Fantasies of the Bookstore

An examination of the significance of the bookstore in the cultural imagination through a survey of 260 bookstore novels.

Eben J. Muse (Author)

9781108445399, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 28 July 2022

75 pages
17.6 x 12.6 x 0.6 cm, 0.1 kg

This Element surveys the place of the bookstore in the creative imagination (the fantasies of the bookstore) through a study of novels in which bookstores play a prominent role in the setting or plot. Nearly 500 'bookstore novels' published since the first in 1917 have been identified. The study borrows the concept of 'meaningful locations' from the field of human geography to assess fictional bookstores as narrative events rather than static backgrounds. As a meaningful location, the bookstore creates the potential for events that can occur both within the place of the store and in the wider space within which it functions. Elements of the narrative space include its spatio-temporal location, its locale or composition, and the events which these elements generate to define the bookstore's sense of place.

Introduction: Bookstores in Fiction
1. The bookstore as meaningful location
2. Location & Locale
3. Sense of Place
4. The Fantasy of the Bookstore.

Subject Areas: Classic fiction [pre c 1945 FC], Modern & contemporary fiction [post c 1945 FA], Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK], Literary studies: general [DSB], Literary theory [DSA], Literature & literary studies [D]