The Booksellers
The title tells you what you need to know about this documentary: It’s a love letter to the people who love books — you know, the old-fashioned kind, made out of ink imprinted on paper. For anyone who has spent awesome hours discovering the secrets of the towering stacks within used-book shops, The Booksellers will be a comforting window into the world of hard-core book collectors and traders, mostly in New York City.
The famous Strand, one of the few survivors of a golden age of Manhattan bookstores, is one of many explored here, along with visits to book collector expositions and homes with volumes stacked from floor to ceiling. In these days of self-isolation, it’s rather nice to settle back on your sofa and take virtual tours of places now closed to you, and to hear stories from the many eccentric and determined people who keep them alive.
It’s not surprising that director-editor-producer D.W. Young’s resume is dominated by documentary shorts, because The Booksellers is essentially a bundle of self-contained portraits and vignettes and topical discussions, one after the other. (It’s a nice structure for home viewing, since pauses to grab another chardonnay don’t interrupt the flow.)
We meet the trio of sisters (pictured above) who happily inherited their father’s shop and learn the secret of their survival. We visit the dealer-collector-hoarder whose apartment is a hazardous maze of shelves and teetering piles. We investigate the apartment of two now-gone academics, who took slightly better care of their dusty boxes of books than of their moldy, crumbling walls. We meet young women who discuss the gender imbalance of the business. And we hear how the internet has reshaped the book market, for good and for ill.
What we don’t get is any discussion of bookstores’ most important strategies for continuity: community marketing, in-store cafes, author appearances, online outreach, and so on. It’s like Young — who has been working on this film for four years or longer — isn’t really interested in the business side of the book business. He’s just in love with the booksellers.
And with Fran Lebowitz. As a kind of reward for staying aboard Young’s virtual tour bus through the streets of Manhattan, we get periodic visits with notorious New York wit and curmudgeon, perhaps the best bits of the doc. “You know what they used to call independent bookstores?” she quips. “Bookstores.”
Of course, if you don’t know she’s Fran Lebowitz, the film isn’t going to tell you. For a movie about written words, Young has a strange aversion to using them to identify his subjects, except occasionally by first name. There are no onscreen labels to remind us who’s who or what their particular expertise or position might be, which can be frustrating. Nor do the various segments add up to a definitive conclusion. Will bookstores adapt and survive? The Booksellers is irrationally hopeful but inconclusive.
No matter, these folks are a charming and intriguing lot. When closing time comes, you may not want to leave. But don’t rush out — Lebowitz gets the last word after the credits conclude.
Grade: B. Not rated but PG equivalent. Available for streaming via the Fine Arts Theatre’s and Grail Moviehouse’s websites beginning April 17.
(Photo courtesy of Greenwich Entertainment)
