Parnassus Books
“An Independent Bookstore for Independent People.”
At the precise moment that it felt like the end of bookstores and the victory of Amazon, author Ann Patchett jumped into the void. In 2011 when the last bookstore in Nashville closed, together with business partner Karen Hayes, Patchett somewhat counterintuitively opened a bookstore. She couldn’t quite stomach the fact that there would no longer be a place in her hometown to buy books. She was also banking on the fact that others would feel the loss and feel the same. And there was that niggling memory from long ago of wandering around Mills bookstore and finding magic within its walls. There’s a happy ending here that runs counter to the narrative that we’ve been sold; her bookstore has since thrived. The business model that we thought was broken, maybe it isn’t.
Parnassus Books is all the things you’d hope for in an independent bookstore. Shelves (perversely from closed-down Borders) of books chosen not by algorithms but by people who know, love and can recommend them, the staff who work here. Author events (a massive 250 a year) to build the connections between people who read and those who write. Storytime for children to develop a lifelong love of the printed word. Chairs to lounge in, a store dog to pet. Such was its success, that there’s a spin-off, Parnassus Books on Wheels.
Parnassus Books attests to the fact that bookstores are more than books; they go beyond words on pages to other things like getting us off screens and getting us into space with other people whether we know them or not. They allow our minds and curiosity to wander, creating safe environments to emotionally sink into. They are also community centers and empathy makers. Bookstores give us other people; books give us compassion within their pages.
The question at the heart of Parnassus Books is this: Do you want to live in a city without an independent bookstore? It’s all about choice. We have the agency to shape the towns in which we live, to share in the co-creation of the spaces that we love to spend time in. As Patchett says: “Amazon doesn’t get to make all the decisions; the people can make them, by choosing how and where they spend their money. If what a bookstore offers matters to you, then shop at a bookstore. If you feel that the experience of reading a book is valuable, then read a book. This is how we change the world: We grab hold of it. We change ourselves.”
We get to write the ending.
