Good literary citizens shop at local independent bookstores, and Amazon’s ongoing trade war with Hachette underscores the fragility of a marketplace dominated by a single online retailer. But are local bookstores just another form of privilege? Kelly Jensen writing at BookRiot explains what its like to live in a book desert:
Not all readers have access to brick and mortar stores. Not all readers have the capability to walk to their local indie or their local Barnes & Noble or their local Books A Million or their local Chapters and buy books in person. Not all readers have the ability to get in a car, fill up their gas tanks, and spend an hour driving each way to a store. Not everyone lives in a great city, not everyone lives near a great city, and not every great city is a great city for bookstores.
