Three Out of Nine Lives

Blogged earlier today about my weekend visit to Three Lives & Co., but just noticed it was included in a great piece by Boris Kachka and Joshua David Stein in New York magazine: 6 Independent Bookstores Are Thriving — and How They Do It, which you can read HERE.

"The early years of the great recession “were hard years,” said owner Toby Cox. “We cut back the hours of staff, cut down on our stock and just waited for it go get better.” But at the beginning of 2013, Barnes& Noble, the megalithic bookstore that occupied a corner a few blocks east, abruptly closed. “Suddenly,” said Cox, “people realized we were here.” The immediate uptick in business “was noticeable. I never thought of Barnes & Noble as a competitor. I didn’t think our customers overlapped. But after they closed, I realized they had been taking our customers after all.”