The shops where books have found me.
Independent bookstores in every city I've lived in — a small map of the places worth supporting. No affiliate links. Pick a city to see its shops, or scroll down for the full timeline.
Where the reading started. Childhood, teenage years, college — the first bookstores, the first libraries, the first books that rearranged things. Nineteen years in one sprawling city.
Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco — nine years moving between them as the career took shape. A region with some of the country's most singular independent bookstores.
Manhattan, briefly. Two years, but the density of bookstores per square mile does something to a reader.
Where I am now. Nashville has several bookstores I'm getting to know — Parnassus is the one I actually shop at, but the list is bigger than I realized.
Where I'm headed. A city with one of the best indie bookstore cultures in the country — I've been making a list long before I've made the move.
This list grows. If you run an indie shop in one of these cities and I've missed you — or want to recommend something in a city I haven't lived in yet — write in. Corrections and additions always welcome.