A smart, lovingly crafted, behind-the-scenes documentary on the subject of book stores and the dedicated scholars/historians/dealers that run them. We’re not talking about the rapidly disappearing Borders, B.Daltons and Barnes & Nobles. But independent, rare-book stores (or as Fran Lebowitz points out, what we used to call “bookstores”).
D.W. Young’s film seems at times unstructured, hopping from topic to topic, sometimes staying a while, or just a few minutes, and then moving on to the next point of interest. At first I found this bothersome, until I realized that this is precisely how one might browse through a bookshop.
Parker Posey, listed as an executive producer, does the narration. It ends on a note of hope that these unique institutions will not (cannot) be digitized out of existence. It could cause you to turn off the Kindle and pick up a book. (99 min)
