The annual San Diego Book Crawl takes place each year on the weekend surrounding Independent Bookstore Day, a nationwide campaign and celebration of independent bookstores. Locally, 14 bookstores are rallying together to encourage community, literacy and supporting small businesses.
The crawl highlights a thriving independent bookseller community in the region. This year, the newest bookstore added to the crawl just opened earlier this month — Hey Books! in East Village. Local booksellers say they feel even more essential in an ever-changing market.
"Bookstores stay as the top thing that communities want to have in their community — whether they actually support it enough to continue depends, but it's always the top priority as to what a good life is: to have a bookstore there, a local bookstore," said John Evans, co-owner of Camino Books. "There's a particularity to the vision of it that people appreciate because it shows a human hand and not a corporate, algorithmic hand."
This year’s crawl includes a few updates: Camino Books (formerly Diesel Books) has relocated to a new spot in Del Mar Plaza, and Hey Books! is joining the lineup for the first time after opening earlier this month. To learn more about navigating independent bookstore ownership, I spoke with Evans, along with Matthew Hein and Anika Omark, co-owners of Hey Books! — and everyone offered some book recommendations for your shopping lists.
Interview highlights
On opening a new independent bookstore … in this economy
I did not expect the massive outpouring of kindness and support that we have received.Matthew Hein, co-owner of Hey Books!
Matthew Hein: It shouldn't have surprised me, but what did surprise me is how supportive all the other bookstore owners and workers have been. And not just bookstore owners and workers, but record store owners and workers. Folks in restaurants in the neighborhood, people who live in the condos or apartments nearby — I did not expect the massive outpouring of kindness and support that we have received. And I'm very happy to have more. So, come visit us and continue to be nice.
On a strangely rewarding time as a bookseller: COVID
John Evans: Because there's no time that you felt more intensely how meaningful and useful and productive — and how (the bookstore) contributed to psychological, spiritual and physical health of people — than during COVID. So the whole purpose of the bookstore was heightened, highlighted, intensified in a great way. It was so intense during that period and having to retool to online sales and shipping, and outside the doors, not letting anybody in — all of that. But it was an incredibly joyful time just to have people so in need, getting what they need — and that you knew that better than any other time.
On the changing bookstore landscape
Evans: Big-box stores kind of plunking down wherever there's a nice independent and trying to drive it out of business — that was late '80s, '90s. And then Amazon and other online retailers, and there's been a series of chains that have come up and gone away. Bookstores stay as the top thing that communities want to have in their community — whether they actually support it enough to continue depends, but it's always the top priority as to what a good life is: to have a bookstore there, a local bookstore.
There's a particularity to the vision of it that people appreciate because it shows a human hand and not a corporate, algorithmic hand. So I think letting your freak flag fly helps. And our first Yelp review was "pathologically friendly. And an excellent selection of books." And in a way, that's the best description of our store as we conceive it — to be so responsive to people that come in that they get the best book for them that we have in the store that day, at that moment. And that's a perpetual challenge. It's not an easy thing, but it's a very fun thing, an exciting thing.
Bookstores stay as the top thing that communities want to have in their community — whether they actually support it enough to continue depends, but it's always the top priority as to what a good life is: to have a bookstore there, a local bookstore. There's a particularity to the vision of it that people appreciate because it shows a human hand and not a corporate, algorithmic hand.John Evans, co-owner of Camino Books
On curating stock and recommending books
Anika Omark: It's a little bit daunting, because there are so many books — and especially as a store with a really small footprint, we can just carry a very small percentage of those. It's really interesting to try to figure out what our neighborhood's going to want, and what we want to have to offer. And to sort of balance that with people actually buying the books is a fun thing to figure out. We're still kind of figuring that out.
Hein: I mean, I think probably everyone here today faces the same issue as far as curation, but with the books in our own home. We live in the San Diego area. We don't have mansions. That's just the way it goes. We have more books than we have space. So, I think we have all practiced this for years. What books do I need to have near me at all times? And what books do I press on my friends when they visit? What books do I hand to the dog walker? And what books does that random person across the street get for such and such holiday?
Evans: It's a crossroads. You're providing things from far afield and you're bringing them into this one place, where people can interact with them and that itself is exciting to people. And each store does that differently.
It's a complicated, weird sorting that's largely intuitive ... We're a cultural institution, a civic institution, a social institution, that's part street theater and part library and part therapy session.John Evans, co-owner of Camino Books
It's a complicated, weird sorting that's largely intuitive. A lot of it's based on what you hear. You're constantly hearing voices of people saying how great this is for this reason and that stuff, and all those things bounce through your sensorium as you're picking things. But we're cultural advocates — you know, we're a cultural institution, a civic institution, a social institution, that's part street theater and part library and part therapy session. So having those things, we tend to think we're running to stretch everybody a little more, beyond what they expect.
Staff picks from 3 indie booksellers
What’s the last book you finished?
Matthew Hein: "Mr. Salary" by Sally Rooney
Anika Omark: "Swan Song" by Paul Tremblay
John Evans: "Nomads" by Anthony Sattin
What's a book you want everyone to read?
Omark: "Her Body and Other Parties" by Carmen Maria Machado
Evans: "Homage to Catalonia" by George Orwell
Hein: "Cooking with Fernet Branca" by James Hamilton-Patterson
What's a book you'd recommend to a phone-addicted teenager?
Hein: "Mr. Salary" by Sally Rooney
Omark: One of the "Percy Jackson" books
Evans: "Kafka on the Shore" by Haruki Murakami
What's a book you distinctly remember being loaned when you were younger?
Omark: "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" by E.L. Konigsburg
Hein: "(george)" by E.L. Konigsburg
Evans: "Homage to Catalonia" by George Orwell
What's a book you're excited to see come out soon?
Omark and Hein: "Notes to John" by Joan Didion
So people would come into our store and say, "I didn't come in and find the book I was specifically looking for, but I found 10 I didn't even know existed." And I think that's something that thrills booksellers — that somebody is being exposed to, as they say, discovering something beyond their imagination at the moment, keeping the imagination alive. We're a church of the imagination and curiosity.
Hein: It reminds me of something that I've heard Anika say a lot, and I'll paraphrase it and then she'll correct me. I think she says one of the things about going into a real bookstore — like we're talking about today, little locally owned independent bookstores — is that you may not find the book that you came in for, but you'll find the book next to that book, and that book will change your life.
Omark: He's pretty close. We'll let it slide.
On what makes San Diego's indie bookstore scene so great
Omark: Independent bookstores in general are amazing, and it's really nice that each of them has just a little bit of a different flare. There are 14 bookstores that are going to be on the Independent Bookstore Day crawl in San Diego, and we each have just a little bit of a different view on things, a little bit of a different stock. No one can carry everything, but we each sort of bring something different to the table.
Hein: When Anika and I worked at different bookstores (Verbatim and The Book Catapult), I remember we were, I think, according to the internet, 1.1 miles away from each other on a straight walk just down 30th. And it was pretty common for us to just say to a patron, "Hold on a second. I know someone who might have that book. I'm going to make a quick call."
Omark: And chances are one of the bookstores in San Diego is going to have what you need in stock today. Spending five minutes and calling around and sending someone to another local bookstore is such a privilege here, because we do have so many different bookstores. It's really nice to be friendly and to send customers on to other bookstores so that the money stays local and independent.
Chances are one of the bookstores in San Diego is going to have what you need in stock today ... It's really nice to be friendly and to send customers on to other bookstores so that the money stays local and independent.Anika Omark, co-owner of Hey Books!
On the best parts of the San Diego Book Crawl
Omark: The Book Crawl is great because it does force you out of your comfort zone. I mean, we all have our neighborhood bookstore that we love and the one that we go to every week, but this way it really gets you to go out and sort of explore San Diego and see some different things and meet some new booksellers.
Evans: Book Crawl is its own thing down here — and there are other book crawls throughout the country. In L.A. and in the Bay Area, Independent Bookstore Day is, you know, a bigger-than-usual day. But in San Diego, it's like Christmas.
Omark: Yes, there are prizes! This year there's going to be a patch, a tote bag — one of our sponsors, Canterbury Classics, which is a San Diego publisher, did amazing tote bags. There's a pin by Susie Ghahremani. There's a whole slew of amazing prizes.
