In 2018, part of my working life combined with this reading project. My wife and I were new to town and were perusing the shelves at Landmark Booksellers in Franklin, TN. We were crouched down, looking at the bottom row of a set of shelves when the owner, Joel Tomlin, came up and asked us where we were from. We got to talking and my wife put in a plug for my work. She told Joel that I could build an e-commerce website if the store was in need of one.
It turns out they were and that started what has now been 8 years of work with Landmark Booksellers. I am now the business manager, handling technology, finances, and business direction. Landmark has a fabulous team of literature lovers and owners who have created a true “booklover’s paradise.”
My time at Landmark has given me a lot of hope for the future of bookstores. I’ve seen a deep hunger for the classics and a community come together around book events. We sell our fair share of new books, but our customers come from all around the world and oftentimes leave with the best works from the past. Reading is alive and well.
I hope this trend continues into the age of AI. I actually think that as AI becomes more deeply integrated into different parts of our lives, that there will be a reaction against the artificial and a move towards the real. People will gravitate to physical, tangible books they know for certain were not written or even edited by AI.
Here are some of the AI-proof sections at Landmark:
The Great Wall
In 2024, we introduced The Great Wall at Landmark Booksellers. It’s a collection of the Great Books presented in chronological order on four, well-lit bookshelves. It’s become a hit at the store. It’s truly an amazing thing to look at a set of books and see how ideas have spread over time. It’s the only bookstore I know of with this type of a curated presentation. We’re essentially using the list of authors and books I’m working my way through over the next 40 years for this reading project.
Last week, Cultivated Soul wrote about a frustrating trip to Barnes & Noble highlighting the difficulty of finding some of the Great Books in the popular bookstore chain. They were strewn about the store in a way that would have been difficult for someone not knowing that Homer would be under Poetry, Frankenstein under Horror, and Plato under Philosophy.
We make it easy at Landmark. The best books written by humankind are in one spot and in chronological order.
The Inklings Section
When I found out that C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien had been friends at Oxford, I wanted to study at that magical place. As I learned more, I discovered that Lewis and Tolkien were part of a larger group of authors who regularly met and encouraged each other’s work. Many of those authors had been inspired by an earlier Scottish writer, George MacDonald. They called themselves The Inklings and George MacDonald was the Father of the Inklings.
We’ve collected many of these authors together in our Inklings section of the store. This section is naturally flanked by Mythellaneous, Rabbit Room books, and Wendell Berry. Our visitors love seeing these authors who so deeply influenced one another in one section.
The Office
Landmark is owned by Joel & Carol Tomlin. They started the bookstore in 2005 out of a love for books and desire to work a business together. Joel has collected rare books that reside in this beautiful office. Many of our author events take place here where the author sits in the big leather chair and meets & greets attendees. The office takes people back a few hundred years.
A Note on Curation
When you enter a bookstore, do you usually know what you are looking for or are you hoping for a little bit of help? One surprise at Landmark has been the importance of our booksellers in guiding shoppers to the right books. I receive an email every single time someone purchases a book from the bookstore. I love looking through those orders and I can usually determine who is working at the time based upon what people are buying. Customers really appreciate book suggestions and act on them.
My wife and I will sometimes sit down to watch a movie only to wind up not being able to decide on a film. It’s like we need a curator to guide us to the correct movie amidst the insane abundance of choice. A good bookstore does that through curation and recommendations. It does it through hiring knowledgeable bookworms.
I find it very interesting that our Nashville Amazon bookstore closed down a few years ago. That bookstore was optimized to the T. They had all the data. They knew that people who bought book A would also buy book B, so they placed those books together. They knew which books were selling and which ones weren’t. But there was no warmth. There was no personality. It felt like walking into a warehouse. The staff member didn’t even bother to say hi. The optimized bookstore eventually closed down.
I have high hopes for bookstores moving forward. We are storytelling and story-loving people. That will not go away. And while an iPhone can be an absolutely all encompassing device that consumes hours of attention a day, there’s nothing that can replace the pure joy of having your imagination ignited while reading a physical book.
Visit your local bookstore. There are good things in store. Literally.
Landmark Booksellers | 114 East Main Street, Franklin, TN 37064
I’ve stopped by every quarter for the last 8 years when I travel to Franklin. I buy at least ONE book every time - largely based upon you Eric. Thanks for being an inspiration to read more, and more deeply.
Would love to visit some day. Bookstores have a great opportunity to be unusual and idiosyncratic in the Amazon age - a place to wander and discover.