If you own a bookshop, or work in a bookshop, or sell your books in bookshops or even--may Gutenberg's ghost bless you--buy your books in bookshops, you may have heard a certain word once or twice before.
Independent.
We really like the word; it's how we define ourselves. We hold that truth to be self-evident and don't care who knows it.
Whatever else may be happening in our mad, mad, mad, mad book world (see IMBD and Mrs. Marcus (Ethel Merman): "Now what kind of an attitude is that, these things happen? They only happen because this whole country is just full of people, who when these things happen, they just say these things happen, and that's why they happen! We gotta have control of what happens to us."), our independent spirit does give us a sense of control over our immediate, if not long-term, destiny.
Without it, who are we? Why bother? An independent bookstore is not just a concept or a blind hope. It is a statement.
Okay, a declaration.
And yet, we are also charter members of many diverse and ever-changing communities, as exemplified by our oddly complementary recent impulses toward social networking online and shopping local on-ground.
IndieBound's new website invites us to become "part of the story," noting that "each page of a book carries something totally incredible and unique, but when they are all brought together, they build something infinitely greater." A Declaration of IndieBound suggests we "are linked by the passions that differentiate us."
For a long time I thought we should give equal weight to the word "dependent" when talking about bookshops because we rely so heavily on the kindness, cooperation and generosity of, if not strangers, then certainly of all those equally independent consumers who choose to enter independent bookstores. That's such an amazing impulse, a declaration on their part that we matter to them; that we depend upon one another.
Long ago and far away, I worked for a national supermarket chain. Most of our customers came in because they had to buy food, and they weren't always happy about it. Great customer service could drag a grudging smile from them sometimes, but it's safe to say that the average customer in a grocery store was more disgruntled than the most challenging customer I have ever encountered as a bookseller.
People wanting to--choosing to--buy books directly from us, face-to-face, is no small miracle these days. Of course, we'd love to have even more of them make that choice regularly, and we continue to search for irresistible strategies that might encourage such behavior. At the same time, as independents we fiercely resist the siren song urging us to surrender to our presumed fate, as implied in phrases like "these things happen."
So we should celebrate our independence this holiday weekend, but since IndieBound describes us as individual pages that become a story only when we are bound together, the word that seems equally appropriate to our celebrations is "interdependence."
Books & Books, Miami, Fla., used the term eloquently this week in its e-mail newsletter: "With an independent attitude and an independent spirit, Books & Books has focused on our community--from neighbors to readers, from business to business--for the past 25 years. Now, people all over the country are recognizing the value of being local, buying local. In our bookshops, in our neighborhoods, there is a sense of place, a place we call home. Not just independence but interdependence."
Interdependence.
Tomorrow, communities nationwide will gather to celebrate Independence Day with all the traditional fixings--parades, flags, picnics, fireworks. I'll celebrate by working on the sales floor of an independent bookstore, waiting for the front door to open and members of our independent reading community to come inside for a moment, to have a conversation about books, to shop local.
That we all need one another seems so obvious, yet it still sometimes defies my limited imagination to realize how elusive the concept of interdependence can become.
But not tomorrow. Have a great Interdependence Day. Watching fireworks alone just isn't much fun.--Robert Gray (column archives available at Fresh Eyes Now)