Let’s hear it for bookstore owners. Like librarians, they are matchmakers, linking readers with stories that will provide relief, inspiration or whatever else is needed.
Saturday, April 25, is Independent Bookstore Day 2026, and artificial intelligence tells me that independent bookstores are making a comeback in the U.S, with more than 200 opening in the last five years.
It’s happening in Rochester, which has a growing number of independents. In addition, Barnes & Noble, a chain, has three stores in the Rochester area, all terrific. The one in Pittsford even has an escalator.
What does this tell us?
Writers are writing. People are reading.
And people are getting guidance in bookstores, guidance you can’t quite get online.
A case in point.
Cindy and I were in Perry, Wyoming County.
We went into Act 4 Books. It’s right there on Main Street, around the corner from the Silver Lake Brewing Project. The bookstore is a community hub, offering books, coffee, conversation, and comfort.
Upon entering a bookstore, I need time to get my bearings. So I began by staring at postcards and pens. Sometimes I stare at stuffed animals or T-shirts. That works, too.
Cindy was over in New Releases talking with a woman who turns out to be Meghan Hauser, who owns the store along with her husband, Rick Hauser.
Meghan approached me.
“You wife says you’re in a reading slump,” she said. “What kind of books do you like?”
She’s taken me by surprise. I wish I had my list of books read in 2025, before I entered the slump.
I know that I really liked “The Correspondent” by Virginia Evans, a novel made up of letters, a good way to tell a story. It’s the May choice for Cindy’s book club, which has been together for more than 30 years.
Another novel, “I See You Called in Dead” by John Kenney, had me from the start. I write obituaries, and it’s about an obituary writer who gets in trouble when he fabricates his own obituary, exaggerating some of his accomplishments.
It might have helped Meghan if I mentioned those books. But, on the spot, I told her that I like books featuring unhappy Swedish detectives, which, don’t judge me, I do.
“It’s good if there’s a dead body in the beginning,” I added.
Meghan looked at me. Unfazed. I think bookstore owners have to develop poker faces.
“I can help,” she said.
There used to be a bookstore owner in Stratford, Ontario, who had Meghan’s intuition.
You’d walk into Callan Books and without saying a word, John Callan would pick up the latest bleak Norwegian noir and put it in your hands. He’d throw in a novel of dysfunctional life in northern Ontario. “You’ll like this,” he would say.
Back in Perry, Meghan led me through the book sections. She stopped in Fiction long enough to hand me “The House of Silk” by Anthony Horowitz.
Before my slump, I read a lot by Horowitz, who is something of a literary machine. But I hadn’t read his take on Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick, Watson. I’m sold.
From Fiction we walk into Nonfiction. I generally avoid this section and all its facts, but Meghan assures me by her attitude that it’s a safe space.
Reaching down, she takes out three or four books by Constance Millard, one of her favorites.
I chose “Hero of the Empire.” It’s about the young Winston Churchill escaping from prison after being captured during the Second Boer War.
There’s a lot I don’t know about the Second Boer War. There’s a lot I don’t know about Winston Churchill. I certainly didn’t know about the prison escape.
So that’s what I’m reading right now. Churchill is young and searching out wars in which he might fight. It’s risky, but he wants to be a war hero.
It’s fascinating and scary and surprising, hard to put down. Good heavens, my slump may be ending.
Thank you, Act 4. Thank you, Meghan. Thank you, bookshop owners everywhere.
Recommendations?
Question of the day: A hapless person comes up to you and says, “What book should I be reading?” What would you say?
Take a moment. Shoot me an email at jmemmott@democratandchronicle.com.
Independent Bookstore Day
Independent Bookstore Day and will be celebrated from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. April 25. It will include letterpress demos, coffee popups, tickets to LibroFM audiobooks, gift card giveaways, merchandise releases and music. For more information, go to https://www.bookweb.org/independent-bookstore-day and https://www.indiebound.org/independent-bookstore-day.
Here are independent stores in the Rochester area. Those participating in Independent Bookstore Day and listed at indiebound.org are in boldface.
Used bookstores
Not counting bookstores in area libraries, here are stores that carry only used books, some of them rare:
From his home in Geneseo, Livingston County, retired senior editor Jim Memmott writes Remarkable Rochester about who we were, who we are. He can be reached at jmemmott@gannett.com or write Box 274, Geneseo, NY 14454.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Let’s hear it for bookstore owners and the books they place in our hands
Reporting by Rochester Democrat and Chronicle / Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
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