There’s a strange thing that happens when you run a bookstore long enough: people stop seeing you as a retailer and start treating you like a therapist with a cash register.

They come in to buy a book, sure—but before that, they tell you why. “I need something for my dad, he’s in the hospital again.” “I just got dumped, and I don’t want anything happy.” “I haven’t read in years, but I want to start.” Sometimes they don’t say anything at all. They just hover in front of the shelves like they’re waiting for the books to speak first.

This store—my store—is tucked between a hardware shop and a place that may or may not be a functioning locksmith. The sign is crooked. The door creaks. But once you’re inside, the noise of the world dulls just enough to hear yourself think. That’s all most people want, I think. Space to think without being told what to think.

We keep things messy on purpose. Books lean on each other like old friends. Some have notes in the margins, others have names scrawled on the inside covers. I once found a breakup letter in a copy of Anna Karenina. I left it there. Seemed fitting.

My favorite regular is a kid named Miles. He’s eleven, obsessed with ancient Egypt, and convinced we’re hiding a secret room behind the nonfiction section. I told him he’s wrong. I’m also not going to be the one who tells him to stop looking.

Bookstores aren’t supposed to survive here. Rent’s brutal. Margins are razor-thin. Everyone’s on their phones. And yet—people still come. They still run their fingers along spines, still ask for “something that feels like fall,” still sit on the floor and read until their coffee goes cold.

Some nights, after I’ve closed up, I sit behind the counter and reread something old and comforting. I don’t do it to stay informed or relevant. I do it to remind myself why this space matters. Not just for me—but for the people who walk in with heavy hearts and leave a little lighter.

We’re not selling books. We’re holding space. And in this city, that might be the rarest thing of all.

I didn’t mean to open a bookstore. It wasn’t some lifelong dream. I wasn’t the kid who read under the covers with a flashlight or wrote angsty poetry in high school. I liked books, sure—but mostly I liked silence, and bookstores were one of the few places in New York where no one expected small talk.

So when the deli two doors down went out of business and the landlord offered me the lease for cheap—cheap by Brooklyn standards, anyway—I took it. I figured I’d sell a few secondhand books, maybe host the occasional reading, and mostly be left alone.

That was five years ago.

Now, the store is this beautiful mess. One half curated obsession, one half accidental storage unit. We have an entire shelf of books with blue covers (people weirdly love that), a tiny section for “Authors Who Used to Work in Kitchens,” and a box labeled “Books We Regret Ordering.” I still don’t know how 14 copies of a Latvian cookbook showed up here.

People wander in off the street all the time, some with purpose, others like they’ve been magnetically pulled toward something they didn’t know they needed. One guy came in to charge his phone and left with Siddhartha and a date. Another woman asked for something “fun but existential, like if Nora Ephron and Camus had a baby.” I handed her The Unbearable Lightness of Being. She smiled like I’d just handed her her own heart.

There are hard days. A pipe burst last winter and ruined two crates of first editions. The till sometimes doesn’t balance. Amazon looms over us like a smug, unkillable ghost. But then there are afternoons where a stranger brings in a batch of homemade cookies just because “this place feels like home,” and I remember why I stay.

I’m not trying to scale. There’s no five-year plan. If this bookstore survives another year, that’s enough. I’ll keep showing up, unlocking the door, rearranging the display with books I think deserve a second life.

It may not be the bookstore anyone asked for. But it’s here. And in this city—where everything changes overnight—that feels like a small act of rebellion.

Every day around 10 a.m., I slide open the metal gate, sweep the sidewalk, and unlock the door to 600 square feet of stories. It’s not glamorous. Half the time the heater groans, the other half the Wi-Fi dies. But it’s mine—a small, slightly crooked bookstore tucked between a laundromat and a dog grooming salon.

People assume bookstore owners spend their days reading. I wish. Most days are spent restocking shelves, answering the phone (“Yes, we do have Sally Rooney“), cleaning up coffee spills, updating the window display, and kindly explaining to someone why we can’t order a book in Lithuanian by next Tuesday.

And then, there are the moments that make it worth it. Like when an older man finds the exact edition of Dubliners his wife used to read. Or when two teenagers meet over a shared love of Octavia Butler and exchange Instagram handles under the warm flicker of our terrible overhead lighting.

I’ve watched first dates unfold awkwardly in the fiction aisle. I’ve seen parents buy their kids the same books they were raised on. One time, a woman came in during a rainstorm, soaking wet and crying. She wandered around for half an hour, bought a copy of The Bell Jar, and whispered, “Thanks for being open.” I didn’t ask questions.

We have our loyal misfits: the retired philosophy professor who corrects our Nietzsche quotes on the chalkboard. The barista next door who pays for his used books in coffee. The art student who draws on our paper bags. They’re part of this living, breathing organism. This bookstore is not just a store. It’s a pulse.

Financially, it’s a tightrope. I’ve flirted with closing more times than I’d like to admit. But then a kid walks in and asks, “Do you have anything like Harry Potter, but maybe less wizards and more dogs?” And I’m pulled back in.

Some people find meaning in spreadsheets, or startups, or trading crypto. I find it in shelf-talkers, dog-eared pages, and the sound of someone discovering their new favorite book.

We’re not Barnes & Noble. We’re not trying to be. We’re just a little Brooklyn bookstore, fighting gently, every day, for the quiet magic of paper and ink.

Most mornings, I open the store before the sun hits the front window. The street’s still sleepy, delivery trucks idling outside the bodega, the hum of espresso machines firing up down the block. I turn the key, flick on the lights, and for a few minutes, it’s just me and the books. It feels like holding my breath in a sacred space before the city exhales.

This bookstore wasn’t part of a grand plan. It started as a form of rebellion. I was tired of staring at screens, of deadlines that meant nothing, of pretending a job title made me happy. So I cashed out a modest severance, found a half-shuttered storefront in South Brooklyn, and filled it with everything I loved—paperbacks with cracked spines, weird literary journals, dusty hardcovers that smelled like a library in 1986.

Running a bookstore is not a path to riches. It’s a long conversation with uncertainty. One snowstorm can wipe out a week’s sales. One viral TikTok about a new release can bring in a flood of teenagers asking if we have that one book “with the green cover.” We usually don’t. But we always find something better.

It’s the people who make this job impossible to leave. There’s Ezra, the 9-year-old who comes in every Saturday with a dollar and a question about dragons. There’s the divorced guy who just started reading again and cried when he finished A Man Called Ove. There’s the woman who buys one poetry book a month and never says a word. Her eyes do all the talking.

We host a banned book club. We let broke poets pay us in zines. We once let a local band rehearse in the back room, and yes, it was a terrible idea. But you try saying no to a guy with a banjo and a dream.

Here’s the truth: I don’t know how long this will last. Rents go up. Algorithms change. Attention spans shrink. But every time someone walks in and says, “This place smells like my childhood,” I know we’re doing something right.

I’m not building an empire here. I’m building a corner. A haven. A stubborn little space where stories still matter, and people still look each other in the eye.

Owning a bookstore in Brooklyn sounds like a romantic dream, and in some ways, it is. I spend my days surrounded by the scent of old paper, handwritten notes tucked into forgotten titles, and conversations with strangers about Murakami, Baldwin, or the latest poetry zine printed two blocks away. But behind the wood-paneled charm and cozy book nooks, there’s a daily hustle most people don’t see.

I opened this place seven years ago with a mix of blind faith and savings from a boring but stable office job. Back then, it was about building a space where people could pause—really pause—in a city that never does. We host readings, open mics, kids’ story hours, and once, even a wedding (the couple met at our “Reading for the Brokenhearted” night).

Business is… unpredictable. Some months we sell out our indie fiction shelf before the 15th. Other times, I stare out the window wondering if I’ll make rent. Amazon casts a long shadow—customers will browse for an hour, take photos of five titles, and walk out empty-handed. I don’t blame them entirely. Books are cheaper online. But there’s something sacred about the physical space, the serendipity of stumbling across a book you didn’t know you needed. That’s something no algorithm can replicate.

There’s a rhythm to bookstore life. Mornings start slow—coffee in hand, classical music on low volume, organizing the used section that somehow always looks like it survived a storm. Afternoons bring freelancers looking for peace, teenagers sketching in the manga aisle, and the occasional lost tourist. Evenings? That’s when the magic happens—our regulars roll in. Teachers, artists, single dads buying bedtime books, old women who treat our poetry shelf like a confessional booth.

The best part? Watching someone’s face light up when they find that book. The one that’s been out of print for years. Or hearing someone say, “I didn’t expect to cry in a bookstore today.” That’s what keeps me going.

People think bookstores are dying. Maybe they are, in the traditional sense. But in Brooklyn, at least in this little corner of it, we’re still here. A little worn, a little stubborn, but full of life. And ink. Lots and lots of ink.