Bookstore lover inspires readers across America | The Excerpt

On a special episode (first released on November 6, 2024) of The Excerpt podcast: Bob Manson is a retired teacher from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He’s also a superfan of independent bookstores. So much so that he has now visited over 600 of them across the country. At each one, he talks with the owners and some regulars and then writes about what makes that particular bookstore special in his ongoing blog, The Indie Bob Spot. While he wasn’t named as anyone’s running mate on the presidential ticket, Bob’s story of a small-town regular guy who took a passion and made it his own, is now inspiring book lovers and readers all over America. Bob Manson joins us on The Excerpt to discuss his travels and why he finds independent bookstores so captivating.

Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

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Dana Taylor:

Hello and welcome to The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Wednesday, November 6th, 2024, and this is a special episode of The Excerpt. Bob Manson is a retired teacher from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He's also a super fan of independent bookstores, so much so that he's now visited over 600 of them across the country. At each one, he talks with the owners and some regulars, and then writes about what makes that particular bookstore special in his ongoing blog, the Indy Bob Spot. While he hasn't yet been named as anyone's running mate on the presidential ticket, Bob's story of a small town regular guy who took a passion and made it his own is now inspiring book lovers and readers all over America. Thanks for joining me, Bob.

Check out: USA TODAY's weekly Best-selling Booklist

Bob Manson:

Thank you, Dana. It's great to be here.

Dana Taylor:

I have to start by asking you to share your inspiration for this bookstore odyssey that you're on. What gave you the idea?

Bob Manson:

Well, very simply it started with a book. And this book came out probably I'd say about 12 years ago, the book's called My Bookshop. And it's a book where writers celebrate their favorite places to browse, read, and shop, and they then did an essay about this bookstore. So there were 81 bookstores featured in the book, and I picked up the book and I thought, well, I've heard of a few of these. I thought, I'll just start visiting. Because at this time I was no longer teaching, and so I started visiting some of the bookstores featured in there, and then I'd have the owner sign the page in the book where they were written up. The gentleman who edited this book, his name is Ron Rice, and he found out that I was doing this, and I can remember he and another bookstore owner in Brooklyn both said, "Well, are you writing this? Are you blogging this?"

And I said, "No, I'm not a professional writer". They just said, "We don't care. We just want somebody looking in from the outside". And I can remember Ron Rice telling me, he said, for every bookstore they featured in the book, they could have put five more. And clearly, clearly there are so many fantastic bookstores that deserve recognition, publicity. The big stores don't need somebody like me, but the independent bookstores, I just evolved into kind of a one man advocate or ambassador, and like I said, it was a snowball. And good grief now I've been to over 600 bookstores and I just visited one yesterday, and the next one I go to will be number 613.

Dana Taylor:

Bob, was there something personally resonant about the first bookstore you visited?

Bob Manson:

It's kind of a funny story, Dana, because when I got this book and I looked at the bookstores, I thought, "Well, I'll just start visiting these just for fun". And at the time, my mom was still living and she was a big reader, so I showed her the book and I just said, "Take a look at this and look at the bookstores and pick one or two out and we'll just go visit them". She lived on her own. She loved to travel. She was totally with it. The book has bookstores featured all over the country, and I'm thinking, okay, what will she pick out? We going to go to Florida, California. In Iowa, I'm only about four hours from Chicago. So she looked in there and she says, "Well", she says, "there's one in Milwaukee and then we can swing into Chicago". And I'm like, "Okay". So that's how I started. And I can remember in Milwaukee, the first one I went to it was the Boswell Book Company in Milwaukee, and the owner was just great. And he says, "Yeah, I'll be happy to sign your book as part of the Bookstore Bingo". So that's how that began. So I don't know if there was a really true resonance when I started, but as I went it certainly became a resonant with the entire journey.

Dana Taylor:

Well, you just mentioned Bookstore Bingo, is that a thing?

Bob Manson:

No, it's not a thing, just saying that. But there are regions of the country that do bookstore passports where they list a dozen bookstores in a particular region, and bookstore owners and booksellers are really creative, and this has become more and more prevalent through the country. The first one I really noticed was down in the Kansas City area and into Missouri. There were some very small independents that had a bookstore passport promotion, and now it's popular in many parts of the country.

Dana Taylor:

What is it about bookstores that makes them so special to you?

Bob Manson:

Well, what I didn't know before I started but learned real quickly is how incredible the people are. From the owners, to the booksellers, to the customers. I've had some fantastic conversations with customers and, of course, fantastic conversations with the people that are at the bookstore. So everybody was so nice. And I had a conversation with one bookstore owner, and I can distinctly remember this, and it was up in Wisconsin, and I said to her, I said, "What is it about bookstores, why is everybody so nice? And the customers, why are the customers so nice?" And it's a really captain obvious answer when you think about it. She thought about it for a second. She said, "Well, I don't think the knuckleheads read". And I thought, oh, well, I guess that kind of makes sense. It's so special that the people I meet, Dana, are just super to a store.

Dana Taylor:

In a way, Bob, you've sort of become an indie bookstore ambassador. You've also been able to help some that have been impacted by recent storms Helene and Milton. Tell me about that.

Bob Manson:

Well, even though the majority of the people I've met I've only met them once, some of them a few more times, but most of them just once. But I feel such a kindredship to everyone I've met. So recently I've been really concerned about, as everybody has been, Florida, the Carolinas, Georgia. And one of the things that I have done on my visits is make sure that bookstore owners know about the Book Industry Charitable Foundation, people just call it BINC. And this is a great safety net for them, which offers emergency grants, for example, for natural disasters, which has been huge over the last month or so. And I don't know if any have been taking advantage of that, but it is there. The BINC people are, I've met several of them, super people, very dedicated to their mission in support of the bookstores. So like natural disasters, emergency grants for domestic violence, housing stability, serious medical expenses, things like that. They also offer scholarships for professional development. So I think the organization and the foundation that's available to bookstore owners and anybody associated with the store is just fantastic, and I'm happy to share that when I visit bookstores.

Dana Taylor:

I live in central Florida, so thank you so much for your work there. In the past 10 years, you've been to 49 states and three countries. First, which state did you miss, and what's next on your list?

Bob Manson:

Well, 49 states. I've been to all of them except Hawaii, and there's bookstores there that I'd sure like to go see. I've been to bookstores in Canada, Mexico, just recently in Canada. One of the best Canadian bookstores I'd been to, it was just right across the border at the bottom of Lake Huron, north of Detroit. The Book Keeper in Sarnia, Ontario, fantastic bookstore. Bookstores in Mexico. I was at a bookstore in Porta Morales, which is south of Cancun if I remember, Canadian owners, and their story is just incredible to me. So they sell used books. They're open from November through May. So in November they live up in Canada, I think they were in the Toronto area. They load up this huge trailer full of books and drive from the Toronto area down to Puerto Morales in Mexico, which to me is just unbelievable, and then when their season's over in May then they drive back to Canada again.

Dana Taylor:

Let's end with a question all of our listeners are dying to know, of all of the hundreds of bookstores you've now visited which one, it has to be one, is your favorite?

Bob Manson:

It's so hard to pick a favorite, Dana, because they all deserve mention and attention. If I'm only going to name one, and I'd like to name two, but I'll name one. It's Powell's Books out in Portland, Oregon. Which is a renowned bookstore, they don't need my advocacy or anything because they're doing just fine. But the store is just unbelievable. You go in there and you get a map of the store. Genres are divided by rooms, so green room, yellow room, red room, blue room. They have a nice coffee shop in there. They sell new and used books. When you're ready to check out, you go to the serpentine rope line that you work your way to the front of the line, and one of the 10 cashiers will say, "I can help. Who's next?". 10 cashiers. So it's a bucket list for people who enjoy this.

Dana Taylor:

Bob, it has been a pleasure speaking with you today.

Bob Manson:

My pleasure, Dana, thank you so much for having me.

Dana Taylor:

Thanks to our senior producers, Shannon Rae Green and Kaely Monahan for their production assistance. Our executive producer is Laura Beatty. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending a note to podcasts@usatoday.com. Thanks for listening, I'm Dana Taylor. Taylor Wilson will be back tomorrow morning with another episode of The Excerpt.