Why Indie Bookstores Are on the Rise Again

he recent news of the opening of an independent bookstore on Manhattan's Upper West Side was greeted with surprise and delight, since a neighborhood once flush with such stores had become a retail book desert. The opening coincides with the relocation of the Bank Street Bookstore near Columbia University, leading the New York Times to declare, "Print is not dead yet - at least not on the Upper West Side."

Two stores don't constitute a trend, but they do point to a quiet revival of independent bookselling in the United States. They also underscore