Robert Gray: Love in the Time of Indie Bookstores

Dating may be hard, but it pales in comparison to the implications and complications of merging two book collections. Now that's really taking a relationship to a new level.

There's been a flurry of media attention recently surrounding the online book-dating site alikewise (Shelf Awareness, August 20, 2010), but it has a successful bricks-and-mortar predecessor in Between the Covers: A Matchmaking Service for Book Lovers, which was started more than a year ago by indie bookstore WORD, Brooklyn, N.Y. Positive response to the idea has since inspired WORD-sponsored singles mixers for readers and even a literary "prom."

Apparently, not everyone is a fan. "Bookshelves Give Daters Yet Another Way to Be Judgmental" was the headline of a recent Jezebel.com post that took a potshot at the notion of literary matchmaking in general and Between the Covers in particular.

For WORD manager Stephanie Anderson, however, the concept is simply a logical extension of the Greenpoint bookstore's community outreach efforts. The matchmaking board, like WORD's ambitious events schedule (which, effective today, will be headed by occasional Shelf Awareness contributor Jenn Northington as the new events manager), is simply another way to bring readers together in an increasingly unbookish world.

"If you've lived in New York for three days, you know that meeting people here is not easy," said Anderson, adding that the original idea for Between the Covers came to her and WORD's owner Christine Onorati one day when they realized that they "knew all of our customers, but we forget that they don't know each other."

Anderson said that on the board, "people seem to represent extremes of themselves, but it seems to me that the 'likes' are just as--if not more--important than the 'dislikes.' And since conversations are the best way to get to know people, I think the point of our board is to help people find those conversations. We've already hosted two singles mixers this year in an attempt to foster them."

Two enthusiastic supporters of the board's matchmaking potential, as well as the way it reflects what indie bookstores can mean to communities, are Russ Marshalek and Marley Magaziner, who met "on the board" and now live together.

Marshalek praised the bookstore's "massive community work," and called Between the Covers "a brilliant idea, and a move that is only enhanced by sites like alikewise, which fail (in my opinion) to instigate the real-world interaction that WORD does with its quarterly events. Judging someone based on what they read is brilliant--you're going to judge anyway--why not judge someone on a book they've put 14 hours of their life into? I love the fact that Marley and I both read Less than Zero and Imperial Bedrooms back-to-back within a few weeks of one another. I found them incredible. She found them cold and empty. We discussed it over dinner. That's what a good relationship is, no? But, again, I think the only real story here is the work WORD Brooklyn is doing, continuing to remind us why independent bookstores are vital community centers."

Magaziner likes "the idea that my--now our--local bookstore was a catalyst in our relationship. By the time of WORD's first in-real-life mixer, we were officially boyfriend and girlfriend, which meant I was breaking it off with the kids I met on the Internet to be with the guy who found me through the WORD board. Real life trumps the Internet! When Russ and I moved in together and merged our libraries, we found that we had exactly three of the same books. For two people who consider themselves big readers, and who were drawn to each other based on literary taste, having just three crossovers is pretty striking. The point is, together we have a serious library. We're readers.
 
"While everyone seems to be whining about the death of the local independent bookstore, WORD has managed to appeal to that facet of our personalities to engage us in a greater community. WORD has managed to latch onto the hyper-local marketing trend--match up people who like books and who visit at the same local bookstore frequently enough to keep an eye on a singles board. To me, it's less important what a person likes, but that a person likes reading. What a person does in his or her free time is a huge window into personality and the specifics of that are important."
 
For Anderson, the matchmaking board and singles mixers are a natural part of the bookshop's overall effort to bring the community together to talk books, meet one other and maybe even buy a tome or three. It's just what an indie bookstore does. Oh, and then there's WORD's summer basketball league for book lovers, but for that you'll have to pass a test. Question #4: "Name a poet. Any poet."--Robert Gray (column archives available at Fresh Eyes Now)

 

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