In terms of the sources Deutsch cites， this is appropriately erudite and wide-ranging - you can barely go half a page without running into a quote from a 15th-century Arab scholar about arranging his books or a Robert Musil reference， etc etc etc - but in terms of offering non-ethereal ideas about how brick-and-mortar bookstores ought to proceed in the Amazon age， it's disappointingly myopic。 A less catchy but more accurate title would have been In Praise of Browsing the Shelves in the Good Book In terms of the sources Deutsch cites， this is appropriately erudite and wide-ranging - you can barely go half a page without running into a quote from a 15th-century Arab scholar about arranging his books or a Robert Musil reference， etc etc etc - but in terms of offering non-ethereal ideas about how brick-and-mortar bookstores ought to proceed in the Amazon age， it's disappointingly myopic。 A less catchy but more accurate title would have been In Praise of Browsing the Shelves in the Good Bookstore Where I Work。 This very affable book gestures towards ideas on how good bookstores ought to interact with their communities， ideas informed by classical notions of the liberal arts and （most intriguingly） the author's orthodox Jewish upbringing。 But Deutsch repeatedly retreats from these ideas， ultimately to near-maddening ends， in favor of a heavily annotated meditation on how nice it is to browse the shelves in a good bookstore。 Well， yeah， no argument here， I mean I pre-ordered a book called In Praise of Good Bookstores， I clearly love browsing in a damn bookstore， especially when the bookstore's interior layout was designed by a world-famous architect with an incredibly cool name， as is the case for the Seminary Co-Op， the truly wonderful bookstore Deutsch runs。 This brings me to my major gripe with the book， which is that there's no meaningful acknowledgment of the fact that the Seminary Co-Op exists in a highly rarefied space - Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood， which is basically an Ivy League college town inside a major US city - with all the buy-in of a very moneyed and very educated community that comes along with that physical and intellectual real estate。 Nice work if you can get it， and few other bookstores can。Not that I need Deutsch to get all prescriptive or start doling out business tips to bookstore owners， but to ignore the material realities of a store like the Co-Op - which， additionally， has the unusual distinction of being a not-for-profit bookstore dedicated solely to bookselling - is to do us a disservice。 I've been Co-Op member since 2015 and even I don't fully understand how their business plan works - but I want to！ I would have been happy to lose a few of the quotes from dead authors about how they organized their libraries if it would have given Deutsch the space to provide some concrete information on just how his store does it， and how other stores might， too， particularly ones without the benefit of an elite university's community at their doorstep。[A note on me shelving this "books by people I know:" I can't really say I know Jeff Deutsch， but we did once have a very nice conversation about Howard Norman， one of my very favorite writers， when I bought a copy of his gorgeous memoir I Hate To Leave this Beautiful Place at the Seminary Co-Op。 Looking at the date on the book's price tag， Jeff Deutsch noted that this particular copy had sat on the Co-Op's shelves for almost exactly five years before I came in and bought it， a testament to the store's singular inventory policies。 He also made this bold statement: "Nobody reads Howard Norman。" He is a bookseller， so if anyone would know， it's him。] 。。。more