Yann Martel published a new book this past week titled Beatrice and Virgil. Mr. Martel is best known for his Man Booker Prize-winning novel Life of Pi. After the phenomenal success of Life of Pi, expectations were high for this new book. However in the past few days, The New...

In a recent post we claimed that one of the opportunities for independent bookstores is to find new ways to bring people together to talk about books and ideas. That post generated a lot of good discussion. Specifically, some of the questions that came up were: Why do...

There has been a lot of noise coming from newspaper companies lately. Most is complaints (people don't value news) and points fingers at the alleged villains (Craigslist and Google). Some of it is accompanied with a heavy dose of guilt (you will miss us when we...

A year ago we visited San Francisco’s new California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park.  This is one of the city’s new cultural hot spots.  As we walked among the high-tech exhibits on the natural world, we came across a 20-foot long quote written in giant yellow letters attributed...

Recently we were invited to sell books at a sustainability conference being held at a fancy hotel in San Francisco.  The conference had attracted hundreds of young professionals pursuing careers in sustainability.  One young woman walked over to our table to buy Van Jones’ book.  Looking at the Booksmith sign...

"You did what?" is the typical response when we tell our friends that we quit our cushy corporate jobs and bought an independent bookstore in the heart of San Francisco. "Either you are out of your mind or you know something nobody else does," remarked an old friend. A...