alt. books
by M.J Rose

Hand Selling Online

Readerville.com – a web-based community for anyone who loves books – is opening a bookstore. It’s a hybrid, grafting the best of what web technology has to offer onto the heart of those old-fashioned, independent bookstores that are disappearing even as I write this.

Independents are usually on the small size, crammed with more books than there are shelves. While not everything on those shelves is a best seller – or even current – they contain more worthwhile books than most of us can read in a lifetime. And usually the proprietor knows your name and your tastes after you’ve made just one or two visits back.

These are the stores that authors live and die by; not only do independents start the buzz about new books that might not be getting big press, they can literally create bestsellers. And these are the stores that readers mourn when they shut down, pushed out of business by the superstore that opens in the mall or by online sales that cut into profit.

But there are survivors, too. Dennis Dutton’s in Brentwood, Just Books in Greenwich CT, Northshire Books in Vermont, Mary Gay Shipley’s That Little Bookstore in Blytheville, A Clean Well Lighted Place for Books in San Francisco, R.J. Julia’s in Madison CT, even the mighty Powell’s in Portland, OR: if they gave out Pulitzers for the best bookstores, these would be the winners.

Now, Readerville.com’s store is poised to join their ranks.

The site, powered by booksite.com, which handles all the backend, offers a searchable database of over one million books, comparable to other online bookstores.

But there the comparisons stop.

Highlighted here are fascinating finds, creative companions and Readerville reviews on books that might have been released last week or last century.

And because this new bookstore is part of the Readerville.com site, it is has a community of avid readers surrounding it where book lovers spend hours engaging in every kind of literary conversation a bibliophile could imagine.

 

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