'Handpicked' Indie Favorites in 'Read This!'

"Customers will ask you for recommendations," I was told during my interview for a bookseller position at the Northshire Bookstore in 1992. Really? Recommendations? From me? Why? That's what I was thinking at the time, though I just nodded (with, I hoped, sufficient enthusiasm to get the job).

I learned from day one on the sales floor that this was, indeed, the best part of being a bookseller. I loved handselling. One of our favorite and most challenging customers used to ask when I suggested a title: "Did you like it or did you love it?" If she ultimately hated the book, she never hesitated to say so, then asked for another recommendation. I loved that, too.

These memories hit me as I opened a copy of the newly published Read This! Handpicked Favorites from America's Indie Bookstores, edited by Hans Weyandt, with an introduction by Ann Patchett (Coffee House Press, $12, 9781566893138).

"There is no greater joy for a bookseller than introducing a reader to a book they will love for the rest of their lives," Patchett wrote. "Those of us in the business are, after all, matchmakers at heart.... So consider this little book you now hold in your hands a sort of catalogue of matchmakers."

I'm here to play matchmaker as well, handselling you a book I've had the pleasure of witnessing "in development" for a year.

Another memory: Last August, Weyandt, co-owner of Micawber's bookstore, St. Paul, Minn., told me about his conversation with a customer who asked for a list of his top 100 books. At first, he thought she meant the shop's all-time bestselling titles, but she wanted his personal favorites.

That exchange became the catalyst for a great project. Weyandt subsequently contacted several other indie booksellers nationwide and shared their top-50 lists on his blog, Mr. Micawber Enters the Internets (beginning with his own picks). As I read each additional entry, I found my must-reads list growing at an almost frightening (not really) pace. I was also fascinated by what those lists revealed about the booksellers and their bookstores. I wanted to know more and I wanted, of course, to read more.

By September, Weyandt was already contemplating the implications of all this newfound biblio-bounty. "The surprises are too many to name," he observed. "The biggest, for me, is that although the lists are odd and unique in wonderful ways, there is almost always a very common or normal book on each list and it is that that reminds me that all of us (booksellers) are normal readers in the beginning and in the end. General trends are very few. Big picture, both professionally and personally, is the idea that indie booksellers do bring a depth and breadth of knowledge that is important and valuable to communities. These lists, taken individually and collectively, are a strong indication of that."

And now there is, appropriately enough, a book. As an added incentive, proceeds from all sales will go to the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression. For those of you keeping score at home, a total of 1,194 books (993 unique volumes) are represented in Read This!, with 144 recommended more than once. There are 19 titles containing the word "love" and six with the word "death."

Yesterday, Weyandt reflected on his year-long journey, which began in an ordinary/extraordinary conversation with a customer and took him on a wild ride through the publishing process: "I certainly have a new appreciation for other parts of the book business I knew little to nothing about. The waiting to see the art and how the entire package comes together with dozens of people doing their own things to make it happen. And as far as those things go I have learned my personality is better suited to the bookselling side of things. The whole thing has been full of surprises--the biggest, of course, it becoming an actual book. Seeing my name on an inventory screen or ordering it out of a catalog was surreal. As was unpacking the boxes yesterday. Most of all, I'm so happy to have worked with Coffee House Press and the other 24 booksellers."

And it seemed like a natural handseller's reaction when he concluded: "Now it's on to the thing I can do best--sell the book and hope that customers find it to be enjoyable as well."--Published by Shelf Awareness, issue #1802.