"Of course I was going to pack Bad Words as full of indie bookshops as I could! My favorite part of visiting a new city or neighborhood is always ferreting out the local bookshops there and snooping around their corners and observing their ecosystems.
"Indies are textured and handmade and represent the dreams of the people who built them, as well as the community of individuals supporting them. They say something about their people. In that, they're a perfect analogue for books themselves, and for everything else that's worth defending in this ever-smoothening world."
--Ríoghnach Robinson, whose novel Bad Words (St. Martin's Press) is the #1 October Indie Next List pick, in a q&a with Bookselling This Week