Indie Bookstores - 'A Sense of Community'

Shelf Awareness

"It's that sense of community--the idea that an individual can find his or her people among aisles of mysteries and biographies.... 'You don't really understand until it's gone. Just like independent record stores, you're not just buying records. You're there to exchange ideas with other people, have conversations. It's those ideas that spark an interest in certain other things and if you don't have a place to exchange those ideas who knows what you've lost.' "

--Trevor Thomas, who with his wife, Natalie Sacco, announced their purchase of Mystery Lovers Bookshop in Oakmont, Pa., on Independent Bookstore Day. (From Are independent booksellers replacing big-box retailers?)

photo: Robin Rombach/Post-Gazette