A place ain’t a place without a bookstore. – Gabrielle Zevin
There aren’t many bookstores dedicated solely to poetry, but Massachusetts still has one, thanks to a Nigerian philosophy professor. His Boston Globe obituary tells the story:
Ifeanyi Menkiti became, in April 2006, the man who saved poetry — or at the very least, he rescued one of its most revered institutions in this country by purchasing the Grolier Poetry Book Shop, which then was sorely in need of a buyer.
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The American Booksellers Association’s obituary for Lilla Weinberger explains how she brought Yankee flair to California:
She was walking around the Plaza with her sister-in-law and noticed there was no New England-style literary bookstore in town. Her sister-in-law said there used to be one and people were really sad when it closed.
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Vickie Williams also saw that her community had no bookstore, so she opened one. It did more than sell books, as her Seattle Times obituary recounts:
It became a community hub, where kids came by after school to page through books, do homework, and seek Williams’ counsel … Small African churches held services at the store. A recovery group started weekly meetings, as did a group of former inmates working on job development skills.