Books like "Handmaid’s Tale" and "On Tyranny" have climbed national bestseller charts by hundreds of places since Election Day. But the numbers don’t always reflect what readers are picking up in different areas.
“People have just been looking for more escapism-type books,” said Mary Anne Ramirez, the owner of Books, a general use bookstore in north Phoenix. “We've pulled a lot of fiction and a lot of older history books, like World War II books or books on Arizona, kind of that thing. I think it's more of people not wanting to hear anymore about politics than just wanting something to take their minds off everything that's happened in the past few weeks.”
Ramirez said regardless of current events, people gravitate toward reading what makes them feel good – whether that’s enjoying a novel during a happy time or curling up with a familiar story during a difficult one.
“We try and keep books in stock that I think will help, like with mental health issues and just people trying to deal with life in general because, you know, since COVID, life’s been harder than what I ever remember it being,” Ramirez said, adding that bookstores are important community spaces.
“We have a lot of people that come in that we socialize with and talk about books with them,” she said, “talk about what’s going on in their lives.”
Barbara Peters is the owner and CEO of Poisoned Pen, a Scottsdale bookstore that focuses on fiction.
“I belong to the American Bookseller Association,” said Peters. “They're a list of what independent booksellers are selling that often has absolutely no correlation to the New York Times’ list or to the USA TODAY list. It's really interesting every week to look at these lists and see how radically different they are.”
While she estimates that more than half the people who browse the shelves are from out-of-state, Peters said their online mailing list and multiple weekly events have built a strong sense of community around the Poisoned Pen.
Lately, she said, readers have shown a growing interest in historical mysteries.
“It's not surprising that in uncertain times, people want to read about things where they know how, they know what the outcomes were,” said Peters. “So that's what we're seeing.”
Lately, said Ramirez, a steady number of regulars at her store have been pulled toward classics like "Moby Dick" and "Three Musketeers."
“I remember, you know, like when 9/11 happened and the bombing in Oklahoma that was a few weeks after that,” Ramirez said, “that was a lot more ‘comfort reading’ that people were looking for.”
Peters echoed that sentiment: “What we've noticed is that this fall and preceding the election is that people were reading comfort books. There were a lot of what's called cozy in the mystery genre.”
Which she described as “kind of romance-y. It's kind of Agatha Christie-ish. You know, that kind of thing.”
Peters said current trends she’s observed – like readers’ recent love for mystery, horror and the gothic genre – are a likely sign of historical mysteries continuing their return to popularity.
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