How to Protect Bookstores and Why by Danny Caine

How to Protect Bookstores & Why

Subtitle: The Present and Future of Bookselling

Author: Danny Caine

Genre: Nonfiction

Publish Date: Sept 2023

Read: March 2025

Synopsis: Following the success of How to Resist Amazon and Why, Danny Caine looks specifically at local bookstores and how they play an integral role in the communities they serve. The author profiles local bookstores across the Midwest, highlighting the importance in the community, and specifically the importance Black and Native-owned bookstores are for their areas.

Why does this book beguile? I was excited to read How to Protect Bookstores because I love my local bookstore (Blackbird Books and Coffee in Raleigh, NC) and have several others I’ve visited on my travels that I love (The Read Queen in Colorado, BookPeople, The Black Pearl, and BookWoman in Austin, TX). I grew up visiting my hometown bookstore and library - these safe spaces made me the reader I am today.

The moral of the story is: shop at your local bookstore. If your situation allows, shop in person (to help avoid shipping). Use your local libraries. Amazon is slowly raising prices of both ebooks and physical books now that they have consumers hooked. If you want to switch away, use Libro.fm and bookshop.org for your online & audiobook buying.

Bookshop.Org Link*: How to Protect Bookstores and Why by Danny Caine

Amazon Link: How to Protect Bookstores and Why by Danny Caine