Women of the Book[shop]

This past April, as thousands of independent bookstores readied their displays for Independent Bookstore Day, Amazon—the world’s dominant book retailer—announced a sale of its own, slashing hardcover prices by more than half. A pitched battle ensued as communities came out in full force to shop local and celebrate their beloved bookstores. Shops reported record sales.

Now more than ever, independent bookstores are helping to actively shape the cultural conversation. Brimming with vitality and even subversiveness, these places often stand as vanguards of intellectual freedom and community connection. They serve as “third spaces,” where people with shared interests can unite. They fight book bans by displaying forbidden titles in their windows and bring much-needed attention to authors by hosting book launches and conversations.

The Amazon battle wasn’t the first of its kind. Earlier this year, the American Booksellers Association (ABA), which represents 2,800 bookstore locations, sent a letter urging the Department of Justice to block the corporate behemoth’s potential acquisition of TikTok. Both clashes have highlighted the struggles that independent bookstores face at a time of constricting consumer choice.

Naturally, there are perennial challenges to owning a bookstore: tiny margins, rising commercial rents, big-box price competition, and the associated costs of running a store that must invest in newsletters, community partnerships, and staff with the expertise to curate the shelves. Still, one thing is clear: bookstores aren’t going anywhere.

Instead, they’re transforming into important cultural hubs. The list of novelists who own shops continues to expand, from Emma Straub (Books Are Magic, Brooklyn) to Ann Patchett (Parnassus Books, Nashville) to Lauren Groff (The Lynx, Gainesville). And then there’s beloved Jewish icon Judy Blume, who has run Key West’s Books & Books for the past nine years. According to the ABA, 2024 marked the fourth consecutive year with more than 200 new independent bookstore openings.

Many stores and store owners have taken a stand against the growing number of book bans and challenges. Blume, whose books for kids are frequently challenged, is often at the forefront.

This spring, Lilith sat down with six Jewish women from six bookshops in six zip codes. Each demonstrates that a brick-and-mortar store, especially one with a mission, offers value that the internet simply cannot replace. And there’s a sisterhood vibe in the industry, which is powered by women whose avid reading habits sustain today’s publishing engine. “I don’t feel like I’m in an industry where I’m out of place [as a woman] like in business school,” jokes Zibby Owens of Zibby’s Bookshop.

Whether it’s a monthly comedy show hosted among the shelves or the hundreds of book launch events that bring together local authors and their readers, these Jewish feminist- run stores have gradually carved out a name for themselves within their neighborhoods. From a pink emporium in Los Angeles whose shelves teem with romances to a turquoise boutique in-the-round in Connecticut, each bookstore profiled here is led or staffed by women who are motivated not only by their love of the written word but also by a shared belief in the power of language to make a difference. “We’re not ending wars,” says Leah Koch of The Ripped Bodice, “but if we can make someone’s day five percent better, that’s great.”

The Ripped Bodice

LEAH & BEA KOCH • Culver City, CA & Brooklyn, NY

Romance novel sales have skyrocketed in recent years. TikTok readers flock to book- stores in search of Rebecca Yarros’s Fourth Wing, Bookstagrammers comb through the latest from Emily Henry, and every June, People magazine unveils its “Season of Love” picks for the summer.

Romance—and its mixed-genre counterpart, Romantasy—boomed during the pandemic, as readers sought an escape from the daily images of frontline workers in PPE and ‘must maintain six feet’ floor stickers at the grocery store.

Long before algorithms began pushing happily-ever-afters to the top of everyone’s feeds, however, Leah and Bea Koch were scouring distributor catalogs for books to purchase. In March 2016, the sisters opened the nation’s first brick-and-mortar store dedicated entirely to the romance genre, in Culver City, California. They named it, fittingly, The Ripped Bodice.

When I ask Leah when the idea of “romance only” came in, she says, “About four minutes after the original idea. It went like this: We should open a store. Okay—what do we sell at the store? Well, we like books, so we should sell books. Well, the only books we like are romance novels, so we should sell romance novels.”

The five-minute brainstorming session evolved into a crowdfunding campaign, which enabled the Koch sisters to secure a lease on a sunny storefront they dubbed “the sky space.” Inside the shop’s second location in Park Slope, Brooklyn, the walls are adorned with pages from beloved bodice-rippers. Pink abounds. Plush velvet chairs, reminiscent of a Fabio-esque romance, sit beneath a hand-lettered sign.

A place where erotica, Regency romance, queer romance and feminism all exist together, on equal footing, is subver- sive by its very nature. Shelves are organized by subgenre: historical, LGBTQ+, young adult, fantasy/paranormal, and more. One display spotlights “Real Romance Novels That Feature The Ripped Bodice”—proof of the shop’s reach, particularly among Gen Z. “The younger people are, the less they give a shit about what other people think about what they’re reading, which is wonderful,” Leah says.

As for what it’s like to run a bookstore with her sister, she says simply, “We love it.” The two grew up as voracious readers, encouraged by parents who valued books. Leah traces her beliefs back to her Reform Jewish upbringing, which taught her to question everything: “I can’t really separate Judaism from my values, and I also don’t separate my values from my business.” These values were reflected in the shop’s The State of Racial Diversity in Romance Publishing Report, which from 2016 to 2023 tracked the share of publishers’ titles penned by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) authors.

Growing up, the Koch sisters lived near Women & Children First in Chicago, an independent bookstore that Leah calls “formative.” They came of age during the midnight-release-party heyday of Harry Potter and Twilight, when bookshops were the “cool” place to be—something that was immensely appealing to a girl who was, in her own words, not very cool.

That early impression of a bookstore being a cultural hotspot animates the sisters’ Culver City flagship, which hosts half a dozen themed book clubs; a long- running stand-up night in Los Angeles; and hundreds of author events annually, including conversations with writers like Elissa Sussman, as well as queer-lit book clubs and a Twilight trivia event.

Today, both locations provide a living wage to staff who have been with them for years. “We have two businesses that are supporting themselves,” Leah says, “and that feels really successful to me.” It’s clear that for this thriving store, the happy ending is real.

Blue Door Books

RACHEL GREENBAUM • Cedarhurst, NY

Blue Door Books has become a staple in Cedarhurst, one of Long Island’s Five Towns—a
predominantly Jewish area. When the shop first opened, friends cautioned Rachel Greenbaum about the rising popularity of the Amazon Kindle, but she wasn’t concerned; her clientele, many of whom observe Shabbat by putting aside electronic devices, would always need print books.

Greenbaum owns Blue Door Books with her business partner, Sharon Garber. The store has been open for fifteen years; they’d just cut the ribbon when Greenbaum went into labor with her daughter, who is now in high school.

The idea for the shop first emerged when the local Borders store shut down. The woman who’d been the face of the now-shuttered Borders called Greenbaum and encouraged her to open her own shop, even suggesting a possible partner. Over coffee, Greenbaum presented her plan to Garber; Garber declined. By the next morning, however, she called back: “Let’s do this.”

Greenbaum grew up in the Bronx, on Pelham Parkway, a library kid who devoured everything from Sweet Valley High to her mother’s dog-eared Danielle Steel novels. She is a first-generation American: her mother was born in a DP camp, and her father traveled from Poland to London before settling in New York.

Intimate knowledge of Blue Door’s customer base means Greenbaum and Garber don’t depend on bestseller lists to curate their inventory. They instead browse through the catalogs themselves, reading as much as they can and recommending their favorites to loyal regulars. “I like speaking to people,” Greenbaum says. “I remember your kids’ names. I remember that you told me you were in a bad spot two months ago, and so you wanted only something that was happy.”

Over the past fifteen years, Blue Door Books has weathered economic downturns, a global pandemic, and the siren call of technology. Through it all, Greenbaum has remained steadfastly committed to her vision. Kids who once spent their allowance money at Blue Door now drop by to share news of weddings, or law school acceptances. “You were the one who gave me my first book!” they tell her.

“There’s real value to having a bookstore in the neighborhood,” she says. “You’re leaving just a little more satisfied, a little more cared for, a little more taken care of and maybe seen.”

Gramercy Books

LINDA KASS • Bexley, OH

A customer approaches Gramercy Books in Bexley, Ohio, via a brick-paved walkway. The sweet smell of baking fills the air, wafting from a nearby cake shop. The doors swing open, and what captures the eye first might not be the books—thousands of them—but a single line that hangs over the charming, 2,500-square-foot space like a charge: “Where there are many worlds, you choose the one you walk into each day.”

The quote, from Ohio-born novelist Jacqueline Woodson, was chosen by Gramercy Books’ owner Linda Kass to signify what she hopes readers will experience when stepping into her shop: “a sense of well-being, a sense of wow, and a sense of inspiration and discovery.”

Kass opened her storefront in December 2016. To prepare, she conducted extensive research. “It tells you a lot about a community when you go and visit their independent bookstores,” she says. The blueprint came from Sundog Books in Florida’s Panhandle, where Kass spent many summers gathering paper- backs to read by the shore. She stayed in touch with Sundog Books’ owners, Bob and Linda White, consulting them when she set out to found Gramercy.

Although Kass may not have had a background in merchandising and point-of-sale systems prior to opening the store, she knew she could teach herself—an ability she attributes to her experience as a three-time novelist. “Starting this bookstore was very much like starting with a blank page,” she explains. “When I’m writing a book, I’m usually engaged in some form of research. And when I was developing this bookstore, I was definitely engaged in quite a bit.”

She also knew Bexley, a suburb of Columbus, intimately, having grown up there. “It’s a community that’s filled with lots of readers,” she says, “but it’s a community that hadn’t had a bookstore since 1978, so that was really the trigger.”

Since its opening nearly nine years ago, Gramercy Books has blossomed into a vibrant community hub, hosting book club launches, reader discussions, and poetry nights. An author herself, Kass is committed to ensuring the chairs are filled with eager guests; she knows what it’s like to speak to an empty room. Her role as head of events empowers her to dream up innovative offerings for regulars: “I’m not the kind of bookstore where an author comes in and they sit at the microphone and give a lecture.” During the week we talked, Gramercy’s calendar was packed with events: one featured three musicians, another was an evening of haiku in celebration of National Poetry Month.

In addition to partnering with local organizations, Gramercy Books has a special holiday tradition, its Book Angel program, which aligns with Kass’s convictions. “As a Jewish woman,” she says, “I’m focused on social justice, on tikkun olam, the idea of repairing the world.” Every December, a spruce tree is placed on the shop’s floor, adorned with stars bearing a child’s name and age. Shoppers select a star, purchase a book (with the staff’s assistance, of course), and replace the star with an angel etched with their own name. This program provides hundreds of children in Franklin County with new books every year.

As we prepare to end our conversation, Kass reads me a quote from The Velveteen Rabbit: “Real isn’t how you’re made. It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

Then she’s off: there are books to shelve and events to lead. The quote connects Jewish values to fiction, the idea of mending what is in need of repair. Tikkun olam, Kass reminds us, is sometimes no more than loving something long and hard enough to make it a reality.

Zibby’s Bookshop

ZIBBY OWENS • Santa Monica, CA

Zibby Owens wrote her first book at the age of six, featuring two stories, titled “How the Donut Got Its Hole” and “Finders Keepers, Losers Sweepers.” Her grandparents printed 20 copies, which Zibby distributed to friends and family.

Today, nearly four decades later, she’s still handing out books—this time through her publishing empire, Zibby Media, and her cozy Santa Monica store, Zibby’s Bookshop. The shop is more than just a store; it’s a vital neighborhood staple, a place of comfort and community. When devastating wildfires swept through Los Angeles County in early 2025, Zibby invited displaced residents to take anything they wanted off the shelves. She insists that the shop be there “for the good times and the bad.”

That same restless generosity typifies how Zibby approaches her many roles. “I don’t think I could be someone who stays home all day and writes novels,” she reflects. “That’s not my personality type.”

We are seated in her living room on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The shelves are, naturally, lined with books, and Owens’ dog, Naya, dozes on the couch beside us. Nothing is out of place.

Aesthetics matter to Owens—at home and in her bookstore. “I wanted it to feel like somewhere where I personally would want to spend time,” she says. To lay out the space, she hired the same designer she’d used for her house in the Palisades. “The beauty of the space is magnified by books,” she notes, “because books make everything more beautiful.”

When it came to organizing the shop’s shelves, Owens didn’t want to take the usual route of categorizing titles alphabetically. She had seen firsthand through publishing her own anthology that shelf placement matters. “There’s no way a book can be a bestseller if there’s one copy in a bookstore on a high shelf.” Part of her vision for the shop involved boosting author discovery—a skill she’d honed while promoting books on Good Morning America and her podcast, Totally Booked with Zibby. She arranges the store’s shelves by emotion. “You’re in the mood to cry today? Great—come over here.”

What attracts Owens to a bookstore is its role as a gathering place. Zibby’s Bookshop, which opened on Montana Avenue in February 2023, hosts three to five author events per week and collaborates with local nonprofits, day camps, and businesses.

Of course, running a bookstore presents its own unique challenges. Returns (books can be returned to publishers with no penalty if they fail to sell), technical glitches, and platform integration are tough to manage from New York City, where Zibby spends more than half the year. Harder still: picking which books to buy. On the morning of our interview, Zibby had paged through Hachette’s fall catalog, feeling overwhelmed. “There are so many books,” she marvels. “You could fill a bookstore just with Hachette.”

So, how does she choose? Instinct, she says. And for the categories with which she’s less familiar, she defers to her team: “The booksellers from day one were amazing.”

Zibby’s Bookshop recently renewed its lease. Offers to expand continue to pour in, but none have piqued her interest. “Some of the value in it is that it’s singular,” she says. “It’s a perfect location on a walking street in a beautiful city, and in a town, Santa Monica, that didn’t have a bookstore at the time.”

Asked what fuels her passion for the industry, she smiles. For a moment, there’s a starry look in her eyes—six-year-old Zibby, proudly pressing her book into the hands of her first reader. At last she says, with certainty, “Every time I finish a great book—there’s just nothing like it.”

Parentheses Books

AMANDA FRISS • Harrisonburg, VA

Retail runs in Amanda Friss’s blood: her grandfather owned a pharmacy; her great-grandfather opened a bakery after emigrating from Russia; and her grandmother and great-aunt spent years dreaming of starting their own shop. “A lot of the history of many Jewish families is in retail,” Friss says. While living in New York City, Friss applied for a position at Three Lives & Company. The experience proved transformative. She spent several years at Three Lives, getting to know its clientele and curating the shelves. She never imagined she could replicate that dreamy experience elsewhere.

Then, in 2019, her youngest son entered kindergarten, and she found her- self in Harrisonburg, Virginia, pondering what came next. “I thought about what would be meaningful,” she recalls. “Independent bookstores are just different, and there wasn’t one here.”

Opening a bookstore alone is no easy feat. Friss led a Kickstarter campaign to help raise funds. The campaign served as a litmus test, she says. Even with the enthusiasm from the Kickstarter (365 backers pledged $55,804 to help bring this project to life, the site reads), her spreadsheets revealed the challenges that book- stores face. “Most of the people doing it are doing it for other reasons,” she explains. Even if a store generates strong sales, the margins remain razor-thin.

When designing Parentheses, which opened in 2023, Friss drew inspiration from her beloved Three Lives, as well as from the McNally Jackson location in Manhattan at South Street Seaport. Like that shop, Parentheses features brick and concrete walls with exposed beams overhead. She loves the combination of the industrial look with the warmth of the rugs, plants, and wooden shelves.

Bookshops have long been Friss’s second home, ever since she was a child growing up in Columbia, Maryland. There, she participated in a poetry club that met at a table in the local Barnes & Noble.

Today, Parentheses is located in the Liberty Street Mercantile, a converted warehouse that houses a florist, a gift and home store, a children’s clothing boutique, and, in the basement, a coffee shop and roaster. The scent of roasting beans drifts upstairs and seeps into the stacks. Friss likes the Mercantile for the company it offers—four of the neighboring owners are women.

Athena Books

BARB TANKEL • Old Greenwich, CT

Drop into Athena Books on a weekday, and you’re bound to find Barb Tankel, bookseller and buyer, double-checking that the latest bestsellers are facing outward on the shelf. When she isn’t working the floor in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, Tankel is paging through catalogs or preparing to host one of four book clubs—a job she takes seriously. “I read the book, and then I read it again, and then I go through and I listen to interviews and I go through questions,” she says.

Tankel, a woman in her late fifties with a can-do attitude, became Athena’s buyer four years ago, fresh from selecting children’s titles at Diane’s, another Greenwich bookstore. She returned to the workforce after having kids: “I was bored out of my mind,” she says.

Between Diane’s and Athena, Tankel did a stint at a third bookstore, but that place lacked what she sought: readers eager to discuss the latest Pulitzer announcement, coworkers with eclectic reading tastes, and the opportunity to connect with sales representatives. When a publishing contact informed her about a bookstore opening downtown, she reached out. She signed on before Athena opened its doors.

The shop is owned by Jen Bird, sister of the professional basketball player Sue Bird. The circularity of the space—previously a Christian gift shop—is one of Athena Books’ defining features. Bird removed the dark wood and painted the shelves a Mediterranean turquoise. At the center of the curved walls sits a reading nook, where shoppers can rest their weary feet. Tankel says that the bookstore’s character is cozy and welcoming, like “having pancakes at the house you grew up in.”

As a child, Tankel was particularly fond of Judy Blume. Blume’s books still fly off the shelves, she notes, though some of the slang dates them. “There’s a line in one of them: ‘That kid took a licking.’ Well, for me, I know that means to get his butt kicked, but kids now are like, why would he lick that kid?” She laughs while sharing this story, revealing the kind of intimate knowledge that makes her a favorite salesperson at Athena.

Her grievances are minor. “People don’t know their alphabet,” she tells me. “I’m always like, this is not an M, this is a K!” Her other issue? Keeping her meetings with sales representatives to only two hours. Tankel can spend an entire afternoon discussing books; the reps will review her orders and flag any titles she might have missed.

At the end of June, Tankel and her husband plan to pack up their belongings and become digital nomads for a few months. But, she reassures me, she’ll still work remotely—buying books from afar. In a single day, she might scan over a thousand catalog entries; still, she can’t imagine doing anything else.

Lauren Aliza Green is the author of the novel The World After Alice (Viking, 2024).

Illustrations by Lindsay Barnett