Bookstores are the Epitome of Slow Travel—This One's Donated $47M

An interview and giveaway with Bookshop's CEO, the comfiest and chicest shoes, and a helpful app to ease travel planning.

When we first launched Departure nearly two years ago, we envisioned covering all the lesser-appreciated parts of travel: The slower mornings, the space to reflect, and the books we brought along for the journey. Because in this author’s humble opinion, books and slow travel go hand-in-hand; they require thoughtfulness, deep attention, and a desire to transport yourself elsewhere.

Over the years, we’ve shared some of our favorite reads (and bookstores)—the ones we buried in sandy bags home from the beach, or the longer sagas we devoured when we weren’t able to travel in the pandemic.

That’s why I’m thrilled to interview Andy Hunter, the CEO behind Bookshop.org, a platform supporting independent bookstores around the country.

Why this week? Well, because it’s one of my most dreaded times of the year: “Prime Day,” which ends on Friday. Instead of highlighting deals for a company I do not use or recommend, I wanted to showcase an organization I do love that wants you to support bookstores, not billionaires.

If you can, please consider diverting your dollars away from Amazon this Prime Day and shopping via Bookshop or any other independent business instead. (They’re offering free shipping, too!)

To sweeten the deal, Bookshop has generously agreed to give one lucky winner a $50 gift card. 💕 In order to enter, you must “like” and comment on this post sharing your favorite book. US or UK entrants only, winner to be announced next Thursday.

An Interview with Bookshop CEO, Andy Hunter

Andy, you launched Bookshop.org as a more ethical alternative to Amazon. Longtime readers know I am very vocally anti-Amazon, and I’ve been a staunch supporter of Bookshop for years, so thank you for being here. At a base level, tell us what Bookshop is, your approach to supporting independent bookstores, and the impact you’ve created.

I had the idea for Bookshop as I knew more and more book shopping was happening online, and almost all of it was going to Amazon. Most people and publications who posted about books were linking to Amazon back in 2000–2019. We needed an alternative bookstore that we could link to that would support indie bookstores, and we needed to make it easier for bookstores to sell online so they could fight back against Amazon.

I was met with a lot of skepticism at first, but once we launched (in January 2020), it quickly became clear that there were lots of people out there who didn’t want Amazon to have a monopoly on bookselling, and who wanted to live in a future that included local, independent bookstores.

Since 2020, independent bookstores have boomed, and we’re really happy to have been a part of the renaissance. To date, more than $47 million has been donated back to local independent shops.

It’s funny, as a kid, my mom would always tell me to stop buying books at the Scholastic Book Fair, and to borrow them instead. But my father would say, “If books are the one thing she wants to invest in, let her.” Now, my husband and I have built our own library to honor these physical books. Bookshop launched during the pandemic, and books became a lifeline for a lot of people—their way of escaping to another place when they physically couldn’t. Do you think that moment changed why people buy books?

I think the pandemic did not change why people buy books; it just made the reasons we read—like escaping from our day-to-day lives, increasing understanding, and connecting to other humans—more important. People had more time on their hands and were searching both for distractions and answers, both of which a good book will provide.

What was unexpected was how the pandemic motivated people to support and protect their local bookstores. Though we had been through twenty years of the slow decline of independent bookselling, when we were suddenly faced with the consequences of losing them to lockdowns, we rallied behind them.

That was incredible to see, and it looks now like a lasting shift in reader behavior: Over 1,000 new bookstores have opened since Covid, and last year, 75% grew year-over-year.

I have a “tradition” I live by: For every new bookstore I go to, I allow myself to buy a book. It’s a wonderful way to build up my library, but also to remember the place—and my experience—at that moment in time. I’ve collected books on trips to Greece, China, Colombia, Uganda, and so on. You’ve spoken before how, as a child, you’d seek out new bookstores when you went on family vacations. Do you still hold that tradition today? Do you have others you try to follow?

Absolutely, though I am too bashful to introduce myself most of the time. I was just up in the Catskills and visited the incredible Golden Notebook in Woodstock. I will be in Maine later in the summer and look forward to visiting The Briar Patch in Bangor and Hidden Barn in Bar Harbor.

As you’ve noted, more than a thousand indie bookstores have opened over the last few years, particularly as the importance of third spaces and community-building has grown. When you talk to bookshop owners, how are they feeling about this momentum? It’s no surprise that Amazon still reigns supreme, but it feels like (finally!) the tides are turning a bit more.

New indie bookstore owners are really excited and passionate about the momentum and popular support for indie bookselling. Older veterans are more wary, because they know that margins are still low, and we might be one economic downturn away from reversing some of that progress.

That’s why everyone at Bookshop is now obsessed with growing and taking more of Amazon’s market share, bringing new revenue streams like ebooks to indie bookstores, solving more bookseller tech and data problems, and generally doing more to make bookselling more sustainable.

Booksellers are proud of what they’ve accomplished and happy with how things are going, but we’ve still got work to do to make sure the renaissance of human, local, indie bookselling continues.

This is, at its core, a travel newsletter. Tell me about some of the indie bookstores you’d love readers to frequent, or the ones that have stayed with you for years and are worth traveling to.

Well, there are too many and I'm not sure I should play favorites. But one favorite is Word on the Water which is on a barge in a canal in London.

Ed. note: I was actually just here which I mentioned in last week’s edition! Here’s a photo I snapped on-board:

Continuing on the theme of slow travel: Indie bookstores are described as one of the last frontiers of “unhurried spaces.” There isn’t an AI-based algorithm, next-day shipping, or even a sense of urgency in a bookstore: You can spend a full afternoon immersed in a book there and you look to store clerks as expert curators. What do you think it is about a great indie bookstore that makes people want to stay? (As someone who hopes to own my own secondhand bookstore and community space one day—like every other millennial woman in the world—I am eager to hear!)

A great indie bookstore enlivens the senses: the sight of the book piles and shelves of undiscovered stories, the smell of fresh new books or musty used books, the feel of their covers and pages... Just thinking about it makes me want to run to one right away.

The other wonderful thing is that they are filled with other readers, kindred spirits, and booksellers who have devoted their careers to helping people like us discover the books that will move us, change our lives, entertain us, or all three.

I’m always interested in ways we can explore a local culture that isn't a tourist attraction or just checking off a Top 10 list from TikTok. Bookstores can tell you so much about a neighborhood or a moment in time—I’m thinking of Rough Draft up in Hudson Valley, or Baldwin & Co. Books in New Orleans. Is there a bookstore you've visited where the curation itself felt like an education, or that it was an experience that moved you?

I think all good indie bookstores educate and move readers. Shelf-talkers and handsells are amazing ways to discover new books, far better than any algorithm–and I love the delightful way that booksellers can call attention to subgenres, like Walden Pond Books in California curating "microhistories" which are nonfiction with an intense concentration on a single subject like the history of tea.

I’m going to rapid-fire a few questions I’d love your recommendations on. Give me the first suggestion that comes to mind:

• A book that changed your life.

  • The Autobiography of Malcolm X completely opened up my young white suburban mind when I encountered it while on vacation in a cabin at sixteen years old.

• The most innovative or original initiative you’ve seen at an indie bookshop.

  • I once went into a bookstore that had a display of books called "Shade-Tippin'": all mysteries and romances featuring women tipping down their sunglasses to make eye contact with the reader. (Think titles like Counterfeit, A Love Catastrophe, and Heist Society.) Unfortunately, I forgot which store! But I love humorous and surprising curation like that; Amazon would never.

• A book that will emotionally ruin you, but that you consider mandatory reading.

  • Well, for me personally, probably Bridge To Terabithia which ruined me, age eleven. More recently, I ruined my daughters by reading them Charlotte's Web. I apologize that these are such normal, required reading picks! ​

• The most remote bookstore you know of.

  • I love to use Bookshop.org's bookstore finder to find out-of-the-way bookstores, which is how I found The Islander bookshop in Kodiak, Alaska. However, I am sure there are even more remote bookstores, and I'd love to hear about them!

• A book you read to escape.

  • I had a blast reading Lightning Rods by Helen DeWitt, though it's also disturbing. I guess I don't really read to escape, honestly. But I love when a book makes me laugh.

What’s next for Bookshop, or maybe more broadly, where do you see independent bookstores going from here? We're seeing many bookstores become genuine travel destinations in their own right, with their own cafés, events, and residencies. Do you think that's the direction the movement is heading?

I think humanity has a kind-of collective immune system, and in the age of AI, social media depression, and atomization, we are re-discovering the importance of community spaces, shared culture, and personal connection, which bookstores offer so much of. I am so happy that there is a bookstore boom going on right now, one that no one expected a decade ago. It gives me hope.

I think we’re going to see more bookstores as creative spaces that cater to vibrant subcultures like romantasy readers, cookbook lovers, or alien-life believers, and that’s great. People need connection; books connect us with ourselves and our history, and bookstores can connect us with fellow readers, authors, and neighbors.

• 👡 Plantar fasciitis means I often have to sacrifice style for comfort, but I was truly floored at how comfortable (and chic) these shoes were right out of the box—to the point where I’m going to wear them in Europe next month repeatedly. They’re splurge-y but have been worth every penny, and they’re thin enough to pack!

• 🍽️ Last chance to use your dining credits for the quarter: $150 to OpenTable with the Chase Sapphire Reserve every six months, $100 to Resy from the AmEx Platinum quarterly. Bon appétit!

• 🏕️ The trend of “gramping”—or the concept where grandparents and grandchildren go camping together—is so wholesome. One grandfather said, “It’s put a new lease of life back into me that I wouldn’t have had if I’d have been spending the time back home on my own.” (Nice News)

• 🗺️ Want to meet up with a friend somewhere around the globe but don’t know the optimal place? (Read also: Bachelorette parties.) This handy app, Midway Travel, will help you figure it out, complete with non-stop flight options and midway point data. I tested it out between Atlanta and where my best friend lives in Seattle, and looks like we have an excuse to head to Denver.

• 🤯 These “sea nomads” have lived at sea for 1,000 years in Malaysian Borneo, moving and rebuilding their homes on the water as they track fish. They rarely step foot on land. (BBC)

See you all next week, and happy (almost) July! —Henah x

weekend mood // rough draft on film, winter 2021