Books Set in Bookstores That Get the Book Business Right

Kim van Alkemade is the author of Upstate, out today from William Morrow. Below, she recommends three books set in bookstores that get the book business right. In the summer of 2021, my partner saw an article in Book Riot titled, “If You Dream of Owning a Bookstore, Here’s Your Chance.” Beneath that enticing headline was a fairytale picture of a red barn in a green field with the word BOOKS spelled out in jigsawed letters above the doorway. I can’t say that either of us had ever dreamed of owning a bookstore, but the pandemic had us questioning everything about our careers and life choices, so we thought, why not take a look? We fell in love with the place and even made an offer, but it turned out that owning this bookstore wasn’t our destiny. Instead, that unfulfilled dream became the inspiration for my novel, Upstate, in which a grieving writer sets out to revive an abandoned bookshop in upstate New York only to discover hidden letters that reveal the shop’s secret sapphic history. Since writing a book set in a bookstore, I’ve become a bookseller myself at a local independent in my upstate town. While fictional bookstores can inspire romance and conjure magic, I especially apprec...