Reading the Room: A Bookseller's Tale

by Paul Yamazaki, Rick Simonson (foreword)

Reading the Room is Paul Yamazaki's love letter to the work of bookselling and an engaged life of the mind.



Over twenty-four hours, Paul Yamazaki leads us through the stacks of storied City Lights Booksellers in San Francisco; the care and prowess of his approach to book buying; his upbringing in a Japanese American family in Southern California and moving to San Francisco at the height of revolutionary foment; working with legendary figures in the book publishing industry like Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Sonny Mehta, and others; and his vision for the future of bookselling. Navigating building trust with readers and nurturing relationships across the literary industry, Yamazaki testifies to the value of generosity, sharing knowledge, and dialogue in a life devoted to books.

Genres: Nonfiction, Books About Books, Memoir, Essays, Business, Contemporary, Autobiography

100 pages, Paperback

First published May 8, 2024

Reviews

[Shelley · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I bought this at Book Catapult in San Diego they asked if I’m a book seller, which I am not. But this small book is so rich. Speaks about how to balance your ethics of revolution (promoting authors of color, affordable selection etc) with staying in business as an independent bookstore. Paul is wise and well read. He offers obscure and diverse(in authorship, subject, genre) book recommendations and makes readers think about how a book gets into your hands, what sellers choose to display vs just show the spine, and how books and booksellers are relevant at this moment in history. Published 2024. Would read again!

[Richard Carilo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Critical Score: 5
Personal Score: 5
Total Score: 10

[Frances · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a wonderful discussion of books and bookstores and book buying with Paul Yamazaki, the main book buyer of City Lights Books. Though I already realized that the power of curation and display is so incredibly powerful in a bricks and mortar bookstore, I loved the opportunity to hear his deeper thoughts on how this works. And it is absolutely one of the things that makes browsing in person so powerful.

I picked this book up at Fair Trade Books in Red Wing, MN, a store we stopped in while passing through. Classically, this was one of a handful of books we left with (despite truly NOT needing to add more books to our carry-on luggage). I thought about this book in the 9th Ave Green Apple Books while browsing there yesterday, when again, I could have left with a stack of interesting books.

Of course, City Lights is an absolutely wonderful, wonderful bookstore, and I value its existence tremendously. And I certainly never walk out of it without something completely intriguing.

[kezhia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paul Yamazaki’s “faith in the reader is profound.” “Our role (as booksellers) is to bring them to a new door, to a new room.”

To Yamazaki, a bookstore is a “portal” through which a bookseller provides a framework to navigate the thousands of titles a reader has to parse through. There is something so pragmatic and beautiful about that.

He says that “the worst thing we can do as booksellers is underestimate the reader.”

This trust and appreciation for the reader creates such a special relationship between bookstores, booksellers, and readers.

This little book of 100 pages, which highlights the unique mind of quite possibly one of the best booksellers ever, has been such a treat. It is so rich and full of life. Gonna have to make a trip to San Francisco soon.

[Audrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a love letter to books, bookselling and readers, directly from one of the great booksellers, Paul Yamazaki. In these interviews, we are brought back to the past, present and future of not only City Lights in San Francisco, but for the industry itself. And we are able to see snippets of Paul's love of music and books, as well as his customers and friends. This is a must read for all readers.

I received an arc from the publisher but all opinions are my own.

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential reading for anyone who writes books, publishes books, sells books, buys books. Paul Yamazaki is a legend.

[Libby Henrickson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic! Alison I would really recommend this !! I never really thought of curation as a goal or tool in the way he presents it but I understand now the power it can have for a bookstore. To create such coherence across a whole shop must take a ton of work and knowledge about books but seems like such a fascinating job.

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Would have been a richer read if I was better-read 😅 but the wonderful spirit and philosophy of this clearly beloved figure came through well enough regardless. Feels a little more like an extended interview + tribute than a complete book but ofc what even is a book, he would know better 😆

[Dan Trefethen · Rating 4 out of 5]

In format this would be called a chapbook, a very short paperback. It's about 100 pages with generous spacing, and consists of a transcription of a series of interviews with Paul Yamazaki over a 24 hour period preceding and after an evening event honoring his contribution to bookselling.

As the buyer at City Lights Books in San Francisco for 50 years, Yamazaki shaped the idea of what an independent bookstore was about. City Lights was originally an all-paperback bookstore, probably because they were cheaper and the sort of independent and marginal publications they specialized in were published in paperback. They were avowedly anti-capitalist and neo-communist. This became a problem when it was clear they weren't good at business (although that can be a chronic problem for many book dealers regardless of political identification). Yamazaki took the unilateral step (without informing the staff) of buying hardbacks in the 1980s when the store was about to fail, and it turned around the bookstore's fortunes.

About half the discussion is about the history and progress of City Lights, the other half biography of Yamazaki. It makes for an engaging blend. However, the book is so thin and some of the Q&A so short (perhaps edited) that the reader longs for a more expansive treatment. Perhaps a series of discussions over a period of days would have elicited more details that would have filled out the story of both the bookstore and the man who has been so closely identified with it for half a century.

[Alexandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

"For a bookseller, real solidarity is being able to state why we carry this book or that book... I believe we should not expect moral rectitude from our creatives. I would prefer everyone have high moral standards and treat people fairly and with justice... We've never been looking for comfort. We're looking to make things more equitable. Justice and the fight for justice has never been comfortable."

Amazing little book as Yamazaki is an incredible man! Bring back book reps!!!

[Steve · Rating 2 out of 5]

OK, loved the 2nd and part of the 3rd chapters, which were on his life story, and how he got into bookselling (and buying).
But in the end this is also a story of bookstores as a business.
And nowhere in the less than 100 pp of this book does the 600 lb. elephant in the room get mentioned.
Amazon.
(Where I bought my copy, because my local indie did not have a copy.)
Also, most indie bookstores are in smaller cities and towns, and it is their living. Their livelihood. So they don't really have the option, or interest, in shelving obscure small presses and expensive UP titles (God I loved Seminary Coop when I was in grad school in the '80's in Chicago!).
And that bookstore employees can't work 40 hours and make a living income is brought up, and quickly answered with the old standby of, "Well, it is a labor of love," kind of answer.
Plus, pretty much all of the important events at City Lights discussed here occurred 30-40 years ago!
I lived in San Francisco in the '90's. Green Apple was my bookstore destination. Proximity, used books on the shelves - and the great Asian food on Clement Street.
Kind of an abstract, romanticized, pipe dream account of bookselling. Glad he gives nods to the publisher reps - and surprised he never became one himself.
(Also, odd for a book published by book sellers and lovers - no statement of First Edition, or row of numbers indicating reprints.)
2 out of 5 - It Was OK.

[Misha · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Having been a bookseller for over fifty years, my faith in the reader is profound. Our role is to bring them to a new door, to a new room. We are trying to choose the best of what's out there. How do we arrive at the best? Reading and conversations with other readers, other booksellers. If a book comes into your hands and you find yourself moved by it, ask: How did this find me?Answers to that question will always be fruitful and will always make you a better bookseller, able to make more informed decisions. People presume from our fairly healthy selection of critical theory that was are a highly educated, deeply knowledgeable staff. I can testify that this is not the case. But we are curious." (6-7)

"City Lights believes very strongly that American culture and literature cannot be accurately represented if there is not deep BIPOC representation in the authors and subjects that are presented on the shelves of City Lights.
Over the decade there has been barrier, coming even from independent booksellers who said Black authors' work didn't sell. The beginning of the breakthrough was Ta-Nehisi Coates. His book Between the World and Me did really well and opened a lot of eyes about the persistence and excellence of One World's work, in conjunction with the Penguin Random House sales reps. That helped in the process of turning things around. Hopefully people will investigate backlist and see what is possible in their communities. Our role as booksellers is to take readers to places they didn't expect to end up." (13-14)

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was a little bit disappointed with this book. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I guess just more than it gave me. I feel like Paul Yamazaki must be a fascinating person with lots of great stories, having spent his life working at City Lights, the iconic bookstore in San Francisco. And indeed, I did gain insight into that establishment (if it's not too conventional to call it that), and into the man and his history. The book is set up in an interview format (which I found a bit disorienting, since he is listed as the author, but there is clearly at least one other voice guiding the conversations), and maybe not edited super well, since many of Paul's responses are rambling and repetitive. He does talk a lot about being a person of colour in the book trade, which was interesting, but didn't seem to be too distinctive from the experience of BIPOC folks in any other industry or discipline. There was a lot of name dropping, which I find annoying -- as a lifelong reader of respectable diversity, I recognized some of the names, of both stores and works, but Paul's tastes, as a reader and a bookseller, run to the esoteric, so most of the time I felt left out of the conversation. Sadly, the fact that this volume is barely 100 pages long is mostly a blessing.

[Casey · Rating 4 out of 5]

So humbling. I might think I know books, and then I come across someone like Paul Yamazaki, who REALLY knows books. Sometimes when this happens, it’s dispiriting: how is it that this is the greatest passion of my life, the thing I do more of than anything else aside from sleep (and which, more than any other pursuit, curtails my sleep), and yet I’m still so ignorant to publishers and authors and schools and movements? I guess that’s the thing about being a reader, though. You accept that you will never know enough, you will never be able to read everything you want to read. You just have to embrace this depressing, wonderful, sisyphean task and be grateful that the books never run out.

Also, I think it’s very important to mention that I bought this at Hodgepodge Books in Eugene, Oregon. I haven’t really shopped regularly in brick and mortar bookstores for over a decade. I’m cutting myself off from Amazon’s super-affordable teat, though (while acknowledging the irony that I’m tracking my books through GR), and boy have I found joy in this bookstore. It isn’t just the fantastic amaretto sours, I promise—shopping here really feels like being a part of the community. The selection is small but so well-curated. It’s a special place.

[Murphie Magee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m an American from South Carolina living in Europe these days. My last trip back to the States I jumped at the opportunity to fly out to San Francisco—my first time out West.

I loved my time there and was excited to check City Lights out after a friend highlighted it to me. Always a sucker for an independent and well curated shop, of any kind really.

I hardly had enough time to really take in the scope and incredible selection that’s offered. Yet, I was enamored with the feeling the shop had.

I could have easily spent hours browsing but had to make some quick buying decisions based on my initial reactions. Every book I picked up I wanted to take with me.

This book was at the till when I was checking out, a brief glance and I was interested so I added it to my small pile.

It’s a delightful recounting of a coversation with the head buyer for City Lights. It’s informative, interesting and really took me back to that feeling of the shop I loved so much.

Being someone outwith the book selling, publishing, editing, etc world some of the language used was completely foreign to me. Even still, I think there’s some lovely aspects to the conversation that anyone can enjoy.

[c. · Rating 5 out of 5]

“If a book comes into your hands and you find yourself moved by it, ask: How did this find me? Answers to that question will always be fruitful…”

I picked this up at someone else’s house because the title caught my eye and read it in basically one go. I can’t wait to reread this and note every book and bookstore he mentions. A+++ will be recommending this to everyone.

“I believe it’s important to resist the capitalist impulse. As it developed, capitalism has taken away the ability to work as an individual within a group. Not so much resistance against a thing or an object, but resistance to the fact that capitalism with its atomizing motives has a low ceiling for joy. Whatever we end up calling it, the determining factor is: what is the possibility of joy? At the end of the day, that’s what we’re looking for. Current modes of thinking help suppress things that bring us joy.”

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the love of bookstores...in what is essentially an interview with storied bookseller Paul Yamazaki, I found the answer to 'why do I love bookstores so much?'

And the answer isn't complicated. You can love libraries AND bookstores because there's a fundamental difference: one is an organized, categorized, beautiful space and the other is a wild and beautiful wilderness to be explored.

Not knowing of Yamazaki before this book was foisted on me by none other than a fabulous bookstore (thank you Prologue Books), the first 3/4 of the book was more introduction and biography than I expected. The last section brought it all together in a beautiful way. Four stars only because I would've so enjoyed more pages ;)

[Greg Zimmerman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Words used by other booksellers and writers to describe Paul Yamazaki: demi-god, superhero, larger than life. The guy is a legend, plain and simply.

After 50 years of selling books at San Francisco's iconic City Lights Bookstore (the last 40 as the store's principal buyer), Paul has learned a thing or two.

In this slim volume, a conversation between Paul and another bookseller, Paul imparts his wisdom, discusses his rich history and the rich history of the bookstore, and explains his relationship to books and why books can save the world.

This is a must-read not just for any bookseller, but for any person who loves books.

[Crista Tappan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was in San Francisco for a conference last month and saw that a bookstore was only a few blocks away from my hotel. I had some free time and walked over. This was one of three books I purchased. Through reading this book (and some Google searching!). I had stepped into a historic bookstore without realizing it.

This book, or rather, a transcribed interview, with the longtime book buyer for City Lights, was such a fun spontaneous selection for me. And it did not disappoint! As a lover of books and bookstores, I felt like I was able to peak behind the curtain that I was always curious about.

[Marc Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

A terrific little book about the life and occupation of one the great booksellers in the United States today (and for many years). Paul Yamazaki is the book buyer for the iconic City Lights bookstore in San Francisco. This volume is written in a question-and-answer format but is none the worse for that. His history and his ascendence to his current position mirror the history of the country during the 60's and early 70's through today. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this small book and if you are bookish person (and you probably are since you are reading this on Goodreads), then I think you will enjoy this as well.

[Mason Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun, short read. Given that City Lights is probably my favorite bookstore in the world, I had to read this, and Yamazaki's stories of the early days and how the store developed into what it is today were great. As the store's main buyer for 40 years now, he's had a huge influence on it. It's great to read his ideas of how a store needs to think about its customers, balance the store's "personality" with reality (e.g. you have limited space, so you can't have everything), and both give readers what they're looking for while introducing them to things new to them (not even necessarily truly new). The book is a collection of interviews done over two days, so it's casual but also deep.

[Patrick King · Rating 5 out of 5]

“As it developed, capitalism has taken away the ability to work as an individual within a group. Not so much resistance against a thing or an object, but resistance to the fact that capitalism with its atomizing motives has a low ceiling for joy…. Current modes of thinking help suppress things that bring us joy.”

What a great little book! Both philosophical and practical, an ode to connection and to finding ways to bring yourself joy through sharing the essential thing-ness of being alive. And what better way than through books. The best part? This was a book I would have never stumbled upon, that was given to me as a Christmas gift by my wife. How apt!

[Sharron · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a very short text this book offers up an abundance of pithy observations. One of my favorites appears on the last page . “Books become the fulcrum of conversations. The books by themselves could get you there as an individual but for most of us, the dialogue back and forth increases the possibility of joy. I think that’s the point of being a bookseller and the point of reading - and, really, the point of life.”

Last year I read the novel “When the Emperor was Divine” by Julie Otsuka. The personal experiences of Mr. Yamazaki’s family during and after the Second World War underscored for me the trauma that was inflicted upon so many Japanese-American families.

[Peter Knox · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful short book that can easily be read in on session or spread out over 3. It was wonderful to learn how Paul’s history intertwined with the history and evolution of City Lights Bookstore - neither I knew much about before this book.

If you’re a reader, work in publishing, or ever think about bookstores and book selling, there much in these conversations worth your time.

It’s as if sitting down with Paul at a bar and getting this thoughts out on curating books and reading as an active political act - something I’d very much love to do!

I could quote this whole book but instead will tell you to read it, in case you are anything like me - it would make a great gift.

[Marsha Hawley · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I started reading this book I thought this was the kind of book that is easy to read, and a quick read. From the beginning, I realized that this was more a thoughtful book with a unique style of writing a memoir, well worthy of reading slowly and reflectively. Paul Yamazaki took me through his career of being a reader, a bold supporter of human rights, and a path to successful living and working. It is more than a bookseller’s tale, it is an expression of being Japanese American, understanding privilege and challenges, and his life as he lived and is still enjoying.

[Leslie Appelbaum · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the window into City Lights Bools. It was an interesting view on how he selects books and what he sees the role of his bookstore in the greater scheme of things. I love the idea of books being in dialogue with each other when you place them side-by-side. He is all about the dialogue: with customers, between employees, between books, with publishers and authors and all over a whiskey or five. My recollection of City Lights is that there was an homage to Beat Poets and the place was fun but overwhelming. I was 24 or so. I should return with new eyes.

[Stephanie Silva · Rating 5 out of 5]

el tirijala que sienpre he sentido por ser bookseller es raro pero desde chiqui quería serlo. esta es la tercera vez teabajando en una libreria y leer este libro me apretó el corazon, como dando las razones correctas para hacer lo que hago. pienso en luis negron, pienso en ruben, en cristian, en juanluis, en gente que me inspiró tanto en libros ac y pienso en la libreria como un universo y yamazaki da en el clavo con ese feeling. cortito, conciso y hermoso en resumir una vida en libros.

[Susie Dumond · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely, reflective, intimate, book lover's book! Paul Yamazaki has spent over fifty years as the head book buyer for San Francisco's famous City Lights Bookstore. This book shares Yamazaki's personal story and some of his experiences at City Lights, plus thoughts on the past, present, and future of bookselling, in an interview format. It's a super quick read, and a great choice for anyone interested in the world publishing and books.

[Dee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think the main audience for this short book of Paul Yamazaki being interviewed, the legendary buyer for City Lights Books, will be for book sellers, but it will also be interesting for readers wanting to know about the book industry. Yamazaki provides his insights about books, bookstores, authors, San Francisco and general life.

Rating rounded up since it is Paul Yamazaki...and tribute must be there!

[Vivek · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short, sweet and interesting enough reflection from someone who’s lived a full life as a bookseller. I wish it had explored some things more deeply, like the role of a bookstore as a business in an anti-capitalist framework, how expensive books are these days, how to develop communities of readers, the value of bookstores compared to libraries…all things Yamazaki must have thoughts about but which we don’t get from this.