Paul Yamazaki on the Important, Joyous Work of Running an Independent Bookstore

Seminary Co-op booksellers and friends have held a number of conversations with legendary bookseller Paul Yamazaki throughout the past two years, in the intoxicating stacks of City Lights, perambulating the streets of San Francisco, and over whiskey tumblers deep into the night. With Paul we’ve edited them into the format of one day and night’s passage, collected to convey the essence of his wisdom, his passion for bookselling, and his life of letters, including the story of his tenure with the great City Lights, as well as to share the joy that it is to spend time in his presence. Good morning! By the sober light of day, let’s wrap up with your thoughts about the future of the industry. Why do bookstores matter? We are about the process of discovery. There has never been a year where there hasn’t been something that has threatened our existence as an industry or made life as booksellers challenging. Some of the most exciting and challenging bookstores are no longer with us. I’m thinking of Midnight Special in Los Angeles, St. Mark’s Bookshop in New York, Hungry Mind in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Cody’s Books in Berkeley. Not to be able to go to those stores any longer, at least in my topography, makes the world much smaller. Three Lives in the West Village of New York City and Green Arcade in the Hub neighborhood of San Francisco were the two jewel-box bookstores that bracket the continent. They were both wonderfully expansive and deep—Three Lives still is!—despite what many of us would think of as confining spaces of 600 to 800 square feet. Patrick Marks, the founder of Green Arcade, shut the doors for good when he retired in 2023. Here’s hoping Toby Cox can keep his brilliant, bustling West Village store from meeting the same fate. And yet we’ve also seen a lot of stores open in recent years. Yes! To see Word Up or Mahogany—or the changes at Point Reyes or East Bay—those are amazing stores and give me hope. Any time I walk into a store that has relatively […]

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