She and two friends own, manage and maintain the bookstore and the website themselves. They seem to be successful, especially after being aired on television.
I loved most of what Patchett had to say; however, I hate how it was written. It was in narrative form. She talked about what inspired her and her process for opening up the store, but there was so much fluff. The beginning was excellent, until she decided to talk about how it all started. I barely made it to the end. It would've been a good story, had it not been written by her. I'm surprised to find myself saying this because I love reading stories in the first-person voice, and I wish other magazines left room for personal stories or even excerpts from books. I find them very interesting.
There was one part that stood out to me and some other readers (that I know because I read some of the comments):
(In candor, I should say that Nashville has some truly wonderful used-book stores that range from iconic to overwhelming. But while they play an important role in the cultural fabric of the city, it is a separate role—or maybe that’s just the perspective of someone who writes books for a living.) We have a Barnes & Noble that is a 20-minute drive out of town without traffic, a Books-A-Million on the western edge of the city, near a Costco, and also a Target. Do those count? Not to me, no, they don’t, and they don’t count to any other book-buying Nashvillians with whom I am acquainted.Prior to this statement, she said Nashville used to have two bookstores: Davis-Kidd and Borders. They closed down. Their closings inspired the birth of Parnassus. I do not understand how Borders is any different from Barnes & Noble. I also do not understand how Parnassus is any different from Nashville's other used-book stores. I don't like how she added that snooty sentence about how she does not know anyone who counts those other bookstores. I do not think she did a good job explaining how Parnassus Books differs from any other bookstore. Yes, she went into detail about the bookstore from her childhood that she missed dearly, called Mills that "valued books and readers above muffins and adorable plastic watering cans." However, I still do not know how she was creating that effect with Parnassus. She told me without showing me well enough, and that is where she lost me.
Reading the comments, people like Autumn Dennis voiced that there are tons of independent bookstores in Nashville with "legacies" and a more homey feeling than the hipster Parnassus. A person who goes by the username "therantguy" commented that it would be hard to follow in Patchett's footsteps because she was able to use her name to her advantage. He says other Joe Schmoe's with the same dream wouldn't succeed so easily because they wouldn't be able to get on The Colbert Report or get a story published in a big-time magazine for the nation to see. Other comments opened up my eyes a little bit to the fact that in efforts to talk up her store, she downplayed every other store or means that people use to get their hands on good books. In my head, I thought about how the transition from bookstores to Amazon is a lot like the transition from newspapers/magazines to tablets and smartphones, if not the same thing. There will always be a need for both— a need for the more convenient, digital version and the need for the more tangible, natural and old-school version. Luckily, there is still room in this world for both. Patchett could learn a thing or two from her readers.
