicle Books to write The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop, a celebration of all aspects of books and bookselling. And he responded to the questions posed by Grant-Gibson and Grant thoughtfully and eloquently. Buzbee emphasized that it is not important that a young person be introduced to reading with the "right book." Any book can produce a booklover, he noted, listing Gone With the Wind, Nancy Drew, The Babysitters Club, or On The Road, as equally valid contenders.

"Any book you step into is an entire universe," Buzbee told the interviewers. When you finish reading a book, "the world of the book continues to gestate within you -- you step into a new place."

Asked about the characteristics of a great bookshop, Buzbee replied quickly: "A great bookseller." And a great bookseller is "one who is not a snob, who knows that for every book there is a reader. A bookseller who is familiar enough with the books coming out that they can give you a selection to draw from ... they can open your eyes to something new."

Betsy Burton

Burton, the longtime owner of The King's English in Salt Lake City, Utah, was cheerfully self-deprecating as she regaled listeners with anecdotes about embarrassing herself in front of prominent authors who have visited the store over the years. Her bookselling savvy became evident, however, when she described her participation in the evolution of Salt Lake's "shop local" movement. Local First Utah has been a successful way to explicate the two aspects of "buying local." First, she said, is the structural and social aspect, second, is the economic.

People understand, she said, that "more money stays in the community if you buy local. [But] what happens if local businesses weren't there; [people] are frightened of losing the community." She emphasized that consumers should realize that "You're not just spending your dollar, you're determining what your community is going to look like...Then they start to think."

Grant-Gibson told BTW that The Book Report was founded, in May 2006, out of a desire to drive people to independent bookstores. "We see it as an extension of our store," she said.

Each hour-long show features events in the book world, the latest book releases, bestseller lists, information about author tours, book reviews, interviews, and readings, all presented in a lively magazine format. The program is offered free to independent booksellers to air on their own local stations.

"We are getting great traffic to our website," Grant-Gibson said. Many stores have expressed interest in carrying the show. Mary Gay Shipley of That Bookstore in Blytheville, in Blytheville, Arkansas, arranged to have the show air on a local AM station.

Grant-Gibson and Grant are kept very busy running Windows a bookshop, as well as producing the weekly show, among other activities. But expanding the audience for independent bookstores and high quality books is a priority. "This is one more thing to set us apart from the Internet and the chains," Grant-Gibson emphasized.

The Book Report is streamed live online, and archived editions of past shows are available at www.thebookreport.net. --Nomi Schwartz